Succession to the Crown Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Thérèse Coffey(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I will give way to the hon. Lady; it is not male primogeniture any more.
Chris Bryant
Yes, but that does not change the fact that when somebody becomes monarch, they have to make an accession oath on the Church of Scotland. That is my only point. We have a suite of legislation and once we start pulling at one of the elements of it there is a danger we will unpack the whole lot.
Dr Coffey
My hon. Friend, who is also of my faith, makes an excellent point. Of course, the situation he describes led to the execution of a monarch in times past. Frankly, the person with whom they replaced him is one of the people whom I am determined to write out of parliamentary history at some point, if possible by removing the statue outside. We will leave that debate for another day, but it is not only because he banned Christmas—we can just imagine how miserable he was.
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) seems to share his concern. It was interesting to hear the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) ask why someone being deemed the Supreme Governor of the Church of England is invalidated by their not being a member of the Church of England. Would a member of the Church of Scotland or the Church in Wales have to convert formally to the Church of England to take up the role of sovereign? I know that Her Majesty takes her faith very seriously—that is one of her many admirable qualities.
Chris Bryant
My history of Parliament is coming out next year, just to inform the hon. Lady that there is no point in her writing one now.
The main reason why a monarch has to have a relationship with the Church of England is that they have to be crowned. The coronation service is provided for in canon law, and therefore in statute law.
Dr Coffey
I thank the hon. Gentleman and look forward to seeing his book. I see him in the Library regularly, where I assume he is researching it assiduously.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will note the fact that the title of Defender of the Faith was originally granted to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X in 1521. It was then rescinded nine years later, after Henry VIII decided to remove himself from the Church of Rome. It was Parliament that restored that title in 1544.
Dr Coffey
Indeed, but it still decided to do so.
Of course I will not oppose the Bill, and I welcome large parts of it, but the point that I am trying to make is that we should not pretend that it is some great second Catholic emancipation that will remove any particular discrimination.
The question was raised today about what would happen if a future sovereign chose to marry outside the Church of England, of if they chose to marry somebody of the same sex under other legislation that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office are taking through the House. That marriage ceremony would not be recognised by the Church of England under the proposed laws, so what would it mean for their being the Supreme Governor of the Church of England in future?
I do not wish to get into personal things, but it is not a state secret that the Deputy Prime Minister has married a Catholic and his children are being brought up in the Catholic faith. That matter is taken seriously in various parts of canon law, and although, as I said, I do not pretend to be a canon lawyer, I wish to make various points about that. Back in 1970, in the motu proprio on mixed marriage, the Church acted to remove automatic excommunication as long as people tried to ensure that their children would be brought up Catholic. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) will be relieved to know that in the same motu proprio, the penalty for parents who sent their children to non-Catholic schools was removed. Although his alma mater produced a martyr in the Reformation, one cannot say that that school is a Catholic one. I am sure he is about to intervene on me.
Leveson Inquiry
Debate between Chris Bryant and Thérèse Coffey(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a privilege to speak in this debate on this important topic.
Why does the inquiry matter so much when, as Ofcom suggests, papers and magazines account for only 11% of news and current affairs consumption, and when the news cycle is such that the fact that Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant got out on Twitter much quicker than it could have got out in a newspaper? The point is that the news cycle of investigative journalism and in-depth analysis means that the press is at the forefront of holding politicians, Executives and the establishment to account, which is why such journalism deserves a special place in the media spectrum.
I agree with Lord Justice Leveson’s overriding principle that the freedom of the press should be maintained. I do not agree that we need to legislate for the Secretary of State to have such a duty, as the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) suggested. I agree with the self-regulation principle. I share the sympathies of hon. Members on both sides of the House who agree to some extent with the Prime Minister that we need to think very carefully about crossing that Rubicon, as he described it last week.
Sir Brian Leveson says in part K, chapter 5.47 that the threat to legislate must be credible. It has not been credible before. He suggests that that is the only reason why the proposals of Lord Black of Brentwood have progressed as far as they have. I would put it a different way. I would say that the threat of legislation has been made several times, which has led to the evolution of press self-regulation since it began in the late ’40s.
I referred earlier to a simple, three-clause Bill that refers to article 10 of the European convention on human rights but which leaves out the criteria of independence on the basis of not interfering in the operation of the media. However, Sir Brian Leveson says that Parliament must legislate for the criteria of independence. That Bill, which might have been simple at first, is already starting to grow.
Lord Justice Leveson also declines to give a definition of public interest, but the phrase is used extensively in the report. If Parliament is pressed down the statutory route, Parliament would have to consider that definition as part of the criteria for independence when setting up the body.
The report gets into the balance of ethics and privacy—it deals with balancing the public interest in the freedom of speech with the public interest in the rights of privacy. Sir Brian says that that is one of the key points, but that is an understatement. I am concerned that members of the public, including victims—including people affected by the Hillsborough disaster—believe that statutory underpinning is the answer to all previous problems. I do not think that statutory underpinning would necessarily solve the problems that people have experienced, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) said.
