National Security and Defence

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, my hon. Friend can be secure in the knowledge that Portsmouth will have a very strong future, not least as the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier will be based there. I have already seen where it will go, and what a magnificent site and resource it will be. Today’s announcement about commissioning a new multi-purpose frigate enables us to increase over and above from the 19 frigates and destroyers we are already committed to, because it will be a more affordable programme. Having seen all the work that our frigates do, we know that it is essential that we have that core anti-submarine task, but when we think of all the other work—drugs interdiction, helping off the coast of Libya and all the other tasks—I think we see that we would benefit from having a bigger Royal Navy fleet, with more different sorts of frigates for those tasks.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the Prime Minister set out how the national security strategy and strategic defence and security review will bolster the UK’s ability to participate in the international diplomatic and military coalition for Syria and ensure that the UK can play a significant role in any post-Daesh stabilisation process in Syria and Iraq?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to do that. Obviously, there are some capabilities here that we have and are building that would be useful in the prosecution of the attacks on ISIL in Iraq and on Syria, but the right hon. Gentleman makes a wider point: because we have committed to this aid spending and because we are funding our diplomacy, we are able to play a much wider part in making sure that Syria has a secure future.

G20 and Paris Attacks

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have seen ideas put forward for these sorts of things, but I do not think it is the right idea. The idea of trying to carve up these countries into a sort of “Sunnistan” and a “Shi’astan” would be a great mistake. What we need to do is to build a Syria that can have a Government who represent all of their people as Syrians.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I have met a number of Syrians during the past couple of weeks, including a very brave citizen journalist, who is about to return to Syria. They are unanimous in calling for a no-bombing zone in Syria to stop civilians being killed by Assad’s barrel bombs. Will the Prime Minister reassure us that he will ensure that the views of Syrian civilians are taken into account in relation to any UK military action?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If we were to take action, it would be to save the lives of Syrian civilians. Of course, we all support no-bombing zones in terms of Assad stopping the practice of raining down barrel bombs, sometimes with chemical weapons, on his own people. That is why, while we should be very focused on ISIL, we cannot forget that President Assad has been one of the recruiting sergeants for ISIL and that his brutality keeps providing fresh recruits. The idea that you can just take sides and team up with Assad against ISIL is an entirely false prospectus.

European Council

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, we will take every step that we can—there is looking at the UK demand for steel, there is looking at energy costs, there is looking at any other issues that affect such companies unfairly and there is making sure that we act in Europe in a way that others do, if it is legal, to source steel from our own country. But, there is a problem, which is that the steel price has fallen by more than a half, and that is affecting steel producers the world over. Acting within those constraints, we will do everything we possibly can.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

To assist the Prime Minister in gaining support among the lawyers and bishops who have been so scathing about his refugee policy, may I suggest that he reconsiders the EU relocation scheme—albeit an EU relocation scheme, which he would be justified in seeking changes to—to ensure it recognises the financial contribution the UK makes to the camps near Syria, the 0.7% of gross national income contribution the UK makes, the projected growth in our population and our population density?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is better for us to decide, democratically in this House, the approach we should take. By saying we will take people from the camps and make that our contribution, together with our financial contribution, I think Britain is fulfilling its moral responsibilities in the world, and using its head as well as its heart. I will defend that with any bishop or any lawyer who wants to have the discussion with me.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is difficult to get precise figures, but a number of people have left Syria because of Assad’s brutality and a number of people have left because of ISIL’s brutality. That is why the movement of refugees has been so great and why it is wrong to say that we need to choose between two evils. We need to get rid of both of them.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that our priority in relation to Syria should be to work with other Arab countries and Iran, Russia, France and Germany to find a coherent response to the fighting in the region, and that we should not repeat the mistakes of the Iraq war—a war opposed by the Liberal Democrats—by following the US Government into bombing and then occupying an Arab country?

[The Prime Minister]

We should work with other countries in accordance with international law, but that should not stop us getting on and doing the necessary things that we have done, including the counter-terrorism action that I referred to earlier.

