Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Dan Rogerson

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). He is a sort of hereditary MP himself, so he knows a little bit about “hereditary”—and we have a few of them around. I was not entirely sure where he was going with the “diamond queen” thing; “diamond geezers” was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan).

I wholeheartedly support one of the main principles of the Bill, namely the change in the male preference primogeniture rules that have come to us through common law. We have taken far too long to resolve the issue. Other countries with constitutional monarchies got on with it much earlier: Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands all dealt with it in the 1980s. Indeed, it was much more difficult for Sweden, because at the time the heir to the throne was a boy, Carl Philip, who was ousted from his hereditary status by his older sister Victoria. Sweden took a more courageous decision and we have been rather slow, perhaps because we have felt so confident about our current monarch. So I support the change in the Bill but I do have some worries. A great deal of reference has been made to Pandora’s box, but that is the wrong image to use, because at the bottom of that box was always hope.

The more worrying concern is that when we pull out one of the threads of the constitution, there is a danger of unravelling the whole jumper—if the jumper is indeed made out of threads. I worry because the religion of the monarch in this country depends on a suite of legislation. The Coronation Oath Act 1688 makes it clear in precisely what words the monarch shall accept the throne and what oath they shall make at their coronation. That was reformed in the 20th century and, in fact, Her Majesty the Queen did not use the prescribed oath, as laid down in legislation. We need to address that issue; in the past Parliament has decided what the oath should be, not the monarch.

[Dan Rogerson]

Several hon. Members in the Chamber have examined the issues involved, as have many others, who are busy elsewhere, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that out in the country at large there will be little understanding of them? This is perhaps part of the problem. Our constitutional history is fascinating, but if we had a far more transparent and, dare I say it, written constitution, people might understand more deeply what we are talking about.

[Chris Bryant]

I have always been in favour of a written constitution, but that is not what we are debating. The important job of work that we have to do when we write elements of our constitution into statute is to make sure that they meet any possible eventualities that could come down the road, because we can never imagine precisely what is going to happen. In 1936, we had a crisis because there were no means by which the monarch could abdicate, so we had the odd situation where the monarch announced his abdication and the next day legislation had to be got through the House. As was said earlier, that took only 10 minutes, but none the less we had to make legislation on the hoof.

The Act of Settlement contains two clauses that make different provisions in relation to the monarch. As the hon. Member for 1642 said, section II says that anyone who

“is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall profess the Popish Religion or shall marry a Papist”

shall be excluded from the succession. So I raise the genuine point: if someone marries a Roman Catholic in a Catholic church—the Minister said that Her Majesty has been to a Roman Catholic church—it is difficult to see how that person is not then reconciled to the See of Rome. I hope that the Church of England will be reconciled to the See of Rome. The advances we have seen in ecumenism over the years do not just mean that we have rejected the ludicrous prejudice that there was about Catholicism and the belief that somehow or other a Catholic could not be a patriot. We need to go further, and I hope that in the ecumene of all the Churches there will be reconciliation one day. I know that that is the view of the most recent Archbishop of Canterbury and I suspect it is the view of the current one, so it would seem odd if it were not then the view of the monarch. I want to start asking whether we do not need to change all the provisions in relation to the religion of the monarch. As an Anglican, I would have no fear of a Roman Catholic who accepted a series of oaths to protect the Church of England, as established by law—

Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education

Debate between Chris Bryant and Dan Rogerson

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this debate and on the work that she has done on the subject for some time. I am pleased to see so many hon. Members in Westminster Hall today to discuss this subject. In fact, I am surprised that there are so many Members here. Sometimes, I come to Westminster Hall and limited numbers of Members are present for a debate, so it is very encouraging that so many Members are here at this point in the morning to discuss this subject.

I should perhaps explain my initial connection with this topic: both my parents are teachers. In fact, my mother was responsible for PSHE in the secondary school that I attended, so if there are any failings in my skills in dealing with life, I suppose that I will probably have to take them up with her on two levels, and take the pain of that. However, it gave me a commitment to explain how important PSHE is. My mother dealt with Cornwall county council in those days, talking about the importance of the PSHE element in the curriculum. In fact, when she started dealing with the subject it was actually called “personal, social and moral education”, which perhaps gives an idea of what the subject was like in the early part of the ’80s; there was a slightly different twist to it.

