Succession to the Crown Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because it allows me to remind the House that Joseph of Arimathea is thought to have taken our Lord to visit Somerset when he was a young man. Some people maintain that that is mere legend blurring into myth, but I am quite convinced of its veracity.

I think that an established Church is good for the body politic—it is good for us that we can have jubilee celebrations held in St Paul’s cathedral or Westminster abbey, and that we can have that focus of national life through an established Church—but obviously an established Church cannot have as its head somebody who belongs to another Church. That would be logically inconsistent. It would be unfair on the Church of England; it would mean that bishops and archbishops appointed within the Church of England were appointed by somebody who did not share their beliefs and that could not be the right thing to do.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Could we consider having as Supreme Governor of the Church of England the Archbishop of Canterbury, thus taking this away from the sovereign?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and that might have been an amendment worthy of consideration. It is not the amendment I tabled. My amendment sought to maintain the supreme governorship of the Church of England in a regency whenever the sovereign was not in communion with the Anglican Church under the Regency Act 1937, which requires the regent to be a Protestant and to meet the terms of the Act of Settlement. I would prefer to keep things that way because the Crown and the headship of the Church of England could come back together when a future sovereign was an Anglican, and my approach would not permanently separate the two. However, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward new thoughts on the matter; one of the reasons why it would have been better to have had a longer time for, and longer gaps in, debating this important subject is because then such ideas could have been discussed.

My new clause is extremely simple. It is a recognition—no matter how much I am sometimes reluctant to recognise it—that the modern world is different from the early 18th century. There may have been many glories in the early 18th century, but one of the glories of this modern age is that we are tolerant—we are tolerant of different religions. We believe that people practising other faiths is something to be welcomed and encouraged, and that has made us a stronger nation rather than a weaker one. Therefore there should no longer be a bar on the grounds of faith in respect of the sovereign, as long as we can make provision for the established Church of England, which there is and which I support.

That circle can be squared by providing for a regency. That relatively simple and straightforward proposal deals with a problem that people have recognised in this country for many decades; we have not suddenly woken up and realised that a non-member of the Church of England cannot become sovereign. Bills have been presented to Parliament to deal with that, and this seems the right time to be doing it, as we are legislating on the Crown succession and we are in discussion with the Commonwealth members who also have the Queen as sovereign to see whether they will agree to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Leigh]

I start by echoing what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said. He has put the case simply: in this day and age, when it comes to a person’s suitability to become the Head of State, they should not be discriminated against because of their religion. That is why I was happy to put my name to the new clause, moved so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), and to his amendments.

I have been campaigning for years against barring Catholics from either marrying into the royal family or succeeding to the throne, particularly the first issue, which is bizarre. Indeed, I have introduced a ten-minute rule Bill and tabled early-day motions on the subject. We were constantly told that it was all too difficult and complicated to change, and that we would have to change hundreds of lines of legislation in hundreds of Acts of Parliament. But, hey presto! It is now being done. Although the Deputy Prime Minister gets a lot of stick in this House—including from Government Members —and in the media, I am on the record as warmly congratulating him on being the first leading member of this or any Government to get a grip on this issue and to try to solve it.

However, there is one final logical absurdity, which my hon. Friend is trying to address. I repeat this point because it is worth making: in this day and age, a person should not be barred from a position such as Head of State just because of their religion or lack of religion. There are many people in this House who have no religion and who do not wish to come to Prayers or who do so just to reserve their place. They are just as worth while as Members. There is no reason why we have to keep this bar in place.

I am a traditionalist, like my hon. Friend. Even if the new clause were accepted by the Government, it is extremely unlikely that it would be activated in our lifetimes, or indeed ever. As far as I know, there is no likelihood of Prince Charles or Prince William becoming a Catholic. It is therefore somewhat academic, but just because an amendment is academic does not mean that it is not worth debating and acting on if it is the logical and right thing to do. It is unlikely to be activated not just because of the nature of the likely successors to the throne, but because a person who is brought up as a member of the royal family is surely extremely unlikely to want to bar themselves from the throne or put their chances of succeeding to the throne at risk.

[Bob Stewart]

It may be much more likely that the heir to the throne would become an atheist. The problem would have to be addressed in those circumstances.

[Mr Leigh]

Indeed, it might happen that somebody becomes an atheist or an agnostic, or does not want to be a member of the Anglican faith. By the way, I have enormous sympathy, respect and, indeed, love for the Anglican faith, which is inherent in the traditions of our country. However, it is perfectly possible that in some future generation, somebody will not want to be part of it for quite profound reasons of personal conscience. That is why this matter is important. It is not just an academic, legalistic debating point; it is a matter of deep personal conscience. What is more important to an individual than their faith or lack of faith? It is somewhat strange in the modern age to say to somebody that if they want to become the head of this particular state, that job goes with being a member of a particular Christian denomination. It does not fit in with what we do in many other areas of our national life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Beith]

I wish to speak to amendments 1 and 2, which raise an important point.

It was a bit much for the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) to lambast the Government for introducing a Bill that removes gender discrimination in the royal family—something that the last Labour Government said they wanted to do but never got around to completing—and deals with the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and the limitation on sovereigns being married to a Roman Catholic. Were the Bill to cover the much wider issues of disestablishment or of whether the sovereign should no longer hold the position they currently hold in the Church of England, it would be a different Bill and a much wider consultation would have taken place.

The intention of the Bill might be frustrated, however, if the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is right, because the wording of the Act of Settlement about who is a Catholic is very detailed and picks up on almost any evidence of any connection with the Catholic Church at any time in the person’s life. As we discussed earlier, it is highly likely that the child of a mixed marriage will have experienced both denominations —and perhaps the Church of Scotland as well. Many parents offer their children the opportunity to see what different Churches have to offer.

[Bob Stewart]

As I understand it, Her Majesty the Queen has attended a Roman Catholic service at some stage in her life. Does that taint her under the old rules?

[Sir Alan Beith]

It depends whether one thinks that Her Majesty was reconciled to Rome by that action, which did not involve being in communion with the Church of Rome—something from which the Church of Rome would exclude Her Majesty in any event—so it is only on the first of those two possibilities that what my hon. Friend describes might be so regarded. I do not regard it as such, because “reconciled” in that legislation meant accepting the authority of the papacy over the Church in England. That was what the argument was really about. Members of all Churches are very much reconciled to each other these days, because they realise that they share a common faith that is more important than their points of difference.