Tunisia, and European Council

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are urging social media companies to work with us and help us deal with terrorism. Britain is not a state that is trying to search through everybody’s emails and invade their privacy. We just want to ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate. That is the challenge, and it is a challenge that will come in front of the House. We have always been able, on the authority of the Home Secretary, to sign a warrant and intercept a phone call, a mobile phone call or other media communications, but the question we must ask ourselves is whether, as technology develops, we are content to leave a safe space—a new means of communication—for terrorists to communicate with each other My answer is no, we should not be, which means that we must look at all the new media being produced and ensure that, in every case, we are able, in extremis and on the signature of a warrant, to get to the bottom of what is going on.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I echo the condolences and heartfelt sympathy that have been expressed by others in this debate about the outrage. Given the possible link between the Tunisian terrorists and Salafist ideology, will the Prime Minister commission and publish a report, similar to that on the Muslim Brotherhood, on the role of Salafist teachings in fuelling support for violent actions against non-Muslims and Muslims?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. If we are successfully to defeat this threat that faces us, we must work extremely hard to understand its true nature. That is why I commissioned the report into the Muslim Brotherhood. That organisation has an uncertain relationship—let me put it that way—with movements that condone violence. I think we see the same with some that have Salafist views. Anything that can be done to further our understanding of where the narrative of extremism is coming from is a good thing.

Debate on the Address

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). I much enjoyed serving with him in Cabinet and on the National Security Council. I feel that history is likely to treat his time as our Deputy Prime Minister rather more kindly than the electorate did on what he must regard, but we do not, as a very dark night for his party and for him—but that is the awesome power of democracy.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on brilliantly proposing and seconding the Loyal Address. Some 23 years ago, I had the privilege of seconding the Address, and I know what a terrifying ordeal it is. They both did it with great grace, good sense and humour.

I am obviously delighted to have been returned by the citizens of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield with an increased vote—and, indeed, an increased percentage of the vote. They are, after all, the jury that I trust and respect, and I am delighted with their verdict. Throughout the election on the doorstep—thank goodness the doorstep was right and the polls were wrong—I heard about many important issues, some of which are in the Queen’s Speech and some of which are not, that I intend to champion during the course of this Parliament. I will mention just two. The first is mental health, which was referred to briefly by Her Majesty. The second is individual and collective liberty, which this House has sometimes neglected in the past and to which, during this Parliament, we will undoubtedly return.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Mitchell]

Those liberties must be defended—often, I suspect, with a cross-party approach, and I therefore give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Tom Brake]

I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned civil liberties. Does he agree that the snoopers’ charter is a disproportionate response that puts at risk our civil liberties; a cripplingly expensive response, at £1.8 billion; and a rushed response, because David Anderson handed in his review of RIPA—the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000—only on 6 May, and therefore the Prime Minister cannot possibly have taken it into account?

[Mr Mitchell]

We shall return to these issues during the course of this Parliament.

I want to say at the outset that this is an excellent Queen’s Speech. It is a Queen’s Speech, and as secretary of the One Nation Group, on and off, since 1992, I am obviously delighted to see its content.

Thanks to the referendum pledge that the Prime Minister has championed, the Government are in a very good place on an extremely difficult and contentious issue. I got all this grey hair in whipping the party during the Maastricht debates between 1992 and 1994, much of that time spent with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is not in his place. There is a clear road map: renegotiation followed by a referendum when everyone will be able to decide. It will not be politicians in what used to be called smoke-filled rooms making those decisions; it will be up to everyone to decide. The United Kingdom can clearly survive inside or outside the European Union—not because of the whims of politicians but because we are a great trading nation—but I am absolutely certain that the always edgy relationship that we have had with the EU since we joined in the early 1970s can now be rectified by this renegotiation, and I very much hope that it will be. My advice to those on the Government Front Bench is not to fetter Ministers with regard to the referendum but to let this momentous decision be guided by individual conviction and allow all Ministers, including Cabinet Ministers, to vote as they see fit.

I want to express strong support for the Government’s proposals to tackle the deficit. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said that the deficit and the debt in Britain were unsustainable, and in the long term he is absolutely right. Our generation of politicians has been too willing to throw money at problems and has forgotten that it is not Government money—the Government do not have any money—but the money of our constituents and those hard-working people who pay all their taxes. It is the money of the people, whose servants we are as politicians, that we are spending.

If we do not repay this enormous debt and attack all the deficit very thoroughly now, it will be the next generation—our children and grandchildren—who will have to pay it off. It will be an intergenerational transfer of debt and deficit, and a blight on young people, who face many challenges which my generation certainly did not face. For example, those leaving university now pay fees—correctly in my view, although my generation received a grant. They have no idea when they will be able to retire or whether they will receive a pension, whereas my generation expected to retire at the age of 65, quite often on a pension linked to earnings. There are many difficulties to be faced in tackling the deficit, but the Government are right to do that now and to do so urgently to stop it becoming an endemic intergenerational transfer of debt.

