The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill does three specific things. First, it ends the system of male-preference primogeniture so that, in the royal succession, older sisters will no longer be overtaken by their younger brothers. Secondly, it removes the law that says that anyone who marries a Roman Catholic automatically loses their place in the line, a legal barrier that applies to Catholics and only to Catholics—no other faith. Thirdly, it replaces the Royal Marriages Act 1772.
Under the 1772 Act, any descendent of George II must seek the reigning monarch’s consent before marrying, without which their marriage is void. That law, passed 240 years ago, is clearly now unworkable. George II’s descendants number in their hundreds. Many will be unaware of that arcane requirement and many will have only a tenuous link to the royal family.
The Bill proposes that the monarch need consent only to the marriages of the first six individuals in the line of succession, without which consent they would lose their place.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I have heard what the Deputy Prime Minister has said about the previous situation, but surely the requirement of the monarch’s permission for those first six individuals is arcane in this day and age.
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is not arcane; it is a pragmatic judgment. The Bill retains the requirement for permission from the monarch for those wishing to marry who are in the immediate line of succession. It seeks to confine what had become a sprawling requirement to a much more limited and pragmatic one.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I simply do not understand why the monarch would want to retain the right to forbid somebody to marry and to declare their marriage null and void because consent was not granted. On what basis would they refuse to grant consent—because someone involved was illegitimate, not wealthy enough, a commoner or an actress? Those are reasons that have previously been used for not consenting.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That, of course, is a matter for the monarch. It is a power of the monarch’s that has not been brought into that much dispute for a prolonged period. We had a choice: we could either remove it altogether or trim it radically to the six individuals in the immediate line of succession.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I would like to make progress, but of course I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister is aware that the six people are being brought back into the provisions of the Royal Marriages Act. The exemption in the Act states:
“other than the issue of princesses who have married, or may hereafter marry, into foreign families”.
The marriage of Louisa, daughter of George II, from whom Princess Alexandra was directly descended, excludes the Prince of Wales, all his children and all their future children from the provisions of the Royal Marriages Act. Bringing the six people in will, in a novel way, include them in the provisions of an outdated Act.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As a proficient historian, the hon. Gentleman will know that the original Act was passed because of George III’s urgent wish to control the marriage of some of his own children. That set a precedent which has remained on the statute book for a long period. We are retaining the right of the monarch to confer that permission, but only to those in the immediate line of succession; the hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is different from what preceded it. Having been in consultation with the royal household over a prolonged period, we feel that that strikes the right balance.
Paul Flynn
Presumably, the Deputy Prime Minister, knows that a Member of this House, who is 246th in the line of succession to the throne, was previously covered by this provision; I will check with him as to whether he asked permission to marry. We heard recently that certain Bills have been blocked in this House, including Tam Dalyell’s 1999 Bill about giving the House, rather than the monarchy, the decision on whether to declare war. We have been told that the monarchy, under instructions from Prime Ministers, has acted to make such changes. Was the royal family involved in producing the figure of six?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said, I accept that there is a certain arbitrariness about the figure of six; it could be seven or five. The principle to limit the powers of the monarch to grant permission to marry to those who are in the immediate line of succession seemed to us to be the right balance to strike, but I accept that perfectly valid arguments of principle could be made otherwise. It is, however, a very dramatic change—pragmatic, but dramatic none the less—from the precedent that has been set from the days of George III.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I really want to make progress now.
The reform that limits permission to the six who are in line to the throne is made for practical reasons; the other two reforms are more about our values. The current rules of succession belong to a bygone era; they reflect old prejudices and old fears. Today we do not support laws that discriminate on either religious or gender grounds. They have no place in modern Britain, and certainly not in our monarchy—an institution central to our constitution, to the Commonwealth, and to our national identity too. With the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge expecting a baby and our having just celebrated our Queen’s 60-year reign, this Bill is timely as well as popular. It is also straightforward and enjoys support across the House, which, as I should know, is a rare thing in constitutional reform issues.
I will come to the Catholic provisions in a few moments, because I am aware that, as we have already heard, some hon. Members have concerns about their implications. On female succession, the real question that we need to ask is why it has taken us so long. This is a nation that prides itself on pioneering equality between the sexes: a nation of great Queens such as Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. A woman can, and has, been Head of the UK Government, yet still on our statute books, with Parliament’s official backing, we have succession laws based on the supposed superiority of men. That anachronism is out of step with our society, it sends the wrong message to the rest of the world, and it is time for the rules to change.
Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)
As the Member of Parliament for Wyre and Preston North, I represent huge tracts of Duchy of Lancaster land. Henry IV set up the Lancastrian inheritance separately from the Crown and its entities to follow through the male heirs, except where the monarch was a female. Under that separate arrangement for passing on the private possessions of the Duke of Lancaster, inheritance currently remains with the male heir where a male is a child of a monarch. Therefore, if the Queen were to have both a boy and a girl, would we not be in danger of splitting an inheritance so that the changes ensured that the female inherited the position of monarch but the title of Duke of Lancaster went to the son?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Before the Deputy Prime Minister answers, may I say that we need shorter interventions? I hope that that can be taken on board.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend knows, this Bill deals only with the succession to the throne and not with issues relating to the succession of hereditary titles. We can have a perfectly valid separate argument about that, but it is not within the very narrow scope of this Bill, all the reasons for which have been explained by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith).
Mr Wallace
I am not sure that my right hon. Friend understands. This measure, without such clarity, will disinherit the monarch of the lands that the monarch holds in the title of Duke of Lancaster, given that that is a separate division from the Crown.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me make it clear that this is about the succession to the Crown and nothing else. The issues of succession to hereditary titles can be dealt with separately if this House so wishes.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I have taken many interventions and will continue to do so, but I would like to make a little progress.
The Bill builds on the endeavours of the previous Government, who helped to lay the foundations for reform with the Commonwealth realms—
The Deputy Prime Minister
I really would like to make progress on this point. [Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I give way.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
This is crucial, because what the Deputy Prime Minister says now could be taken in the law courts as giving interpretation to the law. Has he said that under the provisions of this Bill, the Duchy of Lancaster would be separated from the Crown for the first time since the reign of Henry IV?
The Deputy Prime Minister
No, I did not say that. I said that this Bill deals only with succession to the Crown and that succession to all other titles can be dealt with separately. For clarity’s purpose, my hon. Friend will remember that the Sovereign Grant Act—
The Deputy Prime Minister
May I answer the question? The Sovereign Grant Act 2010 makes a very important change that touches on the succession to the Crown as far as the Duchy of Cornwall is concerned. As the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) may know, the convention is that the male heir to the throne has the title of Duchy of Cornwall conferred on him, but a female heir to the throne does not. The Bill does not change that situation, but the provisions of the Sovereign Grant Act mean that the financial support provided via the Duchy of Cornwall can, in future, be provided to female heirs to the throne as well. To that extent, there is a link between this very tightly circumscribed Bill and the provisions of the Sovereign Grant Act.
The drafting of the Bill has been a long and careful process. I pay special tribute to Rebecca Kitteridge, New Zealand’s Cabinet Secretary, for her extraordinary work in making sure that these proposals can be effected across the Commonwealth realms. Agreeing constitutional change for 16 states, each with its own Government and legislature, is clearly a challenge. From the point at which the realms backed the reforms in principle in 2011, it took one year and two months to get full agreement in writing from everyone. In a phenomenal coincidence—one that I know is hard to believe—we received the final consent just hours before the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announced that they are expecting a baby.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will make a little more progress and then give way.
The palace has, of course, been actively involved in the process from the beginning, and both the Church of England and the Catholic Church have been kept informed throughout.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?
Sir Tony Baldry
I am very grateful. There have been misinformed suggestions in some newspapers that the Church of England is in some way opposed to this Bill. May I make it clear and put it on the record that the Church of England has absolutely no objection to it whatsoever?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record. Later in my remarks I will repeat verbatim the form that that support from the Church of England took.
Sir Gerald Howarth
On the Commonwealth, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the 16 realms had given their approval just prior to the announcement of the royal pregnancy. However, that approval was still subject, was it not, to parliamentary endorsement in each of those countries? Therefore, will the Bill come into effect only once the relevant legislation has been enacted in all those countries? If so, when does he expect that that might happen?
The Deputy Prime Minister
My understanding is that it needs to come into force in all the realms. Interestingly, two of the realms, Jamaica and Papua New Guinea, do not, for their own reasons, need to go through the full legislative process. That is partly why we are so keen to keep the precision of the terms of the Bill and the narrowness of its scope, such that it can be easily adopted and digested under all the different parliamentary and legislative conventions that exist in the 16 Commonwealth realms. We now have a very short Bill of five clauses and a schedule. I urge the House to bear it in mind that, as I have explained, the Bill must be kept narrow in order to be adopted across all 16 Commonwealth realms.
