House of Lords Reform (No. 2) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Byles]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I will certainly take great interest in that scheme at Committee stage and I will be happy to look closely at it, but I have been assured by those who have far greater knowledge of these matters than I do that whatever the scheme is that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is referring to, it is not a permanent method of retiring or leaving the House of Lords, because no such system exists. It may be a form of extended leave of absence; I am not sure. The Minister might receive some inspiration before he speaks.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentions Committee stage. Have the Government stated that they will make time for a Committee of the whole House to sit to discuss this constitutional Bill?

[Dan Byles]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that. I know that he is concerned about that issue, which he and I have discussed. It is my understanding that there is no intention from the Government—indeed, it is not my intention—that the Bill should be debated in a Committee of the whole House.

We have touched on a matter that will undoubtedly come up later in the debate, so I shall discuss it now. It seems to me that the principle of constitutional Bills going before a Committee of the whole House is absolutely a convention used by the Government for clear first-class constitutional Bills. It is not, in my opinion, an absolute inviolate principle that any Bill that has, or could be argued to have, a slight hint of constitutionality automatically goes before a Committee of the whole House. Clearly a degree of judgment must be applied, according to the degree of constitutional change, if any, that a Bill brings in. For example, it is my understanding that my hon. Friend did not call for a Committee of the whole House for the European Union (Referendum) Bill, which was considered only a few weeks ago and which arguably has greater constitutional implications for the country than this Bill.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I fundamentally disagree. The referendum Bill provides for an advisory referendum that has no constitutional effect. It would require a second piece of legislation to give it any effect. Therefore, of itself, it was not constitutional.

[Dan Byles]

That is an interesting point for debate, but I would argue that the Bill before us today could well be argued to be far more of an HR Bill—a human resources or housekeeping Bill to tidy things up by introducing relatively modest methods to allow those who wish to leave the other place to do so, and to allow the removal of criminals, bringing the House of Lords into line with this House.

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[Dan Byles]

This Bill does not remove the peerage; it simply removes the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

Clause 3 provides that a Member of the House of Lords who is convicted of a serious offence will cease to be a Member. The provision will again apply only if the Lord Speaker certifies that the Member has been convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment or detention for more than one year. If that person successfully appeals their conviction, the Lord Speaker may revoke the first certificate by issuing another. It has long been the practice of this House that those convicted of offences that carry a sentence of more than one year are expelled, and it is appropriate that the procedures of the House of Lords in that regard be brought into line with the procedures of this House.

Clause 4 outlines the effect of ceasing to be a Member—specifically, that the person will be disqualified from attending proceedings of the House of Lords, and that they shall no longer receive a writ to attend the House. Further, it provides that a peer who ceases to be a Member is no longer disqualified from voting at elections, or being elected to the House of Commons.

Clause 5 makes provision in relation to the certification by the Lord Speaker, and clause 6 makes provision in relation to the short title, commencement and extent of the Bill.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

On the issue of former peers being allowed to stand for this House, will there be any period between their leaving the upper House and being eligible to stand? It would concern me if it were possible for somebody to lose an election to this House, go to the Lords and then leave it prior to the next election in order to come back in here. I do not think that ping-pong would be suitable.

[Dan Byles]

That is a very interesting point. As things stand, the Bill would not prevent that. That is the sort of detail that I would be more than happy to discuss with my hon. Friend, and we could consider whether some small amendment might be made in Committee. I am very keen, though, that the Bill should be kept as simple as possible.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for referring to Edmund Burke’s principles for reform. Under those principles, would it not be better, with regard to excluding peers who commit offences, to build on the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which provides a precedent for removing peers and taking away their titles?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that typically scholarly and thoughtful intervention. That piece of legislation worked in the opposite direction, beginning by taking away titles and then allowing removal or exclusion from the Lords to follow therefrom. Such an approach would raise a thicket of further constitutional issues and probably steer us directly into the centre of the Bermuda triangle, never to return. It is therefore with some hesitation that I would endorse his suggestion, but I absolutely invite him to expand on it in any remarks that he makes later.

This Bill meets every one of the seven tests of Burke that I set out. If it succeeds, it will be an excellent example of effective reform, and we, and indeed our country, will be the better for it.

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[Mr Nuttall]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

In a spirit of helpfulness, may I suggest Lembit Öpik?

[Mr Nuttall]

rose—

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[Mr Nuttall]

I was coming on to that point, but it does not explain whether attending the proceedings of the House covers, for example, somebody who wishes to attend and listen to the debate, but then decides that they do not want to take part in the vote.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend will be aware that, because of the very large numbers in the House of Lords, the seating at the Bar of the House that is not technically within the Lords is now being used by peers. If a peer were to sit behind the Bar, hoping to attend but not actually be in the body of the House, would that count as attendance?

[Mr Nuttall]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a valuable and pertinent point. Have those peers attended the proceedings or not? What if they were to attend but had to witness the proceedings from the Gallery because of the lack of seats?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I can help my hon. Friend on that point. Certainly in this House, the Gallery counts as the House and, if the Chamber is full, it is possible to speak from the Gallery, which I hope at some point to do—although not today. [Laughter.]

[Mr Nuttall]

No, not today. Whether one is on the Floor of the House in the other place or in the Gallery, does merely attending and watching count as attendance, or would one be expected to vote? Many of the Cross Benchers, because of the nature of their appointment to the other place, often do not wish to vote on certain issues, so we need to be careful with that provision.

Clause 2 amounts to the compulsory exclusion of a peer from the other place, and in many ways it is therefore much more controversial than clause 1. Clause 1 has its problems, but we can deal with it. Clause 2 is more controversial, because someone would risk being excluded from the other place against their will. They might not be happy about being excluded and we should be careful in our consideration of the provision. It has been suggested that we should go even further and put in a minimum attendance level and link it to the number of votes a peer takes part in. For example, as a minimum, a peer should take part in at least 10% of votes to maintain their membership of the other place.

[Mr Nuttall]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it would be a dangerous precedent to adopt. We heard from the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who suggested that voting should be used as a method of determining whether peers are non-attenders. In a written submission to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, he stated that peers who have not voted in more than 10% of Divisions for three Sessions out of the last five should be removed from having “a formal role”:

“They would of course remain Peers and could be allowed access to the restaurants and bars (but not offices, research and other working facilities). This would be commercially prudent.”

That may be prudent from a commercial point of view, but it would be the worst of all worlds. We would have Members of the other place effectively treating it is a social club: not taking part in proceedings, just having a drink in the bar. If anything were to bring the other place into disrepute, it would be such a mechanism.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Would it not also undermine the benefit of having a House of Lords of specialists? We want peers to intervene on subjects they know about, not to turn up for any old thing on which they have no expertise.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a good point that links in with my earlier point about Cross Benchers, who often feel that they only want to take part in debates on issues on which they have specialist knowledge. It may be that in one Session their area of expertise is not brought before the House, but that in the next Session it is and their expertise is desperately needed.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

Indeed. So that provision would hardly make any difference.

The main problem with the House of Lords is that there are too many people there. It is not that the Benches are overcrowded or that people have to turn up early to speak. The problem with having too many people in the House of Lords is that it gives too much power and patronage to the Government. The Bill will make absolutely no difference to that. That is not a reason to oppose it, however.

Our debating these important constitutional points today gives us an opportunity to say that the Government are in a difficult position on this matter. They introduced a massive Bill last year that would have fundamentally changed the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. It would effectively have created an elected House of Lords and put people in there for a 15-year term. Such a dramatic, radical step would have offended many Conservative sensibilities, and the Government failed to achieve consensus on the Bill. They also tell us constantly that they are worried about the other place because there are too many people there, yet they go on stuffing it—I use the word advisedly—with more and more political placements. It has reached the stage where even someone like me could hope to go to the House of Lords.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

If that happy day were ever to come, would my hon. Friend be one of the 92 full-blooded hereditary peers?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am perhaps not quite such a reactionary as my hon. Friend. I fear that his idea of reforming the House of Lords would be to get rid of all the life peerages and to return to the hereditary principle.

I do not go along with the Groucho Marx rule that it would not be worth being a member of any institution that would have me as a member. We all know, however, that in the past the House of Lords was reserved for people who had delivered extraordinary service to the nation, for example by serving in the Cabinet. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) said that only a quarter of the Members of the other place were former politicians, but when I go there these days, it is like looking at the House of Commons of 10 years ago. The same people are now there, and I believe that that gives far too much power and patronage to the Government.

For what it is worth, I would reform the House of Lords by going a lot further than the Bill and getting rid of the fundamental iniquity whereby the Government can go on appointing more and more people to it. I would set an upper limit on the number of its Members. It would be reasonable to set a maximum size of 650, the same as the House of Commons. That would concentrate minds and ensure that only the most distinguished people, such as former Deputy Speakers of the House of Commons, could end up there. We should aim for that level of distinction, Madam Deputy Speaker. My serious point is that setting an upper limit would concentrate minds. It would also prevent Governments from threatening to create extra peers if they could not get their way in relation to a particular Bill.

I cannot believe that there cannot be a mechanism for retirement. I am not talking about a voluntary mechanism. After all, if cardinals have to retire at the age of 80, why should not Members of the House of Lords do so?

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend knows that cardinals do not retire at the age of 80, and that they are merely excluded from the conclave that votes for a new papacy.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I did know that. I share with my hon. Friend a certain interest in those matters. It would be perfectly possible to allow Members of the other place who were over 80 to attend and go on using the facilities, but not to vote. That would put them on a par with the cardinals. I believe that setting a sensible retirement age and placing a limit on the number of peers would solve many of the problems.

The importance of this very small Bill in terms of constitutional change is that, if by some miracle it gets through its Second Reading by 2.30—I hope that it does, and there is no reason why it should not—and if it proceeds through the House of Lords in the ordinary way, we will have established the principle that it is possible to make these small, incremental changes.

We have been talking about these matters for a very long time. We started with the Parliament Act 1911, after which came the Bryce commission, which was set up by Lloyd George following the interregnum of the first world war. The commission failed to agree on any proposals. It is interesting to note that most people then favoured a House of Lords with 246 Members, chosen by MPs, from different geographical regions. I have said that there is something wrong with the size of the House of Lords, but there is also something wrong with the geographical spread of its membership.

About 22% of Members of the House of Lords come from London, and 18% come from elsewhere in the south-east. Only 2.94% come from my region, the east midlands, and 2.2% come from the north-east. That geographical concentration on London is a problem, and the House of Lords has become the home of the metropolitan liberal elite. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) would agree that it is a sad fact that there are probably now more social conservatives in the House of Commons than in the House of Lords. Without wishing to get into the whole subject of gay marriage, we saw that, when that legislation was passed. The membership of the House of Lords is not spread widely enough, geographically. If it had more Members from the midlands and the north of England, we might get a more representative debate.

I have mentioned the initial reforms that attempted to achieve such a geographical spread, and the Bryce commission, which proposed those ideas in 1922. At that time, people were still talking about limiting membership of the House of Lords to hereditary peers, albeit with some kind of election by the House of Commons. All along, however, and even in those early days, and there was a determination not to upset parliamentary conventions, as does this Bill, which I like, so there was no power to amend or reject money Bills and the Parliament Act would not apply. The gradualist notion that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire is talking about is important because it means that the fundamental conventions, which primarily ensure the supremacy of the elected House of Commons, are not affected. All those who take part in these debates must constantly repeat the point that no Bill should so radically alter the House of Lords or make it democratically justifiable in some shape or form that the supremacy of this House of Commons, which has been supreme now for over 100 years, would in any way be questioned.

The Marquess of Salisbury proposed a scheme based on the Bryce idea and that received a Second Reading in 1934, but again no progress was made. An inter-party conference on Lords reforms in the late 1940s agreed on nine principles, and I do not think any of them would be affected by this Bill, and none of them would fall foul of the notion of gradualism. They included the principle that no party should have overall control of the reformed House, that life peerages would be created, that women would be allowed to be Members and that allowances would be introduced. They at least had the right idea, therefore, which was that they should reform gradually.

The Life Peerages Act 1958 brought in life peerages, while the Peerage Act 1963 allowed all Scottish hereditary peers, previously subject to election as representative peers, as well as peeresses, to sit in the Lords in their own right, and we all know about the innovation of disclaiming a hereditary peerage, à la Tony Benn.

The Parliament (No. 2) Bill 1968 would have introduced various changes so that primary legislation was subject to shorter delays and so that the Commons had the power to override a Lords veto of statutory instruments. Harold Wilson dropped the Bill in order to allow time for more pressing Government business.

We are all familiar with what happened in 1999, so we do not need to rehearse it. That reform produced roughly the House of Lords we have today. What is interesting is the sheer number of reports that have followed it: the Wakeham commission of 2000, the White Paper, “Completing the Reform”, of 2001; the first and second reports of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform of 2002; the Government consultation paper, “Constitutional Reform: next steps for the House of Lords” of 2003; the Labour White Paper, “The House of Lords: reform” of February 2007; and its Green Paper, “The Governance of Britain” of July 2007.

These involved a wide variety of plans for mostly, or completely, elected Chambers. The point is that no consensus was ever found, and it is my contention that no consensus will ever be found, so let’s get over it. Perhaps we should send buses around London bearing billboards saying, “The House of Lords will not be elected: get over it,” because that is the reality. No consensus will ever be found in the House of Commons to create any kind of elected House of Lords, and that is why the approach we are trying to follow today is right and important.

The addition of any element of a reformed Chamber that includes directly elected Lords threatens the whole raft of conventions that have been carefully built up over 100 years, and which determine the relationship between the Commons and the Lords. These conventions are important and bear repeating: the Salisbury convention regarding Bills implementing manifesto commitments; the convention that the Lords do not usually object to secondary legislation; the convention that the Government should be able to get their business done in reasonable time; the financial privilege of the House of Commons; and the convention on the exchange of amendments between the Houses. These conventions are not unimportant. They are central to our constitution and I believe they have to be preserved because they conserve the supremacy of the elected House of Commons.

I am not in favour of these conventions being codified, because the lack of codification gives them a flexibility whereby they can adapt and change slowly over time. That is what we are doing with this Bill: we are slowly changing things over time. This adaptability and the ability to bend is a strength of the British parliamentary system and of our common law: it bends rather than breaks.

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[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend may not wish to. I am a bit surprised that he does not wish to criticise him; I expect he did when he was in this House. I do think it was a disgrace that Lord Heseltine decided not to grace the Lords with his presence for so long. I am strongly opposed to the concept of Buggins’s turns—that just because a person has filled a particular post, they should expect to get a peerage. That is wrong.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, because I think she is being unfair to some peers. There was a period, prior to the creation of working peerages, when people were raised to the peerage purely as an honour, and when that honour was given, there was no expectation that they would be day-to-day politicians. In more recent years that has changed and peerages have been almost entirely working peerages, but to change it for those who got it as an honour, and expect them to be day-to-day working politicians, would be unreasonable.

[Dr Coffey]

I understand what my hon. Friend says, and I am not suggesting that I expect everyone who has the privilege of being a Member of the Lords to be there every day, but they should be there to help by using their general expertise, which is often what they were appointed for. I disagree with the concept that just because someone served in a particular post, they should automatically become a Member of the Lords. That tradition has recently been broken, because the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has always become a peer until recently. That is welcome, because we should not assume that one aspect of noble service automatically leads to another. That has also been the case with Cabinet Ministers, not all of whom have been raised to the peerage.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I join everybody in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) for bringing forward the Bill? I add particular thanks for his great courtesy in discussing it with me before today, and informing me of some of the intentions behind it; I am enormously grateful for that. Madam Deputy Speaker, may I thank you for allowing me to catch your eye? I sat in my seat for the whole of the two days of discussion on the House of Lords Reform Bill, but Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers were like the deaf adder who stopped up her ear and charmed I ever so wisely, so I was unable to be called in that debate. But there is a great joy about Fridays, when there is less in the habit of deaf adders and more ability to speak about these great issues.

I begin by speaking on and complaining, criticising and carping about the process that is being used for a constitutional Bill. As I understand it, the Government have no intention of allowing time for this Bill to go into a Committee of the whole House and I will, therefore, if Second Reading goes through, move in accordance with Standing Order No. 63 for it to be so committed. The question of whether a Bill is of constitutional importance of the first order, which is how “Erskine May” refers to those Bills that should go into a Committee of the whole House, seems to me to be extremely clear: something that affects the membership of either House must, by definition, be a constitutional issue of the first importance.

This Bill may be accused of being a tidying-up measure. It may be said to be a matter of HR, but the question of who has the right to determine legislation is at the heart of our constitution and to put the Bill through using a process that does not give it the scrutiny of the whole House—the ability of every Member to attend the Committee—seems to be wrong. It might be being done just to save the blushes of the Lord President of the Council, who was not enormously successful with his previous effort, but it is disappointing that the Government are supporting the Bill but not allowing it sufficient time and the proper scrutiny that it needs.

As we have discovered in the course of this debate, there are some issues that need clarifying. They may, to some extent, be pedantic points, but the history of constitutional change is that it is often the technicalities—the pedantic points—that leave the greatest problems for the future; they are the unintended consequences or the change in the constitutional arrangements that was not intended.

The Bill tries to deal with problems that are not exactly new. I managed to find a reference in 1298 to the difficulty of getting Members to attend this House, rather than the other place. In those days a surety was required to ensure that Members turned up. The sheriff of Sussex required that the two deputies of Chichester should have surety and they simply ignored him. Some deputies from Bedfordshire were bound over in eight oxen and four draught horses. Now, some hundreds of years later, instead of demanding oxen and horses as surety for peers to turn up, we are going to say that they should be excluded.

On the face of it, that does not sound unreasonable. Surely, if someone is a member of a legislature, they should want to be actively involved, but can we not think of circumstances where that may not apply—where there may be good reason for non-attendance? What if a peer—if we go back to the second world war; this did happen—were to be a prisoner of war and were absent from the House for the whole period of that war? Think of peers who were captured at Dunkirk and were not able to come back until 1945. There is no exception under the Bill that would have allowed them to resume their peerage. There is for criminals, but there is none, as far as I can see, for those who are absent.

[Dan Byles]

My hon. Friend is aware that the Lord Speaker can certify leave of absence. The Bill does not state that that peer must turn up in person to request it. I would trust the Lord Speaker that should Lord Cormack be captured and interned overseas in a prisoner of war camp, he would probably be issued with leave of absence.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That makes the whole process arbitrary. If there is no requirement to apply for the leave of absence, that is tantamount to saying that if the Lord Speaker’s chum is absent, the Lord Speaker will give her chum a certificate, but if it is somebody that the Lord Speaker does not like, such a certificate will not be given. So we are saying that the Lord Speaker will determine who sits in the House of Lords. That cannot be right.

[Dan Byles]

To be clear, the Lord Speaker can issue leave of absence only in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House. Perhaps my hon. Friend’s beef should be with whether being interned overseas by the enemy of Her Majesty is currently in the Standing Orders of the House of Lords and whether it might be put there, rather than with the Bill. If there is a legitimate reason for a peer to be absent, that should be reflected in the Standing Orders of the other place. That would enable a certificate to be issued.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

But the Bill does not say that. If it is a matter for the Standing Orders of the House, that is a completely different kettle of fish.

The Bill is clear that peers must attend the House unless they have leave of absence, and it has to be assumed that leave of absence must be applied for and is not arbitrary, but there might be circumstances in which peers cannot apply for leave of absence. It is possible to envisage circumstances in which they might not wish to apply for leave of absence but, for sensible political motives, do not want to attend the House. For example, if a Government obtained a majority in this House on a very small minority of votes in a general election, which is not impossible, and then used the Parliament Act aggressively to overrule the House of Lords, a peer or group of peers might say that democracy had been abused and that they would not attend until after another general election. Would they then be excluded for making what might be a perfectly valid political point?

