Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Miss Smith]

Clause 2 is extremely clear that the monarch may not be a Roman Catholic. I think that that is the simplest expression of the lawfulness entailed in the clause.

[Sir Alan Beith]

It will not be clear if confusion persists over the matter of Protestant or Church of England. For example, Prince Albert was a Lutheran when he married Queen Victoria; he was a Protestant, not a Catholic. The Hanoverians were Lutherans when they came to the throne. We have a Protestant succession but it also involves supreme governorship of the Church of England.

[Miss Smith]

Again, I am grateful for the chance to be extremely clear. There are no changes to the parts of the Act of Settlement that require the monarch to be a Protestant. I hope that that is sufficiently clear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Paisley]

The point that I had hoped to make without making you cross with me, Mr Bone, is that the Minister could take the issue away—or perhaps get something from the House of Lords—and then bring back an amended Bill to the House next week. There is clarity in my amendment—

“provided that person remains in communion with the Church of England in accordance with section 3 of the Act of Settlement”—

and if the Minister were prepared to accept that, the matter would be resolved. It would clear up a lot of the confusion that has been voiced today, and the Bill would then have intent, thrust and clarity.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I am glad to be under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, as we discuss the details of this provision. Clause 2 is an important clause, but it raises complications and difficulties, to which hon. Members of all parties have been right to draw attention in order to check whether we are getting this right and achieving the objective.

We are in a different world from that in which the legislation that the Bill will change was created. As hon. Members have said, that was a time when Catholicism represented an actual political threat to the United Kingdom, because of the behaviour of some Catholic powers in Europe. We are long past that era now—indeed, we are in an era in which Catholics and Protestants are aware that they have more things in common—some very important things in common—than they have matters of difference, and an era in which there are many mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants. We should recognise that people find ways of accommodating and even sharing in the benefits of both approaches to the Christian faith.

A further fact that we cannot simply cast aside is that we have a long national tradition associated with a Protestant monarchy and an established Protestant Church in England—the Church of England—which has its own long and complex history, including its own Catholic elements. We have a long-established situation in Scotland, dating from the Union of the Crowns, whereby the monarch is expected to uphold the position of a national Presbyterian Church in Scotland and to conform to it and attend its services when in Scotland. Protestantism is also a resonant feature of life in Wales and Northern Ireland, as, indeed, is Catholicism in both places. All that is part of our history and we cannot throw it lightly aside.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman touches on the past. It strikes me that perhaps the great worry in the past was not theological as much as it was about the imperialist ambitions of neighbouring nations—France, probably, and Spain to an extent.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that that is at the root of the bars and prohibitions that we are discussing now. There were of course strongly felt theological differences, and there was a time when to be a Member of this House, a person had to swear an oath against transubstantiation and the Pope’s ability to relieve them of any obligations resulting from falsely swearing such an oath. It was very stringent. Later, and rightly, it was changed.

The hon. Gentleman comes from an island with an extraordinary and honourable tradition of adherence to the Roman Catholic faith, without a break, since before the Reformation. It is an unusual part of the British Isles in that respect. Where he lives. there has always been diversity in these matters.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions the geography and history of my constituency, and he is correct that the island that I happen to be from has that Catholic tradition associated with it. The recent census showed that the southern part of the Hebrides had the most Catholic areas in Scotland, but also that the most Protestant areas in Scotland were in my constituency, in Lewis, Harris and North Uist in the northern isles. It is interesting to note that there has never been any religious tension between the two at all.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The two versions of Christianity live side by side remarkably happily in the Western Isles.

The purpose of the Bill is not to change the Protestant succession, as the Minister has made clear. If it were, we would have to spend a lot longer on it considering many more detailed and complicated clauses, and there would be many more concerns to deal with. Nor will it disestablish the Church of England—it retains the monarch’s position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England—or change the situation in Scotland, where the monarch will continue to be expected to be a loyal supporter of the Church of Scotland and its work, as the Queen notably is, while having good relations with the other religious communities in Scotland.