I have heard it suggested that we should use the Bill to tackle the gender bias in hereditary titles whereby titles and the benefits that come with them leapfrog eldest daughters and are handed down to younger sons, or can be lost entirely when there is no male heir. Personally, I am sympathetic to that reform and can see why this seems like the natural time to do it, but, for purely practical reasons, it cannot and will not be done in this Bill. Nor can we can use the Bill to mop up any other constitutional odds and ends. Put simply, it cannot be broadened to include UK-specific reforms, because they are not relevant to the realms of the Commonwealth.
Turning to the all-important so-called Catholic question, the coalition Government are seeking to remove the current ban on heirs to the throne marrying Catholics; or, as the current legislation says, rather insultingly, depending on one’s point of view, from “marrying a Papist”. That law is a reflection of the times in which it was written. It followed nearly two centuries of religious strife within England, Scotland and Ireland; the threat of conflict with Louis XIV’s France and other Catholic powers; and tension with Rome. It was an era when legal defences seemed vital against a dangerous threat from abroad.
That does not just apply to the royal accession—in the 40 years after the Glorious Revolution a whole range of restrictions were put in place. Catholics could not vote, they were excluded from all professions and public offices and they could not go to university, could not teach, could not be the guardian of a child, could not buy land with a lease of more than 31 years and could not own a horse worth more than £5. Edmund Burke called the laws
“well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people…as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”
Many of the laws were repealed relatively quickly. The ban on owning land was repealed in 1778 and that on voting and serving in the legal profession in 1793. By the time the ban on Catholics from serving in this House as MPs and from serving as judges was lifted in 1829, most of the main restrictions were gone.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Do not worry, I am not going to say, “Ah, those halcyon days.” If, as the Deputy Prime Minister’s colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary has rightly said, the Bill will not rule that the monarch must not be a Roman Catholic, would it not for the sake of clarity be beneficial to include that in the Bill?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Our judgment is that that is not necessary and that the Bill’s intent is entirely clear.
To bring us right up to date—given that the hon. Gentleman referred to yesteryear—it was only in November 1995 that Her Majesty the Queen visited Westminster cathedral, which was the first time a reigning monarch had set foot inside a Catholic church since Queen Mary. That was a watershed moment in relations between the British state and its millions of loyal, patriotic Catholic citizens. Now it falls to us to take a step further in this journey by ridding ourselves of the arcane ban on Catholics marrying the monarch, and this Bill does exactly that.
I know that some hon. Members have concerns—we have heard them today—about potential unintended consequences of the reform. One concern, for example, is that if a monarch married a Catholic their heir would have to be brought up in the Catholic faith, and that, on becoming King or Queen, they would then assume their role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which would, in turn, lead to the disestablishment of the state Church. If we followed that logic, however, we should be introducing bans on marriage to members of every other faith and, indeed, people with no faith. Right now the monarch can marry a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu or an atheist, yet no one is alleging today that we are teetering on the edge of a constitutional crisis.
The Catholic Church does not have any blanket rule dictating that all children in mixed marriages must be brought up as Catholics. Indeed, if we look at the current royal family, we see that Prince Michael of Kent is an Anglican, his wife a Catholic and their heirs, Lord Frederick and Lady Gabriella Windsor, are Anglican and retain their places in line to the throne.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I refer the Deputy Prime Minister to canon 1125 of the Catholic Church, which states clearly that a party to a mixed marriage must make his or her best efforts to bring up the children in the Catholic faith. Of course, some Catholics fail, but that does not mean that there is not a rule of the Catholic Church—there is.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I understand it correctly, the precise wording—the hon. Gentleman may be able to correct me—is “best endeavours”. Equally, however, the Catholic Church has been clear that Bishops are free to decide, which they do on an ongoing basis, to allow a married couple—one a Catholic and the other of another faith—to bring up their children in a faith other than the Catholic faith.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Deputy Prime Minister is absolutely right. Canon 1124 allows for the Bishop to give permission for a mixed marriage, subject to canon 1125, which is the requirement for best efforts to be made to bring the children up as Catholic. Of course, it is open to the Government to ask the Papacy, via the Papal Nuncio, for a papal indult to get around that for royal marriages. I wonder whether that has been done.
The Deputy Prime Minister
It might be worth reading out the words of the Archbishop of Westminster, who said when it was announced that we would proceed with this Bill:
“I welcome the decision of Her Majesty's Government to give heirs to the throne the freedom to marry a Catholic”.
