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Cabinet minister could face suspension over Brexit legal advice
Source: The Guardian
Cabinet minister could face suspension over Brexit legal advice
MPs will hold debate on Tuesday after Speaker John Bercow accepted contempt motion
Dan Sabbagh and Jessica Elgot
Mon 3 Dec 2018 20.40 GMT
A cabinet minister is at risk of being suspended from parliament and missing next week’s crunch Commons vote after Labour and the DUP accused ministers of holding parliament in contempt for failing to publish the full Brexit legal advice on Monday.
The fate of the minister – likely to be either David Lidington or Geoffrey Cox – will be in the hands of MPs after John Bercow, the Speaker, declared there was “an arguable case that a contempt has been committed”.
Bercow added that he would accept a contempt motion from Labour, the DUP and four other opposition parties, allowing MPs to debate the matter on Tuesday before the five day debate on whether to endorse the Brexit deal begins.
He accepted the plea from the combined opposition parties who had complained at the end of a fractious two-and-a-half-hour debate that the summary legal advice released on Monday did not comply with a Commons resolution agreed on 13 November
MPs would be given the chance to decide whether Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, or Cox, the attorney general, would be suspended for several days – although it was not immediately certain who would be in the firing line.
-snip-
MPs will hold debate on Tuesday after Speaker John Bercow accepted contempt motion
Dan Sabbagh and Jessica Elgot
Mon 3 Dec 2018 20.40 GMT
A cabinet minister is at risk of being suspended from parliament and missing next week’s crunch Commons vote after Labour and the DUP accused ministers of holding parliament in contempt for failing to publish the full Brexit legal advice on Monday.
The fate of the minister – likely to be either David Lidington or Geoffrey Cox – will be in the hands of MPs after John Bercow, the Speaker, declared there was “an arguable case that a contempt has been committed”.
Bercow added that he would accept a contempt motion from Labour, the DUP and four other opposition parties, allowing MPs to debate the matter on Tuesday before the five day debate on whether to endorse the Brexit deal begins.
He accepted the plea from the combined opposition parties who had complained at the end of a fractious two-and-a-half-hour debate that the summary legal advice released on Monday did not comply with a Commons resolution agreed on 13 November
MPs would be given the chance to decide whether Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, or Cox, the attorney general, would be suspended for several days – although it was not immediately certain who would be in the firing line.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/03/cabinet-minister-suspension-brexit-legal-advice-deal
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Related: Opposition parties launch joint contempt proceedings against ministers over Brexit legal advice – as it happened (The Guardian)