Bishops in the House of Lords

Debate between Neil Coyle and Alex Burghart

Thursday 6th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alex Burghart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the point, which he has made several times in the debate. The truth is that we remain the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It remains the case that we have, on certain issues, a Westminster Parliament, which has an upper and a lower House. Members of the upper House are entitled to vote, just as, I might add, Members of the SNP are entitled to vote on certain issues that affect only England, and I have observed them so doing on a number of occasions. I know that the hon. Gentleman wishes not to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, the people of his country chose otherwise in a once-in-a-generation referendum.

While we are on the subject, I have heard the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) say a couple of times that the SNP will have nothing to do with the unelected House of Lords. That is the SNP’s prerogative, and the SNP is entitled to take that position, but I do think there is something rather sad about it, because the people of Scotland chose to stay in the United Kingdom, and the House of Lords remains part of the constitution of this kingdom. The SNP has deliberately chosen not to represent its views in the upper House, and that is unfortunate; it is a narrow view that is depriving SNP voters in Scotland of a say in the upper Chamber.

[Neil Coyle]

Does the Minister’s sadness on that issue extend to those who seek to gag Church leaders from speaking about immigration? I am unaware of a nativity story that includes an innkeeper telling Mary and Joseph to take their donkey to Rwanda.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman specialises in jokes of poor taste. The Government certainly do not seek to gag bishops in any way. I take the view that I think he takes, which is that Members of the House of Lords should be free to talk about any issue that comes before them—even when I disagree with them. Obviously, my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) takes a different view on that. I think it is important that people who sit in the Lords can speak their minds on any issue that comes before that House.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East raised points about how there was special pleading for the bishops in the Lords in one or two areas on privileges. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire pointed out, while there is a custom and a convention, these are not rules. Indeed, the customs and conventions are often more honoured in the breach than the observance.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East mentioned party blocs. Again, what he said is not quite the case. Bishops are not consulted as a party bloc on new legislation before it is tabled, they are not recognised by officials as a party grouping and nor do they get a separate meeting with the Bill makers. That argument does not quite work.

On the code of conduct, although it is true that there is a slightly different code of conduct for bishops, that is also the case for Ministers of the Crown and Members who are employees of non-departmental public bodies. I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s arguments there.

The hon. Gentleman talked, quite rightly, about how the social mores of society have changed, and they have. The position of the bishops has also changed over time. The arguments he will hear bishops advocate today are very different from those he would have heard 50 or 100 years ago. Do bishops today reflect society? I think the hon. Gentleman said 14% of people in the United Kingdom are Anglicans. Only 3% of the Members of the House of Lords are Anglican bishops. If one wanted to go down that route—I am not encouraging anyone to so do—one would say that the Anglicans were under-represented.

I know that the point the hon. Gentleman was actually making was a serious one about the ex officio status of Members of the House of Lords. Going forward, that is fertile ground for discussion, and I thought we were in the foothills of that serious discussion. However, the hon. Member for Glasgow North chose to make this a bigger debate about the House of Lords in totality, and he and I have had that debate a couple of times.

I was trying to tease out SNP Members’ position on an upper Chamber, should they get independence. I think I got three different answers. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East said that that will be decided as and when; the hon. Member for Glasgow North said we should abolish the upper House; and the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire said he would like to see an elected upper Chamber—