Business of the House

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I absolutely agree, and it is questionable whether it is necessary. My understanding is that the Prime Minister has already indicated that she plans to ask for an extension of our Article 50 period, so we do not need this Bill. I am told that when this point was put to our putative Prime Minister, Sir Oliver Letwin, he said he needed it as an insurance policy. I am sorry, but subverting our constitution for an insurance policy seems a pretty high premium to me.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware of the opinion of the excellent and rather consensual chairman of the House of Commons Procedure Committee? He said the following yesterday:

“The House of Commons is about to pass a major piece of legislation without a Report stage or a substantive Third Reading. If the Government did this, the House would rightly be deeply irritated with them, so the House should find no virtue in its actions this evening”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1211.]

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Indeed, and perhaps even at this late stage the noble Baroness might be prepared to reconsider her Motion. I would be perfectly happy if we had Second Reading today and took the Committee stage another day; there is no great issue here.

The noble Baroness suggested that the amendments had been tabled by people in favour of no deal; that is what she said. As I said at the beginning, this is not actually about the merits; we will get on to those later. As she sought to imply that one was coming from a biased position, I wonder if she would like to look at the pamphlet produced by Sir Stephen Laws and Professor Richard Ekins, entitled Endangering Constitutional Government: The Risks of the House of Commons Taking Control. They also picked up those words I quoted from Oliver Letwin, and this is what they say:

“By those words, Sir Oliver announced his intention to create a constitutional crisis, and invited MPs to join him in a flagrant and destructive attack on our current constitutional settlement. However, even if many MPs resile from the conclusion that the Commons must become the Cabinet, the course of action MPs have now set in motion, with help from the Speaker, is one which undercuts the Government’s capacity to govern and its freedom to set the agenda—to propose policy which Parliament might then choose to resist, adopt or adapt.


If the Commons continues down this path unopposed, the Government will end up in office but unable to govern. The Commons would nominally have confidence in the Government but would in practice not extend to the Government the freedom that such confidence would otherwise entail to carry out any policy initiative. Again, the constitution does not require that Parliament should accept the Government’s proposals. But unless the Government enjoys the initiative in formulating and proposing policy, the country cannot be effectively governed; and the relationship between the political authorities and the people will break down if MPs act in mutually inconsistent ways in performing their dual role both as an electoral college for government and in exercising oversight over the conduct of public affairs”.


What a mess we are in. Members opposite, in this House, of all places, where we have conducted the debate in a civilised manner—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan]

Let the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, intervene.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords—

Ecumenical Marriage Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the right reverend Prelate and to agree with him. I do so because, as a loyal and active member of the Church of England, I sometimes find that loyalty sorely tested, not least by some in the hierarchy in the Church of England who tend—how can I put this?—to be inclined to the listen less to the views of their congregations and more to the liberal, left-leaning and hand-wringing attitude towards affairs of state with which I find it difficult to agree. However, on this occasion I am delighted to agree with the right reverend Prelate.

This is about ecumenical marriage. My own marriage took place down the road in the Guards’ Chapel and involved both the chaplain of the chapel, who I suppose legally married us, my parents’ excellent priest who remains a great friend, and indeed a great friend of my wife, who is a monk at Ampleforth. It was an ecumenical marriage with Catholic input, and we were very grateful to him for it. I wish to say that I do not oppose anything ecumenical about marriage.

I am also the godfather to two Roman Catholic children. My noble friend Lord Deben expressed his wish that we should be more ecumenical. I should say that they are now both delightful young men, and I am glad to still be their godfather. At the christening of one in Nightingale Square, as I walked across to the church with my friend who is an Anglican but married to a Roman Catholic, he said, “The priest has insisted that all the godparents should be Catholic, so I told him that you were. Could you confirm that if he asks you”? I said, “Actually, no, I am afraid I will not. I will tell him the truth”. Luckily, he did not ask me. I have told this because it is important that we should all take a moderate and reasonable view of ecumenicalism.

I was moved to take part in this debate because I am instinctively uneasy about the measure for three reasons. The first has been much better expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, but it is important that the Church takes the lead and makes decisions in this matter. The Church of England, which is often criticised, is an extremely emollient beast. My noble friend Lord Deben referred to fudge, but it seems to me that the fudge over the christening that I was talking about was just as much fudge as the Church of England ever takes part in. I have always found the Church and bishops to be reasonable.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I am trying to follow my noble friend’s argument and looking at the text of the Bill. In Clause 1, subsections (1), (2) and (3), the word “may” appears, not “will”. It is a permissive Bill. Why is he suggesting that this is a direction to the Church?

[Lord Robathan]

My noble friend makes a good point, but I will come to why I am entirely against the measure in a second, if I may.

My point is that it must be for the Church to decide. If the Church brings forward such a measure, as the right reverend Prelate said, then Parliament may decide because of the nature of the established Church. It is of course the national Church—the established Church. One might say that it is a strange historical quirk, but it is not unreasonable to expect it to make decisions on these matters. Indeed, it would be quite wrong for us to try to influence the Church—let it lead on this matter and not us.

I would not presume to instruct the Roman Catholic Church on its doctrine on abortion, homosexuality or whatever it might be, much of which I profoundly disagree with. I do not always agree with everything that my own Church says, but it would not be for me or any other Anglican to dictate to the Roman Catholic Church how it runs its affairs. For instance, we might have a law proposed in this House that the holy water in the font at the entrance to each Catholic church should be tested for bacteria once every day or week or something—and some Anglican churches as well of course—but that would be going well beyond what any Parliament should do.

I should say to my noble friend Lord Deben that I find it somewhat strange that the measure should be proposed by somebody who has actually rejected the Church of England. That is why I am instinctively uneasy about it and would rather follow the lead of the Church of England than someone who does not actually like the Church of England.