House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The appointment of Ministers is ultimately a matter for the Prime Minister and I am certainly not going to comment on that. Ministerial numbers must reflect what the Prime Minister of the day feels she or he needs for the Government to work effectively.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

On the number of Ministers, the maximum is set by legislation. It is not purely in the gift of the Prime Minister.

[Michael Ellis]

I recognise that—the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, I think—but that relates to the maximum, not the minimum. However, the appointment of Ministers is a matter for the Prime Minister.

There are many different views on what form the House of Lords should take and we have heard some of them this afternoon. Without consensus, as I have said, there is no practical possibility of taking such reform forward, and this was clear from the attempted passage of the House of Lords Reform Bill in 2012. It was withdrawn not for lack of commitment from the Government, but because there was no overall agreement about what that reform should look like. When there are so many pressing constitutional reforms, not least devolving more powers to Scotland and Wales and delivering all that is necessary for the UK’s exit from the European Union, it is on those subjects that we should focus our attention in this Parliament. It would not be right to distract from or derail important reforms elsewhere by making House of Lords reform a priority. That is why we do not support the motion.

Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and we have seen this in some of the recent celebrity sex offending cases: people have been sentenced under the old rules. That is a good principle of law and this House ought to maintain good principles of law. That is why we should reject that amendment, and reject the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), because they bring the courts into our proceedings, but I think we should accept the amendments of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that allow more free-flowing recall, because ultimately we should trust the good sense of the British people, especially those in Somerset where most good sense is to be found.

[Michael Ellis]

As usual, it is a great honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). May I start by agreeing very much with him about the issue of retrospective penalty? It is more than guidelines; it is a fundamental principle of the law of England and Wales that penalties do not apply retrospectively. I have prosecuted and, for that matter, defended cases in court which are often historical offences—this relates particularly to sexual offences, but it can relate to other types of offence as well—where the penalties have moved on and often been increased in the intervening years. The historical sex offence with which the individual defendant is charged carries a maximum that no longer applies, but the court is bound by the maximum sentence that was in place at the time of the offence.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

We have seen Labour at its most opportunistic and cynical. The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) complained vociferously about the lack of time given to this matter, but it was the Labour Government who negotiated the infamous Lisbon treaty, and did not call for any debate on the Floor of the House. If it had been left up to Labour, there would have been no time at all for a debate on the Floor of the House, and the matter would have been dealt with by an obscure Committee upstairs over a 90-minute period. Yet Labour Members now cynically suggest that there is not enough time, despite having had six opportunities here in the Chamber.

Labour Members have also complained that there has not been enough time for this debate. Last Monday, they used an arcane procedure—it can be found on page 404 of “Erskine May”—to curtail debate. They attempt to convince people that there has been insufficient debate when they have cut hours of it short using an archaic procedure.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Ellis]

In a moment, if I may.

This is not a debate about Europe; it is a debate about law and order. I spoke out in the Home Affairs Committee and in the Chamber against the European arrest warrant’s earlier manifestations, but there have been changes, which make a significant difference. For 15 years, before I came to this House, as a barrister in criminal practice, I fought for justice for individuals. It is my hope and intention to continue to do so from this place, but the reality is that the changes that have been made are significant.

Under Labour, British citizens were extradited for disproportionately minor offences. We have changed the law to allow an arrest warrant to be refused in respect of minor offences. Under Labour, people could be extradited for conduct in the UK that was not against the law of this country. We have changed that, too, so that that can no longer happen.

Under Labour, people were detained for long periods overseas before they were charged or stood trial. That was wrong. We have changed the law again to stop that unfairness. Under Labour, people were worried about arrest warrants being issued purely for investigatory purposes, rather than for prosecutions, so we have changed that. Under Labour, people were concerned about the prospect of being charged with offences over and above those specified in their arrest warrant if they chose to consent to extradition, and we have changed that, too. So it is a different creature. It is a different matter altogether.

Many issues have been raised by hon. Members, including eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), but they must bear it in mind that over 95% of those extradited are foreign nationals. There are miscarriages of justice, about which it is painful to hear and which I have spent my life fighting against, but there are miscarriages everywhere. It is not the European arrest warrant that is being objected to in those remarks; often, it is extradition itself that people are unhappy with. I remind hon. Members that the Home Secretary has made changes to the extradition process as well—I cite the forum bar in that respect. Therefore, we are talking about different creatures.

Did my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) wish to intervene?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

indicated dissent.

Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but even if people cannot work, they can take in a lodger, and can get £20 coming in without any effect on their benefit, so they can be better off, because the average that would be lost for one room is £14. The Government have a policy that makes people who are not in work potentially better off, and those who are in work can also be better off, because they will similarly be able to take in lodgers, but they might be able to move to cheaper housing, which they can afford to pay for themselves, rather than being dependent on the state.

[Michael Ellis]

As usual my hon. Friend makes an excellent series of points. As well as the option for those who cannot work of taking a lodger, does he agree that for those people who can work, and are in some work, in many cases the sums involved would require only two hours of the minimum wage per week to make up the difference?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am sympathetic to what my hon. Friend says, but I think that people need to be able to take responsibility for themselves and to make choices for themselves. The choice they have is either to maintain the benefit they need for the housing they need, or to stay in housing where they have an extra room and adjust their behaviour accordingly. It is not for the state, putting its expenditure on the backs of hard-pressed taxpayers, to fund indefinitely people’s lifestyle choices, and it is a choice if people decide to have an extra room that they are not actually using; they can choose whether to move to a smaller property or, under this new policy, to find a way of getting the extra income they need.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[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?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Defamation Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The less said about that, the better. I remain a fan of that periodical, and as far as such proceedings are concerned we have to move with the times, because defamation law has not tended to move with them sufficiently.

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

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Ellis]

Always to my hon. Friend.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend says that we should move with the times. Surely we are Conservatives and should be turning the clock back.

[Michael Ellis]

Notwithstanding my hon. Friend’s pertinent observation about our party of support and care, I think it is right—I know my hon. Friend will agree—that the Conservative party has moved with the times. It is the longest-serving political party anywhere in the democratic world because it has tended to move effectively with the times over the generations.

Few colleagues have made the point that the Bill will rightly provide a power for the court, under the existing summary disposal procedure, to order publication of a summary of its judgment, which will be available in defamation proceedings generally. It is my understanding that the courts will be able, in certain circumstances, to order the offending publication to reprint some or all of its judgment. That will be quite useful if a judge feels that there has been an egregious failure by the periodical which is not going to be met other than by his or her intervention to ensure that proper redress is made in terms of the court’s ruling. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) referred some time ago in this debate to a page 1 splash, which a few months later results in a postage-stamp-sized apology on page 52. A judge will be able to order, if he or she wishes, that a transcript of the judgment be reprinted in full in the newspaper. That will be quite powerful for the courts, and an effective measure.

The secondary publishers to which hon. Members have referred, namely the vendors, bookstores and booksellers, need greater protection from civil suit in any defamation action that may be brought against them. There may be certain circumstances in which it is appropriate to take punitive action against a bookseller or a company that disseminates libellous material, but it ought to be a secondary measure. The primary purpose—the primary avenue—should be to take an action against the author and publisher of the offending work, and the disseminator should be involved only if necessary, appropriate and reasonably practicable. I therefore approve of all those measures, which will be rather effective.

We need to remove the trivial and unfounded cases and raise the bar for bringing a claim. I am conscious that it is sometimes prohibitively expensive to take an action for defamation, and colleagues have referred repeatedly to the chilling effect of the costs involved. That can itself be limiting, and a principal concern of mine is that individuals who are without means or even of “middle” means—if I can put it that way—are not able to take the same action as a wealthy individual or a news company that has a greater ability to fight and to defend actions in what can be very expensive defamation proceedings.

In short, this Bill has my support for all those reasons. It is clearly a necessary measure in order to modernise the law of defamation, and in those circumstances I expect it to have considerable support on both sides of the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I have been listening for the last five hours to how amazingly important the Bill is and to the view that it is short but perfectly formed. It seems to me, therefore, that the power of the Bill and the effect it will have should not be underestimated when we look at the scales of coalition balance. At the moment, they are weighing down heavily on the Lib Dem side and I think that we might need a little counterweight for the Conservatives later in the Session.

I want to consider the merits of the Bill and the whole idea of what we are trying to achieve. We have heard from other Members about freedom of speech, which is something of the utmost importance—the cliché of the evening, but it is a true cliché. Freedom of speech is under attack from the Leveson inquiry, which wishes to bind down journalists to rules of good behaviour, and sometimes from libel lawyers.