The problem that arises is the one that I refer to as the early age problem. A decision to bring up a child of such a marriage as a Roman Catholic, whether taken entirely voluntarily or under the provisions of some Roman Catholic law, would result in that child being debarred from taking up the Crown unless they renounced the faith in which they had been brought up. That is perfectly possible, as was mentioned earlier, but it is quite a limitation to place upon a child.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The Act of Settlement mentions

“all and every Person and Persons that then were or afterwards should be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome”,

so if a child were baptised a Catholic, I do not think there would be any subsequent opportunity for them to abandon Catholicism. The decision would be that of their parents at the time of their birth.

[Sir Alan Beith]

That is an interesting argument but I am not persuaded by it in the first instance. It seems to me that it has always been possible for a person to renounce the religion in which they were brought up. It had not previously occurred to me that the way in which we currently define the position would invalidate such a renunciation as removing a barrier to taking up the Crown.

[Dan Rogerson]

My right hon. Friend has hit on the spirit in which the law would probably be interpreted now. At some point, long before the Acts to which Members have referred today were passed, no members of the Church of England would have been able to escape that position, as they would all originally have been baptised Roman Catholics.

[Sir Alan Beith]

That is a further interesting point. The problem is there and we should not ignore it, and I think any wise parents would have to consider it. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will have had to consider it when he married. I would expect a couple from the royal family to exercise a lot of care and wisdom in making such a decision. However, we have to recognise that we are placing a potentially serious limitation on the children of a marriage such as we are considering, and giving their parents quite a dilemma.

[Chris Bryant]

May I draw the right hon. Gentleman away from the point about baptism? There is no such thing as Roman Catholic baptism or Anglican baptism: there is Christian baptism. No Church has ever suggested that there should be a rebaptism when somebody changes their religious denomination. The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about the bringing up of children, but it does not apply to baptism.

[Sir Alan Beith]

Absolutely, and had I decided to spend more time dealing with the argument put by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I would have looked into other questions such the significance of first communion at the age of eight or nine, for example, and whether someone would subsequently be allowed to renounce it. Most parents would prefer that such a position was not reached, but I refer to it because it is a real problem. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) raised another intriguing issue that could be the subject of an amendment to the Bill, although one that I think the Government might resist on the grounds that it would limit the powers of the sovereign in a family matter—it is a rather unique family situation. Most of us would like to have some influence over the choice of our children’s spouses, and some may feel that they have less influence than they would like, at least in the initial choice of boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever, but the royal family is in a special situation and I think it would be reasonable of the Government to resist fettering the sovereign’s ability to exercise the six-person limitation provided for in the Bill. I understand why they might want to do so.

[Paul Flynn]

In imposing this archaic rule and virtually choosing partners for people, which we would denounce in every other field, and in putting the emphasis on religion, when we know that half the population has no religion—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Peter Bone)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I know that clauses 2 and 3 are closely linked, but we are shifting quickly into clause 3. The sooner we finish with the clause 2 stand part debate, the sooner we will get to clause 3.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I do not want to be drawn into clause 3. We are considering whether the effect of clause 2 might be undermined by clause 3, and that has much to do with clause 2, but I suspect—I do not intend to say this again when we debate clause 3, so I will say it now —that it is something we will have to live with in order to produce a sensible outcome. The Bill as it stands provides a reasonable outcome to the problems I have described, but there is no escaping the fact that some problems will remain.

[Mark Durkan]

I want to take up the Minister’s point that this clause removes a line of discrimination from law. That is clearly what it does—up to a point. It removes a blatant bit of sectarian discrimination that would prevent somebody from remaining in the line of succession if they married a Roman Catholic. However, as we have heard, it still requires us all to subscribe to the notion that the Crown must remain Protestant and that somebody can only be Head of State in the United Kingdom on the basis of one particular faith. That is a sectarian provision.