In this House we have the Sinn Fein Members, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) mentioned earlier. It is hard to see them accepting peerages in the first place, but let us imagine that as a result of the peace process a member of Sinn Fein accepted a peerage. If they then decided that the peace process were not going the way they wanted and that they had gone too far and had to withdraw from the House, would we then take the constitutional step of expelling them, or would we say that it would be better for them to remain? The difficulty with that, and the reason I am not in favour of the clause, goes back to the point my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire made about that being done through the Standing Orders of the House. Attendance or non-attendance is a matter for each House to decide for itself; it should not be determined in legislation.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Apparently in 1917 the House of Lords expelled two of its Members for being enemies of the King, so presumably there is a procedure whereby the House can expel its Members and it does not require legislation. Is that right?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I will come later to the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which is how those enemies of the King were expelled—I believe that they were a couple of royal dukes and one other rather more obscure peer who had got caught up with the Austrian army.

The House of Lords does not have the right to expel its Members, unlike the House of Commons, and for good reason. The House of Commons has that power, and always used to use it in relation to those who went to prison, but Members who are expelled can immediately stand for re-election, so the expulsion can be tested by the electorate. That seems to me to be an important safeguard.

The relatively modern Representation of the People Act 1981, which allows for the automatic expulsion of MPs imprisoned for more than a year, was intended to deal with an immediate political problem relating to the hunger strikers. As Members will remember, Bobby Sands was elected while on hunger strike in prison. It was enormously politically awkward for the Government that Members of Parliament were dying on hunger strike, so a law was rushed through to debar automatically people from standing for election to this House if they were in prison. That undermined the right of this House to regulate its own business. It was a bad emergency Act carried out for a political purpose, rather than a high constitutional one.

The House of Lords has never been able to expel Members, although it can suspend them and still retains a vestigial right to imprison them during the course of a Session. The reason is that it was always thought that it would enhance the powers of the Crown too greatly if it, by using a majority that it could cobble together through its patronage in the House, could remove obstreperous Members. The only way to remove peers was by a specific Act of attainder—as Members will recall, such Acts were used against people such as Stafford, who was expelled from the House and his titles struck down—or by bringing an action against a Member for treason. His titles would technically cease just before his execution; they would go with the Act of Parliament or the impeachment for treason. So there is a process to expel peers, but the reason it is very long and difficult is the fear that the prerogative power and the patronage of the Crown would be used to determine the membership of an upper House.

That is the historical context on why peers can only be suspended and not expelled. The Lords does have that power to suspend, in accordance with its Standing Orders. Much preferable to the clause on removal for non-attendance would be entirely to delegate that to the Standing Orders of the House of Lords, whereby a peer who was absent for a certain period would have to make a submission to return, would have to explain the reason for the absence, and would be suspended for the rest of the Parliament if those explanations were not satisfactory to the Lords. That would allow for the flexibility that would be needed in the case of a prisoner of war, somebody who was kidnapped, or somebody who was imprisoned in a foreign country. One can envisage that, say, in the case of a peer who had been involved with the Greenpeace demonstration in Russia, found guilty of piracy and sentenced to 15 years in prison, the House of Lords might want to waive proceedings on the absence ground even if it had already done so on the criminality ground.

[Dan Byles]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. I have been pondering whether, if a noble Lord were convicted and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment overseas and the Lords decided that that was an exceptional circumstance and not to remove them, the absence clause would accidentally catch them. That might need to be discussed further in Committee.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is conceivable that the peer in prison would be able to apply for leave of absence, but it is also possible that such facilities would not be made available. It would depend on the country in which he was imprisoned. The absence and attendance point is really a matter for the House of Lords under its Standing Orders. The Lords can deal with it perfectly adequately, and there are disadvantages to legislation.

The main disadvantage to legislation on the internal workings of either House is that it brings in the courts, contrary to the Bill of Rights, which is absolutely clear that no court is allowed to second-guess any decision or activity of the proceedings of either House. What is not clear is what counts as a proceeding. That has been discussed in the courts, leading to the Act of Parliament in the middle of the 19th century that allowed parliamentary publications to be covered by the exemption because there was a doubt as to whether privilege extended to what was in Hansard and therefore whether we might be free to say things in this Chamber but nobody was then free to report what we had said. That was clarified by an Act of Parliament to make it clear that even if Hansard is not a proceeding in this House, it is still covered by privilege. The courts are entitled to investigate areas that may not be proceedings or to determine whether something is a proceeding.

The courts intervening in the legislature involves a fundamental constitutional principle. We have always tried to avoid it, because it delegates ultimate control of the political nation to an unelected judiciary away from the democratic arms of the state that are here in Parliament assembled. I accept that the House of Lords is not democratically elected, but it comes with the certificate, in effect, of the House of Commons and is controlled through the Parliament Acts, whereas the judges are not. It also used to be the case that if either Chamber were interfered with by the courts, the ultimate arbiter of the proceedings in either House would be the House of Lords, which was the highest court.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Those who were arrested and charged with offences during the expenses scandal tried to use this argument and the judges struck it down. Were they right to do so?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a helpful point. That is the nub of the matter: the courts can determine what is a proceeding in Parliament, and although proceedings in Parliament are exempt it is arguable that a certificate issued by the Lord Speaker is not a proceeding in Parliament and that it is, therefore, challengeable in spite of the wording of the Bill, which was questioned earlier, that the certificate

“shall not be questioned in a court of law.”

That has been tried before. I remember the then Home Secretary, now Lord Howard, introducing a Bill that said that a certain something could not be reviewed by the courts, but the courts did so and said that it was unconstitutional. We now have great difficulties in passing laws that deny the European Court of Human Rights and our own domestic courts access to determining things. Even if legislation says something, an appeal to a European court may overrule it. That is why it is important to try to keep as much as possible within the proceedings of the House, because those clearly and definitively cannot be challenged.

As I have said, the absence issue is ancient. Lots of people, when appointed or elected to Parliament, end up not wanting to come, and that has been true for centuries. They would rather stay in their constituencies. As has already been asked, where is everybody today? This House has procedures and mechanisms that we could use—they are ancient and, because of the whipping system, have tended to be allowed to lie waste in recent centuries—if we wanted to enforce attendance, which, in previous times, prior to the whipping system, we were much stricter about.

The House of Lords, of course, has a much weaker whipping system as well as Cross Benchers, who, inevitably, are particularly likely not to turn up on every occasion, because they are not payroll politicians. They are not there to provide a majority for either side or to try to disrupt business as Opposition peers; they are there to contribute what they know. Cross Benchers, modest Lords and Ladies that they are, realise that they do not know everything about everything, unlike Members of this House, who, I am glad to say, do know everything about everything, at least most of the time. Therefore, maintaining flexibility and trying to solve a long-standing historical problem that does not have much of a solution would be best left to their lordships.

[Mr Chope]

Does my hon. Friend accept that another issue is that often Cross Benchers may attend but not actually vote and that, because the definition of voting is attendance, they might be caught out by the provision if they choose not to take sides in a particular debate?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is right. Given the looser whipping system, Cross Benchers do not necessarily know when the votes will take place. I have heard from some Cross Benchers that they feel that the votes are often deliberately scheduled for the point at which most of them will have gone home, because the party Whips prefer to keep the votes mainly among themselves, rather than have too many pesky Cross Benchers interfering, but that is anecdotal and may not represent the situation fairly. Others may want to dispute it. I agree that the position of Cross Benchers is particular and that voting certainly does not mean attendance. It is a different requirement. Indeed, activity in the Lords can mean different things: it can take place in general discussion, in Committee or on the Floor. I think that that is a matter for the Lords to determine for themselves internally, not for legislation, because legislation is ultimately justiciable, and then the courts get involved.

On the retirement or resignation issue, I raised one of my concerns in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire, namely the ping-ponging of people from this House to the House of Lords and back again. I can foresee a circumstance in which a body of entirely professional politicians—people who have never done any work outside the political arena—stand for Parliament in a marginal seat and win one election but lose the next, upon which the party bosses put them in the House of Lords and then the week before the next election they stand down in order to stand for election in their former constituency.

That would be disadvantageous for a number of reasons. First, it would increase the patronage of the party leaders because they would be able to provide a steady stream of income for loyalists. Members of this House who are in marginal seats would be under great pressure always to vote along party lines, because they would see that they were at risk of losing their seat, but that there was a nice billet on the red Benches if they behaved themselves.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Don’t Members think that already?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am not entirely sure that they do. Many Members of Parliament think that it is much better to be in this place and that the baubles of the other place—the strawberry leaves that one might get on one’s coronet if one wandered into the other place—are not sufficient compensation for moving on from this Chamber. I sympathise with that view. Strawberry leaves are wonderful, but better to be here without them than to be on the red Benches with them.

If it were possible to lose an election, be selected immediately for the constituency that one had just vacated, fight the campaign for five years as a peer of the realm, with all the advantages of expenses, envelopes and stamps, resign the week before nominations and then get back in again, that would be deeply unsatisfactory. It would be an improper way of using the constitution.

If people are to retire from the House of Lords, they should retire from politics. They ought not to be allowed back into the House of Commons. If they were allowed to come back, there should be an extended period of quarantine before they could do so. We should bring back the rabies rules: if somebody has been in the House of Lords, they should be kept safely out of the House of Commons for several years before we risk being bitten by them on their return.

It is important to consider what peers have committed themselves to. They know, when they are raised to the peerage, that it is an honour for life, but that that honour comes with certain disadvantages. The major two disadvantages are that they cannot vote in general elections and they cannot stand for Parliament. People do not have to accept a peerage. The Queen does not go around commandeering people and saying, “You’re going to the Lords, whether you like it or no!” They have agree to it, they have to go and see Garter, they have to discuss their title, and they have to pay for their letters patent to be drawn up so that they may be called “most trusty and well-beloved” subjects of Her Majesty and all those sorts of glorious things that we all like to be called. When they accept that honour, they ought to recognise that they have committed to give that service for the rest of their life. If ill health, old age or infirmity means that they are not able to attend, they still cannot take back the benefits that they sacrificed to take on the honour.

Retirement is a dubious principle at best, because people know what they are accepting. I also worry that it is ageist. I know that I do not often speak about equalities in this House—that is done by others more eloquently than I can do it. However, I believe that age discrimination is something about which this society should be increasingly concerned. That is partly because we have an ageing society, mixed with a peculiar cult of youth. I have never really subscribed to the cult of youth personally, as hon. Members will well understand. However, there has been a tendency in recent years to have younger political leaders and for older people to retire from the House of Commons at relatively young ages.

The last political area in this nation where age is really represented is the House of Lords. The bishops retire at 70 in the Anglican Church and at 75 if they are Catholics. Judges retire at 70. We are not quite being run by schoolchildren, but the youth of today are taking over. Where are the octogenarians and nonagenarians? They are in the House of Lords. That is a good thing because they represent many people in this nation. I know that it amuses hon. Members when I talk about nonagenarians, but we have a large number of them in society and many of them make a significant contribution to society and are actively involved in their communities and families. I am not sure that many nonagenarians are still working, but certainly many octogenarians are, and surely they should be represented. If there is one place where we can keep them, it is the House of Lords because there is no retirement age.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about nonagenarians. The editor of the New Milton Advertiser is, I think, 92.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I send my greetings and felicitations to that splendid gentleman and I hope that he continues for another eight years, so that he may reach his century. It proves my point: across society people are working to older ages, but legislation in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s has tended to impose tighter retirement ages, except in the House of Lords. I would not like the Bill to be used as a back-door way of introducing a retirement age. I accept that my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire is sensible of that point, and that the Bill provides for retirement or resignation.

I dislike resignation, because if people sign up to a duty, they should not just walk away from it. That is lightweight and improper, and I find it hard to believe that any peer of the realm who has taken on that grave responsibility and high honour should then think that it is right to swan off and leave the House of Lords. They have taken their honour from their sovereign.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I am interested to hear that it is not right just to swan off, but given that the writ suggests that people should be present in Parliament to give advice to the sovereign, does my hon. Friend agree that those people should turn up every now and again?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am all in favour of people turning up, but I made the point that there are valid reasons for not turning up as well as spurious ones. Of course there will be idle peers. It is even conceivable—although not in this current Parliament—that there have been idle Members of the House of Commons. You rightly look deeply shocked at that thought, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it must have happened on occasions. That does not mean that we should go around expelling Members of either House without knowing the full reasons for their actions, and it should be done under the auspices of the House. This House, through its Committees, has the ability to expel Members if it feels that is the suitable course of action. I cannot recall any example of a Member of this House being expelled for idleness. Some have been expelled for criminality, for treason or for libel, but I cannot think of one who has ever been expelled for idleness in the hundreds of years of the existence of the House. Penalties and fines have been introduced for non-attendance, but not expulsion, and it would be excessive to legislate for the House of Lords to expel for non-attendance when we are not willing to take it on ourselves.

Peers should of course obey their writ of summons and the Lords could introduce Standing Orders to cover that, but resignation would be improper. Having taken on a lifetime promise, people should not abrogate it willy-nilly. Retirement would be sad, because the Lords is the last representation in society of the elderly, and they are an increasingly important part of our society and deserve to be represented in the political nation. One of the great things about the Lords is that those of us who are little younger can wander over there and see some of the infirmities of age that are becoming such common issues across the nation. It helps bring those to the centre of the political debate and informs legislation on disability. The older people in the House of Lords have a deeper understanding of such issues than perhaps we do. That is valuable and I would strongly oppose any move to compulsory retirement. I would be cautious about clause 1 because it would open the way to that, and indeed that is what some of the promoters of earlier Bills probably wanted to see. Some people want a compulsory retirement age for peers.

Clause 3 is eminently sensible. It is a lacuna in our system that someone can serve a prison sentence and still be a Member of the House of Lords. They cannot invoke their privilege to attend the House of Lords when they are serving their prison sentences, but the day they are out they can come in.

One little point worth making is that I have checked two of, I believe, three peers in this situation, Lord Archer and Lord Black, neither of whom have participated in the House of Lords at any point since their convictions. There is, therefore, already a self-denying ordinance, which is attractive because our constitution works as much by convention as it does by statute law. We should not undermine the importance of that.

I have no objection to and indeed would be in favour of a more formalised rule. Having said that, the nub of the problem with a peer going to prison is as much to do with the title as with the ability to be in Parliament. I suggest that most people are not aware of the reasons why a knighthood can be removed and a peerage cannot be removed when somebody goes to prison. Equally, I would not like to make it easy to remove a peerage. It needs to be a difficult process because of a peer’s position as a legislator and the desire not to allow malign Governments, which do occur from time to time, to abuse a power that has been introduced for a very good reason. I would therefore like to see a different approach based on the Titles Deprivation Act 1917.

The 1917 Act—it is fascinating that we were three years into the war before we decided to do anything about this—set out the circumstances under which somebody could be reported to a Committee of the Privy Council for their peerage and title to be removed, which were that they had to be residing in an enemy country or fighting for the enemy in the current war. That had the advantage of essentially being a judicial process. I would argue that the deprivation of titles ought to be more a judicial than a directly internal matter. It is taking away not just something from a proceeding in Parliament; it is taking away an honour that it is used outside Parliament, is relevant outside Parliament and, in the case of an hereditary peerage, cascades down through the generations. This would allow, and I think the 1917 Act sets out a very good formula for doing it, the two members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council required to be on the Committee to consider whether somebody’s offence was serious enough that they should be deprived of their title, and therefore the rights and honours that go with it.

[Dan Byles]

I am listening with fascination to my hon. Friend, who is making some very interesting points. On his last point, is he not in danger of slightly contradicting his earlier point about allowing courts to interfere in this place? I understand the distinction he has made in saying that the removal of a peerage is about much more than just sitting in the legislature, but it does include sitting in the House of Lords. Under his proposed method, the courts would make a decision that would lead directly to a peer being removed from the House of Lords.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I would say it was analogous to an election court, where, if election fraud or misbehaviour during a general election was shown, a court would determine whether the seat had been won in a valid manner, because it is a second degree from the court’s action. The court’s action, or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council’s action, would be to remove the title, and it would follow from that that there would a removal from the House of Lords. I feel it would also allow a proper flexibility to consider the circumstances and would not, as was brought up by another hon. Member, mean that a judge, in passing sentence, would know that a 365-day sentence disbarred and a 364-day sentence did not, and that this must add to the weight of sentence. What if the situation were that a judge, in handing down a sentence, said, “If you were Joe Bloggs, I would give you a year in prison, but because you are Lord Bloggs you will receive an additional punishment on top of a year in prison. Therefore, I am going to remit part of the sentence.” What then? How would the Act apply to that? It would have been a year, but it is discounted. There are issues relating to suspended sentences.

We ought to be careful about unintended consequences. I am particularly concerned about the ability of foreign courts’ judgments to be recognised and to disbar people from peerages. I assume this is done in relation to Lord Black of Crossharbour and that his conviction in the United States is viewed as having tainted him in such a way that his peerage should be removed. I have great doubts about the judicial process used against Lord Black of Crossharbour, whom it is not my intention to defend particularly. Somebody he worked with was threatened with judicial, criminal action that would, if he had been found guilty, have led to an exceptionally long sentence, but which, if he turned evidence against Lord Black, would give him three weeks in a country club; and he took the latter option, as we might all have done.

That is how American justice and plea bargaining works. Even if they think they are innocent, people are under such pressure to accept the low sentence they would get with a plea bargain and the consequences of protesting their innocence are so great, that they find there is an injustice against them automatically. Worse than that, the prosecutors use them effectively to bribe witnesses into saying that the other chap, who is not co-operating, did it. By protesting their innocence, the other chap—Lord Black, in this case—risks a very long sentence that we should not take any notice of in this country. Indeed, I think it is restrained of him not to use his vote in the House of Lords. I would not think it improper of him, because he has not been found guilty of any offence in this country.

Hon. Members might think that view is very little Englander, but I happen to believe that the standards of justice in the United Kingdom are higher than those in other countries. That does not mean to say that all other countries are unjust, but other countries’ systems have injustices within them, and this issue of plea bargaining in the United States is one that is particularly egregious. But it is not just the United States, which is a close ally and has a common-law system, a system that we understand; the system on the continent is not one that we understand or are used to as Britons. It has the Napoleonic code. As Geoffrey Boycott so memorably said when he was in front of a French court, it is all in French—of all the audacities! They have different sentencing processes as well, so a crime that in this country might be viewed as a relatively modest offence could be seen as a very serious one in a foreign country or could relate to things that in this country are entirely legal. For example, in some countries, homosexuality is still illegal and is persecuted strongly. Are we to say that a peer caught out in those circumstances should be disbarred from the House?

I accept that there is the exceptionalism, but that is the wrong way around. If somebody has been through a British court and had judgment against them, that is a perfectly rational basis for determining their membership of a British Parliament, but if some foreign court has found against them, it does not seem to me to raise the same issues. Some foreign courts are willing to try people in absentia; others—the Italian courts come to mind—are extraordinarily political in how they approach prosecutions and sentencing. In that respect, I have some sympathy with Mr Berlusconi, whom I think was persecuted by extremely left-wing judges who wanted to use a legal mechanism to get him out of office, which they succeeded in doing. I will not stand up for his moral conduct, however; that is a different matter entirely, and a direction in which we do not want to go.

Russia has arrested these Greenpeace protesters for piracy, and piracy is an extremely serious crime. I understand that it carries a 15-year prison sentence. It is highly unlikely that the UK would have treated those people in that way. Now, I cannot imagine that peers would go hurling themselves about in boats in that fashion; it is far too energetic and not a sufficiently noble activity, and the ermine might get in the way—not to mention that their coronets would be falling into the sea as they climbed up the oil rig—but it is not inconceivable that a peer might be caught out in such circumstances.

On a further point, we are seeing in the affair over European opt-ins and opt-outs the EU’s increasing efforts to create a body of criminal law across the EU. I must confess that I would oppose the Bill even more strongly if I thought that the EU would be able to determine the membership of either Chamber. Part of the expression of our nation’s liberty is our free ability to decide who rules us, and that free ability comes through these two Houses of Parliament, in which no foreign court should ever be given an automatic say. It would be different if someone were found guilty of an offence here but, as I have said, the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 provides a clearer, more suitable model that does not risk bringing the proceedings of the House under the eyes of the courts, because it would be the title of the peerage itself—the honour—that was in question, not the proceedings.

