Sovereign Grant Bill

Debate between Ian Davidson and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I remember the secret treaty of Dover well, although I was not an active participant. However, it is not particularly relevant to this debate. It has to be borne in mind that Louis XIV did not deliver the cash, which is always a slight problem in such negotiations.

The Crown Estate belongs to the sovereign. Any other great landowner who has inherited land owns that property outright and is free to pass it from generation to generation. The Crown Estate is in that position. We have discussed before whether, because it is exempt from death duties or because it used to be used to pay for Government expenditure, it is in some sense different and the nation’s. I would argue that that reasoning is not accurate. In the same way that the feudal duties that fell upon other landowners were abolished as time went on, so the Crown Estate would in all normal circumstances have become the Queen’s outright.

I therefore go back to my point, which the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) dislikes, that the Queen pays an 85% tax rate. There would be £200 million or more in income for the Queen every year, but in fact there will be only about £30 million. So Her Majesty is the highest-paying taxpayer in this country. Members of Parliament might like to think that we could do a deal with the Government, hand over our salary and be given £9,000 a year back.

[Mr Davidson]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a distinction between the monarch as an individual and the monarchy as an institution? The Crown Estate is the property of the state, inasmuch as it is the property of the monarchy as an institution, not the monarch as an individual. It is therefore untrue to say that the monarch as an individual is paying 85% tax.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I think it is immeasurably confusing when we start trying to divide the Queen up in that way. Her Majesty is our sovereign, full stop. She is one person, indivisible. She is not the trinity—Her Majesty the Queen, Her Majesty Mrs Windsor and Her Majesty the third party of the trinity. It does not work like that. She is one sovereign individual.

The next point that I want to make is one on which I agree, as I often do, actually, with the right hon. Member for North Durham. [Hon. Members: “Honourable.”] I am so sorry, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). It is in Her Majesty’s gift, of course, to promote him, and perhaps she might have looked more favourably on that if he had been a bit more loyal in his comments. However, I agree with his point that we have to pay for the constitution that we have. The Queen is not here to bring in tourism and things like that. She is here as an essential part of our constitution. That is why it is worth the military taking on the costs of sending attachés and so on and so forth. The military owe their loyalty to the Crown, not to politicians, senior generals or people who could abuse that power to change how this country is run.

Our constitutional settlement, which works extraordinarily well and has worked well for hundreds of years, is worth paying for. On that basis, we get stability as a nation and the effective operation of our constitutional system. The judges owe loyalty to the Crown; the military owe loyalty to the Crown; we, as Members of Parliament, swear an oath to the Crown. It is the Crown that is at the pinnacle of our constitution, outside and above politics and a defender of our liberties. Indeed, as Charles I said at the scaffold, he died the martyr of the people, because he had been defending the liberties of the people, as the Queen has done now for jolly nearly 60 years. We must be willing to pay the right price for our constitutional settlement, and I think that should be a generous price.

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Debate between Ian Davidson and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is relevant to look at the United States economy and at the gold price, which is up at $1,500 and not because more people are getting married and want wedding rings—although I congratulate my hon. Friend on his forthcoming nuptials and I am sure he is buying a large piece of gold for his future wife. The gold price has been so strong because the financial markets have lost confidence in the US dollar and because the American political forces—the President and Congress—have not been willing to tackle the deficit in the way that Her Majesty’s Government have done. The gold price in sterling terms has not risen by anything like so much, because people have confidence in what the Government are doing.

Normally, I take the view that there are two people in this world who should be obeyed. One is the Holy Father and the other is my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash). When my hon. Friend speaks on European matters, he does so with a degree of infallibility that belongs to only one other living person, although I hasten to add that the remit of the Holy Father does not cover European matters. My views diverge slightly from those of my hon. Friend on one point: I think we should be proud of the document that Her Majesty’s Government are sending because of what the Government have got right. The situation they faced a year ago was desperately serious, needed urgent attention and had to be brought under control by their taking measures that are not necessarily popular.

It is important to emphasise that point because all Governments, when they take tough decisions, face gentlemen such as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). Over the next year or two, as people see the cuts coming through, it will be very tempting to listen to such voices and to think that perhaps there is an easier way and a land flowing with milk and honey that we have not yet found where we can borrow more money, where the financial markets will turn a blind eye, where we can spend money we do not have and not worry about our children and our grandchildren and where the banks will suddenly miraculously lend to bankrupt people to keep inefficient systems going. That is when those on the Treasury Bench must stiffen their sinews and summon the blood and not give way to those voices. At the moment, that is still relatively easy, because there has not been much coming through in the way of cuts. We have not seen the pain that will come from those difficult decisions. Now, however, we are sending our plan abroad. We are telling people not just in this country but in foreign countries of what we are doing and we should be proud of it because it is right. If we do what is right, the economy will begin to recover.

We on the Back Benches, in particular, must support those on the Front Benches when they do such things and when the critics from the other side appear to be doing well in the opinion polls. That is the point of maximum difficulty. Let us think of the great lady in 1981, when 360-odd economists wrote to The Times—a great newspaper with very fine editors—to suggest that the economic policy was wrong. That was two years in and it was the hardest point and that Government stuck to their guns, which led to the recovery we then had.

[Mr Davidson]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken movingly about the need for cuts and indeed for pain—pain that I suspect will not be felt by him. Pain will be felt by poor people whereas bankers, who are rich people, will feel no pain whatsoever. It is the unfairness of what the Government are doing that is causing so much opposition and bad feeling in the country and that is why the Liberals will suffer so badly in the AV referendum and the election.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The fundamental flaw in the hon. Gentleman’s argument is to think that there is a painless way out of a major crisis. It is simply a question of whether we deal with it now and ensure that the problem is resolved and that the economy can grow again or whether we delay it and have a much worse crisis later. The pain I was talking about was political pain for the Government as people notice the cuts. Our approach will reduce the pain for individuals because it will ensure that the economy is rebalanced sooner rather than later. That is the way to minimise pain—not thinking that there is a never-never land with no pain after we have lived on debt and incompetent Government policies for the past 13 years.