Succession to the Crown Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) and I want to start my speech on a note of agreement, as he is absolutely right that the contributions made by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) added to the debate. It has been very worth while and will be followed, although at times it got complicated. I thought I knew everything about the Catholic Church and a bit about the history of this country, but I have learned so much from so many colleagues and I appreciate what they have said.

I pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the House and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), for the way in which they conducted the discussions preceding and following the introduction of the Bill in this House. In particular, the hon. Lady went out of her way to ask Members for their views. In all the years I have been in this House, I have not often been invited to meetings with Ministers to discuss my views on impending legislation. That took place in a formal meeting at which many right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the House were present. We had a fruitful discussion and she certainly seemed to have listened to the points that were made, as demonstrated by her speeches.

The difficult task was that of the Deputy Prime Minister. He has had to go to other members of the Commonwealth and persuade them to agree. He has done that diligently—I do not think that people automatically agree when he rings up and says that he wants to alter the law of the land. Of course, there has been careful thought. I know that, because when I introduced my ten-minute rule Bill on 18 January 2011, two years ago, I wrote to all 16 Commonwealth Heads of Government. Obviously, I do not know the royal family and Heads of State as well as the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) does, but I do my little bit in royal circles. The response I received was quite depressing, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, went so far as to issue a statement saying he did not think that this issue was a priority—the Canadian people were facing other issues—and that he was not absolutely supportive of the proposal. He has changed his mind, and I am sure that that was because of the Government’s persuasion.

In conclusion, I want to pay tribute to Terry and Janet Herbert, two constituents of mine who live in Northfields and came to my surgery to say that it was quite wrong for us not to have equality in our succession laws. They pointed out that at least six European countries have changed their succession laws to ensure equality, as we have heard in our numerous discussions on this matter. We have heard them all: the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and others. If it was good enough for them, my constituents asked, why were we not doing the same? They started a petition that was circulated around Leicester and put on websites, which many thousands of people have signed since. I pay tribute to Terry and Janet. I know that they are not solely responsible for this massive change in the law, but I am grateful to them for coming to me and making suggestions. They are great royalists and supporters of the monarchy and they love the Queen, as we all do—we all like her as a person even though we do not all support the monarchy.

We have now brought the monarchy into the 21st century and we can all be very proud of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I am a member of that Committee and I venture to suggest that there is no more important person to the home affairs of this country than our sovereign lady the Queen.

The unwritten constitution of this great country is rather like the roof over the temple of Solomon, and the monarchy is the central pillar holding up that roof. Other pillars include this House, the other place, the judiciary and the law courts. Perhaps even the press are a pillar of the constitution—although rather a stunted pillar so perhaps more of a balustrade. Nevertheless, one might argue that a number of pillars hold up the roof of our constitution. It is a multi-pillared structure—one might almost say a Parthenon—and one must be cautious before one chips away at those pillars. The consequence of such actions can be a structural collapse, and we all know that those who are beneath the structure chipping away at it can be the victims of such a calamity. I would exercise all due diligence and all due caution before instituting any changes, such as those that are envisaged.

However, I support the Bill. On balance, 300 years is about the right period of time—it is not overly hurried—for the provisions being changed by the Bill to be looked at afresh. Some aspects of the Bill are appropriate because they renew the ageing—one might even say decrepit—parts of the constitution and the ancient structure that I mentioned. It is always right to consider that this country of ours and the monarchy that heads it has always changed with the times. The monarchy has always tended to adapt to changing times. Recently, Queen Victoria, by her character and temperament—[Interruption.] Recently, in constitutional terms. When Queen Victoria came to the throne she represented a considerable change from the Georgian sovereigns who went before her. Her conduct, her decorum and the manner in which she reigned were lessons to her descendants.

There is no doubt that there is unacceptable prejudice currently written into the constitution of this country by such Acts of Parliament as the Act of Settlement 1701.

[Keith Vaz]

I accept everything that the hon. Gentleman has said so far, but does he agree with me and other Members of the House that there is unfinished business in respect of modernisation—for example, the succession to baronetcies? These are issues that we should return to in the future.

[Michael Ellis]

For my part, I prefer to leave the structures alone if we can possibly do so. I think there is something to be said for the ancient customs, traditions and privileges of this country, and we should be very cautious about making changes willy-nilly because of their unintended consequences.

We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). He said, I believe, in a debate last Tuesday from which I was absent but which I have read in the Official Report, that he does not take offence at the terms of the Act of Settlement because it is the history of this country. I admire that and I wish more people would take such a mature view of such things. All too often people are quick to find offence where none should be taken. There is an inbuilt prejudice against other religions, my own included. Because those religions may not be in communion with the Church of England, their adherents cannot be eligible to be sovereign of this country, but I for one take no offence at that because it is part of the noble history of this country and it seems to me that there are reasons why we should retain that. Principal among them is the establishment of the Church of England.

The prejudices that exist are based not on current thinking but on historical reasons, and have been left unchanged only because Members of this House in recent generations have taken the view, presumably, that they have more important things to do than change them or because changing them involves great complexity. For that reason, as well as for many others, I admire my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister for being the one who brought these measures before the House. Whereas others have spoken of them and made supportive noises about them for many years, the Deputy Prime Minister has done it, and I congratulate him on that.

With reference to male primogeniture, one has only to look at the long and noble history of this country to see that we have been very fortunate with our female sovereigns. There should certainly be no reason why we should deny or make it more difficult for females to succeed to the Crown. We have the example of our current Queen and of Queen Victoria, and I dare say of those queens who were not queens regnant but queens consort. I am thinking of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Her late Majesty Queen Mary, who also were exemplars of duty, service to their country, and spirit. I have no problem with removing the male primogeniture aspect, as the Bill does.

However, I would not go as far as others and seek to defenestrate completely those parts of the constitution which in some way can be said to be prejudicial to some group or other. For example, one could argue that the law that says that the oldest person, whether male or female, should take precedence over young siblings is also biased. It is also prejudicial because it is ageist in that it favours older over younger. One could go on ad absurdum. I suggest that we try not to get too concerned about removing all aspects of the legal fictions that the law has had to develop over the years.

For example, when, for the purpose of inheritance, both the father and the eldest son die in the same instance, such as in a road traffic accident, the law assumes that the older died before the younger, even if it is transparent that they both died instantly in an accident. That is because the law has to develop types of legal regulation—legal fiction, one might call it—in order to make sense. I use this as an example to indicate with caution that attractive though it is in principle to remove all types of bias, there will always be some type of bias within the system, but the Bill goes some way towards rectifying the most egregious examples.

The Bill also deals with the Royal Marriages Act 1772. The Act has become redundant in as much as it is difficult to operate effectively.