Electoral Commission Investigation: Vote Leave

Debate between Edward Leigh and Chloe Smith

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady has felt the need to get quite so personal. I am not complacent. If she had been listening carefully, she would have heard me say that these issues are very, very serious. I am also saying that the Government respect the work of an independent regulator and do not comment on its ongoing investigations, but will wish to look in the round at the results of all the ongoing investigations.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Have the Government received any representations from the Labour Front Bench to rerun the referendum?

[Chloe Smith]

Not at the last count. I believe that there were 60-odd individuals who did want to do so, but I am not sure whether they are on or off the Front Bench at this time.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Chloe Smith

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

I recognise the measured point that my right hon. Friend makes. The difficulty or tension here that we do not have the time or scope to go into with regard to this Bill, or indeed as mere parliamentarians as opposed to theologians, is the nature of free will, and the free will of the child. I want to return us to the point that the Bill does not seek to change the entirety of the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights, for reasons that we went through at some length last week and a little earlier today,. I put the Government’s point: the Bill is narrow in scope and does not seek to enter into the theology of the faiths in question; it seeks instead to amend a unique form of discrimination that is particularly narrow.

[Mr Leigh]

I do not understand the Minister’s point—that if the two amendments were passed, it could result in a constitutional crisis or somebody supplanting somebody else. If she does not mind my saying so, this seems like an argument invented by civil servants. It is over-complicating the situation, when the fact remains that under this Bill the eldest daughter or son, whoever comes first, is going to succeed. All my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is doing through the amendments is to prevent them from being disbarred from the throne because of something that might have happened in their childhood. That is what he is saying: it is very clear; it is not very complicated.

[Miss Smith]

As I understand the amendments tabled by our hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, they would technically open the opportunity for a person to convert and provide for that person not to be “for ever” barred. I think it is possible for that to allow confusion over the very same point, including after the moment of succession. I can see that possibility arising through my hon. Friend’s amendments. I regret that that is the case, but I see it as a problem, and I humbly make that argument to the House.