Sir Brian Leveson refers to extant changes in the code. One of his first recommendations for the regulatory body is that it should undertake a thorough review of the code. I tried to intervene on the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—she is unfortunately no longer in the Chamber. In evidence to the Leveson inquiry, she suggested that the code is fine and does not need changing. Are we adopting the entire principles and thoughts behind the Leveson inquiry, or are we, on a more careful reading—I have not got through all the report yet and have read only certain sections—beginning to see problems that we need to discuss in more detail, such as the report’s interpretation of how the press and legislation will work? Sir Brian Leveson says that the incentive to join the regime would be the existence of the tribunal route. I understand why that would be an incentive, but one wonders whether the Defamation Bill, which is currently before Parliament, could provide a route towards securing the same ends.
What if we cannot agree? What if not all the press sign up to a new body? Sir Brian refers to needing all national publishers to agree, and that if they do not, then Ofcom should become the regulator. Potentially, we have the same situation we had when Northern and Shell walked away from the Press Complaints Commission. If Northern and Shell or any other publisher walked away, the default recommendation in the Leveson report is for Ofcom to regulate the press. That would be a huge step backwards, and part of the slippery slope which many hon. Members are concerned about venturing on to.
There is an appropriate concern about access to justice. I do not agree with Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations for excessive costs and penalty damages for publishers who do not subscribe to the code. In fact, he is trying to implement Sir Rupert Jackson’s comments on the qualified one-way costs shifting system. That is something we need to think about and more proposals need to come forward. If somebody went to the potential new body, which was not subscribed to by a particular publisher, one could imagine a situation where the regulator said, “Actually, you are absolutely right, that would have failed our tests and we will help you take on the publisher in court.” I can see something like that happening to ensure that people have access to justice.
I have other concerns. The issue relating to the Data Protection Act is a problem for people protecting their sources or for public interest use. Sir Brian Leveson suggests that the names of people should not be disclosed, or that we should not try to identify potential criminals. Frankly, if that was the case for TV, we would shut down the “Crimewatch” programme overnight. The press work with the police to flush out criminals and potential suspects, and to help get the public involved in the search on crime, and the report puts that at risk.
There have been two references to the potential extent of third-party complaints. I am concerned about one particular part of the report, which suggests that the code be amended to have a duty to ensure compliance with Government legislation on the wording of stories. Again, that strays from where we need to be.
A member of the House of Lords would apparently be able serve on the independent board, but an MP or a member of the Government would not.
Chris Bryant
Is it not therefore slightly odd that everybody is now saying that the PCC is independent, despite the fact that it is chaired by Lord Hunt, who takes the Conservative Whip in the House of Lords?
Dr Coffey
My next point is that Sir Brian insists that there will be no involvement of political parties. My concern is that that reinforces the prejudice that to have ever been involved in politics is somehow to be not interested in public service. I know I am taking a different view from a lot of other people. I am not suggesting that a serving MP or a serving Lord should be on any regulatory body, but I am concerned that politics is again being traduced in an unsatisfactory way. Thatis just an example of some of the minor things to which my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) referred—about trying to change the name of briefings and what they could be called. Frankly, that section of the report did not deserve the ink that was wasted on it.
On the problems the report will solve and the problems it will create, we have recently debated, and debated several times, the terrible incident of Hillsborough. There were two other incidents in the late ’80s that forced a change so that we moved away from the Press Council to the creation of the Press Complaints Commission. Not many people will recall that on 9 May 1989, a report from the ombudsman was printed on page 2 of The Sun. Of course, that was not enough. Today, the PCC rules would enable something of equal prominence to be printed, and the ombudsman adjudication at the time indicated that the headline should not have appeared. One concern is that we may start to give false hope to people who have been maligned by the press.
Privilege
Debate between Chris Bryant and Thérèse Coffey(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
I do remember that point of order, which is why when my hon. Friend intervened on the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), I knew what he was going to ask her. It is a point that he rightly makes and has made repeatedly.
We are congratulating ourselves today on the Select Committee process bringing us to this point, but if the Select Committee process had worked better, we might have reached this point three years ago. The Select Committee might have been able to require Rebekah Brooks to give evidence in 2009 and it might have been taking evidence under oath from the very beginning. Then we would not have to decide what we should do about these people, as the courts would be doing so. If we were to apply all those elements of how to decide a sentence for perjury before a court to this case, I would have thought one of the lengthier sentences would be handed down. The same is true for contempt of court, which carries a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.
Dr Thérèse Coffey
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but does he accept that Select Committees do have the power of summons, which was in fact used during part of the current inquiry?
Chris Bryant
Yes, but Committees have quite often been rather tentative about using those powers. I remember discussing this with the hon. Lady in the Library, and she was uncertain whether that power existed—and I kept on telling her, “Yes, it does exist. It can be used. All we have to do is make sure that the Clerk of the House uses the proper processes.” It is important to remember that we have these powers and that they need to be used more effectively. For instance, it seems extraordinary that no member of the Murdoch family had ever given evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee until the day on which Mr Rupert Murdoch and Mr James Murdoch were summoned last summer. I am sure that that was not because Committees did not want to interview the most important significant player in the British media landscape in this country.
