On Thursday Steve Bassam, as a member of the House of Lords asked a question of the Government, which whilst seeming to be a matter of Parliamentary detail, in fact should be of concern to all of us. As things stand the intention of leaving the EU on 29th March could follow several routes. One of these which the Government has been talking about almost ever since the referendum, is with no deal. So his question is very sensible in the light of the fact that a ‘no deal’ is still a real prospect and one that people like Jacob Rees Mogg and others are arguing in favour of.  So the question was:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what additional primary legislation will be required prior to 29 March 2019 in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit.”

This question makes a lot of sense as there are 128 working days between the day Steve asked his question and the day we depart, however because Parliament is so generous with its recesses this sum reduces down to 112 Parliamentary working days which commence a week on Tuesday on 9th October. So having a plan for some of the likely ways forward this late on in our departure process seems vital if any prospect of achieving this is reached. The answer came from a colleague in the House of Lords, Martin Callanan who either doesn’t have a clue or is telling lies. Steves comment on twitter as shown above suggest it is full of lies. The answer was:

“We are continuing to put the legislative building blocks in place to deliver our exit, whatever the outcome of the negotiations, including in the unlikely event that a deal cannot be agreed. We will introduce further exit legislation as necessary to ensure that we have the right legal frameworks to implement our withdrawal from, and future relationship with, the European Union.”

So either there is no plan, or the plan that does exist is not something Martin is willing to explain to his fellow Peers, and bearing in mind they need to approve of any legislation this represents a major concern in either case. The source for this text comes from this page on the They Work for You website and under every question asked they invite readers to state whether the question was answered or not.  It  might seem like a trivial idea but if lots of people said no, maybe the anger would be felt by the Government!