Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:30 pm on 22 October 2019.
Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I won't attempt to respond individually to all the many points that have been made, but I will try and address a number of the key themes that I think we've heard in the debate. So, a theme running from Paul Davies's initial contribution right through the afternoon has been that of timing. What is so magic about 31 October? What is it that means that this Bill has to be concluded at such a breakneck speed? Well, I've heard people say, 'Well, other pieces of legislation have been done quickly too.' It's true. The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 was rushed through Parliament in just a couple of days, and look what a success that turned out to be. But surely—surely—there is an issue here of magnitude. It's one thing to take a small Bill through this legislature or another at speed, absolutely something different to set in stone relationships that will last for generations against an entirely artificial deadline that the Prime Minister has invented for himself.
This afternoon, in the House of Commons, Rory Stewart said that this Bill will be poisoned with the stain of illegitimacy, because it will not have had the consideration, the proper chance for people to say what they want to say, to read it in the detail that it deserves, because of this timetable. Labour whips in the House of Commons have written this afternoon, in an unusual step, a public letter to the business managers of the Government offering to discuss a timetable—a timetable that would allow the Bill to proceed, but would allow it to happen in an orderly fashion, in which the rights of this place and the Scottish Parliament, as well as the rights of Parliament, can be respected. And of every argument that I've heard this afternoon on that side of the debate it seems to me to be the argument that is convincing.
We've heard quite a bit this afternoon, Dirprwy Lywydd, about the undying mandate of 2016—a mummified mandate, the mandate that can never be undone. And yet, as was said by a series of people around the Chamber—and Rhun ap Iorwerth, I thought, put it very well—so much has happened since then, so many people whose futures are now at stake want to have the chance to have their say on this deal. Back in 2016, nobody knew the deal that we would leave the European Union with. Now we do, now people deserve a chance to say whether this is what they thought they were voting for. And if it is, and if that's what people decide, then I'm with other people: if that's what people decide, that will be it. That will be the end of this argument, because then, this time, people know what they are buying. Last time, they knew nothing. They saw a bus plastered with the lies that were the stock in trade of the 'leave' campaign. This time, they will not be able to do that, because there is a deal. There is a deal that people will be able to see, given enough time to be able to read it. And that's why this argument about 'We voted once and that's the end of democracy' simply does not run.
And one of the reasons why it doesn't run is because of the theme—[Interruption.] Sorry.