That leads me to my last point, which relates to clause 5. Subsection (2) states:

“A certificate may be issued on the Lord Speaker’s own initiative.”

We should be very careful about this, on two grounds. As I understand it—I am sure hon. Members will correct me if I am wrong—there are two instances in which the Speaker of the House of Commons may issue certificates. The first is under the terms of the Parliament Act 1911, to enable a Bill to be passed without the assent of the House of Lords. The second is under the terms of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, following the passing of a vote of no confidence in the Government to enable an election to be held.

Proposals to involve Speakers in tendentious political matters should always be a matter of concern to us. Speakers in the Commons have a long-established history of being independent arbiters of the businesses of this House. Actually, it is not that long. They have been independent for only about 150 years; before that, they were much more party political. The Lord Speaker is an innovation, a post created to replace that of the Lord Chancellor, and it is a very different role from that of the Speaker here. It does not involve keeping order or calling speakers. The Lord Speaker is a more ceremonial post, created to ensure that the House may legitimately sit. The Lord Speaker does not order the business. The House of Lords is self-regulating, rather than regulated by a Speaker.

When the post was introduced, the Lords were extremely concerned that the Lord Speaker might model him or herself—it has been “herself” so far—entirely on the Speaker of the House of Commons and might interfere in a way that is necessary only in a lower and less orderly Chamber. Of course, such interference is unnecessary when you are in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, when we are all beautifully behaved, particularly on Fridays when everyone arrives with their shoes nicely polished. The better-behaved House of Lords resented the idea that it would need a Speaker of that kind, and I would be concerned about raising the profile of the Lord Speaker, contrary to what was promised when the lord speakership was introduced. I would also be concerned about the risk of bringing the Lord Speaker into the political arena and giving them a role that might not be purely administrative.

It is interesting to note that in the House of Lords Act 1999, the responsibility for issuing certificates was given to the Clerk of the Parliaments. That indicated that it was a purely administrative activity, but the power given to the Lord Speaker in this Bill would appear to involve judgment. Judgment begets politicisation, and it also begets challenge in the courts. I repeat what I said earlier about the risk of legislating in a way that would bring the right of the House to govern its own affairs into conflict with the courts. We do not want to get into that position, because the ability of either House to operate independently is essential to the free flowing of our democracy. Once the House of Lords’ procedures had been intervened on by the courts, it would not be long before the same happened to our procedures. A precedent would have been set. The more we use the ancient right of either House to regulate itself, and the less we legislate and involve the courts, the better it will be.

The Bill is genuinely good in parts, and I am very sympathetic to the idea of excluding criminals from Parliament. I am not unsympathetic to imposing some kind of sanction on people who do not turn up. I am, however, against the bits on retirement and resignation. One of the bits that I am in favour of ought to be achieved through the procedures of the House; the other bit ought to be done through a different form of legislation.

I shall conclude where I began by being strongly critical of the Government’s treatment of this first-class constitutional Bill.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does my hon. Friend think this should actually be a Government Bill? Were he to push for a Division on the basis of his notion that it should be a Government Bill and be taken on the Floor of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) would have to ensure there were 35 Members voting. That underlines the fragility of private Members’ Bills.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think constitutional Bills ought to be given the proper time and that requires them to be Government Bills, because Government controls the timetable in the House. It seems to me that the only reason why this is not a Government Bill and has not therefore been thought through more carefully is to save the blushes of the Lord President of the Council, who said he would not support a future House of Lords reform Bill after not getting his way last year. I think we will see from the Division Lobbies when we put the motion to have a Committee of the whole House where the Government’s heart is in this.

I think the Government ought to be clear about their view and intentions. If they support this Bill, it deserves a Committee of the whole House. It deserves to be debated thoroughly and properly clause by clause. It deserves to be considered by the many constitutional experts this House has—who are not here on a quiet Friday—so they have full time to table amendments and to ensure it is scrutinised thoroughly and the best Bill is passed.

I will greatly regret it if the Government do not allow that to happen because there are good parts of this Bill on which everybody could agree. Presuming you allow the Division I shall ask for, Mr Deputy Speaker, ere long we will see whether the Government will allow a Committee of the whole House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I am not that naive; there are two Bills after this one before we get to any of mine. The Government have already indicated that, although the House of Lords (Maximum Membership) Bill has received the Queen’s consent, that does not mean that it has their support. I live in hope, but as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), who is in charge of the next Bill to be discussed, nobody’s performance or career in this House should be judged on how many private Members’ Bills they have been able to get on the statute book.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Does my hon. Friend think that a contribution to the House should be judged on the number of Bills an hon. Member stops getting on to the statute book?

[Mr Chope]

I am not sure about that, in those blunt terms. It is often not clear how a Bill is stopped in its tracks. We know that the House of Lords Reform Bill was stopped in its tracks not by dealing with the issues of substance, but by a procedural device in relation to the programme motion. It may well be that when a vote is called shortly, I hope, on the proposal from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, we will see how many Members are here who wish to participate.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend. If fewer than 35 Members participate in the Division on the committal to a Committee of the whole House, that does not have the same effect as if fewer than 35 had voted on Second Reading. It will have no effect, ultimately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Byles]

Absolutely. I believe that Lord Steel, on his fifth attempt, started using the term “cessation of membership.” Perhaps they have had these discussions as well and that might be what we do.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset suggested that no peer was ever removed for idleness—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

No Member of Parliament.

[Dan Byles]

Sorry. He said that no Member of Parliament was ever removed for idleness, but an idle Member of Parliament must face the electorate, whereas there is no such sanction for an idle peer. My hon. Friend is in danger of being slightly inconsistent. On the one hand he upholds passionately the honour and privilege it is to receive the writ of summons and the need not to give it up lightly, yet on the other hand the idea that a peer can choose to turn up only once a Session seems to be acceptable to him.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think that that particular aim of the Bill would be better achieved through the Standing Orders of the House, rather than through legislation.

[Dan Byles]

I am very sensitive to that view and understand it. We face an interesting dilemma. I would like the Lords to be able to regulate themselves much more in those ways, yet there are constraints on what they can do in that respect, and they have asked us for those measures previously by passing them in their own House and then sending them to us. Once again, we are between a rock and a hard place on the best way to proceed.

I am also very conscious of the concern my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) expressed about the possibility that we might end up seeing financial inducements and what they might look like. The Bill certainly makes no argument in favour of that.

I take issue with the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made that the non-attendance issue is purely about presentation. He seemed to suggesting, “One can already have a leave of absence, and that does not cost anything, so what does it matter?” Actually, the status of a peer who is on leave of absence is a very grey area. They could be on leave of absence for 10 years and then come back, so can they be replaced? What if we ended up with half of all peers being on leave of absence? We could not replace them with new working peers because we would not know if any of them were ever going to come back. I understand his point, but I do not think that it is purely about presentation, because there are also practical implications. We need to know whether someone is a Member of the House of Lords or not and whether they are going to be taking part in business.

[Dan Byles]

I have a great deal of sympathy with that view. Again, so as not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I did not include something on that in the measure. We might get on to my hon. Friend’s Bill later today, when we can discuss that point.

I will mention the foreign courts issue briefly, because it has been raised a number of times. I have discussed it prior to today with a number of hon. Members. I am very sensitive to the question of whether a conviction in a foreign court should deprive a peer of the realm of their place in the House of Lords. I do not think that it is as clear cut as saying, “Let’s simply make it UK courts.” It would be very difficult if a peer was convicted of an offence in Australia and New Zealand, or somewhere that has a relatively unimpeachable judicial system that compares to our own, and sentenced to two years imprisonment, if that offence would warrant a two-year sentence here. There would be no way to remove them, whereas they would have been removed if they had been convicted and sentenced for the same offence in the UK. Again, I am open to discussing whether the wording in the Bill is exactly right and seeing whether there is a better way of doing that. I am sensitive to people’s concerns about the foreign courts issue and have heard them loud and clear.

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and colleagues and sincerely hope that they will be able to support the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish to move, under Standing Order No. 63, that the Bill, having been given a Second Reading—I am clarifying that for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope)—be committed to a Committee of the whole House.

[Emily Thornberry]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that after yesterday’s surrender of powers by the Home Office to the European Union by bringing the European Court of Justice into the arrest warrant, the Commission has welcomed it as pragmatic? Has pragmatism overtaken the Prime Minister’s popular desire to repatriate powers?

[The Prime Minister]

The Home Secretary’s announcement yesterday represents the repatriation to the UK of 98 powers. There were 133 items on the justice and home affairs list, which is a massive transfer of power back here to the UK. I think my hon. Friend should welcome that.

Debate on the Address

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

It is all very well having a Whips’ question, but the Government are borrowing £245 billion more. Three years, no growth, a flatlining economy—that is the record of this Chancellor.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He said we have borrowed more, but will he answer in the House the question he would not answer on Radio 4—how much more will he borrow?

[Edward Miliband]

This Government are borrowing more. Of course a temporary cut in VAT has a cost and would lead to a temporary rise in borrowing—[Interruption.] Let me say this: that would get growth moving in this country and would be much more likely to get the deficit down. That is the difference. The International Monetary Fund is in town, and what is it telling the Chancellor? It is saying, “Change course. Your plan is not working.” That is the reality.

I am glad that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) intervened because I will come to his point later in my speech. He advocates not just a pact with UKIP but a coalition—Deputy Prime Minister Farage in place of the Liberal Democrat leader.

Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I note my hon. Friend’s intervention, but I remain concerned about the royal charter. Even changing the royal charter requires the changes to be laid before both Houses and to secure a resolution by two thirds in both Houses. We do not do things by two thirds in this place; we do things by 50% plus one.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The two-thirds thing is obviously nonsense, because this House cannot bind its successors and a future Parliament can simply delete it.

[Mr Walker]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I agree that the two-thirds provision is nonsense. It first appeared in this House as part of the fixed-term Parliament legislation. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

I have probably gone on for far too long. Many better speeches than mine will be made today, and already have been. All I would say is that we have to strike a note of caution. I am not sure that today is the wonderful day that everyone is portraying it to be; in fact, I think it is a very sad day. I hope that we do not live to regret this at some stage in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I think I will leave that to one side, but I did object slightly to the front page of The Sun today, because its hyperbole did it no favours. It did not inform the debate and I think it was unwise.

My interest in this issue started before I was elected as an MP, when the two girls were murdered in Soham. A friend of mine, Tim Alban Jones, was the vicar of Soham and I remember clearly that every door in that village was knocked, not just once but many times, because members of the press—and, sometimes, television and radio crews—were desperate to find some new angle to the story in order to sell their newspapers. Frankly, that community was in complete and utter shock. The press was not doing anything illegal, but it was unethical and immoral and it bullied and hounded the local community, which was deeply distressing, particularly to the families who had lost loved ones.

It took the vicar to stand up for the community and say, “Listen folks: will you please just leave this community alone?” The Press Complaints Commission in that instance was completely and utterly useless. I think the Prime Minister once referred to the PCC as a busted flush and that is exactly what it has proved to be.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The BBC has a royal charter. Will the hon. Gentleman remind me of how well it has behaved in recent years, particularly in relation to Jimmy Savile? Is a royal charter an amazing thing that prevents abuses from ever taking place?

[Chris Bryant]

No, of course not. I think it was Thomas Hughes, who wrote “Tom Brown’s School Days”, who said that simply passing a law will not make everybody obey the law and that making theft illegal did not prevent everybody from being a thief.

I was in the High Court this morning to hear yet more revelations about how a phone belonging to a Member of this House was stolen from her car in 2010 and then, only late last year, its private details accessed by The Sun. Personally, I do not think that the editor of that newspaper should still be in his job. It is incredible that an organisation that had said that it was cleaning out the Augean stables was still, in September and October of last year—long after the Milly Dowler revelations came out—behaving in this extraordinary way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I join in the praise of the Prime Minister, which has become commonplace in this debate, although I do so for a different reason—not for this royal charter, but for accepting the constraints of collective responsibility? He has fought a valiant battle for the freedom of the press but, unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats do not believe in it and we therefore have the restriction on the freedom of the press that we find with this royal charter and this debate. Collective responsibility required that the Prime Minister should lead a united Government on this and I think he was right to do so, because the alternative was to have the Lib Dems with us in the Division Lobby one day and with Labour the next, and that is not a Government; it is, as I believe Palmerston put it, a mere coalition of atoms.

Why is a free press important? Why is freedom of speech important? Why is it a right that this House demands as an absolute? Since the Bill of Rights was introduced, we have been free here to say anything that we like. We can cast aspersions upon anyone we want, powerful or weak; we can make them up. The only constraints we have—not to be rude about the royal family, about judges or about ourselves—are those that the House itself has imposed. We have those freedoms because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) said, we recognise that the way to redress grievance is by being free to do so and having no constraint on what we say in this place. As soon as a constraint is imposed, we find that the Crown, as it used to, will use its powers to suppress a free press.

Before the Bill of Rights, what happened? MPs who said the wrong thing got sent to the Tower. The Prime Minister might think that that is an attractive option to have at his command, but freedom increased the power of the people against the Executive. We see that with newspapers: they hold us to account; they expose wrongdoing, corruption and criminality; and as they do it, they upset powerful people. Indeed, many Members of Parliament were upset over the expenses scandal—a scandal that was revealed only because a brave press was willing to use stolen information.

I am concerned about deciding to license the press—and that is what we are doing. If newspapers do not sign up to this agreement, they risk paying a high level of costs on any occasion when they are sued for libel, and that will be introduced by statute. If they do not sign up to the agreement, they risk punitive damages. Members of the House who are interested in their history will know that the law of criminal libel was used to put down the power of those who criticised Governments. Why was John Wilkes arrested? It was for a criminal libel. By increasing such powers and the viciousness of the laws against those newspapers that will not be registered and licensed by the state, we undermine our freedoms.

As for this wonderful charter, I, like the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), am reluctant to criticise the power of the Crown. The introduction to the charter reads:

“NOW KNOW YE that We by Our Prerogative Royal of Our especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion do by this Our Charter for Us, Our Heirs and Successors will, ordain and declare as follows”.

By the sovereign’s mere motion, those who regulate the press are to be chosen, appointed and selected. It is the state that is taking on this power, with some minor protections against its being changed—but, oh, how minor those changes are! We hear that there will be three lines of legislation—three lines—to prevent the charter from being changed. Three lines of legislation can be repealed by one line of subsequent legislation; there is little protection in that. The motion of one charter may be created with further charters. It might perhaps be hard to alter it, but there is always the possibility of new charters to come.

We see, therefore, the risk of increasing state power over our media, leading not immediately to direct censorship but to self-censorship, which we are already seeing with the press being reluctant to criticise the great and the good. I am reluctant to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot, but I think that Hacked Off is a most disreputable body that used the sad tales of a small number of victims whose bad treatment was often against the law as the cover for a campaign for celebrities who had disreputable pasts that they did not like being reported.

European Council

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

There is rejoicing in Somerset at the good news that the Prime Minister has brought back. Could he tell the House what example this sets for the renegotiation and whether it bodes extremely well for our getting rule back to Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. I am glad to know that the good people of Somerset are in a hearty mood. This deal shows that those who build alliances, make strong arguments and stand up for what they want can get a good deal in Europe.

Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

The Commission is examining that matter, through the Administration Committee, and I did not wish to cut across the work of the Commission, for which I have the highest regard. My personal view—I think I am on record as having said this to the Administration Committee—is that former Members should not be allowed to have passes. I hope we can examine that in the Committee stage of this Bill. I would certainly be receptive to the idea of making alterations to remove the reference to former passholders, but I am mindful that this issue is on the Administration Committee’s agenda and I did not wish to prejudge anything. I hope that has provided some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue, because he has led me on nicely—perhaps he read my mind—to the registration of lobbyists, which is dealt with in clause 1. As set out in the Bill, those who undertake this activity—I hope we have had a good discussion and have now established what the definition is—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

rose—

[Thomas Docherty]

I see I have roused the hon. Gentleman.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I am not entirely sure that we have clarified the definition. I would like to return to his example of the priest who lobbies on behalf of his religion. For proselytising religions, surely lobbying is part of the function for which they receive remuneration, even if, in the case of a Catholic priest, it is only a modest income to allow them subsistence.

[Thomas Docherty]

I have an incredible amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have the privilege of serving on the Procedure Committee, but I do not share his analysis of the role of a Catholic priest or, indeed, any other person of the cloth. It is not in their job description to be lobbying on public policy issues. I am sure that on another day the hon. Gentleman might be tempted to start the debate about the Reformation and the limitations placed on the Church of England to prevent interference in the monarch’s role in legislating, but I know that he is saving that for another day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

I am sure that as this day goes on, my arguments and those of other colleagues will persuade the hon. Gentleman to change his mind. In fact, we might even be lobbying him later.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am more sympathetic to the Bill than my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) is, but there is a grey area that has not been satisfactorily defined. That involves people who, within their paid work, end up doing a bit of lobbying. It would be hard to explain that they were being paid to work 39 hours a week and that for one hour a week they were volunteers. I do not see how we could make a legal definition along those lines.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman has made a significant point. I served as a lobbyist, both in-house and as a third-party consultant, for a number of years. He is right to suggest that someone could undertake what most people would define as lobbying activity on a part-time basis. For three years, I worked in the nuclear industry, for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. My official title was press and public affairs officer, and, in effect ran BNFL’s operation in Scotland. I was responsible for working with the local community on a range of stakeholder issues, I drafted the press releases for the Chapelcross and Hunterston sites, and I looked after Sellafield’s inquiries in Scotland, which involved going to the Scottish Parliament. I also recall spending two or three wonderful days in the Western Isles making a presentation to the council on technetium discharges into the Irish sea.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that someone can undertake lobbying activities without that being their sole purpose. Any relatively reasonable individual—I can think of no better description for the hon. Gentleman—who looked at a job description and saw lobbying activities among the core functions, or the outcome of lobbying as a measure related to pay, would draw a reasonable assumption from that.

I must remind the House that the definition I have used is the one used by the UK Public Affairs Council in its submission to the PASC inquiry on this subject. I have met representatives of a wide range of organisations, including the Association of Professional Political Consultants and Unlock Democracy, and they have been satisfied that the definition is suitably robust. The Bill tries to strike the right balance by using a definition that goes as widely as is reasonable without inadvertently drawing in the kind of individuals that Conservative Members have mentioned, such as members of the local chamber of commerce or people who come along to make representations to their Member of Parliament or local authority.

I will make some progress now, as I am conscious that other Members wish to speak in the debate. A registration process exists at the moment. The largest single organisation is the Association of Professional Political Consultants, which has been in existence for about 18 years. It is made up of most of the well-known lobbying and public affairs companies and many small companies, as well as political consultants—that is, third-party lobbyists. The association has a membership of about 50 companies and individuals who work as sole traders. They all sign up to the association’s register, and they have to abide by its code of conduct. They also have to publish on a quarterly basis a list of their clients, including those for whom they are doing paid work and those for whom they are working pro bono. It is interesting to note that a number of companies undertake pro bono work. They do so for various reasons, and I dare say that some of them do it to get some good PR for themselves.

In 2009, when the then Cabinet Office Ministers were considering their response to the previous PASC report on this issue, a number of the leading players in public relations got together. They included not only APPC members but representatives of the law firms that have public relations arms and of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. They decided that they had a choice, and that a statutory body would be set up if they took no further steps and failed to recognise the significant problems that the PASC report had identified, which Ministers were considering. That was one of the clear outcomes of the PASC report. They therefore set up the body known as UKPAC—the United Kingdom Public Affairs Council.

I was the secretary of the Scottish branch of the APPC for a while, and I attended one of the meetings in the summer of 2009 at which the APPC board discussed UKPAC. I remember counselling the board that a voluntary system would not work, and in the two and a half years since it was set up, it has not worked. I will explain more about that later. It is interesting to note that there was agreement on this issue among those in the industry. It is important to remember that it is an important, multi-billion pound industry.

