Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Chris Bryant

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I know the role she has played, in particular in the all-party group on the armed forces, and of course in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. She is absolutely right, and there are sometimes coup and contrecoup elements of damage to the brain. There is also some evidence to suggest that some people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder have actually been suffering from a brain injury.

Interestingly, the Ministry of Defence has done some of the most innovative work in relation to brain injuries—physical brain injuries, as it were—and it has been able to transfer some of the skills and research involved in that work to the wider population, which is all to the good. However, I think that the way in which the mind sits inside the brain and the brain sits inside the skull is one of the areas of research that is still underdeveloped, and we still need to do a great deal more about it.

Other causes include brain tumours and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, where somebody may have had a series of relatively minor concussions. There is a complete misunderstanding of what concussion actually involves, particularly in sport. This might be leading to some of the long-term sustained problems of, for example, people in my own constituency who played rugby for many years and had repeated concussions. They may suffer from dementia, depression and anxiety in later life, but have no understanding that that may relate to a brain injury, rather than to anything else.

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

While we are talking about sport, may I say that this does not involve only rugby players? There is now evidence that footballers, particularly those heading the ball, suffer sustained brain injuries. It used to be interpreted as dementia, but it is a lot more serious than that. Has my hon. Friend had any discussions with the Football League about that?

[Chris Bryant]

I have had lots of discussions, some of them more fruitful than others, with the Football Association.

It is wholly to be deprecated that FIFA still will not allow a full substitution for an assessment of brain injury during a match. Ten minutes are needed to do a proper assessment on the pitch, but at the moment only three minutes is available in a FIFA match. There can be no substitution, and it is not therefore in the team’s interests to take the person off the pitch. I think that this must change. If there is one thing that I hope Parliament will say to FIFA about this in the next few months, it is that this must change. People we talk of as heroes, such as Jeff Astle, have died because of heading the ball. If those who are heroes to our young people today end up suffering in later life because of what they sustained in their footballing career, we will have done them a terrible disservice.

Standing Orders (Public Business)

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Chris Bryant

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I know clause 44 extremely well, but I am not going to let on to the Leader of the House. If he cannot be bothered to read his own legislation when it goes through the Legislative Programme Committee, which he chairs, that is a problem for him.

Although the measures seek to address one anomaly, which has been referred to by the right hon. Member for Wokingham, I believe that they will create many more. If Scottish MPs are not to be allowed to determine legislation that affects only England, why should English MPs be allowed to determine Westminster legislation that affects only Scotland or, for that matter, that affects only Wales or Northern Ireland? Plenty of legislation, clauses and schedules fall into that category. The Partnerships (Prosecution) (Scotland) Act 2013, for instance, applied only in Scotland but was driven through the House of Commons on the back of the Government’s majority. I tell the Leader of the House that this is a dangerous road to go down as it will set a worm of grievance into the hearts of many across the Union.

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

What my hon. Friend has just outlined suggests that he agrees with me that the Speaker will be challenged more and more, which will undermine his credibility.

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree. I think that this will politicise the Speaker in a way that is not only unhelpful to the House—

Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I have always been in favour of a written constitution, but that is not what we are debating. The important job of work that we have to do when we write elements of our constitution into statute is to make sure that they meet any possible eventualities that could come down the road, because we can never imagine precisely what is going to happen. In 1936, we had a crisis because there were no means by which the monarch could abdicate, so we had the odd situation where the monarch announced his abdication and the next day legislation had to be got through the House. As was said earlier, that took only 10 minutes, but none the less we had to make legislation on the hoof.

The Act of Settlement contains two clauses that make different provisions in relation to the monarch. As the hon. Member for 1642 said, section II says that anyone who

“is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall profess the Popish Religion or shall marry a Papist”

shall be excluded from the succession. So I raise the genuine point: if someone marries a Roman Catholic in a Catholic church—the Minister said that Her Majesty has been to a Roman Catholic church—it is difficult to see how that person is not then reconciled to the See of Rome. I hope that the Church of England will be reconciled to the See of Rome. The advances we have seen in ecumenism over the years do not just mean that we have rejected the ludicrous prejudice that there was about Catholicism and the belief that somehow or other a Catholic could not be a patriot. We need to go further, and I hope that in the ecumene of all the Churches there will be reconciliation one day. I know that that is the view of the most recent Archbishop of Canterbury and I suspect it is the view of the current one, so it would seem odd if it were not then the view of the monarch. I want to start asking whether we do not need to change all the provisions in relation to the religion of the monarch. As an Anglican, I would have no fear of a Roman Catholic who accepted a series of oaths to protect the Church of England, as established by law—

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

In 1960, President Kennedy, a Catholic, took an oath and it did not commit him, in any way, to being against non-Catholics.

[Chris Bryant]

No, but that was a big issue in the election of that period. The situation is somewhat different in America, as it has a clear division of state and religion whereas this country expressly does not. We have two established Churches in this country: the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. [Interruption.] Yes, the Church of Scotland is established by law.