But the hard truth is that it is incredibly difficult, as I learned as a Social Security Minister in 1995, to tackle and to cut welfare spending. People argue that cutting £1 billion off the huge welfare budget—less than 1%—is easy, but it is not: £1 billion is £100 from 10 million people, or more than 15,000 people per constituency. The lesson is: do not remove cash, but cut future increased expenditure. That is the sensible, one nation way to do it, and it will make it much easier for the Government to take these extremely difficult and complex decisions.

I want to say that the Government are absolutely right to proceed with caution on human rights legislation, as outlined today. I must say that I never thought a British Government, let alone a Conservative one, would ever consider withdrawing from the European convention on human rights, for which our party was responsible.

Recall of MPs Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

The hon. Gentleman knows my arguments concerning recall. I am deliberately trying not to rehearse the arguments that were made in Committee because I lost them by a ratio of 2:1, but I fundamentally disagree with his view on how recall should be used. I was elected largely on the basis that I would put up a fight against Heathrow expansion. Had I, immediately after the election, taken a non-executive role within BAA—even an unpaid role of some sort—and flipped my position entirely, that would have amounted to a fraud on my voters. Had I performed such a U-turn, I believe they should have had the right at that point to recall me. The hon. Gentleman disagrees and that is a fundamental philosophical difference, but I will not rehearse the arguments because, as I said, I accept that I lost them a few weeks ago, sadly.

So, we have the same Bill, more or less, with a few synthetic changes if they are passed later today, and we are supposed to believe that the three main parties are all of a sudden happy with it. Perhaps they are, but if so it is only because they were not really, genuinely, authentically unhappy with the old version that we debated. Either way, it is an embarrassing, insulting nonsense. They have tied themselves up in knots to avoid letting voters hold them to account, all the time pretending that they are doing the opposite.

As if to prove how seedy this affair has become, the most extraordinary letters have been sent by MPs to their constituents, explaining why they blocked real recall. I will not rattle them all off, but let me give one example. The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) told his constituents that he opposed real recall because

“I could have faced…recall…for voting in favour of an in out referendum”.

He added:

“I could have faced a recall campaign for having voted to close corporation tax loopholes.”

Does he honestly, truly believe that his constituents would have wanted to recall him for doing either of those things? Is it possible to have greater contempt for one’s voters than he expresses in that article in his local newspaper? I have seen countless letters explaining that pure recall would undermine the independence of MPs—letters, incidentally, sent by MPs so dependent that they have never once strayed from the party Whip, never once been disobedient to the parties they serve.

And then we have the Deputy Prime Minister, who robustly opposed real recall six times in this Chamber that I am aware of. Six times he was on the record opposing California-style recall—

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

Did the hon. Gentleman notify my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) that he would mention his name in this debate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

I, too, will be relatively brief. Amendment 9 relates to an issue we discussed in Committee. The Government gave a clear indication to the Committee that they recognised that it would be inappropriate to place wording in primary legislation on which they had not consulted the Electoral Commission. I hope that the Minister will confirm when he responds whether the Government have now consulted the Electoral Commission, as they undertook to do in Committee.

I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that, having had a hat trick of wins earlier this evening, we should not press our luck tonight. However, we are clear that we do not believe that it is appropriate to have wording in primary legislation that has not been agreed by the Electoral Commission. We will expect the other place to remove that wording if the Government are unable to satisfy this House that they have consulted the Electoral Commission.

Amendment 10 simply rewrites the wording set out in clause 9, as the hon. Member for Cambridge said, and I do not think that it requires further explanation. Amendments 11, 12 and 13 relate to a point that was made during our line-by-line consideration of the Bill. He is absolutely right that it is inappropriate to have ambiguity about what would happen if the Speaker was subject to a recall petition—not least for the benefit of the Speaker. We think that it is correct to state explicitly that the Chairman of Ways and Means or the Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means are the appropriate post-holders in the unlikely event that a recall petition affects the Speaker.

