Member

If the Bill proceeds without pause, the court will be asked to rule on a situation that Parliament has already made irreversible. That would risk rendering the judicial review academic, not because the claim lacks merit but because Parliament moved too fast. That should trouble every member of this House, because we have prided ourselves on acting as a constitutional longstop. We are not here merely to nod through government legislation, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hammond. We are here to ensure that law is made carefully, proportionately and with full regard to legal process. It is a well-established principle that Parliament should be slow to legislate in a manner that pre-empts or undermines live judicial proceedings, particularly where those proceedings concern the rights of a specific identifiable group.