Greg Clark says parliament should be invited to say which option it would support

MPs should be invited to say what Brexit option they would agree if the Commons votes down Theresa May’s deal, the business secretary, Greg Clark, has said, becoming the latest cabinet minister to suggest this as a potential way out of the impasse.

With numerous members of May’s cabinet pushing their competing Brexit plans in the final week of parliament before Christmas, Clark said it was time for MPs to be more proactive.

Brexit: Clark backs cabinet calls for MPs to be asked to vote on options if May's deal defeated - Politics live Read more

“One way or another, parliament has got to move from essentially being critics of the agreement,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “It is obviously easy to find things you don’t like. But I think every MP now needs to regard themselves as responsible participants.”

May will brief the Commons on Monday about her failed efforts to win new concessions from EU leaders at last week’s Brussels summit. In extracts of her comments released overnight, the prime minister urged MPs to not back a second referendum.

“Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum,” she is expected to say. “Another vote, which would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy that our democracy does not deliver. Another vote which would likely leave us no further forward than the last.”

She faces growing cabinet demands to allow parliament to shape the options through a series of non-binding free votes, with the education secretary, Damian Hinds, and the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, indicating on Sunday they could back this.

Clark said he could back this if the vote on May’s deal, which was pulled last week, was defeated when it was eventually presented. “It’s important once the prime minister has finished her negotiations with other European leaders, and they reach a conclusion, that parliament votes on that,” he said.

“If that were not to be successful, we do need to have an agreement. We can’t just have continuing uncertainty. I think parliament should be invited to say what it would agree with. That’s something I think businesses up and down the country would expect elected responsibility for, rather than just being critics.”

Clark said he would prefer MPs to simply support May’s plans: “I hope the deal the prime minister comes back with will be endorsed. What everyone recognises is that we need to come to a resolution of this in the weeks to ahead.

“As you would imagine, I spend most of my week talking to businesses large and small. There is a real demand for the end to the uncertainty, and that is available by endorsing a deal, the House of Commons coming to a view on the prime minister’s deal.”

Clark also rejected the option of a new referendum. “One of the many problems with a second referendum is it would continue that uncertainty for many more months, and would likely add to the divisiveness that has characterised the last couple of years,” he said.

Britain does not need a second referendum – it needs a preferendum | David Van Reybrouck Read more

Hinds proposed allowing MPs to assess Brexit options in a cabinet conference call last week. On Sunday, he suggested there would be “a value in, sort of, flushing out what these various different options are”.

Fox said on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “Personally, I wouldn’t have a huge problem with parliament as a whole having a say on what the options were.”

He said the plan was “not one that cabinet has discussed yet, but, when you look at the options that we have, you’ve got to recognise that there a limited number of real-world options here”.

May has summoned a group of broadly supportive cabinet ministers for a meeting on Monday morning. Several, including Amber Rudd and David Gauke, are preparing to reiterate the call for a series of votes in parliament as soon as possible to test support for alternatives to the prime minister’s deal.

Downing Street, however, is sceptical about the idea, fearing it would be inconclusive and confusing. May is determined to persist with her strategy of seeking legally binding reassurances on the Irish backstop, and bring her deal back to parliament before 21 January in the hope the Christmas break focuses MPs’ minds.