The hon. Lady has focused on relationship education as something that is crucial, and it is very important to me, too. I remember that when I first stood for Parliament I was at the hustings—it was one of that type of “churches together” hustings—and a question came up about sex on television and whether it was a bad thing. Being a politician, I turned the question into something important to me, which is talking about relationships. I said that what I found far more insidious is that all that young people hear all the time, from soap operas and so on, is about relationships failing. Let us be honest—it is done that way because it is a story and that is what soap operas are about. There are very few examples of relationships that actually make it and that work and are successful. That is perhaps a sadder issue. The mechanics of sex being on television are such that the cues that young people pick up—they also pick them up from wider society, celebrity magazines and so on—are all about how relationships are exciting things to start and exciting things to end, and sometimes it is the work of keeping them going that is far more difficult to deal with.

As the hon. Lady said, there are many campaigns for elements or aspects of the curriculum that could come under PSHE; hon. Members have argued strongly for their inclusion in PSHE. However, it is also important that we do not take those elements and put them in some sort of silo and say that this is something that we tuck into a corner of the curriculum and forget about. Those elements must also inform what goes on in education as a whole.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Is not the point about the situation now that PSHE is precisely tucked into a silo of science? The only part that pupils are required to learn about in school is sexually transmitted infections and how to have sex, and that is a kind of advertising manual rather than a proper sex and relationship education that might enable, for instance, girls to have so much self-worth that they want to delay their first sexual experience and that might bring boys into the equation, so that they understand that sex is not only a recreation but might also be part of a strong and fulfilling relationship.

[Dan Rogerson]

Absolutely. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although boys, too, might well want to delay their first sexual experience, rather than just girls. I think that we sometimes get caught up in a “boys are from Mars, girls are from Venus” view, and there is a difference in the way that we deal with the two. In fact, I think that a lot of the issues, concerns and disquiet that young people might have about some of these issues will be shared by both boys and girls.

Of course, as the hon. Lady said they are also issues about drug and alcohol abuse, as well as strategies for managing and dealing with exposure to drugs and alcohol. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) made a point about how campaigns, such as those on drink-driving, have been successful in the past. General issues of mental health and well-being are incredibly important, too. As the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said, sometimes some of these things are incredibly important to young people in their development but difficult for them to express and engage with. They carry those feelings around with them day to day, but they find it difficult to confront them. In extreme cases, that can lead to self-harm or suicide. In other cases, it can undermine academic performance, social interaction and all sorts of other things, so it is crucial that the issue is explored.

We need to look at strategies for bringing relationship education out of its silo, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) agreed. Save the Children’s Families and Schools Together programme takes relationship education out of the classroom and deals with building relationships in families as well. We talk about early intervention, and the earliest intervention would be to get to people and give them the skills in parenting and dealing with their own emotional growth before they become parents. However, some people have already been through education, and it failed to provide such things. We need to look at schools as a way to engage with such people to give them skills as parents, to reinforce all the good things that they do and to share that experience. Save the Children’s programme is a successful way to do that.

Relationship education must be taught effectively, and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South was right to mention the questions that have been raised about that. As the coalition Government consider the information that they have received through consultation and how they might advance relationship education, I hope that they will focus on that. They have set out their determination to increase the quality of the teaching available, and this important issue must not be dealt with simply as something that teachers pick up to fill their timetable; it must be something people have the skills to deliver effectively.

Teaching should be reinforced through interaction across the curriculum. The hon. Member for Rhondda talked about the science connection, and other hon. Members have talked about their determination to see more done on financial literacy and financial education, so there are tie-ups with maths, business and so on. By reinforcing such messages across the curriculum, we can make them much more powerful, and we can use the skills of teachers in other disciplines to ensure that those messages are worked on and delivered effectively. As I say, we can also use schools as a way to reach out into families and reinforce what goes on in them.

The coalition Government have not tackled this issue by moving on a prescriptive curriculum or by micro-managing what goes on in the classroom. However, it is important to Members on both sides that the issue is pursued and that the Government have a grasp on it to make sure that we deliver it effectively. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to the debate in that spirit.