However, we should also consider the question of reputation, defamation and how we should protect people when they feel they have been hard done by. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) quoted Shakespeare. Two can play at that game, so I though I would too:

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse steals trash—”

in my case butterflies and moths, and things like that—

“‘tis something, nothing;

‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.”

So it is right that there is some protection in our legal system for people’s good name, even though that impinges on freedom of speech.

There are already many protections in the law for freedom of speech. We are fortunate to enjoy under the Bill of Rights an absolute privilege for anything that we say in this Chamber. It can never be used in any court of law. We can be as rude about people as we like—not that I am going to use that privilege this evening, but it is a privilege of absolute free speech.

It is to be welcomed that the Bill maintains that truth should be a defence in a defamation action. That seems perfectly sensible and wise, although I know Pontius Pilate questioned what truth was, and there is always that issue to consider. Truth is not necessarily as absolute as it can sometimes be thought to be off the cuff, so to speak. There are elements and forms of truth, and of course in the oath that people take in courts there is “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, indicating different levels of truth.

Fair comment, which has been allowed in the past, is now being made clearly part of the law, which is absolutely splendid. If people wish to air their disagreements and phrase themselves strongly, that is all to the good and to be encouraged, and it should be protected as part of free speech. However, what if the defamation is serious? What penalties should there be then? Who should decide, and who should be charged?

I am concerned about the liberties that we are giving to internet service providers and to people who are responsible for websites but deny any responsibility for their content. They become more and more powerful as time goes on. There are two or three firms that dominate the world in that sense, but they are not necessarily on the side of the individual who is defamed.

I had my own little issue with somebody who set up a highly amusing Twitter account in my name. It was not done by me—it was much funnier than I could ever have been—but there was nothing that I could do to stop it. It went on churning out comments that some journalists thought I had made. I always thought I could say my own silly things without anybody saying them on my behalf. There needs to be some recourse for people who are impersonated and defamed through that impersonation. The responsibility ought to lie with the internet companies, which ought not to have a great exemption that allows them to tarnish people’s reputations without any great difficulty.

I have some specific concerns about the Bill and the argument that has been developed today. The first is about jury trials. We heard from the Lord Chancellor and others very good arguments for getting rid of juries—that they are expensive, that they are inconvenient, that they make the process more difficult for m’learned friends. However, that requires that we should have absolute faith in the wisdom of judges, and personally I do not. They are broadly good and wise eggs and do their best under difficult circumstances, but they are not omniscient. I feel that if my reputation were on the line, it would be safer in the hands of 12 good and true men and women of this country—ideally, of course, of Somerset. That would be the best way to protect one’s reputation. I accept that it is expensive, but it is more just.

That is particularly important in any libel case that has a political tint about it, because judges are part of the establishment. They are there, in some ways, to uphold the establishment, and we see from some of what they come up with when commissioned by the Government to write learned reports that they often fall on the side of the establishment. Lord Hutton was the supreme example of that a few years ago when he produced a most extraordinary whitewash of all that had gone on over the Iraq affair. I therefore do not believe it is right or wise to use the argument of convenience, which could be used to abolish juries in every trial in the land for all time.

[Michael Ellis]

rose—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is a privilege to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Michael Ellis]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the Bill simply removes the presumption in favour of a jury trial? Does he also acknowledge that part of the difficulty with jury trials in defamation actions is that the fact of a jury trial being so much more expensive can and has been used by those who have substantial means who are seeking to put off putative plaintiffs from taking defamation action in the first place?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes the point that the Bill takes away the presumption in favour of juries, which is fair enough. I would put that presumption back. I would trust juries to make the decision, because they are better at doing so than judges, and because a jury decision is more just. The presumption in favour of a jury is less likely to leave one under the hammer of the establishment if one falls on the wrong side of it. It is true that establishment views are sometimes hard to break through, and judges are establishment creatures, so I would always trust juries against judges.

UK Extradition Arrangements

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

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

It is a real privilege to follow my learned hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) and to speak in this debate, called by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who is so right to be defending the ancient rights of the British people. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) got it absolutely right when he said that we spend a lot of time talking about the human rights of people in this country until, suddenly, extradition comes up and then—bingo!—they have gone, and they are sacrificed to transportation to a foreign land.

The point that we should focus on is the first principle of why we have such protections for the innocent in the criminal law. We have, as we know, a powerful state. The state provides the police and the prosecuting authority, and the state pays the judges and reimburses the juries, and, because of that great power, the state then feels it is right to put in place protections for the individual who is charged: the right to trial by jury; the right to habeas corpus; and the right to be presumed innocent until found guilty. These are the foundation rights of our criminal justice system and have a history stretching back 1,000 years.