He also said, crucially, that
“I fully recognise the importance of the position of the Established Church in protecting and fostering the role of faith in our society today.”
I do not think that anyone has sought, in any such pronouncements, to highlight the risks that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted today.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I want to make progress and quote a statement by the Church of England itself, in a briefing issued to MPs last week. It said:
“The present prohibition on anyone remaining in the line of succession or succeeding to the Crown as a result of marrying a Roman Catholic is not necessary to support the requirement that the Sovereign join in communion with the Church of England. Its proposed removal is a welcome symbolic and practical measure consistent with respect for the principle of religious liberty. It reflects the sea change in ecumenical relations over recent decades.”
I have, therefore, quoted statements from both the Catholic Church and the Church of England and I hope they will provide ample comfort to those who are concerned.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I support the position that my right hon. Friend is taking and I am worried by the argument of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) that, somehow, the United Kingdom Government and the monarchy would have to ask the permission of the Papacy, which would, in itself, be a deprivation of religious freedom. These are difficult decisions, but what my right hon. Friend is doing is surely not putting us in that situation.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I want to be clear that there is absolutely no prospect of our entering into discussions with the Vatican in order to bring this Bill into effect.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Is it not reasonable to assume, as my right hon. Friend and his colleagues in Government appear to have assumed in the way in which they have drafted the Bill, that on attaining adulthood, an heir to the throne, regardless of the religious affiliation of his or her mother or father, could put his or her duty as the future monarch of our country ahead of any religious faith and decide for him or herself to take a position that would be constitutionally acceptable and protect the monarchy?
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is a practical and perfectly reasonable assumption to make. I would highlight the fact, however, that under the current provisions, even if we did not proceed with the Bill, an heir to the throne could marry someone of the Hindu faith and yet decide, not least because they would be acutely aware of their place and duty in the line of succession to the throne, that their children, if they had any, were to be brought up in the Anglican faith. That assumption acts as a bedrock underneath the status quo. We are only extrapolating that by adding the Catholic faith to all the other faiths that can be involved in a marriage to heirs to the throne.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister for giving way—he is being very generous. Does he believe that the monarch would legally be able to refuse consent to a marriage merely on the basis of somebody marrying a Roman Catholic? There is no provision that says what the monarch must bear in mind and, indeed, the old legislation, which we are repealing, makes it clear that it is the monarch with the Privy Council who makes the decision, whereas in this Bill it is just the monarch on their own.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we are not seeking to specify in legislation the terms in which the monarch provides that consent. We are certainly not specifying that that should be done according to the faith of the person who is marrying an heir to the throne.
In matters of constitutional significance, we should of course always proceed with care. Yes, we must always think through the potential knock-on effects of reform, but we also need to move with the times. Discrimination is discrimination wherever we find it, and just as we respect our traditions and cherish our monarchy, the House must never tolerate prejudice in our laws. Equality is, after all, a great British tradition too. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman reminds me of the words of Burns. Those people were “bought and sold for English gold”. That gives me an idea about taking people back—the 150 who have a vested interest in Westminster, for example. All that Alex Salmond and the Scottish Government need to do is buy and sell them for Scottish gold. If the vested interests could be bought off in that way, we might bring about independence a bit earlier.
It was the Scottish reaction to the Act of Settlement of 1701 that led to the events that I was describing. The motivator was the desire not for a political superstate but for a unitary monarchy, and the question had to be decided before the death of Queen Anne. Fortunately, for the benefit of the House, the Scottish National party can allay the fears created by the Act of Settlement: the monarchy will continue to be shared with Scotland and England, and the need for the Acts of 1706 in England and 1707 in Scotland will disappear. We can therefore proceed to independence and dissolve the two Unions. I am sure that I am alone in this Chamber in holding that belief, but I am not alone in Scotland in so doing.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that he has kept the royal household informed at every stage of his plans?
Mr MacNeil
I do not have Her Majesty on my text message list, but if she wanted to drop me an e-mail, I would be happy to respond to it. However, I do know that her personal private secretary is a visitor to the Hebrides and has relatives there. The links are indeed multi-faceted, as the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth can testify. She, too, has links with the Hebrides and has worked in the royal household. As we can see, the monarchy reaches us all in many ways.