Lobbying is a healthy part of our democracy. We have already heard some examples of the roles that it can play, and no one has criticised them. We have heard about local businesses or religious organisations being involved, as well as companies being employed by individuals. In a parliamentary democracy such as ours, it is every citizen’s right to lobby their Member of Parliament, and I believe that it is their right either to lobby their MP themselves or, if they feel that they do not have the time or the skills to do that, to employ someone else either individually or collectively to do it for them. That is not to say that those who are so employed and who make a financial gain from lobbying should be allowed to do so unchecked, without any rules whatever. Registration is an important step in the right direction.

A journalist from a relatively august newspaper—not quite The Times; it was an almost august newspaper— phoned me yesterday to ask me how many people worked in lobbying and public affairs. I have taken a close interest in this issue, both before I entered the House and since, but I did not know how many people were working in that field. I think it was the Library briefing note that estimated that only 1% of those working in public affairs were third-party lobbyists—that is, consultants—and that 99% worked in-house. It is therefore vital that registration should cover not only third-party lobbyists but all those who undertake commercial, paid lobbying. Both PASC reports have acknowledged that, as have the industry players and Unlock Democracy—not, perhaps, a natural ally of the lobbying industry. Indeed, everyone—bar one important group of people—believes that any register or code of conduct should cover all those who undertake commercial lobbying.

To use a made-up example, it would be ridiculous if “Landmines R Us” were not required to register its multi-million pound public affairs operation because that operation was in-house, while those whom it employed as third-party consultants were required to be registered even though they accounted for only a tiny proportion of the time and money the company spent in that area.

A Member asked me a question this morning in the Tea Room. I am always loth to give away Tea Room secrets—[Interruption.] To be fair, as I recall it, he was heading out of the door, so I take that into account. He asked me why the Bill did not deal only with third-party lobbyists, and the answer is that they are such a small percentage. It would be strange if it dealt only with the third-party lobbyists and not those who work in-house. We need a level playing field. That was the conclusion of PASC and Unlock Democracy, and it was the conclusion reached by the industry itself. I am not sure that the Cabinet Office is there yet, but I know the Minister is considering the matter carefully. Perhaps she will be in a position to comment either today or in the near future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

That’s the hon. Gentleman’s career over, then.

I am going no further than the Government in this regard. I am arguing—and I suspect that the Minister agrees, although I must wait to hear what she says—that introducing a statutory register that simply replicates the voluntary register that already exists will involve no cost to the taxpayer other than the initial costs of the Bill’s publication and a small amount of Cabinet Office time. Now that the House of Lords proposal has been defeated, the Cabinet Office has a lot more time on its hands. There will be no cost to the taxpayer, because all the fees associated with the running and maintaining of the register and the council will be met by those who work in the industry, as happens at present.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think that there is always a cost to the taxpayer in these cases, one way or another, but may I return the hon. Gentleman to the issue of the definition? He has talked about industry standards, the way in which lobbying is defined by existing lobbying groups and so forth, but we are talking about the definition in clause 4, which is the definition that will go into the black letter of the law. It seems to me that the black letter of the law is very wide in this context, and that it would include the finance director and the chief executive. I believe that the definition needs to be tightened up in legislative terms, although it may be more appropriate to deal with that in Committee.

[Thomas Docherty]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has always been a passionate supporter of debates on the clause 4s of this land. As he suggested, the issue that he has raised could be considered in Committee—and I think that I am seeing a volunteer for the Committee, if he can fit us in with his various other important roles in the House.

Even if we accept that there will be a marginal cost to the taxpayer in connection with the work of the Cabinet Office, surely the benefits of a transparent and cleaned-up lobbying industry will far outweigh it.

Let me now say a little about the composition of the lobbying registration council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman has anticipated what I am about to say. The question of the code of conduct goes to the heart of the issue. At present there is, dare I say, some divergence between my starting point and that of the Minister, but she is an entirely reasonable Minister, and I know that she is reflecting on the matter.

The code of conduct is crucial, because without a code of conduct a council registration is entirely pointless. If we do not define an acceptable activity, what is the point of spending time on maintaining a register? Let me say a little about what the code of conduct should include and what it may include, and, perhaps, give the House an example of appalling behaviour on the part of someone who has repeatedly failed to sign up to such a code.

For the same reasons that I articulated about the composition of the council, I have tried today to avoid prescribing the full terms of the code of conduct. Some of it will be self-evident; we all know what is and is not acceptable behaviour. I have referred, however, to the specific example of parliamentary passes, which the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East touched on earlier. I believe it is entirely legitimate for an individual to own shares in a company. I am glad we have a free market, as I believe in the capitalist system—I am probably doing my cause with my party no good at all by saying such things.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

But the hon. Gentleman is making himself much more popular with the voters of Somerset by doing so.

[Thomas Docherty]

Oh good; I have always thought that the residents of Somerset are sound people, and their cream is pretty good as well.

I have no problem at all with an individual making a comfortable living by any reasonable means, and the fact that someone holds public office should not prevent them from holding shares in companies. At present there are specific rules about how Ministers must conduct their financial affairs. I recall a meeting I had with a Conservative Minister—regrettably, he has now left the Government. I had not heard of him before, so before meeting him I looked up his register of interests. He was appointed by the current Prime Minister to the House of Lords, and he had a vast number of interests, some of which were fascinating. For example, he was director of “Wisden”, which is a very sound organisation. Although he had a long list of interests, however, we all had confidence that he had placed his shares into a trust. It is entirely appropriate that Members of either House should be able to own shares in any company, provided they have no direct influence on it.

However, I do not think it is acceptable—and I think the public agree on this—for serving Members of either House, in addition to their remuneration for their work at Parliament, to be paid by outside organisations to lobby. There were some very regrettable incidents in the last Parliament and in previous Parliaments. A very small number of Members—I will not say hon. Members, because they clearly were not that—undertook activities of which the House and the country greatly disapproved.

There is currently a significant loophole in the other place, as Members there can receive significant remuneration from outside organisations for lobbying—under the definition of that term as set out, and which is accepted by everyone. I will not name the individuals concerned, but I have given the Minister a couple of examples that have caused some controversy. Under the Bill, serving peers—indeed, any passholder—would not be able to receive remuneration from outside organisations for seeking, for financial gain and in addition to their parliamentary activities, to influence public policy.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I am concerned that there may be a pedantic loophole in clause 3. A Member of Parliament who is married to another Member of either House might be exempt from the requirement set down. Is that the case, or is there to be a hierarchy of passes?

[Thomas Docherty]

I think we all agree that the hon. Gentleman comes at the top of any hierarchy in this House, and I bow to no one in my admiration for his ability to find pedantic loopholes, but I do not think he has done so on this occasion. I am happy to talk again to the Clerks who drafted the Bill, however—and it is again clear that the hon. Gentleman wants to serve on the Committee. To answer his question, the other person will not have received their pass because they are a spouse; they will have their pass because they are a Member in their own right. I hope that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It does. It is clear that there is a hierarchy of passes. Someone might be entitled to a pass as a spouse, but having a pass as a Member of Parliament trumps that. I am grateful for the clarification.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. Let me segue slightly into that. For the benefit of hon. Members, “segway” is a type of transport that is currently fashionable with many younger people who work outside the House. More and more planning companies are setting up public affairs arms to lobby on planning applications. That is particularly true in Scotland under the new Scottish planning policy, where for a development over a certain size—say, 50 houses—a public consultation must be undertaken.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that if a planning consultancy is directly undertaking the lobbying to influence and shape the policy of the councillors, it should be covered, but if a planner attends a meeting to provide technical answers, that is factual, in the same way as architects and transport consultants would provide technical answers. To return to my example of retailers, if Sainsbury’s brings its head of sourcing along to answer technical questions, nobody outside the House believes that they should be captured by the legislation. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.

Let me return to the example of Mr Cummings. There is an assumption that a person who is going to meet someone should be transparent about their status and the purpose of the meeting. So the hon. Member for Carlisle has agreed to meet someone because they purport to be an employee of a company that he would trust. Trust is an important factor. I know that many hon. Members have a principled view that they will not meet third-party lobbyists. I respect that viewpoint; they are entitled to it. It is vital that both in-house and third-party lobbyists are registered, so that others can go on to the company’s website, type in such-and-such a name and see if they work for Taylor Wimpey, in this example, or if they work for a third party. The hon. Gentleman may not have agreed to the meeting if the person was a third-party lobbyist.

Once the hon. Gentleman has agreed to a meeting about a particular planning application—he might serve on a Select Committee and be approached in that role, or he might be a Front Bencher with a particular policy responsibility and a company might approach him and say, “That is within our bivouac. I am keen to meet to make our points to you,”—it is crucial that the hon. Gentleman is comfortable that he knows who that individual actually works for. What should not happen is for the first 45 minutes of the meeting to be spent on the subject matter on which he has agreed to meet, but then he is ambushed for the last 15 minutes because the person says, “By the way, I also happen to represent another completely different company—“Landmines R Us” in my made-up example—and while I’ve got you here, I just want to say a few words about it.”

That is inappropriate behaviour. Under the APPC code, which to an extent is motherhood and apple pie, but none the less is a step in the right direction, that is not allowed. When a meeting is requested, it must be clear whether a consultant works for the company that they purport to represent or is employed as a third party on its behalf, and the meeting should be on the agreed subject matter only. If an hon. Member wishes to raise a further matter, that is for them, but Members should not be ambushed.

When Mr. Cummings is pitching to clients or has a client, he will often play off his contacts. To use a legal analogy, we would expect that in advocating a case the success of those who are fortunate enough to be lawyers—I use my brief loosely—would be based on the strength of the argument, not on whether they know the judge. If a lawyer told a constituent that he should hire him because he knows the judge and has another case in front of the same judge and so can have a bit of a word with him, I think the Minister would probably agree that that would not be acceptable. It is unethical and immoral to both clients falsely to purport to have a level of influence or access to a Member of Parliament or councillor on one case and to use it for another case. Having spoken to colleagues on both sides of the House, it is probably fair to say that if they were aware that people such as Mr Cummings were using their access to raise other issues, they would be horrified.

Some colleagues will recall that the Cabinet Office introduced a Bill earlier in this Session to reform the House of Lords. For a reason that I never fully understood the Government dropped that, regrettably. I spoke in the debate and said that I thought that the Lords Temporal should be removed in a reformed House of Lords.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Lords Spiritual.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful, as ever. Lords Spiritual. The following day, on the chair in my office was a brochure from the National Secular Society. I thought it had come in the post and did not think much about it. It went into the round filing cabinet shortly afterwards. Later my researcher asked if I had seen it and told me that it had been on the desk when he came into work. I should probably confess to the Serjeant at Arms that I had not locked my door overnight. A lobbyist employed by the NSS had been given a pass to the House of Lords by a peer, whom I shall not name. It turns out that he was using his pass to walk up and down the corridors of the House of Commons, dropping off materials to Members. He knocked on my office door two or three times, just dropped by, without any invitation at all, looking to have a word with me because I had spoken in the debate. I think you would probably agree, Mr Speaker, that that is unacceptable. Here was somebody with privileged access to the House in a way that other individuals did not have, and used it to obtain undue influence. I hope that you will look carefully at this issue of peers providing passes to lobbyists outside. I know that you have established a commission of inquiry under my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), and you will be aware that APPG passes are being considered by the Administration Committee.

There is a broader issue here about Members of the House of Lords handing out passes, ostensibly for research purposes, to outside organisations who then use that access to come down to the House of Commons to hand out materials and try to catch Members of Parliament without appointments.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I felt slightly guilty when the hon. Gentleman used that example, because it occurred to me that many of us may have done something similar when canvassing, trying to get into blocks of flats that were locked. Perhaps people in glass houses should not throw too many stones.

[Thomas Docherty]

My house is made of bricks and mortar. Perhaps it is not as fancy as those of other hon. Members. I am not sure how many tenements there are in North East Somerset; probably slightly fewer than there are in central Fife, where the hon. Gentleman was not quite so successful when he stood for election. However, there is an important difference in that any member of the public can buzz on the tenement trade services door—I suspect that the hon. Gentleman does not often do so, although he might for canvassing purposes—but any member of the public cannot simply have access to the corridors of Portcullis House, Star Chamber Court or the Upper Committee Corridor.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

indicated assent.

[Thomas Docherty]

I think the hon. Gentleman agrees. The House authorities should discuss that matter with the House of Lords. I hope that satisfies the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East on why passholders should not undertake paid lobbying.

To return to the example I was describing, it is not just a matter of the unethical behaviour of purporting to represent one client and seeking a meeting with another. We would frown on that and it needs to be stamped out, but in itself it is not Mr Cummings’s worst offence. The House will be aware that particularly in local government there are rules about what councillors can say publicly and privately during a planning application. That is true throughout the United Kingdom and there are good reasons for it, but there are also reasons why a Member on a Select Committee or considering a matter before the House may wish to keep their counsel on a particular matter. From time to time, we receive phone calls from journalists seeking our views—some more than others, I suspect. It is not unnatural to be happy to provide some background briefing to journalists on a non-attributable basis in order to be helpful, and I know that all hon. Members are always helpful to the media.

Mr Cummings employs someone to phone up politicians or councillors, including Members of the Scottish Parliament, because he operates largely in Scotland, and that person claims to be a freelance journalist interested in retail development in Fife. The caller asks for 10 minutes, off the record, to get people’s thoughts on the provision available and whether there are too many Tescos in the area. The politicians do not know that that is a complete pile of cobblers. This is an employee of a lobbying firm who is trying to establish the views of politicians, either during or before the lodging of planning applications for a major supermarket, for some housing developers. The problem is that it is not a crime to impersonate a journalist. I am not sure why someone would want to impersonate a journalist in particular, but that is the kind of behaviour that the House would regard as completely unacceptable. Many developers are not aware that Mr Cummings is using that tactic, but it needs to be brought to the public’s attention. I hope that the Minister will accept that that is why a code of conduct is so important.

Mr Cummings also seems to revel in bullying. He likes to intimidate people who disagree with his clients’ views. He believes that it is perfectly acceptable to plant employees in public meetings, to support his projects. He does the same if there is a rival project. If two supermarkets or house builders are going for the same development in a town, for example, and the council has only a limited allocation to grant, he will put plants into meetings to heckle those who oppose his clients’ schemes or to whip up opposition to other people’s schemes, often on unfounded grounds.

Mr Cummings also has the interesting habit of putting up candidates for community council elections. For the benefit of those who do not have the privilege of living in Scotland, I should say that a community council is a body of statutory consultation that, unlike town and parish councils, has no levying powers, although it will often get small amounts of money from local authorities to spend on flower beds and clean-up-the-village campaigns. It is a statutory consultee on any planning application. Mr Cummings will find supporters early in the planning process and at the next community council election, which is often uncontested, will stand four or five people to get them the jobs of chair, secretary and planning secretary, to make sure that his clients receive favour.

Such behaviour is utterly unacceptable; no one in the House would regard it as appropriate. It needs to be stamped out, which is why a code of conduct to underpin the register is so important. Without that, Mr Cummings would simply register and then carry on with his utterly reprehensible behaviour.

[Thomas Docherty]

That is helpful. I might well take that opportunity and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for suggesting it. One or two members of the Press Gallery might look at the Official Report as well. I keep my website updated with copies of speeches, and after today I hope to place at least a couple of Second Reading speeches on it. The hon. Gentleman has been helpful, and I will take up his suggestion.

I have detained the House for quite a while.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

No!

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, courteous and kind, although perhaps mischievous on this occasion.

There has been a genuine discussion about the principles of lobbying—what we think is acceptable and unacceptable. Let me close with an anecdote about something that affected me personally. As a parliamentary candidate, I opposed one of Mr Cummings’s planning applications for 2,000 new houses in my constituency, in the north of Dunfermline. I supported the local residents near that wonderful greenfield site, which was open for recreation and well used. I should say that Mr Cummings’s client had every right to bring forward an application, and I will not mention their name; I think they were innocent in this matter.

Two things happened that the Minister might want to reflect on. Mr Cummings was organising workshops for the local residents. He portrayed them as an opportunity for an independent mediator to listen to the residents’ concerns. He said that that would allow him and his client to listen constructively to those concerns and to go away and adjust the plans. He did not tell the residents who turned up for the meeting that the so-called independent facilitator was his live-in girlfriend, who was being paid by Invicta to conduct the so-called independent facilitating meetings that were supposed to allow proper feedback.

Any reasonable person would think that a live-in lover who was being paid to hold the meeting would be unlikely to be entirely independent. That is why a register of every employee involved in lobbying is important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful, Mr Speaker. You are, of course, one of the most charitable people one has the privilege of serving with. My apologies for having forgotten to wish you a very happy 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago. Last time I was here on a Friday with a private Member’s Bill, it was your birthday, and it was remiss of me not to take the opportunity to place that on the record—I apologise.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman thinks that Mr Speaker, like Her Majesty, should have two birthdays so that it can be doubly celebrated.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Duddridge]

I accept that absolutely in relation to pure lobbying firms. However, I have been lobbied by individual constituents, but have been a little suspicious about whether their letters were written by an individual or an organisation because of the level of complexity and technical detail. On some occasions, the same individual has written with a level of detail and complexity on a number of issues. When I have sat down with those constituents, it has turned out that they have been encouraged to write by their employer or their employer’s organisation. We must differentiate between professional lobbyists and such people who represent an organisation and want to lobby us. I would accept the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion if we could do it in a way that did not disadvantage our constituents.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am interested by this line of argument. I wonder whether there should be a general exemption for constituents, because it would be quite hard for a lobbying organisation to find 650 people, one in each constituency, to lobby MPs individually, but nothing should be put in the way of constituents having direct access to their Member of Parliament.

[James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend. I think that that is the first intervention that I have taken from him and I look forward to many more.

There is a great deal of complexity in this matter. The Royal Society of Chemistry has a great way of lobbying Members of Parliament. It does identify an individual who is on its membership for each Member of Parliament. My constituent came and had tea with me in the Pugin Room and said, “I do not want to lobby you on anything in particular, but hopefully you will be here for a few years—maybe four, maybe longer—so this is the beginning of an ongoing relationship.” That is a kind of hybrid example.

We need to consider these matters in a lot more detail. We have talked about considering the Bill in Committee, but there seems to be an increasing list of things that we must consider in Committee. I wonder whether the Bill has more flaws than can be resolved in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Duddridge]

With the House’s permission, I will accept that comment and move on. This is a broad Bill, and having criticised the House for moving to a general debate, I want to focus specifically on the Bill.

The proposed register does not intend to capture or deter any range of activities essential to a vibrant democracy. I fear, however, that too much bureaucracy will lead people not to come forward to discuss issues with Members of Parliament. In fact, some of the most useful lobbying is very informal. For example, if an issue is raised in the House about the health service, I might be more likely to have a chat to my local GP or those at the local primary health trust, because I know their capabilities and biases and can filter those as appropriate, than to go to a lobby organisation directly. Some of the most effective lobbying will be totally off the register and therefore outside the remit under discussion.

The costs of the consultation have been mentioned and I am deeply concerned about those costs and their impacts. Just because something is of moderate cost to the Cabinet Office, it should not be brushed aside as insignificant. There is a direct cost to the Government that must be funded by the taxpayer, and even more importantly I am concerned about the cost to business. That is not because I am particularly pro-business for the sake of it, but businesses employ people and have consumers. At the end of the day, business cost must be transferred in some way, shape or form, either to shareholders—that is our pension fund and nation’s prosperity—or to consumers. The price of a packet of bourbon biscuits will go up at Asda, however marginally.

We must remember that lobbyists are business people as well. We have said that lobbying is a legitimate activity, but the provisions represent a big barrier to entry. A small business owner who, for argument’s sake, acts in a consultancy in a particular sector, might find that they are increasingly asked for public relations advice by the press. That might not be their core competence, although they might do a bit of it. Where does the barrier between public relations and public affairs end and start? I want people who run small businesses to be able to evolve their business over time. We need some type of de minimis threshold for a business to be allowed to operate within a public affairs arena.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way once again. He is absolutely right on this issue. A compulsory levy for an organisation is a hypothecated tax, but a tax none the less, and we are therefore talking about a tax on business. This House should be very wary about increasing the burden of taxation in this country.

