Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is now more than a year since the Perth agreement, and I appreciate that the Deputy Prime Minister has put a lot of work into this. It is now in the hands of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, however, so will the Deputy Prime Minister consider visiting New Zealand—

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

And stay there!

[Keith Vaz]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider visiting New Zealand to try to speed up this process, because it is taking a long time and there is all-party agreement that it should be concluded as soon as possible?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

One Member of this House on the other side of the planet is, I think, enough. I do not intend to take a long voyage myself, although I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind suggestion. Thankfully, we do not need to travel around the globe to communicate with each other these days. We have other means by which we can liaise with colleagues and friends in the New Zealand Government—and indeed, with the other realms. As I have said before, I am as impatient as the right hon. Gentleman to see the end of the outdated and discriminatory rule of male primogeniture and also the bar on the monarch or the successor to the throne marrying a Roman Catholic. I am as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman is to see those rules updated and modernised. It just takes a bit of time and a little bit of patience to make sure that all the realms are properly aligned, as they need to be to make this change happen.