As well as using such powers more effectively, we need to decide for ourselves that we have these powers. I know that there are those who say that we are not a High Court of Parliament anymore; that we are not a court. They say that we are not able to provide a fair tribunal, as the Human Rights Act or, for that matter, the European convention on human rights, might determine. So would it be possible for the House of Commons to make a determination in relation to any individual, for instance requiring that individual to be arrested and brought to the House? Some people think that the very idea of bringing someone to the Bar of the House is anachronistic.
We must have some powers to be able to do our job properly. We must be able to summon witnesses, and if they do not want to come here—as happened with the Maxwell brothers, and seemed at one point to be going to happen with the Murdochs—we must be able to send the Serjeant at Arms to summon and, if necessary, arrest them and bring them to Parliament. We need to be able to arrest. Most Members will not have been here on the occasion when the Chamber was invaded, but the Serjeant at Arms has to be able to arrest. It is quite a simple power.
Sex and Relationships Education
Debate between Chris Bryant and Thérèse Coffey(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I want to make it clear that I do not propose to press this to a Division, but I give advance notice to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and his hon. Friends that there are many in the House, not just on the Government Benches but on both sides, who will fundamentally fight his proposals, because we believe that they are the wrong thing for this country. I believe that primarily because this aspect of sexual and relationships education is the fundamental, primary domain of parents within families.
The hon. Gentleman might not have intended to be disingenuous, but it simply is not true that there is not an obligation for elements of sex education to be present within our education system. It exists at secondary school level. One of the things that concerns me about his proposal is that it would introduce the concept of sex education for all key stages, which would include, of course, five and six-year-olds. I have a further concern. As is appropriate, curriculums are developed by school governors, with teachers and parental involvement. That is important. However, his proposal, which suggests a one-size-fits-all approach—imposing something from the centre—goes against the current thinking, which is about local schools knowing best, in conjunction with parents in particular. It is imperative that parents continue to be able to exercise the right to withdraw their children from lessons that they do not believe to be in their children’s interests, and if they would rather teach SRE themselves. He added the proviso that children should be able to make that decision for themselves, but I believe that parents should be able to override them until they become of an age when they are legally entitled to do other things themselves.
This imposition on primary schools is fundamentally wrong. Putting it on the statute book is heavy-handed and belies the fact that secondary schools already undertake elements of this education. The constant approach of getting the state to undermine and supersede parental authority is fundamentally flawed. What has been the impact of sex education? A campaigner for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said:
“There have been a large number of studies about the impact of sex education on abortion rates and pregnancy rates, and these frequently tend to show they are not having the kind of impact that the family planning specialists want. They mainly make us feel good that we’re educating people more thoroughly, but they do not seem to have much impact on the abortion rate.”
Let us go further. The SHARE scheme in Scotland conducted a test across a wide number of schools using a well-documented control group. It is probably the most carefully designed and rigorously tested such programme in the United Kingdom to date, and at the end of it, the researchers concluded:
“This specially designed sex education programme did not reduce conceptions or terminations…compared with conventional provision. The lack of effect was not due to quality of delivery.”
They also said that
“complementary intervention should be suggested”,
including socio-economic interventions and parental influence. To be honest, we do not need a big research programme to know that parents are the best people to discuss with their children the concept of sex and relationships education. Dare I say it—I am not trying to be flippant—but perhaps for teenagers the very fact that their parents had sex to have them puts off the discussion. Perhaps that was the case when the hon. Gentleman was growing up. However, we should be braver than that.
In the evidence that the hon. Gentleman cited, he mentioned many different countries, such as Holland, which has invested in sex education. However, he might also have seen the article in The Times that read:
“The Dutch Government still penalises single mothers under 18, who are expected to live with their parents if they become pregnant. Until six years ago the Government gave them no financial support.”
That might be an example of socio-economic intervention.
The hon. Gentleman failed to mention Italy, which also has low levels of teenage pregnancy, but does not invest significantly in school sex education, so we should not follow the example of the Netherlands and other countries he cites, or indeed France where the abortion limit is at 12 weeks, and suggest that sex education from the age of six is the right way to reduce sexual intervention. Dare I say it, but in the last so many years when sex education has been the norm, the great experiment of the ‘60s—
Dr Coffey
Oh, it certainly has, yet the percentage of people having sex under the legal age limit has doubled. That is not a record that this country should be proud of. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: I am not condemning teenage pregnancy—far from it. I do not think that the age of somebody always reflects whether they are a good mother. However, the fundamental principle is that families and parents know best, not the Government, so we will oppose this Bill fundamentally, every hour, every day.
Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Chris Bryant, Ms Diane Abbott, Sir Peter Soulsby, Jessica Morden, Nick Smith, Katy Clark, Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Luciana Berger, Karl Turner, Heidi Alexander, and Alex Cunningham present the Bill.
Chris Bryant accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 February, and to be printed (Bill 69).