But, when it comes to extradition, people can go to countries that do not have or follow that tradition. We have heard about how it works in Hungary, and the criminal justice system there, so one is a protected British subject if charged here, with all sorts of possible ways of defending oneself, but suddenly, if one comes under the European arrest warrant, one can languish in a dank Hungarian jail, with all those protections removed.

The United States is our greatest and closest ally, and a country with which we want to have the friendliest of relations, but we have already heard about the extraordinary approach it takes to plea bargaining: one may be threatened with 400 years without the option of parole, or if one pleads guilty one gets a week in a resort near Canada, as happened to the man who was prosecuted at the same point as Lord Black of Crossharbour—his noble lordship. One of them was offered an enormously long sentence, and the other was offered a Canadian golf club.

[Michael Ellis]

We do not have a system of plea bargaining in this country, but does my hon. Friend not accept that people who plead guilty in the United Kingdom’s courts will almost invariably receive a lower sentence than if they are found guilty after trial? There are good public policy reasons why.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There are, indeed, but that is of a completely different order of magnitude: one gets a little off one’s sentence if one pleads guilty early—rather than being threatened with hundreds of years against a week in a golf club. That does not happen under the British system, but we know that it happened to the man who turned the equivalent of Queen’s evidence against Conrad Black. We know that it happens in the United States system, but we are willing to risk British subjects going over there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

But it is such a pleasure to hear from the hon. Gentleman, and the tone of the House is raised by his gracious presence, so I will respond. Yes, of course we should have a hierarchy of countries to which we feel comfortable extraditing people, and of course New Zealand, Australia and Canada would be very high up on those lists—and the United States would be pretty high up too.

However, I do not think that the ambassador to the Court of St James—the extraordinary plenipotentiary of the United States—behaves in a diplomatic way when he starts telling this House how we ought to consider our business. I like to think what the noise would be in Washington if our ambassador there decided to suggest to the Senate or to the House of Representatives how they ought to conduct their business. Sitting as he does in his grand fortress in Grosvenor square like some Persian satrap, he should not be telling the House of Commons how to conduct her business. Of course we should have friendly extradition arrangements with the United States, but crucially ones that protect the ancient rights of the British subject whereby they should be innocent until proved guilty and should remain within the jurisdiction of this country until evidence is produced against them.

If we are worried about the United States, how much more worried should we be about some European countries, which can, in effect, arrest people and have them removed from this country without so much as a by-your-leave? We are risking people’s freedom and liberty. This House exists to protect the freedoms and the liberties of the British subject. Yes, I know that some of them will be guilty and will deserve severe punishment for the crimes they have committed, but have we not set up our justice system on the basic principle that it is better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man or, indeed, woman, although women commit fewer crimes—[Interruption] It is true; they do—to be imprisoned when innocent? If that is the starting point of our justice system, then surely we ought to apply it when it comes to extradition, and therefore the Government ought to review the arrangements that they have with the United States.

[Michael Ellis]

Does my hon. Friend give no credence to the fact that in the 500-page Scott Baker report, commissioned by Her Majesty’s Government, eminent jurists came to the conclusion that the imbalance that he is assuming between British and American relations regarding extradition does not exist?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Had my hon. Friend paid closer attention to the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton, he would understand that there are differing views on that. It is well known that, with Government reports, the people are appointed who will provide the report that is wanted. That has been practised over many centuries.

Sovereign Grant Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

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

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

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

[Michael Ellis]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that each sovereign since 1760 has been asked by successive Governments to sign over the proceeds of the Crown Estate, in and of itself, proves that the estate belongs not to the country but to the person of the sovereign?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is of course right.

It is often said that Her Majesty is the golden thread that binds our nation together, and the key part of that phrase is the word “golden”. Her Majesty is not the cotton thread, or the silver thread, or the woollen thread, she is a golden thread that binds the nation together as one unique, great and noble nation.

Civil List

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Ellis

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The hon. Gentleman may not, but others may choose to do so. In fact, I happen to think that the 1760 arrangements were an historic injustice to King George III and his heirs and successors. There is every reason to say that if the hon. Gentleman is not happy with the arrangements being proposed, perhaps the royal family could sustain having 100% back.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Hear, hear!

[Michael Ellis]

I see that that idea is getting agreement.