Business of the House

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

When we have a Bill there will, of course, be a debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue. In his statement, the Prime Minister said that we are intending to legislate

“to end the system of male preference primogeniture and the provision that anyone who marries a Roman Catholic would be ineligible to succeed to the Crown.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 31WS.]

Any legislation that we bring before the House has to work for 16 countries, and to that end a group of senior officials from across those countries is working urgently to agree the necessary legislation. When that has been done, it will be brought before the House.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Further to that answer, may I say that the Prime Minister needs to be praised for making his announcement in Perth, which was of course supported by the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister? Further to what the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) has said, I have a Bill before the House, which is to have its Second Reading on 25 November, that deals with this very point. I am happy to give that Bill to the Leader of the House so that, instead of drafting new legislation, he can use it and introduce the measures as soon as possible, because when it happens here first, it will then happen in the other 16 countries.

[Sir George Young]

That is an enormously generous offer from the right hon. Gentleman, but he will have heard what I said a moment ago about a working group that is preparing the necessary legislation. He may well have anticipated the output of this hard-working team of people and perfectly drafted his piece of legislation to anticipate what they will recommend, but I am afraid that the Government do not have that total confidence and it might be best to await the output of the working group before we look again at his Bill.