Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda and Ogmore)
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) is such a nice chap that it is awfully difficult to disagree with him on most things—[Interruption.] Unfortunately for the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who is not quite such a pleasant Member of the House, I do disagree on this point. Are there not too many titles already in this country for us to want to dole out a whole load more? We have more than 800 peers, plus the countless hereditaries—the Scottish hereditaries, the Irish ones who still have rights in this country and the English hereditaries. On top of that, we have all their heirs, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport mentioned, who have subsidiary titles and are referred to as “Lord This that and the next thing”, “Viscount This that and the next thing”, “Earl Something” or whatever else.
I checked this earlier and it is even possible to buy a plot of land that gives a person the right to be called a laird, lord or lady from www.highlandtitles.com. I see the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) nodding; she has obviously done it already. The website states:
“Many of our customers choose to update their driving licence, credit cards and such like to reflect their new status.”
What a delight! I do not want to praise just one company; there is also www.lordtitles.co.uk. For £18.95, or for an additional £6.95 for a premium title, a person can get their own title. The website effectively guarantees that they will be
“offered the best seats in restaurants”
and get
“airline upgrades and top-notch service.”
We know all that is true because the editor of GQ, Dylan Jones, who wrote an ironic, I hope, biography of the Prime Minister, which I am about to read now, wrote:
“At last my chance to lord it over you. Ladies and gentlemen, please grab your forelocks and give them a good old tug. Because I have just become a Lord of the Manor…the title I have was purchased from a website called lordtitles.co.uk…and I intend to lord it over everyone I know…I look forward to…flashing my credit card at impressionable waiters in New York and Los Angeles.”
This is all, of course, a pile of nonsense. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the fact that in 2004 the Earl Marshal finally caught up with the fact that some peers had adopted children and allowed by warrant that they could use their courtesy titles but not inherit. That seems more scandalously unfair than anything else mentioned by him. It means that Andrew Tottenham, the adopted son of the Marquess of Ely, has to be called Lord Andrew Tottenham, not Viscount Loftus.
I note that Debrett’s, which is where the hon. Gentleman’s speech seems to have come from, states:
“It is very important that anyone corresponding with a member of the peerage is aware of the rank and precedence of the person he or she is in contact with, so that the correct form of address may be used.”
To be honest, it is not important to my constituents in the Rhondda. We have only one person with a title that I am aware of living in the Rhondda, Baroness Gale of Blaenrhondda. She is from Blaenrhondda, and the people of Blaenrhondda love her, but she does not own Blaenrhondda as the titles were originally intended to denote.
There is no need for legislation to change the courtesy titles—no need at all. These courtesy titles are no different from the fact that we call one another Mr, Mrs, Esquire, the Reverend or the Honourable. They are merely courtesy titles, and all we need to do, if we want to, is change our custom and practice. There is no need for legislation. The courtesy titles that have applied to the wives of people who have peerages, knighthoods or baronetcies have made sense only when those wives have chosen to take the name of their husband, so that, for instance, Mrs Prescott becomes Lady Prescott and Mrs Meale becomes Lady Meale.
If I were ever to marry a woman—I know that is unlikely, but I very nearly got there a long, long time ago—I certainly would not be marrying the kind of woman who would want to take my name. Many women today choose to keep their own name. Consequently, there is an additional layer of prejudice that the hon. Gentleman’s Bill would introduce against people who choose not to take their partner’s name. That applies to those who enter into civil partnerships as well.
What the hon. Gentleman is suggesting would devalue those who get honours in their own right. For instance, take Lady Bottomley of Nettlestone. I have no idea why she is “of Nettlestone” because she was born in Dunoon, and Nettlestone is a place in the Isle of Wight, which is nowhere near the place where she was formerly a Member of Parliament. Her husband—the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley)—was knighted in 2011. I am delighted that he is a knight of the realm but I think it is unfair that his knighthood should be eclipsed by his wife’s peerage and, therefore, the title that he would get as a courtesy title under the proposed Bill.
Similarly, I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) is now a dame, but I hope very much that her husband, who is the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), will also at some point get a knighthood in his own right and not have to rely on a courtesy title.
The custom is a relic of a bygone age when women were merely adjuncts. In effect, they were referred to as the chattels, along with the household chattels, of a peer or a knight of the realm. I know that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport thinks his Bill will bring greater equality and that, for instance, for lesbian couples and gay couples it will mean that they will suddenly be able to provide a courtesy title for their partner, but think of the complications likely to occur when Lord Alli’s partner is suddenly able to acquire a title which bears no relation to his own title. If the hon. Gentleman were going to do something for the LGBT community that would increase equality, he would be far better off supporting marriage equality than introducing this rather futile piece of legislation.
Finally, if Conservative MPs have to rely on introducing ten-minute rule Bills of this kind, it seems to me that they are a party increasingly out of touch with the modern world.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Oliver Colvile, Mrs Eleanor Laing, Sheryll Murray, Dan Byles, Mr Marcus Jones, Mr Lee Scott, Jack Lopresti, Ian Paisley, Caroline Dinenage, Keith Vaz, Sarah Newton and Stephen Gilbert present the Bill.
Oliver Colvile accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 9 November 2012, and to be printed (Bill 55).