It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis). He made an important point about
reconnecting with the electorate. I entirely agree with him that for too many years Governments have thought that they knew best and have ignored the people. For instance, they have not been willing to engage on the issue of immigration. He is also absolutely right to say that we can want controlled immigration without demonising immigrants.
It is nice to see you back in the Chair again, Mr Speaker. The fact that you are giving so much attention to this debate clearly shows that it is an important one.
I will turn to an aspect of this debate that we have not touched on completely, because it has suddenly started to be about parliamentary sovereignty. As somebody who has always defended the right of Parliament and has been concerned about the power of the Executive, hon. Members would expect me to bang on about that and say that we should have a vote in this House on article 50. In fact, I have always thought we should do so. However, the reason why the Government are right to say that they can use the royal prerogative to trigger article 50 is the unique circumstances of the referendum. This House, in an Act of Parliament, gave the British people the right to decide that question. That is why I absolutely defend the right of the Government to proceed in the way they have thought fit to proceed.
Having said that, the role of Parliament is to deal with all the issues that will come up after we have triggered the process, reflecting the fact that we want to leave the European Union. To the Government’s great credit, they are putting on a series of debate on the European Union and Brexit in which hon. Members can make their views known. When the Government go to negotiate, they will therefore know the views of Parliament. It would be totally absurd, however, for the Government to lay down their negotiating hand in advance. It would just be daft. When I was in business, I did not tell the opposition what I wanted in advance of a negotiation. In the same way, the chief spokesman for the European Union has said this week that he will not lay down in advance what the European Union wants.
The most important part of this debate is that we will tonight, I hope, agree a motion telling the Government to trigger article 50 by 31 March. The Supreme Court is saying that that is not enough and there has to be an Act of Parliament.