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| Brexit: Ministers may have broken rules by not publishing legal advice - Speaker | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The UK government may have broken Parliamentary rules by not publishing Brexit legal advice, the Commons Speaker has said. | The UK government may have broken Parliamentary rules by not publishing Brexit legal advice, the Commons Speaker has said. |
| John Bercow said there was an "arguable case" that a contempt of Parliament has been committed. | |
| It means MPs will debate and vote on Tuesday on whether or not to refer the case to the Standards Committee. | It means MPs will debate and vote on Tuesday on whether or not to refer the case to the Standards Committee. |
| This is likely to delay the start of the debate on Theresa May's Brexit deal. | This is likely to delay the start of the debate on Theresa May's Brexit deal. |
| Mr Bercow was responding to a call from senior MPs in six parties - Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the Democratic Unionist Party, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party - for contempt proceedings to be launched. | |
| They say the government has gone back on a binding vote to release "any legal advice in full". | |
| Attorney General Geoffrey Cox earlier published an overview of his legal advice on Theresa May's Brexit deal and answered MPs questions on it. | |
| He argued that it would not be "in the national interest" to publish his advice in full as it would break a longstanding convention that law officers' advice to ministers is confidential. | |
| He insisted there was no cover-up, telling MPs : "There is nothing to see here." | |
| Analysis | |
| By Sean Curran, Parliamentary Correspondent | |
| The Parliamentary wrangle over the legal advice given to ministers about the Brexit deal is now coming to a head. | |
| The Speaker's decision to give the go-ahead for a contempt motion means that a debate over whether or not to refer a senior government minister to the Standards Committee will now be the curtain raiser to five days of debate on the Theresa May's withdrawal agreement. | |
| It also means that debate can't start until the Commons has taken a decision on the contempt motion. | |
| If there's a vote on referring the case to the Standards Committee it could be an indication of what will happen in a week's time, when the crunch vote on Brexit is due to take place. | |
| If MPs refer the case to the Standards Committee, an investigation would follow. | |
| If the committee found there had been a contempt it would recommend a sanction, anything from a reprimand to a suspension - but before that could happen, there would have to be another Commons vote to approve the committee's findings. |