Sovereign Grant Bill (Allocation of Time)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I will detain the House for only a very short time. First, I strongly agree with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South—

[Mr Winnick]

Walsall North. Walsall South is your sister.

[Keith Vaz]

Walsall North (Mr Winnick); my hon. Friend is definitely not my sister, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz)—I would have recognised that. I agree with what he said and I thank him.

I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the shadow Chancellor are trying to be helpful but there were issues that I wanted to raise on Second Reading concerning the Act of Settlement and my Bill on the removal of primogeniture, which is currently before the House and ought to be considered alongside the very sensible changes being made by the Chancellor in clause 9 of this Bill, which gives a female heir of the Duke of Cornwall the chance to get a settlement equal to a male heir. I agree with what the Chancellor and shadow Chancellor have said, but there is no opportunity to raise these issues if we simply have a debate on clause stand part instead of on Second Reading. Like the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), I should like to know whether it is your intention, Mr Deputy Speaker, to allow a clause stand part debate to proceed as if it were Second Reading, thus enabling us to raise concerns about the modernisation of the Act of Settlement, which as the hon. Gentleman has said, we have been waiting to do for two centuries.