History aside, the Bill is surely flawed. Many people have described how flawed it is. It is only a halfway house —a real dog’s breakfast of broken biscuits. It deals with succession and partially with freedom of religion, but it leaves the question of full freedom of religion untouched. It also leaves with the monarch the bizarre, arcane requirement for marital approval of six people in the line of succession. Some cultures have an adaptation of that requirement in the form of arranged marriages, but here in Westminster, we are institutionalising it.
The Bill affects other realms as well, and I wonder whether they will progress further than this Parliament and deal with this issue more fully, rather than having a halfway house, waiting for Westminster to catch up—as it inevitably will some day. They are free and independent, and by doing so they will save themselves an immense amount of time and hassle in the future, but they will also signal their fairness and egalitarianism to the wider world. Indeed, in Australia, republican zest seems to appear from time to time.
It should be noted that in 1999, the Scottish Parliament pushed for a motion for the removal of any discrimination linked to the monarchy and the repeal of the Act of Settlement. So progressive opinion—at least in Scotland—is 14-years-old before this issue has come to Westminster. While there may be a lot of huff and puff here at Westminster about allowing the monarchy to be Catholic, practically, I do not think it really matters. I do not think that the current or future royals are likely to convert to Catholicism, any more than would the King of Norway or the Queen of Denmark. The fact that a Parliament has gone to such lengths to discriminate against a certain faith group is surely odd in an international context. No doubt it will be ripe for lampooning, perhaps on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” on CNN because it is a step back and truly bizarre. I am sure that history will judge it as bizarre, especially when we think that such contrary views existed in the Scottish Parliament 14 years ago. I am not sure whether bans on Catholics exist in Denmark and Norway—if they are so allergic to the idea—or whether bans against Protestants exist in Spain. Surely there is enough smeddum and sense in those societies to remove such proscriptions.
Equally, I hope that other monarchies do not hold the power over their relatives’ choice of spouse—a power that is rightly alien to their subjects when it comes to their nearest and dearest. When Scotland becomes independent in the next few years, we will certainly retain the monarch, as Canada, New Zealand and Australia have done, but we shall remove such infantile restrictions as we see here today. We will wait until the keystone Parliament—in a way Westminster will always be that mainly due to the residency of the monarch in close proximity to it—catches up. In the meantime, we can look forward to saying, “God save the Queen of an independent Scotland”.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for a most compelling debate that has highlighted the gravity of the changes we are making to the UK’s constitution by removing two pieces of discrimination that must not remain on our statute book. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said when opening the debate, the Bill is in many ways about equality. It turns a page on centuries of discrimination and prejudice on religious and gender grounds in one of our most important institutions—the monarchy.
It falls to me to respond to a number of the important issues raised. First, I welcome the support shown around the Chamber, including that of the loyal Opposition. I also welcome the range of experience that came through in the comments made, including those of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is no longer in his place, and, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). I welcome the passion that has been shown by Members such as the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who is also not in his place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), even though they were on different sides of the debate. I also welcome the erudition shown by Members such as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and—need I mention him—my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).
Let me begin on the point on which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) finished: he asked what would happen if an heir to the throne were to marry a Muslim or somebody of any other faith. That is possible today and the Bill should not raise further fears. We should be able to accept, debate and deal with that question in the 21st century.
I want to start with the implications for the established Church of the changes we have discussed today. I reassure all hon. Members that the changes proposed in the Bill are limited to removing the bar on marriage to a Roman Catholic. I think all Members know that. The Bill does not allow a Roman Catholic to accede to the throne and in no way touches the basis of the established Church. Indeed, the Church of England has made that clear in its own words. I have already quoted the words in the other place of the Bishop of Blackburn, which are helpful to our debate.
Various points were made about the Church of Scotland that raised some interest across the Chamber. I understand that the Church of Scotland does not define itself as an established Church, but I shall not go further into that debate as I do not have time to do so. I reassure the House, however, that the Church of Scotland, among others, was consulted in the course of our work.
Various Members raised the possibility of an heir entering into a mixed Anglican and Catholic marriage and discussed what would happen under Roman Catholic canon law. Some feared that that could lead to a constitutional crisis, and I want to reassure them. There is an example of that in the royal family in Lord Frederick and Lady Gabriella Windsor, the son and daughter of Prince Michael of Kent. He married a Catholic, but the children have been brought up in the Anglican communion. I suggest that that is a pragmatic example in the modern monarchy. I would not dream of taking on my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, but I note that various guidance has been published in the intervening years that might provide practical advice.
Dr Thérèse Coffey
My hon. Friend refers to Princess Michael of Kent. When Prince and Princess Michael married in 1978, they did not marry in a Catholic church. That was corrected five years later, after her children had been born.