Religious Education

Debate between Chris Bryant and Dan Rogerson

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that without an understanding of religion, we are left only with labels, which is a huge problem for society?

[Chris Bryant]

I was coming to that point. However, before I do, I want to say as an article of faith—and I am not a fundamentalist, either in religion or politics—that I think spirituality is a river that one cannot dam. There are hundreds of different forms of spirituality, but any education worth its salt in this country needs to give young people an opportunity to understand and develop that spirituality, so that it is fully grown and mature, not naive.

The hon. Member for Congleton referred to “a tolerant society”. I hate that term. I do not want to live in a tolerant society, because it smells of people saying, “I am prepared to put up with you.” I would much prefer to live in a respectful society. If anything, the danger of the liberal—small “l”—Britain of the past 100 years is that we have been tolerant of other religions, but never learned enough about them to be truly respectful.

In addition, we have never learned enough about Islam, or any other religion, to be able to challenge bad religion. Heaven knows, there is plenty of bad religion in society today. It is not just the British attitude that one cannot possibly talk about politics or religion at a dinner party; it is that all too often we are fundamentally ignorant about the basis of most religions. I would include in that the fact that many young people are extremely ignorant about Christianity.

My experience of Catholic teaching in many Catholic schools is that sometimes it is good and sometimes it is appalling. There is one thing that I particularly dislike: I have heard Catholic teachers refer to “Christians and Catholics”, as if non-Catholics were not Christians. I always believed the word Catholic to extend beyond. I hope all that has moved on, but I think that in some cases it has not.

I want to refer to one final matter. I happen, bizarrely, to be an external adviser on the Oxford theology degree. One of my concerns is that the number of people applying to do theology at university is dwindling. In part, that may be due to social issues, but it may also be due to the respect with which religious education is treated in the curriculum in England, Wales and Scotland. I wish it would be accorded further respect, not least because the big danger is that otherwise the courses will end up just being vocational. In other words, somebody training to be a priest goes to read theology at university and is merely trained in that narrow, prescriptive way, and does not learn about other religions or extend the course. That is a vicious circle because fewer people who have an interest in religion itself, rather than a desire to go for ordination, will take it forward.

I wholly agree with what the hon. Member for Congleton said, and I congratulate her. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us about the value that he places on religious education in schools.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Dan Rogerson

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Beith]

rose—

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) first, because he asked first.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Dan Rogerson

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry, but I think that that was the shabbiest speech I have heard from a Conservative Member. The Parliamentary Secretary appeared to suggest that Labour Members are now arguing against what we supported in the House of Lords. We support what was carried in the House of Lords: we would prefer the amendment that was carried there to be accepted here. It is absolutely shoddy that the Government, to give themselves an extra parliamentary seat, will provide for two seats for the Isle of Wight. It is not so much a gerrymander as a ferrymander.

As the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) effectively said, the Parliamentary Secretary has driven a coach and horses through his own argument. His argument so far has been that there must be equalisation at all costs. It has been, “Don’t recognise local ties, county boundaries or ward boundaries.” He tries to insist on mathematical perfection, but when it comes to this one place, there must be an exception.

We agree that there should be exceptions. We believe that there should be some other exceptions, too. The argument that the Parliamentary Secretary makes could and should apply to Cornwall, Somerset and all the counties—and, indeed, ward boundaries. We should recognise more exceptions.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I wish that the hon. Gentleman could have presented that argument precisely and briefly when the Bill was previously in the House, then perhaps we could all have had the chance to debate the subject at an earlier stage. However, does he agree that the debate about Cornwall in another place focused on cultural issues rather than geographical considerations? Sadly, the Government’s approach does not address those factors.

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. Some specific geographical issues need to be borne in mind. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will hate any reference to my constituency, but a former Member of Parliament for the Rhondda, Alec Jones, was once presented with a suggestion that the Cynon valley should be included in the Rhondda constituency, even though for much of the year it is almost impossible to get from one to the other. Alec Jones wisely said, “Bloody hell, somebody’s got hold of a flat map.” Those are precisely the sort of arrangements that we will end up with.