I am not going to give way; I am going to conclude.
The question of what form parliamentary approval of the withdrawal agreement takes is one of the most significant decisions this House will have to take. To be meaningful, a vote cannot simply take the form of a binary “take it or leave it” choice. It must provide a means by which Parliament can indicate to the Government that it desires a re-examination of particular aspects of the draft withdrawal agreement or even a change of approach. Unless hon. Members insist on it, Parliament will not have a genuinely meaningful vote on the terms of our withdrawal, as this House insisted upon in December. That is why we must insist on it and why I urge hon. Members to agree with Lords amendment 19 when we go through the Division Lobby in a few hours.
I want briefly to turn to some of the other Lords amendments in this group, starting with Lords amendments 37, 39 and 125, with which we agree. We
remain of the view that amending the Bill to incorporate a specified exit day and time was an ill-conceived and unnecessary gimmick that unduly fetters the Government. Ministers are well aware, just as they were when they amended the Bill in Committee, that exit day for the purposes of the Bill is a very different matter from the actual date on which the UK will cease to be an EU member state, which is a settled matter and a legal certainty. Common sense dictates that we return to the situation before November in which there was a necessary degree of flexibility around exit day for the purposes of the Bill, although we agree with their lordships that it is Parliament, not Ministers, who would agree the various exit dates.
We agree with amendments 110 and 128, which we believe strengthen parliamentary scrutiny—for example, by ensuring that Ministers cannot overturn decisions made by the triage committee. We also agree with amendments 10, 43 and 45, which rightly circumscribe the scope of the sweeping delegated powers in the Bill. We debated that issue extensively in Committee, and we remain of the view that concerns about the subjectivity inherent in the word “appropriate” must be addressed. Lastly, we agree with amendments 20 and 52.
I know that many Members on both sides of the House wish to speak, so I have sought not to repeat or rebut every argument made about each of the Lords amendments in this group with which we agree, but simply to set out, with particular focus on Lords amendment 19, why we believe they must be retained.