Miss Smith
I thank my hon. Friend for clarifying that point for the edification of our colleagues, but I do not see how that detracts from the main point that it has been possible to take a pragmatic view of how the modern monarchy must function. We have already spoken about the relevant guidance, which suggests that one should do one’s best to have the children raised as Catholics but that there could be just and reasonable cause for not doing so. The protection of the place of the established Church is a rather large cause and some colleagues mentioned that. The Church of England, as I have said, has made it clear that the requirement to join communion with the Church of England is not affected by the Bill. The Archbishop of Westminster has confirmed that he recognises the importance of the position of the established Church in protecting and fostering faith in our society.
Daniel Kawczynski
I have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by my hon. Friends, but it is important in this day and age to remove specific reference to Roman Catholics. As the Deputy Prime Minister said, we spend a great deal of time making sure that minority groups do not suffer discrimination, and as a Roman Catholic I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to pursue this matter as speedily as possible. It is rather insulting for Catholics to be in this position—not that I am going to marry a member of the royal family or anything.
Miss Smith
I wish my hon. Friend luck in that last endeavour. I thank him for his comments, which demonstrate the breadth of views that have been expressed this afternoon.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex asked whether the legislation would make it more likely that we will have a Catholic monarch. No, it does not. It makes it more likely that the heir to the throne may marry a Catholic—that is what the legislation does—but the bar remains on the sovereign being a Roman Catholic. There is no more need for a constitutional crisis now than there was before, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot.
I should like to deal with the point that has been raised a couple of times about, shall we say, the human misery of having to choose between one’s faith and the throne. Let us not forget that there is a particular piece of misery already available under the existing constitutional arrangements, which is not being able to marry the person you love. It is important to note that that is already available to anyone who wishes that particular form of difficulty. It is evident to everyone in the country that the huge public popularity of the wedding of certain members of the family in recent years shows that members of a modern monarchy do and can marry for love, and we ought to consider that as we discuss the tensions that that family may feel.
Miss Smith
I am terribly sorry. The hon. Gentleman has had plenty of chances to speak, and doubtless there will be more in Committee.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) wondered whether a female heir would be styled “the Princess of Wales”. The granting of royal titles is a matter for the sovereign, and it is not within the scope of the Bill. He made various points about the Duchy of Cornwall not passing to a female heir. Again, as a matter of title, that is a matter for the sovereign. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) to discuss the points that they made.
I turn to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. He began by raising something that is touched on in amendments which have not been selected for debate: the issue of two daughters and the clarity of succession. We are confident that it is clear, having regard to the succession to the Crown in 1952, that when a monarch dies the eldest daughter, if there are two, would succeed. We believe that there is no need to make statutory provision to address that. I am grateful for the points that my hon. Friend made about the Counsellors of State, who are the spouse of the monarch and the next four individuals in the line of succession, except where they are disqualified by virtue of being Roman Catholic. I thank my hon. Friend for the breadth of ground covered by his other points; we may have a chance to return to that.
Turning to retrospective measures, my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) suggested that clause 2 ought not to apply retrospectively. We are dealing with the need to respect realistic changes to the legitimate expectations of those closest to the throne, so there are differences in what clauses 1 and 2 do. We may come on to that in Committee. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) argued that in this day and age there was no need for anyone to seek the sovereign’s consent to marry. I remind him that it may well be in the public interest that consent should be given for the marriage of someone who may become our Head of State. Other European countries, such as Norway, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands, require such consent.
Other points raised included whether the requirement of consent to the first six in line to the throne ought to apply to all descendants of Queen Elizabeth II. One factual answer is that the line of succession in recent history has rarely gone beyond six. A more amusing answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth, if he will allow me, is that his ambition is not high enough if he does not aim to become Father of the House in 200 or 300 years’ time to be here to see that problem repeat itself should all the descendants of Queen Elizabeth II be allowed—
Miss Smith
I am afraid that I am about to run out of time. It remains for me to deal with the point from the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) about children who are adopted or born as a result of donor eggs. I can clarify that it is only the children of a husband and wife who are entitled to succeed, not adopted children or those born from artificial insemination.
I commend the Bill to the House—
Wayne David
I thank the Minister for her response. May I press her on the issue of the figure of six? Can she give a slightly more detailed explanation, rather than saying, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, that that was a pragmatic decision or that there was some historical precedent? Can she be more specific and—