[James Duddridge]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend and I cannot evidence in the Bill any thought or consideration of different sizes of businesses. There is a massive difference between Asda or the might of a FTSE 100 company that might be involved in lobbying, and one or two individual businesses. There is no consideration of whether the fee should be fixed for all businesses, fixed per person, or be a threshold to allow businesses to move into the sector without signing up. There is no consideration of corporate structures. Gone are the days where we have one simple limited company or one simple plc. Many companies have subsidiaries, are wholly owned, separately floated or floated in different jurisdictions. There is a whole level of complexity that will make some details of the Bill difficult to iron out.

There are also difficulties in relation to an organisation that is trying to get round some of the proposed rules. People are not always well meaning and will look for holes in the legislation and see whether they can register offshore, have consultants or separate out the lobbying into a subsidiary area. They will see whether they can disguise what they are doing and define their lobbying activity by way of a consultation or public relations, rather than public affairs.

The consultation said that a number of questions had been raised, such as the definition of lobbying and lobbyists. I am concerned about that and about who will be included and excluded in the register. It strikes me, for example, that trade unions should form part of the provisions. One clear role of a trade union is to lobby organisations and the Government for better working conditions, pay and arrangements, and that is quite proper and a healthy part of democracy. Clearly, trade unions are lobbyists, but they are certainly not commercial and nor, on the other end of the scale, are they charities. They do not belong to those two categories and are neither one thing nor the other. We need to define that, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) that we have not done that.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 1, clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—

‘(2A) A child of a marriage, which at the time of the marriage disqualified one of their parents from succeeding to the Crown or possessing it, who is at the time of the coming into force of this section of the Roman Catholic faith shall not as a result be for ever incapable of succeeding to the Crown.’.

Amendment 2, clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—

‘(2B) A child of a marriage, which takes place after the coming into force of this section between a Roman Catholic and a person in line of succession to the Crown, who is of the Roman Catholic faith shall not as a result be for ever incapable of succeeding to the Crown.’.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It occurs to me that the Leader of the House must have a sense of humour. Today, as I am sure you know, Mr Speaker, is the anniversary of the death of his late Majesty King Henry VIII, so it seems only appropriate that we should be discussing the Succession to the Crown Bill on such an anniversary. After all, King Henry introduced three succession to the Crown Bills, and some of the problems we are dealing with today originate with his reign. I have proposed two further amendments, which you have graciously said, Mr Speaker, we can deal with in the course of our debate on the new clause, and I shall come to them secondarily.

New clause 1 is the crucial part of what I am proposing. It is a development within the context of the Bill to attend not just to one discrimination but to a second that is inherent within the current rules governing the succession. From time immemorial, the succession has gone to the eldest male heir, but since the Act of Settlement 1701 it has had to go to a Protestant. There has been a religious discrimination as well as discrimination on the grounds of sex. My new clause seeks to amend that to allow for anybody of any faith to succeed to the Crown while making provision for the established Church.

Many countries in the world have a Crown that is only temporal; they do not have a Crown that is spiritual as well. The mediaevalists debated at great length where power should rest in those two spheres, and I do not wish to rehearse the schoolmen’s arguments. There are, however, two distinct and separate powers and authorities: the temporal one that deals with the laws we live by and how we should lead our lives in respect of society; and the spiritual one that looks to the higher plane and the greater authority that comes with religious belief and religious conviction.

In our country, those two powers are merged in the Crown. The Crown is both the spiritual head of the Church and the temporal head of the nation for one part—and one part only—of the Crown. On Tuesday last week, on Second Reading and indeed in Committee, we debated whether that was right and how it applied in a more modern age. It is worth looking, as we did last week, at some of the detail. Because the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, she is or has under her an established Church in Scotland, but she is not formally head of it. She puts in a Lord High Commissioner to represent her at meetings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, but she is not the Supreme Governor of the established Church in Scotland in the way she is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. There is no established Church in Wales; there is no established Church in Northern Ireland. As far as I am aware, there is no established Church in Antigua and Barbuda, in Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Christopher-Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon islands, Tuvalu or in Her Majesty’s other realms and territories. When we deal with one discrimination but not the other, therefore, we leave a discrimination that applies only to a very small part of the totality of the Crown.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a discrimination is inherent, and has been since time immemorial, in relation to the eldest? My hon. Friend refers to a discrimination in relation to the Protestant faith, but is there not also an in-built discrimination against younger male heirs?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Had my hon. Friend not been meeting His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales last Tuesday, he would have heard the debate on an amendment that I tabled to clarify this matter, because the current Bill, rather than maintaining any system of primogeniture, might simply create co-heirs. Of course, the concept of monarchy has an unfairness in it—the very word “monarchy” means that one will rule; it cannot be everybody in the country. However, the reasons for having discrimination on the grounds of faith—in 1688, formalised in the Act of Settlement in 1701—are very different from those that apply today.

Likewise, if you think back to Richard the Lionheart, Mr Speaker, as I am sure you often do, with his fine statue outside the House of Lords, you will acknowledge that it had been necessary since time immemorial to have a king who was able to fight, lead armies in battle and show his great strength, and that was easier for a male than for a female. The last king to lead troops into battle was George II.

Historically, therefore, there may have been reasons for having a religious discrimination, a discrimination on the grounds of sex, and the obvious discrimination within a monarchy of it being rule by one. As the discrimination on the grounds of sex is no longer necessary, or can no longer be argued for logically, nor can exclusions on the grounds of religion.

The reason for the religious bar in the late 17th and early 18th century was the genuine threat perceived by this country from the strong Catholic nations in Europe. In the reign of Elizabeth I, of course, the Spanish had been the threat, but by the reign of Queen Anne, the French were the greater concern. Through the secret treaty of Dover, Louis XIV tried to get Charles II to take a subsidy to establish a standing army that would enforce Catholicism on the nation as part of Louis XIV’s aim to get general European rule. You might be worried, Mr Speaker, about general European rule, but it is not in support of Catholicism.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I warn my hon. Friend against accepting all the arguments of the Whig supremacy.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, although it is worth bearing in mind that the House was controlled by Tories at the point at which the Act of Settlement was passed, so I am looking to revise a Tory piece of legislation.

The fundamental point is that the reason for the provision on religious discrimination no longer exists in the way that it did in the late 17th and early 18th century.

[Michael Ellis]

I am rather surprised to hear my hon. Friend’s comments, because although I had to be absent from the Chamber during the debate last week, I think I read in the parliamentary record that he had no objection to being called a Papist, despite the antiquity of that term, because he understood that it represented part of this country’s history. Does he depart from that now in saying that the historical aspect of the Protestant ascendancy in this country is not relevant today?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, which made him sound even more antiquarian than I am. I do not think that I have ever heard anyone argue for the Protestant ascendancy in the House, and as far as I know it has not been argued for here since 1829, although conceivably some may have argued for it since then. It is absolutely right to say that there are historic aspects of the construction of our constitution that it would be better for us not to change.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Gentleman nail an argument that continues in Scotland day after day, week after week and year after year? Is the Prime Minister of this country allowed to be a Catholic?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Yes. The Catholic Emancipation Act 1829 makes it clear that the Prime Minister is entitled to be a Catholic. The last office to be specifically excluded was that of Lord Chancellor, but, as far as I am aware, the provision was amended in the late 1970s. The one thing that a Catholic Prime Minister cannot do is make or advise on appointments in the Church of England. That is specifically listed as a felony.

The point is that times have changed, and the Bill has come forward. If there were to be no change in our plans for the succession, I would not be the one charging the barricades and saying that we ought to be changing them, but the Government have proposed this change, which they wish to limit to a very narrow sphere. They wish to limit it to making primogeniture equal among males and females, and to allowing marriage to Catholics, without considering the grating unfairness that currently exists in our laws of succession in an age of much greater toleration, and in an age in which so many of the areas in which the Queen is sovereign do not have an established Church.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I always listen with great interest and enjoyment to my hon. Friend’s speeches on these matters, because he is so knowledgeable. Does he foresee a time when an heir to the throne could take his case to the European Court of Human Rights because he was not permitted to belong to the religion to which he wished to belong?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I also think that the law should represent the reality. It is inconceivable that if a sovereign of Canada—including, obviously, Quebec—decided to convert to Roman Catholicism, that sovereign would be deposed, thrown out and replaced. I think that even in this country and even with an established Church, we cannot accept the idea that a sovereign on the throne who decided to convert to Rome would be suddenly chucked out of Buckingham palace. When the law has moved away from the reality, and we are amending the law in any event, perhaps it makes sense to carry out a comprehensive reform of the law to make the two match up.

[Michael Ellis]

Is not my hon. Friend’s point further strengthened by the fact that those of other faiths, such as mine—the Jewish faith—are not excluded in the same way?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There is a part of the Act of Settlement that requires the sovereign to be in communion with the Church of England, so I am not absolutely certain that my hon. Friend is correct, but my new clause would get rid of the bar for all religions. This is not simply a Catholic issue. I have concentrated more on the Catholic issue because that was the reasoning behind the Act of Settlement and the reason for its becoming part of our law, and also because clause 2 of the Bill deals with marriage to Catholics. Marriage to Catholics is a specific Catholic exclusion, but communion with the Church of England is the requirement when it comes to inheriting the throne.

Let me explain why I support an established Church. My new clause provides for the maintaining of a Protestant head of the Church of England. That is partly to do with our history and traditions, which we see even on the Mace. It has a cross on its top as a symbol of the shared Christianity that this country has had since its very foundations as a nation, going all the way back to St Augustine coming and converting England and the ultimate joining together of the Crowns. Christianity has run through our history.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is going through the history, so may I point out that some of us represent parts of the country that were Christian even before St Augustine came to convert the Anglo-Saxons?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because it allows me to remind the House that Joseph of Arimathea is thought to have taken our Lord to visit Somerset when he was a young man. Some people maintain that that is mere legend blurring into myth, but I am quite convinced of its veracity.

I think that an established Church is good for the body politic—it is good for us that we can have jubilee celebrations held in St Paul’s cathedral or Westminster abbey, and that we can have that focus of national life through an established Church—but obviously an established Church cannot have as its head somebody who belongs to another Church. That would be logically inconsistent. It would be unfair on the Church of England; it would mean that bishops and archbishops appointed within the Church of England were appointed by somebody who did not share their beliefs and that could not be the right thing to do.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Could we consider having as Supreme Governor of the Church of England the Archbishop of Canterbury, thus taking this away from the sovereign?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and that might have been an amendment worthy of consideration. It is not the amendment I tabled. My amendment sought to maintain the supreme governorship of the Church of England in a regency whenever the sovereign was not in communion with the Anglican Church under the Regency Act 1937, which requires the regent to be a Protestant and to meet the terms of the Act of Settlement. I would prefer to keep things that way because the Crown and the headship of the Church of England could come back together when a future sovereign was an Anglican, and my approach would not permanently separate the two. However, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward new thoughts on the matter; one of the reasons why it would have been better to have had a longer time for, and longer gaps in, debating this important subject is because then such ideas could have been discussed.

My new clause is extremely simple. It is a recognition—no matter how much I am sometimes reluctant to recognise it—that the modern world is different from the early 18th century. There may have been many glories in the early 18th century, but one of the glories of this modern age is that we are tolerant—we are tolerant of different religions. We believe that people practising other faiths is something to be welcomed and encouraged, and that has made us a stronger nation rather than a weaker one. Therefore there should no longer be a bar on the grounds of faith in respect of the sovereign, as long as we can make provision for the established Church of England, which there is and which I support.

That circle can be squared by providing for a regency. That relatively simple and straightforward proposal deals with a problem that people have recognised in this country for many decades; we have not suddenly woken up and realised that a non-member of the Church of England cannot become sovereign. Bills have been presented to Parliament to deal with that, and this seems the right time to be doing it, as we are legislating on the Crown succession and we are in discussion with the Commonwealth members who also have the Queen as sovereign to see whether they will agree to it.

[Michael Ellis]

Is it not the case that his holiness the Pope, who wears the triple crown, is also a temporal sovereign? Would it not be a requirement of that office that he be of the Catholic faith? Does that situation have any similarity with the point that my hon. Friend is making?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Much though I admire his late Holiness Pope Pius IX, he was the last Pope to exercise effective temporal power. His Prime Minister was assassinated in Rome, and from that point on, the Papacy’s temporal power in Italy has been restricted to the vicinity of the Holy See—that very small amount of land. Suggesting that we should open up the Holy See to non-Catholics when there are only about 2,000 residents, almost all of whom are in holy orders, is faintly although engagingly absurd.

[Michael Ellis]

It is a point of principle.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The principle is different, although it is worth noting that the only two anointed sovereigns in Christendom are the Pope and the Queen, which says something about their antiquity.

[Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I always listen to my hon. Friend with great admiration on these and all other matters, as I did his father, but on his interesting suggestions on a regency, and in connection with the fact that Her Majesty is one of the two rulers who are anointed, how does his regency proposal deal with the problem of the coronation oath, in which the sovereign very specifically must declare that she will support a Protestant Church as the Church of England?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

We are legislating now for the succession of the Crown; the coronation oath is legislated for as well. We could legislate to take account of that in such a way that the sovereign would not be able to obstruct the Protestant faith, and would therefore be obliged to give the supreme governorship of the Church of England to a regent. That is a way to get around the problem of the unfairness and lack of tolerance in an age that is tolerant, and yet protect the interests of the Church of England. I am reluctant ever to disagree with my right hon. Friend, who is the wisest Member of the House, and not just by virtue of being the Father of the House. History usually says he is right—he has been right on so many issues in the past 50 years—so it is with considerable reluctance that I disagree with him, but I think the problem he mentions could be solved.

New clause 1 would be a simple, easy change that would provide for the Church of England and deal with other areas of the world where the Queen is sovereign. It would not perpetuate an unfairness and deals with reality.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman about what seems to be at least a technical defect in the new clause? If the sovereign decides not to declare to the Privy Council that he or she is a Catholic, the procedure for ensuring that there is a Protestant supreme governor of the Church of England is not activated or brought into force.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is a fantastically late 17th century point. The language of coronation oaths of the late 17th century shows that people are obsessed by Jesuit dissemblers and believe that a sovereign who wants to get around the oath will come to the throne—he could have his fingers crossed behind his back or, even worse, a dispensation from the Pope saying that he is allowed to say that he is a good, honest Protestant when he is not. A sovereign is not likely to behave in that type of Jesuitical dissembling way. Our sovereigns tend to be good, upright and honest sovereigns rather than sovereigns who deceive us as to their religion. That is likely to remain the case.

I have dealt with new clause 1, and should like briefly to deal with amendments 1 and 2, which I tabled. The amendments are in honour of Henry IV of Navarre—not our Henry IV but the French Henry IV. He is supposed to have said—historians argue over this, as they argue over anything—that Paris is worth a mass. On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), and the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), among others, discussed when somebody was deemed to be in communion with Rome for the purposes of the Act of Settlement and whether somebody would be excluded if they said, on becoming sovereign, “No, I’m not a Catholic,” when they had been christened or taken first communion as a Catholic.

Amendment 1 would make it clear that such a person would not be excluded at that point. It is separate from new clause 1 and has a different effect, but the clarification depends on allowing marriage to a Catholic. That is to say, as I said last week, that the canon law of the Catholic Church requires a party to a mixed marriage to use his or her best efforts to bring up a child of that marriage in the Catholic religion. If a party to a mixed marriage with an heir to the throne followed his or her Catholic requirement, the child would be excluded under a straight reading of the Act of Settlement, which I do not think is the intention of the Bill.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman is seeking to address an interesting point through his amendments. However, would it not be fair to say that the Catholic spouse of an heir to the throne might feel that, with the full might of the British establishment against them, they had made every endeavour and been unsuccessful?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is perfectly possible, but at what point would we know that that was the case? It seems to me that it is very important that we know who our sovereign is. We do not want to go through the courts to try to establish whether the child was brought up as a Catholic and was therefore in communion with Rome and excluded under the provisions of the Act of Settlement.

My amendments do not seek to change the requirement for the sovereign to be in communion with the Church of England. They are separate from the new clause, but simply state that a child brought up as a Catholic would not be deemed

“for ever incapable of succeeding to the Crown”,

which is the language used in the Act of Settlement about Catholics succeeding to the Crown. The question of eligibility could be clarified at the point of succession.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Does not the hon. Gentleman’s amendment address a situation that has arisen in other Protestant monarchies of northern Europe in which someone who had been brought up a Catholic decided to convert to being a Protestant when joining the royal family? Does it not look as if the wording of the Act of Settlement makes a once-and-for-all decision as soon as any kind of commitment is registered and should we not be clear that someone is free to make a choice at a later stage in their life?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am in complete agreement with my right hon. Friend. The Act of Settlement deems somebody who has been a Catholic for a minute to be dead in terms of the succession, and it passes over them as if they were dead. Once we allow the marriage of a Catholic into the line of succession to the throne, that provision makes absolutely no sense. We could be arguing that at the point of a Catholic baptism, the child was a Catholic even though it had given no personal agreement to its religion and should be disbarred from the throne.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What does the hon. Gentleman have to say about confirmation?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is right that a child who decided to be confirmed as a Catholic would be excluded, but it is perfectly possible, not least because our Churches are coming closer together, for somebody to be confirmed a Catholic at the age of 12 or 13 but to decide on finding at the age of 23 that the throne was about to be offered to him that he might prefer to be an Anglican. We need to be clear about when people are excluded, so that if an heir to the throne decided that the religious bar meant that becoming King of England was worth changing religion for, the result would be clear and decisive. We do not want the monarchy to pass from one generation to the next only for us to have to go to court to work out who our sovereign will be based on the wording of a 1701 Act of Parliament.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The hon. Gentleman posits a situation in which someone gives up his Catholic faith for the Crown, but he must surely be aware that in mixed marriages it is not at all uncommon for children to experience aspects of both denominations and, at some point in their life, to make a choice that might debar them from the throne.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Once again, I am in entire agreement with my right hon. Friend. It is important that the decision is made at the point of succession so that that flexibility is allowed. In ordinary family life in some mixed marriages, couples go to an Anglican service one week and a Catholic service the next.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I do not say this with any personal interest, but where does someone who has been excommunicated stand in all this?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am afraid to say to the hon. Gentleman, who I hope is not in that unhappy state, that an excommunicated Catholic would be excluded from succession to the Crown because that person would have been in communion with Rome at some point. It is an absolute. If at any moment in their whole life they were in communion with Rome, they are excluded from the throne, deemed to be dead. That cannot be the intention of the clause that allows a Catholic to marry an heir to the throne. That will simply create confusion and we will not know who the monarch is going to be.

[Michael Ellis]

I think that, in canon law, it may be canon 1125 which refers to best endeavours. Is it not the case that he who brings up a child in the Catholic faith or attempts to do so by using best endeavours is defeated in those endeavours if it be a legal impossibility? So the issue as to the connection of that infant child to the Crown and the Catholicism or otherwise of that infant child is dealt with in that way. Best endeavours cannot be achieved if it is a legal impossibility.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to say that my hon. Friend misses the point. It is a question of the succession. It may be that somebody has been brought up as a Catholic who is relatively remote from succeeding to the Crown, but in a “Kind Hearts and Coronets” way suddenly becomes much closer. That person would be excluded, but more importantly, the best efforts issue means that there is a lack of clarity as to whether or not such a child has been excluded.

