Magna Carta

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, for providing the opportunity for today’s excellent debate, which has been most interesting and to the high standard usually found in this House. I thank all speakers for their contribution. In particular, I praise the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, which was excellent and of very high quality. There have been three maiden speeches today, of rising quality, which has set the bar very high for those who have to follow. I noted, as other noble Lords will have done, his early bid to be appointed to the Refreshment Committee. This raises the stakes a bit for those who are yet to come. These days, if you want to put in a bid for where you want to be in a few years, you have to do it in your maiden speech—that sounds a bit daft.

The noble Lord and other speakers mentioned a theme which came out of these discussions—whether or not we should have a written constitution. We do, of course, have a written constitution. The problem is that it is dispersed into so many different documents. What we are really talking about is codifying our existing constitutional documents into a single place. That would have been a fantastic solution to the question of how to celebrate Magna Carta in 2015. It may take us until 2115 but we should not give up the aim to do it. The noble Lord is correct, and I absolutely agree with him on that point.

I also thank the Library for its very high-quality briefing which brought us right into the debate. It was interesting to read Magna Carta again. It is difficult to know what it is these days, because it is hard to imagine what it would have been like when it first came out. It came across to me, in a curious way, as a bit like a manifesto—that is the nearest analogy I can think of. When you became sovereign you had to engage with those you ruled in order to gain their acceptance of your ability to rule, a bit like a modern-day manifesto.

Other noble Lords have spoken very well about what it means to have a Magna Carta. I endorse a lot of what has been said: it is a fantastic document. It is also very modern. It is fascinating to read in one of its chapters about what to do with payday lenders. The FCA should take note: this has been around for a long time and I am not quite sure why it has taken so long. The sections relating to the City rail against those who might lobby unfairly for advantage: those who are discussing the lobbying Bill might reread that section too.

We have a number of proposals to come from the noble Lord who will respond to this debate and I do not want to delay the House unduly before that. However, I want to run over a couple of things that struck me during the debate. The noble Baronesses, Lady Prashar and Lady Lane-Fox, were right to pick up on the need to engage with the younger generation in a modern way. This has to be done through social media; there is no point in trying to look at old ways of doing this. We have to get real, get into social media and involve them. I hope that that will be picked up and taken forward.

The noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Bew, were a bit unkind to us in raising our anticipation of what is to come. I hope they will be satisfied with what they hear. I like the idea of decamping to Runnymede but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said, we would need to do something about the accommodation or there will be an awful lot of tents required. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, reminded us that there are other anniversaries: we must also think about them and find a place for them to be recorded. If we do that then, going back to one of the themes of Magna Carta, which is its UK-ness, we might also have space for the Declaration of Arbroath which, in Scottish terms, is as important as Magna Carta.

We started with the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and her immensely interesting proposal of bringing together all the Magna Cartas in Westminster Hall and using that as an opportunity for a debate of both Houses of Parliament. That is a terrific idea which would certainly help convince the Prime Minister of what Magna Carta and its translation mean, which must be good. For me, and others of my generation, it would answer the essential question we remember from “Hancock’s Half Hour”:

“Magna Carta … did she die in vain?”