Are we saying that a Catholic can marry into the Crown but must then immediately say, on the birth of any child, that this child has not been anywhere near a Catholic church? How are we classifying this connection with Rome that in the Act of Settlement is a very broad connection for a very good reason: at that point people were worried about the Old Pretender. They thought that his Catholic upbringing made him a threat from the moment of his birth. That is why it is all-encompassing, and we are now amending the law to allow a Catholic to marry into the throne, without dealing with the technicalities that follow from that.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the most important role of the Head of State is to act in the interests of the country when a Prime Minister acts in her or his own interest? Looking back at monarchs, the Queen has behaved immaculately throughout her reign. There have been grave doubts about some of her predecessors and doubts about her possible successors. Is it not much more important that we choose the character of the monarch, rather than the religion?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think the monarchy should be an hereditary monarchy and should go through the nearest line that is available. I do not think there should be a character test for the monarch. The great and weighty responsibilities of monarchs turn people into serious-minded individuals capable of that great honour who sometimes in their youth were not capable of it. One thinks immediately of Henry V and also of Edward VII, both men who, in their youth, were relatively irresponsible, but when that great honour of being King of England fell upon their shoulders, they rose to it magnificently—gloriously, regardless of their religion.

All I am trying to do is make sure that in future we know that the monarchy is safe and secure and to whom it has passed—that we do not open it up for the courts to say, “Well, this person once went to a Catholic church. This person had a Catholic baptism. Therefore let us go to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), who is 190th or some such in line to the throne, and who, having been perfectly Protestant all his life, might be very suitable.”

We need to be clear because so many functions of this nation would be thrown into doubt if there were no Crown. If we are risking people being ineligible for the Crown because of shoddy legislation, we then face the prospect of being unable to use the prerogative powers, which might make it quite difficult to open Parliament.

[John McDonnell]

I attached my name to these amendments because they reflect an amendment I tabled for last week’s debate that was not selected. I wish to explain why I did that, for the record and for some of my constituents and other supporters who might find it a bit bizarre.

Apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), those who have participated in the debate so far have had an interest either as monarchists or, in the context of the amendment, as Catholics. I am not a monarchist—I am a republican; I see the monarchy as a complete anachronism—and I am, at best, a lapsed Catholic, as the parish priest optimistically describes me.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, I have sat in this Chamber on a number of occasions when successive Members have tried to remove anti-Catholic discrimination from our legislation. Dr Evan Harris and John Gummer did that when they were Members of this House. The simple reason, they argued—I fully agree—is that we in this House should not allow our institutions and our legislation to be founded on or framed by discrimination. This measure is the last remnant of anti-Catholic discrimination that sits within our laws. Frankly, it is offensive to discriminate on religious grounds, and every Government in recent years has said so. We have legislated time and again to remove such discrimination, so why can we not do it in this case?

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) went through a trajectory of 300 years in the space of one speech; it has a been a major breakthrough to bring him into the 21st century. As he argued very eloquently, on whatever grounds this discrimination was introduced centuries ago, it is no longer relevant, and I am convinced that at some point it will be challengeable in other forums and courts. This is an ideal opportunity to say to the outside world that we will not tolerate discrimination of any sort. It is anti-Catholic discrimination that has historically been present in this kind of legislation, but such discrimination pertains to every other religion as well. We have heard potential successors to the Crown say that they are happy to be seen not as defenders of the faith but defenders of faith; if that is the case, so be it. We have an opportunity to send out a message that we are opposed to all discrimination, that we accept that the institutions we establish should not be founded on discriminatory legislation, and that we will remove this stain from the character of this House and our constitution.

John Gummer and Dr Evan Harris argued their cases extremely eloquently, more so than I can. When I left the Chamber after those debates, I thought, “If I were a member of a particular religion and that barred me from a particular office, I would find it offensive.” We might think that this debate is about something that is necessarily insubstantial in the everyday workings of our society and our lives, but it is not; it is about a symbol of past discrimination that must be removed. By removing that stain, we can go forward into a modern society

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Leigh]

Indeed, it might happen that somebody becomes an atheist or an agnostic, or does not want to be a member of the Anglican faith. By the way, I have enormous sympathy, respect and, indeed, love for the Anglican faith, which is inherent in the traditions of our country. However, it is perfectly possible that in some future generation, somebody will not want to be part of it for quite profound reasons of personal conscience. That is why this matter is important. It is not just an academic, legalistic debating point; it is a matter of deep personal conscience. What is more important to an individual than their faith or lack of faith? It is somewhat strange in the modern age to say to somebody that if they want to become the head of this particular state, that job goes with being a member of a particular Christian denomination. It does not fit in with what we do in many other areas of our national life.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments about the glories of the Anglican Church. The new clause should not, in any way, be seen as an attack on the Anglican Church. Indeed, it contains specific protections for the Church.

[Mr Leigh]

I, too, want to be absolutely clear about that. As I am speaking, people’s minds might be ticking over thinking, “Oh, here’s just another Catholic pushing his own religion.” This is not about my belief at all. I am very ecumenical. I am a member of Lincoln cathedral council. I think that the Anglican liturgy is wonderful in every single respect. My hon. Friend and I are traditionalists. In no way are we attacking the Anglican Church or, most importantly, the fact of this country having an established religion. That is important.

One of the single most dangerous aspects of modern life—the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) will no longer follow my argument; indeed, he will strongly disagree with me—is the advance of secularism and the fact that religion is retreating from more and more aspects of national life. Even “The Sunday Half Hour” on Radio 2 on Sunday nights has been banished to 6.30 in the morning. Maintaining the established Church as a symbol—only a symbol—is terribly important, as is what my hon. Friend is doing today. He is trying to square the circle, to be absolutely fair and say that as a modern nation we should respect people’s conscience to maintain their own religion—or lack of it—and succeed to the headship of state. He is also trying to protect the established Church, and although other solutions might have been offered, including the one proposed earlier that the Archbishop of Canterbury could become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the idea of a regency is good and squares the circle.

However, such a situation is extremely unlikely because, as I said, I am sure that anybody brought up in that environment would want to remain in the Anglican Church. I understand that James III of blessed memory, the Old Pretender, whose portrait, as you know Mr Deputy Speaker, hangs in Stonyhurst college in your constituency, was offered the throne on the condition that he renounced his faith. He refused to do that although he could have succeeded Queen Anne. In fact, I understand that about 50 people had a superior hereditary claim to George I, but they were all bypassed because, as my hon. Friend has made clear, there was in those days an absolute obsession about ensuring an Anglican Head of State.

We do not want to get too enmeshed in those arguments, but to be trapped at the beginning of the 21st century in arguments that raged at the beginning of the 18th century is frankly absurd. To remain trapped in the Act of Settlement, when there is absolutely no risk in a secular, modern, multicultural and multiracial nation of some sort of Catholic plot to take it over, is ridiculous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I must begin by saying that I do not have to declare an interest in the debate today, in that I am not related in any way to any member of the royal family—unlike some Members of the House. Nor am I related to a Welsh saint; I have been assured that, despite my name, there is no connection whatever.

I rise to respond to this excellent debate with some trepidation. I have to express some strong reservations, but I want to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). His speech introducing the new clause was a veritable tour de force, if I may use that language. It was a wonderful speech; it is a long time since we have heard such a wonderfully erudite exposition in the House. It was very much about equality between the members of all religious faiths and none in regard to the ability to hold the position of monarch of this country. That theme was taken up powerfully by a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who said that new clause 1 highlighted what many people consider to be a continuing anachronism.

It should be recognised, as several constitutional historians have done, that the monarchy today has a number of symbolic roles attached to it, including the Head of the Commonwealth and the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Some might question whether it is correct to describe those roles as symbolic, but the reality is that we live in an increasingly secular society and that many people are now quite rightly questioning the close connection between Church and state.

There is no doubt in my mind that Parliament must have this debate. We should also have a debate on the question of disestablishment. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) mentioned the fact that the Church in Wales had been disestablished since 1920. Speaking as a Welshman and a member of that Church, I recognise that that has created a sound constitutional relationship between that Church and the monarch in England. However, that debate and the debate on religious equality in regard to the throne are debates for another time. That is not to say that we must shy away from those debates—quite the opposite, in fact—but we must recognise that this is a limited, narrowly defined Bill.

The Bill has had a long gestation period, starting with the work done by the previous Government and continuing under this Government. Its contents have been agreed by the Heads of Government in the Commonwealth. If the whole issue were to be reopened in the way that has been suggested, we would have to go back to square one and begin the long, convoluted process again. I am sure all Members would accept that that would be neither helpful nor desirable.

It is also important to note, as we have been discussing the international element to the Bill in relation to the Commonwealth, that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands might abdicate in favour of her son. I mention this because the Netherlands is one of the countries that has abolished male primogeniture, and I very much hope that the House will follow that good Dutch example.

It was made clear in our previous debate on the Bill that although the legislation might appear straightforward at first glance, it is in fact extremely complex. The nature of the constitutional relationship between the monarchy and the Government is byzantine, to say the least, and there will inevitably be unintended consequences that will have to be scrutinised in great detail.

I should like to ask for greater clarification on one such detail relating to new clause 1. As I understand it, the hon. Member for North East Somerset believes that the monarch could still be the head of the Church of England if he or she were in communion with the Church, but if that were not the case, he is suggesting that the next in line of succession could fulfil the role. What would happen, however, if that individual were not a member of the Church of England?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The regent would assume the role under the Regency Act 1937, which requires that the regent should meet all the criteria laid down in the Act of Settlement. They would therefore have to be a Protestant, and in communion with the Church of England. The whole point of the new clause is to ensure that the supreme governorship of the Church of England remains with a Protestant.

[Wayne David]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman might come back with that response. However, the difficulty with the regency legislation is that there is more than one Act. There have been a number of amending Acts. He referred to the 1937 Act, but since then there have been what some people have referred to as ad hoc departures from that legislation. In fact, the Act talks about the best person succeeding to the throne, rather than the next in line. What on earth does that mean? How do we define the “best person”? This underlines the point that the legislation will inevitably have unintended consequences that will have to be looked at in detail, with a cool head, over a reasonable period of time.

Nevertheless, we have had an excellent debate this afternoon. We have focused on the tightly defined legislation before us, but Members have also rightly taken the opportunity to extend the debate. We have now begun to open the new chapter of constitutional debate that we need to have in this country. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for North East Somerset will not press the new clause to a vote.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)]

I thank all hon. Members who have spoken today for their erudite and comprehensive contributions. I join the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) in being a fan of middle English and old English; if he would like to join me in the Tea Room some time, I am sure that we could discuss that.

Through amendments 1 and 2, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is seeking to ensure that a child of the Roman Catholic faith may later convert to the Protestant faith and succeed to the throne. Let me first deal with the Government’s understanding of the Act of Settlement, which we share with him. The law in this area is certainly not easy, but on balance, we agree with his interpretation of the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights as meaning that a Roman Catholic may not convert to the Protestant faith and then succeed to the throne. This is, however, an aspect of our constitution that we do not think has ever been tested. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) noted that such circumstances would be unlikely to arise within our lifetimes. The bar appears to be on anyone who has ever “professed” the Roman Catholic faith, or held communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Once disqualified, they are excluded for ever from succeeding to the throne.

I should like to make a few points on amendments 1 and 2 before I turn to new clause 1. My first point relates to scope. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) said, the scope of the Bill is narrow. I appreciate that there are reasons to criticise the law as it stands, but the amendments stray into new territory and go beyond the limited aims of the Bill. In passing, I must thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). We missed him in the earlier debates last week, but he enlivened us today when he came as close as anyone has done in the debate to asking, “Is the Pope a Catholic?”

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

If my amendments were not within the scope, Mr Speaker would surely not have selected them.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That is absolutely correct. That clarification was right; the amendments are within the scope of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I begin my reply by thanking the Lord President of the Council for saying:

“The Bill does three specific things.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 208.]

Three is important, because if the scope is only two things, it is narrow, but three widens it, which has helped me in tabling my amendments. No doubt the Minister will convey my gratitude to the Lord President of the Council.

I am grateful to those Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), who have spoken broadly in support of my position. It is a particular pleasure, however, to have the support of some Opposition Members with whom I am normally in a high state of disagreement: the hon. Members for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan). I also received support for my amendments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). As I spoke at considerable length on a private member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, it is noble of him not to have held that against me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

That is not in the Bill. Indeed, the Government have said that it is entirely a matter for the Crown, in the double sense of the monarch and the monarch’s Ministers, who might have a role in advising the monarch.

Incidentally, I would not want to be a monarch apart from Elizabeth with a “II” in my title, but when James II was removed, Parliament decided, through the Bill of Rights and then the Act of Settlement, to hand over a joint monarchy to William and Mary rather than to anybody else. Then, when the Stuart line was going to end with Queen Anne, Parliament decided how the succession should proceed. Again, when Edward VIII tried to abdicate in 1936, the abdication could be allowed only because there was a statute of Parliament the next day.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

This is waistcoat-to-waistcoat business, isn’t it?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman missed out the succession of Mary Tudor, when the Act of Parliament —the Third Succession Act of Henry VIII—was followed rather than the instructions issued by Edward VI.

[Chris Bryant]

That is absolutely right. It is interesting that we had gone through three Succession Acts, but again Parliament decided the process. Incidentally, exactly the same situation applied in Scotland. The calling of the first Scottish Parliament was prompted by a contested succession in Scotland on who the next monarch should be.

For the first time in our history, the monarch himself or herself will be allowed to decide whether somebody is barred from the succession by refusing to provide consent, without any reason given, at the moment that that person chooses to marry. We do not have a capricious monarch at the moment, but we have had plenty of capricious monarchs in the past, and I suspect that we will have a capricious monarch in future. At that point, we will rue the day that we passed the legislation in this form. I desperately hope that a good Bill is made better by their lordships. This is the kind of moment when one wants to vote both Aye and No, because it is a good Bill in principle but a bad Bill in its detail.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

I support the motion that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Removal of disqualification arising from marriage to a Roman Catholic

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I beg to move amendment 4, page 1, line 9, after ‘person’, insert

‘who married a person of the Roman Catholic faith’.

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am sorry, Mr Hoyle. I will get it right in the end. It is so difficult when people have so many titles, like Her Majesty. It causes confusion, even for those of us who try to specialise in such important aspects.



My amendment is a minor one that is intended to clarify which person clause 2(2) refers to, because we do not want to refer to the wrong person. The amendment refers to a person

“who married a person of the Roman Catholic faith”,

because I am concerned that the part of clause 2(2) that reads,

“where the person concerned is alive”,

could be taken to mean not the person who married the Catholic, but the person who was the subject of that marriage, or indeed the person who was its product.

[Mr MacNeil]

It occurs to me that, together with the need to style Queen Elizabeth as Queen Elizabeth II, the obsession with whether or not the monarch is Catholic only really applies in England—it does not seem to apply to Wales or Scotland, and it certainly does not apply to the other realms. It is so important at the moment because the monarchy resides within England, which colours or clouds the rest of the debate. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman agrees.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is an interesting point. I am sure that Her Majesty’s other realms will consider whether or not the whole of clause 2 is a matter of great concern to them, because Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the other realms do not have established Churches and so need not worry whether or not the sovereign is married to a Catholic. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that it is essentially a matter of concern in so far as Her Majesty is the Queen of England, rather than Queen of the other territories.

My amendment is very narrow. Clause 2(2) reads as follows:

“Subsection (1) applies in relation to marriages occurring before the time of the coming into force of this section where the person concerned is alive at that time”.

Who does that mean? It could mean a person who was excluded from the succession many years ago as a result of marrying a Catholic and who happens to be alive at the time the Act comes into force. Therefore, we might find that we will need to rearrange the whole succession because the clause is not clear about who that person is. I think that the Government’s intention is that that is the person who contracted the marriage to a Catholic. To put a name to it, we are talking about someone such as His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent.

[Mr MacNeil]

Once it has been established who is first, second and third in line to the throne, the line of succession is in many ways academic. I am sure that whoever was 10th or 20th in line was not considered much in the time of Robert the Bruce, Edward I or whoever happened to be the monarch in these islands at the time. It is purely an academic matter to be discussed at many dinner tables across the land. I wonder what the hon. Gentleman’s opinion is.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is an interesting thought, but I think that it is important that the line of succession should be clear and in no doubt. I think that legislation relating to the succession to the Crown needs to be unambiguous and not allow potential risks to come in because of a mistake in the drafting. We want to know who our sovereign will be, to whom we owe loyalty and all such things, and that might not be possible if we do not know the line of succession.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the succession can leap about. We have been fortunate enough in recent generations to have had a very clear succession and large royal families, but we can sometimes get down to a very small number of heirs, and we see that ordinary hereditary titles can sometimes go to very remote cousins, so who is in line to the throne is very important.

Obviously, there are other amendments that I have tabled. I have concerns about the clause as a whole and whether it should stand part of the Bill—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Peter Bone)]

Order. I remind the Committee that we are dealing only with the narrow amendment that is being moved at the moment.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Thank you for that guidance, Mr Bone. That is the amendment I am moving. It is intended to be helpful and clarifying. Were it to be sent to the other realms in which Her Majesty is sovereign, I would have thought that they would not find it unduly objectionable. Therefore, I bring it to the Government’s attention and hope that they will consider it carefully.

[Miss Smith]

Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who through the amendment seeks to make the intention behind clause 2 crystal clear. Clause 2(1) stops a person being disqualified from succeeding to the Crown or being the monarch because of marriage to a Roman Catholic. The amendment would add words to subsection (2) so that it read slightly differently.

My hon. Friend is trying to make crystal clear that the person referred to in subsection (2) is also the person referred to in subsection (1), who would not be disqualified as a result of having married a Roman Catholic. I sincerely thank him for his amendment.

The Government’s view is that the clarification is not required. We believe that the clause is clear as it stands. For the benefit of the record, I should say that the person referred to in subsection (2) is the person who should not be disqualified from succeeding to the Crown or from possessing it as a result of their marriage to a Roman Catholic. I suggest that the amendment is unnecessary, although I am grateful for the intention behind it. I invite my hon. Friend to withdraw it.

[Wayne David]

I very much agree with the Minister’s interpretation; that is my understanding as well. It is important to stress that the intention is made clear not only in the words of subsections (1) and (2) but in the clause heading. I suggest that the amendment is otiose.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Having listened to the Minister, I would not wish to divide the House given the limited time available. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Miss Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to be able to spend a little more time on this stand part debate than on the first; it is clear that the majority of this afternoon’s debate has focused on clause 2.

Clause 2 provides for a major change to the laws of succession to the Crown agreed by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Perth in 2011. It removes the bar on anyone who marries a Roman Catholic from becoming monarch; that is the purpose of subsection (1). Subsection (2) applies the change retrospectively to anyone who is currently in the line of succession. That means that people who have lost their place in the line of succession because of their marriage to a Roman Catholic will regain their place. Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), I should say that that will not affect anybody who is particularly high up in the line of succession.

Some have suggested that the change could bring into question the position of the established Church of England. We have discussed that issue extensively on Second Reading and in Committee. I give again my full reassurance that the change has no implications for the position of the established Church or for the monarch as the head of the Church of England, because there are no changes to the part of the Act of Settlement that requires the monarch to be a Protestant. I note the interest of some in the Chamber in that point and I re-emphasise it here in Committee. All the clause will do is remove a specifically anti-Catholic provision that bars a person from succeeding to the Crown or possessing it if they are married to a Catholic. As I said, it is worth remembering that there is no bar on the heir to the throne marrying anybody else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Beith]

The two versions of Christianity live side by side remarkably happily in the Western Isles.

The purpose of the Bill is not to change the Protestant succession, as the Minister has made clear. If it were, we would have to spend a lot longer on it considering many more detailed and complicated clauses, and there would be many more concerns to deal with. Nor will it disestablish the Church of England—it retains the monarch’s position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England—or change the situation in Scotland, where the monarch will continue to be expected to be a loyal supporter of the Church of Scotland and its work, as the Queen notably is, while having good relations with the other religious communities in Scotland.

The problem that arises is the one that I refer to as the early age problem. A decision to bring up a child of such a marriage as a Roman Catholic, whether taken entirely voluntarily or under the provisions of some Roman Catholic law, would result in that child being debarred from taking up the Crown unless they renounced the faith in which they had been brought up. That is perfectly possible, as was mentioned earlier, but it is quite a limitation to place upon a child.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The Act of Settlement mentions

“all and every Person and Persons that then were or afterwards should be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome”,

so if a child were baptised a Catholic, I do not think there would be any subsequent opportunity for them to abandon Catholicism. The decision would be that of their parents at the time of their birth.

[Sir Alan Beith]

That is an interesting argument but I am not persuaded by it in the first instance. It seems to me that it has always been possible for a person to renounce the religion in which they were brought up. It had not previously occurred to me that the way in which we currently define the position would invalidate such a renunciation as removing a barrier to taking up the Crown.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

As a Scottish nationalist, the hon. Gentleman speaks for himself on that. As an Irish nationalist, I have a different view on a number of his points.

In the part of the world I represent, I clearly say to people, “There is no acceptable level of sectarianism in our streets,” but the message from the Committee is that there is an acceptable level of sectarianism in our statutes. We are removing the bar on someone who marries a Catholic from succeeding to the throne, but we are not removing the grossly arcane and offensive language that remains on the statute book. We are saying, “That’s okay.” We have statements from the different Churches that have been consulted that they are just about okay with the compromise, but I am not comfortable with such received sectarianism.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my view that, by amending the statutes, we are saying that all the provisions are modernised, and that the Act of Settlement and all its anti-Catholic provisions are acceptable in a modern world with a few words changed? Does he share my view that that is offensive to Her Majesty’s loyal Catholic subjects and possibly more offensive to republicans?

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, which reinforces exactly the one I am making. The Committee will take a deliberate decision to amend only the legislation it needs to amend, and will not take the opportunity to do away with the offensive, discriminatory and provocative language. Such language will remain on the statute books—the language of the law of the land—which is offensive. Why would the Committee take a decision at this point in the 21st century not to make laws of our time and for the future?

To my mind, it is not acceptable for people to be satisfied by such received sectarianism, and it is a matter of sadness that it remains. That is my difficulty with clause 2. I welcome the fact that it makes a difference, but I have a fundamental problem with the fact that it says, “Everything else can stay the same. That’s okay. We’re happy with that sort of language.” We should be repulsed by the language that the Committee says should stay on the statute book.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am delighted to take part in Committee under your tutelage, Mr Bone, and to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and other hon. Members. There is a paradox in the situation in which we find ourselves. The Government are seeking to end part of a discriminatory law, and yet have resurrected rather a lot of hurt, as expressed by the hon. Member for Foyle and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Perpetuating this debate could lead to further hurt.

As an Anglican on the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England, the last thing I seek to do is to offend those in the Catholic Church, but I should tell my hon. Friend that he might at least allow us to take communion when we attend his Church. When he attends ours, he is allowed to take communion with us. Perhaps that little bit of discrimination could be ended by the Catholic Church.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

If my hon. Friend has been able to get a tweet from the Vatican to indicate a change in policy, I would be delighted to give way to him.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Peter Bone)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s intervention will be very concise and to do with clause 2.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is incredibly concise and relevant to clause 2. My simple point is that the matter to which my hon. Friend refers is one for the Papacy. I do not have the authority to do as he asks.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am sure the day will come when such authority is conferred by the Vatican upon my hon. Friend, such is the power of his language.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) made the point that the two Churches are coming together, and that Christian Churches generally are doing so. That is imperative, particularly given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism not just around the world, but in our country. The issue of succession and religion—which is what clause 2 is all about—is very significant. I welcome the fact that the Minister has put it on the record that section 3 of the Act of Settlement 1700 will remain firmly part of the law of this land. While an heir to the throne may be entitled to marry a Catholic, no one who is not in communion with the Church of England shall be sovereign of this country. It is important that that is stated, and I am grateful to the Minister. The reason I was prepared to support the additional confirmation of that by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) was that one is so aware of the zeal with which the present Administration prosecute their enthusiasm for modernisation that one does not want this to be subject to any form of modernisation. It is imperative that that is clear, and it has been made clear.

I will repeat the point I made on Second Reading as I had to make it in a rather curtailed style. If the heir to the throne were to marry a Catholic, the Catholic ordinances had not changed and the children were to be brought up in the Catholic faith—the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed—those children would face a decision on whether to be loyal to the Catholic faith or to renounce it, and subscribe to being in communion with the Church of England. Therefore, clause 2 does have consequences, and this is not a question of semantics between the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

It is important to all Christians that the sovereign remains, as every coin of the realm testifies, the defender of the faith. I wonder how many children in our schools are taught that. If we put our hands in our pockets and look at our coins, we see the two letters “FD”, which stand for fidei defensor: defender of the faith, the Christian faith. All of us, whether we are Catholic, Congregationalist, Church of England, Baptist or whatever, have a huge interest in ensuring that the Christian faith remains at the heart of this nation, for it is that faith that has formed this nation. It is that faith that has given birth to the enthusiasm for liberty that has attracted so many people of other faiths to come to this country. While the hon. Member for Foyle may find this difficult—I salute the spirit with which he promoted his case—I do not believe it right to be anything other than uncompromising. This House—this Parliament—is governed by the values of the Christian Church and faith. It is therefore imperative that we are crystal clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

When looking at the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, we must bear in mind the particular concern of the people passing that law at that time to exclude James II’s newly born son. The wording is therefore quite all-encompassing in its aim to exclude a child from the first moment of Catholicism infecting it, so to speak, rather than thinking that a child could be brought up as a Catholic and decide at 21 not to be one any more. The terminology is

“reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome”—

[The Temporary Chairman (Mr Peter Bone)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is supposed to be making an intervention. This sounds rather like a speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

That is really a question for the Minister. There is a real question about pulling at one thread in the jumper. Are we undermining other aspects of the present settlement, and will we therefore need a whole new settlement? That is what I think will need to happen in the next 10 to 15 years. Charles II changed his religion on his deathbed; he became a Catholic. If he had then lived, people might have wanted to exclude him from the throne, just as they went on to remove James II.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I can see the hon. Member for North East Somerset stirring his loins.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the mother of Charles II and James II was a Catholic? That was in many ways the start of the problem.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman might say that that was the start of the problem, but I think it is fine to have a Catholic mother. I did not have one myself, but some of my best friends are Catholic mothers. I do not see this in quite the same light. The point is that the bringing up of children leads to the nub of the problem.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry that my earlier intervention seemed like a speech, Mr Bone, but these are technically complex issues and one sometimes gets a bit more long-winded than one had intended.

During the debate, a number of hon. Members have asked about the specific requirement. I know, because I tabled an amendment on the matter that was not selected, that the Act of Settlement states that

“whosoever shall hereafter come to the Possession of this Crown shall joyn in Communion with the Church of England as by Law established.”

So it does refer to the Church of England and not simply to the Protestant Church.

I also want to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about the age of the child being a Catholic. I think that the earliest age is relevant, because the Act of Settlement goes on to say that

“the said Person or Persons so reconciled holding Communion professing or marrying as aforesaid were naturally dead.”

The succession would pass as though they had died. I know that Christianity is all about the resurrection, but I do not think that statute law is. If a child of a marriage were christened and brought up a Catholic, that child would be deemed “naturally dead” under the Act of Settlement in relation to succession to the Crown. That is why the clause is, I think, so complex, without any further amendment. My view is that it would be better to leave well alone. I am in entire agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), who looks as if he wants to intervene.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I wonder whether there is any way in which the Catholic Church might compromise, as it were, accepting that although the child could be brought up in the Catholic faith, in the event of their being in line for the throne the child would not be expected to do other than renounce the Catholic faith and accept the Church of England.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Yes, of course that would possible. A papal indult could be granted, but when I suggested that earlier, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) thought that that would not do at all, and that having our succession subject to the Papacy would create difficulties of its own. I see the validity of that point. My concern is that by introducing clause 2, we will be passing into law something that brings our law into direct contradiction with the requirements of the Catholic faith. That is what brings us back to the whole offensiveness of the language of the Act of the Settlement.

As I say, I would be happy to see no change at all. The way a country builds up and the way its monarchy develops is lost in the mists of time. To whom that monarchy goes is another issue. We have had discussions about whether the monarchy goes through a strict genealogical line. It does not. By the time of the reign of George V, there were 1,000 people closer to Charles I in the succession than his late Imperial Majesty. It is not something that has been taken back, as we look at Asser’s “Life of Alfred”, to Adam and Eve. Asser’s “Life of Alfred” begins with his genealogy going back to Adam and Eve, but that is not true. Our monarchy is, in fact, established by statute—initially by ancient statute from which it has then developed. The difficulty is that when we start changing part of the statute and allow one thing to happen, there are consequences that will have an effect on other parts of the structure.

[Dan Rogerson]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument closely, and I see, as have other Members, that he is arguing that the provisions just move the injustice on a generation rather than deal with the issue. His solution would be “leave it alone”; another solution is “make a change”. My position would be “let us not make the best the enemy of the good.” We might be able to explore the issues raised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) on another occasion, but let us at least make some progress now.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I do not agree with that, because when we bring legislation before this House, we are not limited by three or four words. We have it within our power to rewrite the whole of the Act of Settlement. That is why I think that, if we are not going to leave the whole thing alone, we have to make the fundamental change: we have to get rid of the fundamental injustice.

I am not going to hold myself up as a great bastion of political correctness. That is not a creed to which I particularly hold or one for which I have any great concern, but I do think that, broadly speaking, there should be equality of tolerance among the religions people choose to follow in this country, and that statute law should not favour one religion against another within the context of an established Church that provides a backdrop of Christianity for historical reasons and that has been a strength of this nation.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is such a valued Member and knows so much, so does he think that we are about to produce bad law?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Yes, indeed I do. It is the point I have been making at great length all afternoon. In making that point, I would like to thank the Minister for her patient answers to my almost interminable questions. She has done that with great grace and thoughtfulness, for which I am deeply appreciative, but I am still in disagreement. I think this clause would be better left out of the Bill. If we are going to make a change, it needs to be thoroughgoing; otherwise, we simply reinforce the offence of the Act of Settlement and the wording of the Bill of Rights. We need to live, however, with our great and noble history, which is part of what we have grown up with, part of being a subject of the Queen, and part of being a person of the United Kingdom, to put it that way. My preference is for the clause to be removed, but if it is to be included, it should be part of a thoroughgoing reform that allows a Catholic to succeed, but protects the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

[Miss Chloe Smith]

With the leave of the Committee, Mr Bone, I shall be very brief.

Let me again acknowledge the breadth and, indeed, the quality of the arguments that have been advanced this afternoon. I shall not even begin to attempt to define key points in important religions, and for that reason I shall not accept the challenge issued to me by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I do not think that it is for a Minister to do that. However, I also acknowledge that clauses such as this lead to tensions in Government.

The existing legislation prevents a successor to the Crown from marrying a Catholic. I hear the arguments that the proposal in the Bill may create a situation requiring—as one Member put it—wisdom and good sense on the part of parents, and indeed the child himself or herself, and I accept that that constitutes a tension, but I believe that the clause strikes a balance that will be helpful to the 21st-century monarchy.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Consent of Sovereign required to certain Royal Marriages

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David]

That is almost an extrapolation of what I was saying. If the decision is in the public domain, it becomes, in a sense, the property of Parliament and it is open to us to discuss the issue, if not to make a determination. I would welcome the Minister’s response to those points.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I have only one question on the clause. It relates to the position of members of the royal family who are not among the first six and therefore not subject to the new royal marriages Act. As the Minister will know, members of the royal family are generally excluded from Marriage Acts, as they have been from Hardwicke’s Marriage Act onwards, and I would be concerned if members of the royal family who were not the six closest to the throne had any complications in being certain that their marriages were valid.

I wonder, therefore, what the Government’s view on this is and whether any future legislation is intended, or whether it is intended that members of the royal family outside the six will be brought under the normal Marriage Acts in future.

[Miss Chloe Smith]

Now might be the moment to make a few general comments on clause stand part, as well as to respond to hon. Members’ questions. As has been made particularly clear, clause 3 repeals the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and replaces it with provisions that we believe are more suitable for the modern context. The original 1772 provision probably affects hundreds of people. We do not think that such a sweeping provision is practical or serves a useful purpose today. Indeed, if we want to dwell on Cabinet history, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who thought that those provisions were obscure and unsatisfactory, might note that this was raised by the Cabinet as far back as 1960.

Clause 3 seeks to ensure that the sovereign’s consent is obtained before the first six people in the line of succession can marry. Various hon. Members have asked why the number is six. I want to answer that question with reference to the reasonable reach of changes, which I referred to earlier. There is a question about unreasonably changing the legitimate expectations of those closest to the throne, and I think that we ought to take a cautious approach in such an area. The Government believe that the consent of the monarch for the marriages of the first six people in the line of succession provides a measure of reasonable proximity. Indeed, since the 1772 Act was enacted, the throne has never passed to anybody who was more than six steps away in the line of succession. Therefore, subsection (1) limits the requirement to seek the monarch’s consent to the first six people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Smith]

Putting blood relationships to one side, as I understand it Queen Victoria was the fifth in line to the point at which those consents were sought. We want the current monarch to be able to look ahead six times. It is the case that the throne has never passed to anyone more than six steps away in the line of succession. I hope that those two points answer my hon. Friend’s question.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It might help my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) if I went through the list as it relates to Queen Victoria in relation to George III. George III’s heir, George IV, is No. 1; Princess Charlotte is No. 2; King William is No. 3; the Duke of Kent is No. 4; and Queen Victoria is No. 5. That is how we get to five on the basis that the Minister has been calculating.

[Miss Smith]

I am eternally grateful in so many ways to my hon. Friend. I suppose that an alternative way of expressing the point would be to say that the throne had changed hands five times. I hope that the combination of comments has made things clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner).

Let me turn to the common question, asked by several hon. Members, of whether clause 2 knocks out clause 3, as it were. I want to answer it with reference to what I said to the hon. Member for Rhondda. The monarch will act having taken advice from Ministers, who will wish to take account of the public interest. That is a clear expression of my earlier point.

If, as I hope, the Bill passes, clause 2 will stand and Ministers will need to have regard to it if they consider a situation under clause 3.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That, of course, is a matter for the monarch. It is a power of the monarch’s that has not been brought into that much dispute for a prolonged period. We had a choice: we could either remove it altogether or trim it radically to the six individuals in the immediate line of succession.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I would like to make progress, but of course I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister is aware that the six people are being brought back into the provisions of the Royal Marriages Act. The exemption in the Act states:

“other than the issue of princesses who have married, or may hereafter marry, into foreign families”.

The marriage of Louisa, daughter of George II, from whom Princess Alexandra was directly descended, excludes the Prince of Wales, all his children and all their future children from the provisions of the Royal Marriages Act. Bringing the six people in will, in a novel way, include them in the provisions of an outdated Act.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As a proficient historian, the hon. Gentleman will know that the original Act was passed because of George III’s urgent wish to control the marriage of some of his own children. That set a precedent which has remained on the statute book for a long period. We are retaining the right of the monarch to confer that permission, but only to those in the immediate line of succession; the hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is different from what preceded it. Having been in consultation with the royal household over a prolonged period, we feel that that strikes the right balance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

rose—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have taken many interventions and will continue to do so, but I would like to make a little progress.

The Bill builds on the endeavours of the previous Government, who helped to lay the foundations for reform with the Commonwealth realms—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I really would like to make progress on this point. [Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I give way.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

This is crucial, because what the Deputy Prime Minister says now could be taken in the law courts as giving interpretation to the law. Has he said that under the provisions of this Bill, the Duchy of Lancaster would be separated from the Crown for the first time since the reign of Henry IV?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

No, I did not say that. I said that this Bill deals only with succession to the Crown and that succession to all other titles can be dealt with separately. For clarity’s purpose, my hon. Friend will remember that the Sovereign Grant Act—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I refer the Deputy Prime Minister to canon 1125 of the Catholic Church, which states clearly that a party to a mixed marriage must make his or her best efforts to bring up the children in the Catholic faith. Of course, some Catholics fail, but that does not mean that there is not a rule of the Catholic Church—there is.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If I understand it correctly, the precise wording—the hon. Gentleman may be able to correct me—is “best endeavours”. Equally, however, the Catholic Church has been clear that Bishops are free to decide, which they do on an ongoing basis, to allow a married couple—one a Catholic and the other of another faith—to bring up their children in a faith other than the Catholic faith.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The Deputy Prime Minister is absolutely right. Canon 1124 allows for the Bishop to give permission for a mixed marriage, subject to canon 1125, which is the requirement for best efforts to be made to bring the children up as Catholic. Of course, it is open to the Government to ask the Papacy, via the Papal Nuncio, for a papal indult to get around that for royal marriages. I wonder whether that has been done.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It might be worth reading out the words of the Archbishop of Westminster, who said when it was announced that we would proceed with this Bill:

“I welcome the decision of Her Majesty's Government to give heirs to the throne the freedom to marry a Catholic”.

He also said, crucially, that

“I fully recognise the importance of the position of the Established Church in protecting and fostering the role of faith in our society today.”

I do not think that anyone has sought, in any such pronouncements, to highlight the risks that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It occurs to me that Elizabeth I got extraordinarily angry when the Commons dared to discuss the succession and, indeed, imprisoned Members of Parliament for doing so. I therefore wonder whether my hon. Friend might not admire her quite so much in that respect.

[Jessica Lee]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, I am sure, agrees that there is a fine history in this country of monarchs hiding their feelings. Whatever historians may report in future, the private thoughts of the current Queen Elizabeth remain private.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think Henry VI would disagree with my hon. Friend on that.

[Dr Coffey]

I am sure that the bishop who confers confirmation on the majority of pupils in Eton college is not the Archbishop of Westminster.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister referred to certain royals who had married Catholics. Again, I do not want to get too personal, but one of his examples was a marriage that was dissolved and then annulled a year later; within a month, the same people had married, but the Pope had refused dispensation for marriage in a Catholic church on the grounds that the person who could have been heir to the throne had written explicitly that his children could not be brought up in the Roman Catholic Church but would be brought up in the Church of England. As we know, centuries of back and forth between the Church of Rome and the monarch of England meant that five years later, Pope John Paul II allowed that situation to be validated, which I am sure was welcome.

Such things happen the other way. My grandfather in Godmanchester was brought up as a Salvationist but became a Catholic to marry my grandmother in Dublin. I appreciate that sometimes the Church of Rome can be demanding the other way in wanting to encourage marriages of similar faiths. However, I diverge. My point is that it is important that the Government realise how, in matters of faith, making bland statements about people in church marrying those of a different religion could automatically dismiss the important religious views of the spouse to be. When one of the people due to be heir to the throne married a Catholic, that Catholic converted to the Church of England—out of love, I am sure, for her future husband—but we should not take such issues lightly. This provision is a welcome step, but we should acknowledge that although it removes one element of discrimination, it will entrench others until we have a fresh Act of Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. However, Henry IV’s first act on the throne was to pass the charter of duchy liberties, in which he asserted that the duchy was his possession, separate from those of the sovereign and the Crown. That was confirmed by Henry VII in 1485, and for the benefit of officials and Whitehall it is important to note that there has since been no fresh settlement. Perhaps the clarity we are looking for is found way back in 1485.

This is why clarity is important. The Bill, with which I agree, could create an eldest daughter as sovereign, who will take precedent over a younger son. Perhaps that is where the problem lies. If a monarch has two children, the eldest a daughter and the youngest a son, the Bill empowers the eldest to become the next sovereign. It makes no mention of the Duchy of Lancaster or the title of Duke of Lancaster, separate from the Crown, and nor does it mention what will happen to the assets. Without clarity, the Bill might mean that we have today stripped Her Majesty the Queen of £300 million-worth of assets from her inventory.

I do not believe that that is what is intended, but clarity is needed. It is easy to ensure that the income is diverted to the sovereign. It is highly likely that existing statute provides that income from the Duchies of Lancaster and of Cornwall will continue, but the question of ownership and the title requires clarity.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Having considered the Duchy of Lancaster, will my hon. Friend consider the Duchy of Normandy, and whether the Queen’s possessions as Duke of Normandy might divert to a younger male child when the Crown went to an elder female one?

[Mr Wallace]

I am not an expert on the other duchies in this land, but my hon. Friend proves the point that interfering with succession and fiddling with titles is easier said than done, especially when the titles are so old that they date back to some of the first interferences in succession and the Crown. When the title is linked so much to assets, the House is owed a clear explanation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David]

Just for the record, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, although he was correct to say that the Labour Government under Blair shied away from these changes, the Labour Government under Brown embraced them?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Under who?

[Richard Drax]

As my hon. Friend rather amusingly says, “Under who?” Indeed, I do not think we have seen the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) for some time.

To sum up, as a Member of Parliament—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

The problem with this Bill is in the detail—it has not been properly and carefully considered or well thought through. It is, therefore, full of problems.

We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) about the issues concerning the Duchy of Lancaster, which seemed to take Ministers completely by surprise, as if they had given not a moment’s thought to an ancient title that is with the Crown, but not the Crown. That leads on, as I intervened on him to say, to the question of the Dukedom of Normandy, under which the Crown holds the Channel Islands. Have the Channel Islands been involved in these discussions? They are not mentioned in the list of realms otherwise. Have they brought forward proposals to change their feudal overlord—the role that the Duke of Normandy plays—in the Channel Islands? Will the Dukedom of Normandy be subject to clause 1 of the Bill? The same issue applies to the Duchy of Lancaster.

There is widespread agreement that the Crown should be able to pass through the male and the female lines. It is accepted by many people that—by the virtue of a succession of Acts of Parliament, actually—we have had the good fortune to have a most remarkable selection of Queens as our sovereign. However, it is also worth bearing in mind—there is only a tiny little note on page 5 of the Library research paper to contradict this—that there is, in the ordinary commonlaw of England, no primogeniture among women. There is a note from a legal textbook which claims that the Crown is different, but I want to know whether that is actually true, because when we look at the succession of female sovereigns, we see that almost all have succeeded by Act of Parliament. Mary I took precedence over Elizabeth I by virtue of Henry VIII’s Third Succession Act of 1543. The Bill of Rights gave Queen Mary precedence over Queen Anne. The Act of Settlement gave the Electress Sophia precedence over her elder sister, Louise, who, in spite of being alive at the time, was ignored altogether in the succession. Victoria was the only claimant. The succession of our own Queen is the only instance in which there has been female primogeniture. At every other time, the succession has been established by law. I do not understand why the Bill does not clarify that point.

[Wayne David]

My understanding is that there was no legal basis for the present Queen to become Queen. There was an argument that she and her sister should hold the throne jointly, and it was only as a result of a Privy Council decision that common sense dictated that the senior of the two sisters should become the monarch.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman makes that point extraordinarily well. This is the time, while we are legislating on the issue, to clarify the order of precedence among sisters. Otherwise, there is a risk that clause 1 will simply provide that the children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be co-heirs to the Crown. The question whether Princess Margaret could have claimed the throne in 1952 is an interesting one. Surely the best time to settle this once and for all is while we are legislating on the matter. We should make it clear that, at least as far as succession to the Crown is concerned, female primogeniture has the same effect as male primogeniture, and that the co-heiress problem that exists in peerages will not apply.

I think it was Baron Grey of Codnor whose title was in abeyance from the late 15th century until the late 1980s. That is an example of how having co-heiresses in common can lead to an extensive abeyance. Why is that detail ignored in the Bill? It seems to me that the main reasons are the rush to pass the legislation and the failure properly to consider the ramifications of what is being done. That also applies to how dukedoms will pass. Will they pass as ordinary titles, or are they to be deemed to be within the Crown? If they are deemed to be within the Crown, why is that not in the Bill?

I have already discussed my concerns about clause 2 in relation to Catholics. It is unreasonable of an Act of Parliament to allow a Catholic to do one thing then deny that Catholic the ability to carry out the requirements of his faith. That is an illogical position to take, and it will bring out all the anti-Catholic terminology of the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights. Many Catholics can live comfortably with that terminology as part of our historical tradition, lost in the mists of time, but when it is brought firmly to our attention this week, it is a matter of the deepest concern. As other hon. Members have said, if a reform is to be made, it should be a thorough-going reform.

[Chris Bryant]

Is it not one of the ironies that clause 2 states that no one should be disqualified from succeeding to the throne through being married to a Catholic, yet clause 3 allows the monarch to exclude someone by refusing to consent to their marriage, potentially to a Roman Catholic?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is making a similar point to mine, which is that there has been a failure to consider the detail of the Bill. Trying to add two further clauses to the major provision that everyone was interested in has created confusion.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Is it not unreasonable, however, to ask a Roman Catholic to become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England—the hon. Gentleman obviously recognises that, given his suggestion of a regency—or to conform to the Presbyterian Church when in Scotland?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. It would be perfectly reasonable to leave the law of the land as it is, or to make provision for a regency, which would address the problem. Under the Regency Act 1937, the regent would be required to be a Protestant and would therefore be able to carry out the functions of Supreme Governor of the Church of England for a period when the Crown was being held by a Catholic.

Again, however, there are issues with the detail. I raised with the Minister the issue of Counsellors of State. Who is eligible to be a Counsellor of State is set out in the Regency Act 1937. It is usually the closest members of the sovereign’s family, including people who are not of the blood royal, so this includes the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen mother and the Duke of Edinburgh: they both were or are eligible to be Counsellors of State. Once a Catholic is allowed to marry an heir to the throne, it is perfectly possible for the two Counsellors of State—they always act in pairs—to be Catholics. During a brief incapacity of the Crown or during the Crown’s absence abroad, appointments in the Church of England would have to be made by Roman Catholics, which is a felony under the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829. It seems to me that Her Majesty’s Government are simply not aware of the detail of our constitutional settlement, and have pushed this clause through without considering the detailed ramifications.

The bit of the Bill for which I have the most sympathy is the clause abolishing the Royal Marriages Act 1772. I intervened earlier to cite a quotation from it that makes it the most nonsensical Act on the statute book since the marriage of Princess Alexandra, as she then was, to the then Prince of Wales. Princess Alexandra and her descendants were exempt under the section I read out earlier to the effect that royal princesses who married foreigners and their heirs were exempted from the Act. The marriage of Princess Louisa, the daughter of George II, exempted her line, and through Princess Alexandra our current Queen and all the members of her family are exempted. This Act of Parliament has only affected people for whom it did not really matter who they married and it has not affected the people for whom it did matter who they married.

It seems slightly eccentric to update this Act in a more aggressive form than the one currently on the statute book. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) said, the ability to get an exclusion from Parliament at the age of 25 has been removed, so more onerous legislation has resulted, taking people out of the line of succession rather than simply invalidating the marriage. Provisions have been put in place that are harsher than those of an Act that was completely ineffective against those with whom it was supposed to deal.

I am not going to vote against Second Reading. I am not going to try to cause a Division against the serried ranks of the establishment. Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition and Her Majesty’s Government line up their forces to push through a Bill of political correctness—not gone mad, but simply not thought through. I wish that when we considered, debated and changed our constitution, we did it with plenty of time, thoughtfulness and detail.

Pretty much every speech we have heard today has raised an issue that should have been thought about, but has been ignored. Why has it been rushed through? Because it is convenient. Once the two Front-Bench teams are in agreement, the days of the week could be renamed if they felt like doing it. There is nothing so silly as cannot be done by them jointly. That, I am afraid, is what we find with this Bill. Let us hope that when we come to Report—or more likely, perhaps, in the other place—the technicalities and the detail can be gone through, so that we do not find that the Duke of Lancaster ends up being one person and the sovereign another; so that we do not find that the Church of England is accidentally being run for a week by a couple of Papists who happen to be Counsellors of State; so that we do not find that an onerous charge is put on royal marriages so that the royals cannot marry when they want—or, indeed, so that the more junior members of the royal family cannot marry at all because if they are not subject to the Royal Marriages Act 1772, they are excluded from ordinary marriage legislation, so how are they going to get married? I really think that it is time to have a look at the detail.

Succession to the Crown Bill (Allocation of Time)

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment (a), in paragraph 1(3), after ‘Reading’, insert

‘and on any Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that has been selected by the Speaker, which shall be debated with the Second Reading,’.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider amendment (b), leave out paragraph 2(b).

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

We are discussing what may be the most important constitutional issue to which the House has ever turned its mind, namely, who shall be our sovereign. Who shall be eligible to receive perhaps the greatest office in the world? Who shall be the King or Queen of England?

When the Bill that became the Act of Settlement was debated, it spent six days in Committee. The allocation of time motion allows us two days in which to treat this Bill as if it were anti-terrorism legislation, which seems a particularly inopportune comparison given that it relates to matters that could not be further removed from that type of activity. As far as I am aware, the only constitutional Bill that has been treated to such a small amount of time—or, rather, an even smaller amount—is the Bill that became His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, which, I believe, completed its passage in the House of Commons in under a minute; but that, too, is not a happy precedent.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Is not the point that there really was rather an emergency on that occasion? The King had signified his abdication the previous day, and on 12 December the House had to enact, because there was no existing means of enabling the King to abdicate.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

For once I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. There was a genuine emergency then, but it is hard to see that there is a genuine emergency now. I am a great admirer of the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council, because he has managed, in his role and in the coalition, to put into effect what Palmerston promised: that the Government would eventually run out of matters on which to legislate. It is not as if we have an enormously packed legislative programme waiting for this House to turn its mind to and to pass. We spend hours debating the taxation of lorries and other such matters, which get a full day allocated for Second Reading, whereas the succession to the Crown is to be dealt with in a truncated Second Reading debate, a brief Committee stage, and then one day for the remaining stages. That seems to me to be an insult to the nation, to our sovereign and, indeed, to Parliament.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Is it the hon. Gentleman’s understanding, as it is mine, that significant subsequent legislative changes will be required to no fewer than nine Acts of Parliament—the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, the Union with Scotland Act 1706, the Coronation Oath Act 1688, the Princess Sophia’s Precedence Act 1711, the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Union with Ireland Act 1800, the Accession Declaration Act 1910 and the Regency Act 1937—and that we require more time to explore the implications and impact of those changes?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Again, I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. We need time to consider constitutional issues properly, because they have complex knock-on effects and their phraseology is crucial to how the Crown might pass in future. If mistakes are made now, we could discover that we end up with consequences that we do not want, or indeed—this comes back to my amendments to this allocation of time motion—that we are not able to consider matters that are very pertinent to parts of the Bill because the phrasing is too narrow and things have been done within a time limit that makes it very hard to extend into these issues.

My amendments seek to allow for an instruction to be debated that would widen the scope of the Bill to include the consequence of a marriage to a Catholic. I speak as a Catholic or, in the terminology of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, as a “Papist”—as a member of the “Popish” religion—and I am happy to do so. I find no shame in being called that; I rather prefer it to the more politically correct phraseology of “person of the Roman Catholic faith”, which is rather middle-management-speak, if I may say so.

It is proposed in the Bill that a Catholic may marry an heir to the throne but may not then maintain the succession by bringing up a child of that marriage as a Catholic. The reason I object to that is because it is an attack on the teaching of the Catholic Church. Canon 1125 states specifically that the bishop, who can give a dispensation for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic, is not to do so unless

“the Catholic party is to declare that he or she is prepared to remove dangers of defecting from the faith and is to make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power so that all offspring are baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church”.

When I got married, it was with great pleasure and joy that I was able to make that promise, because there is no finer thing to be able to pass on to one’s children than one’s own religion; there is nothing finer than to have that hope of faith, that joy of salvation that comes from passing on what has come from one’s own forebears through the generations. In this Bill and under this allocation of time motion, the House is not allowed to consider the natural consequence of what is being proposed by Her Majesty’s Government. I would therefore like the amendment to be made so that we are able to consider the natural consequences of what the legislation proposes.

I would like us to also be able to amend the legislation so that a child of such a marriage that the law would allow could be a Catholic, but to protect the position of the Church of England, which obviously cannot be led by a non-member of that Church, so that under the Regency Act 1937 a regent would be appointed to take on the role of Supreme Governor of the Church of England and to hold the title “Defender of the Faith”—a papal title that has been taken by the Crown since the reign of Henry VIII. That is an entirely logical extension of what is proposed in the Bill and time ought to be allowed to debate it, because when we start these changes and decide that in this modern age we need to be more politically correct and allow Catholics to marry into the throne, we have to consider the consequence.

The consequence of what is being proposed is to leave in the deeply hostile anti-Catholic language contained in the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights. Such language would not conceivably be used by any Member of this House in this more modern age. The consequence is to leave all that, but to take out just a few words. If I may, Mr Speaker, it might be worth my reading out a little of this language:

“And whereas it hath beene found by Experience that it is inconsistent with the Safety and Welfaire of this Protestant Kingdome to be governed by a Popish Prince or by any King or Queene marrying a Papist the said Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons doe further pray that it may be enacted That all and every person and persons that is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall professe the Popish Religion or shall marry a Papist shall be excluded and be for ever uncapeable to inherit possesse or enjoy the Crowne and Government of this Realme”.

We are proposing to remove from that fewer than a dozen words and leave the main substance intact. I would happily accept no change at all, because that is the history of our nation.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is an extremely great man. As a churchwarden in the Church of England, I salute the Catholic Church for its adherence to a principle that has not always been so prevalent in the Church of England. He raises some interesting points, and his amendment proposing that there should a regent who should be responsible for answering to the Church of England would create a fundamental change in our constitution. Accordingly, I entirely agree with him that this matter should not be rushed through this House or through Parliament. We should not trifle with the constitution of this realm in such a fashion, so I support entirely what he has just said.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend because that is the crux of my view. Let us suppose that we were to make no change. We live with the great history of this nation day by day, and it is a history that I am proud of and love; when we change it, we have to think carefully about the words we use. We have to think about the great offence given to Her Majesty’s loyal Catholic subjects by going back to the language of the Act of Settlement with a minor amendment.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

If the House were to require more time, it would be to absorb the shock of the hon. Gentleman turning from so eloquent a proponent of things as they are to someone who wants to remove, at one stroke, the Act of Settlement, the Act of Union and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. What has turned him from a man of conservative instincts to a radical firebrand in such a short time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The answer is simple: the amendments being introduced by Her Majesty’s Government. There is no need to change the Act of Settlement and there is no need to make this provision for a Catholic to marry into the Crown, but once we start fiddling, we have to do it properly.

[Chris Bryant]

I rather agree with the hon. Gentleman. Of course it may be that he is a true Tory and he is not happy that some of this legislation was Whig legislation. He referred to some specific words in the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement:

“is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome”.

If an Anglican marries a Catholic in a Catholic service in a Catholic church, it is difficult to argue that that person is not reconciled to or holding communion with the see or Church of Rome. That is precisely the kind of issue we need to tease out.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Once again, I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. That is why it is so important that we should have proper time for this debate and to debate the full ramifications of what the Government are trying to do. The argument that the measure has been agreed by Her Majesty’s other realms is not sufficient. It needs to have been thought through properly in one of her realms first, before we see whether the other realms will accept it. Yes, there might be a child—a happy event for Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—and let us hope that that is the case, but there would be no harm in allowing the legislation to be dated from today, even if that birth were to take place. There is no urgency. The succession is apparently very secure: the heir apparent is a youngish man and so is his son.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that we would surely hope that no other realm would spend any less time discussing the measure than it looks like we will spend on it this afternoon?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Of course, the sovereign is also King or Queen of Scotland, which is a very important title.

I do not wish to detain the House any longer, but I think that this is a matter of fundamental importance. We are changing that part of our constitution that is most precious in a rush, as if it is anti-terrorist legislation, and we are not allowing ourselves proper time to consider all the ramifications of what is entailed by Her Majesty’s Government’s position. I therefore hope that the House will consider accepting my amendment to make some improvement to the Bill, although I fear that it still will not allow sufficient time for all one might wish to discuss.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Smith]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I certainly look forward to far more debate on those matters on Second Reading.

It does not need me to stand here and say that the changes do not affect the established Church because the established Church says that for itself. The Church of England has said:

“The present prohibition…is not necessary to support the requirement that the Sovereign join in communion with the Church of England. Its proposed removal is a welcome symbolic and practical measure consistent with respect for the principle of religious liberty.”

I know that the House will find that welcome.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think the Church may have missed the fact that Counsellors of State could be Catholic because they tend to have married into the Crown.

[Miss Smith]

I am grateful for that further erudite contribution from my hon. Friend. I suspect that might be a matter in respect of which he would wish to extend the scope of the Bill, and I shall have to return to that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I shall now put the question on the amendment.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was going to ask whether, by leave of the House, I might withdraw the amendment. I have listened carefully to the debate. I am sorry to say that whenever Front Benchers on both sides agree one is likely to lose in a Division, although it usually indicates that the House is going to vote erroneously; there is nothing more dangerous than when Front Benchers on both sides agree.

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker, because had we come to my second amendment, you would have been able to put the question, “2(b) or not 2(b)?” Sadly, if I am granted leave to withdraw, you will not be able to put it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Succession to the Crown Bill—

Timetable

1.–(1) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee, any proceedings on consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be completed in two days in accordance with the following provisions of this Order.

(2) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee shall be completed at today’s sitting.

(3) Proceedings on Second Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion four hours after the commencement of proceedings on this Motion.

(4) Proceedings in Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after the commencement of proceedings on this Motion.

(5) Any proceedings on consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be completed on the second day.

(6) Any proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the second day.

(7) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the second day.

Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put

2. When the Bill has been read a second time—

(a) it shall, despite Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills not subject to a programme order), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;

(b) the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.

3. On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee, the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.

4. For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1, the Chairman or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others) in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply— (a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;

(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;

(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;

(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded.

5. On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.

6. If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph 4(c) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chairman or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.

7. If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph 4(d) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chairman shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause of or Schedule to the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.

Consideration of Lords Amendments

8.–(1) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.

(2) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (1) shall thereupon be resumed.

9.–(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 8.

(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question already proposed from the Chair.

(3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment the Speaker shall then put forthwith—

(a) a single Question on any further Amendments to the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and

(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown that this House agrees or disagrees to the Lords Amendment or (as the case may be) to the Lords Amendment as amended.

(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith—

(a) a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment, and

(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown that this House agrees or disagrees to the Lords Amendment or (as the case may be) to the Lords Amendment as amended.

(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown that this House disagrees to a Lords Amendment.

(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question that this House agrees to all the remaining Lords Amendments.

(7) As soon as the House has—

(a) agreed or disagreed to a Lords Amendment; or

(b) disposed of an Amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any Amendments that are moved by a Minister of the Crown and are relevant to the Lords Amendment.

Subsequent stages

10.–(1) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.

(2) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (1) shall thereupon be resumed.

11.–(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 10.

(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair.

(3) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.

(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.

(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question that this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

Reasons Committee

12.–(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the appointment of its Chair.

(2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.

(3) Proceedings in the Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.

(4) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (3), the Chair shall—

(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair, and

(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.

(5) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.

Miscellaneous

13. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall apply so far as necessary for the purposes of this Order.

14.–(1) The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.

(2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall apply to those proceedings.

15. Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.

16.–(1) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken or to recommit the Bill.

(2) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

17.–(1) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.

(2) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

18. The Speaker may not arrange for a debate to be held in accordance with Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day before the conclusion of any proceedings to which this Order applies.

19.–(1) This paragraph applies if the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the conclusion of any proceedings to which this Order applies.

(2) No notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

20. Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

21.–(1) Any private business which has been set down for consideration at 7.00 pm, 4.00 pm or 2.00 pm (as the case may be) on a day on which the Bill has been set down to be taken as an Order of the Day shall, instead of being considered as provided by Standing Orders, be considered at the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill on that day.

(2) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill or, if those proceedings are concluded before the moment of interruption, for a period equal to the time elapsing between 7.00 pm, 4.00 pm or 2.00 pm (as the case may be) and the conclusion of those proceedings.