That point was raised with the Government informally, so we hope that the Minister has had a chance to consider it. His previous answer was that the Chair would be vacant because the Speaker would be serving a custodial sentence. However, we have just agreed by an overwhelming majority to make an amendment that will apply this to non-custodial sentences, so that argument no longer holds water. Also, if an MP received a very short sentence, they could be out of custody by the time the recall procedure was initiated.

This is purely a tidying-up exercise and we do not see the point in detaining the House. We are sure that the Minister will have reflected on our previous discussions and will agree to make these minor but necessary changes to the Bill.

[Tom Brake]

I intend to make a satisfyingly and commendably brief contribution: these amendments are not controversial.

Amendment 9 would remove from the Bill the wording of the petition signing sheet and the ability to amend it by regulations. This would be replaced by a power enabling the wording to be prescribed or amended by regulations following consultation with the Electoral Commission. The wording of the petition signing sheet currently appears in the Bill and can be amended through regulations. This aligns with the power that exists in the Representation of the People Act 1983 that allows for the ballot paper for UK parliamentary elections to be amended through regulations, although the form of the ballot paper itself appears in the Act.

Amendment 10 seeks to amend the wording to appear on the petition signing sheet by making it easier for the elector to understand that the MP will not lose his or her seat and a by-election will not be held if fewer than 10% of the registered electors in the constituency sign the petition. I remind hon. Members that this wording has been developed in conjunction with the Electoral Commission to ensure that it is balanced and fits with the commission’s guidance on referendum questions.

I can see the intention behind the amendments. The first amendment addresses concerns expressed in Committee that if any user testing takes place—I can confirm that we do intend to user-test the wording of the signing sheet—it might be clearer to remove the wording from the Bill and accept that the final form of words will appear in regulations. It is important that the wording is approved by Parliament, whether on the Floor of the House or in a delegated powers Committee. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that proper consultation should be part of the process of developing the wording. That is why we have worked on it with the Electoral Commission and are now looking to test it further to ensure that it is right. Either the power in clause 9 or that proposed in amendment 9 would allow the wording to be adapted or set should changes flow from the user testing. Amendment 10 demonstrates that there is no single way to word the signing sheet, and that is why we are committed to undertaking user testing. The views of the public will provide us with a clearer picture on where improvements can be made not only to the signing sheet but to the notice of petition.

As for the wording of the petition signing sheet, there is a specific purpose behind the use of the words,

“as a result of the petition.”

If the petition is successful, it is right that a by-election will be held. However, if the petition is unsuccessful, it is not necessarily the case that a by-election will not be held. A by-election could be held because the MP decided to resign his or her seat, or otherwise lost his or her seat. The use of the words,

“as a result of the petition”,

seeks to ensure that the public understand that the effect of an unsuccessful petition is not necessarily to prevent a by-election. The question for the House is whether the wording should be retained in the Bill or be replaced with a power to prescribe the wording in regulations. If the wording is to be retained, the question then is whether we accept the proposed amendment to clarify that a by-election will not be held or leave this to user testing.

[Lady Hermon]

A small but very important point is that those signing a petition should know of the percentage that is required and the consequences that the Minister has outlined. Will he shed some light on the sequence of the wording in subsection (4)? Why are the two paragraphs in that order and not in the reverse order, which would be much more helpful to those signing the petition?

[Tom Brake]

As I said, this has been discussed with the Electoral Commission, which has been very careful to ensure that the wording is as clear as possible. I will have to get back to the hon. Lady on whether there was a specific reason why the paragraphs were put in that order, but I suspect that it was felt that that was the clearest way of presenting the information, rather than the alternative she suggests.

Amendments 11, 12 and 13 would amend clause 19 regarding the role of the Speaker. Under the Bill, certain functions, such as giving notice to the petition officer in the relevant constituency when one of the recall conditions has been met, are performed by the Speaker. As currently drafted, clause 19 allows for the Speaker to appoint a person to perform the relevant administrative functions, including giving notice of the opening of the recall petition process, if the Speaker is unable to perform these functions or there is a vacancy in the office of the Speaker. If no such person is appointed by the Speaker, there is a provision that the Chairman of Ways and Means or a Deputy Chair of Ways and Means will perform the functions. The provisions in clause 19 as originally drafted replicated those found in other legislation such as the Recess Elections Act 1975.

During the debate in Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) pointed out that as the Chairman of Ways and Means and Deputy Chairs are now elected rather than being appointed by the Speaker, the functions of the Speaker should automatically be carried out by the Chairman of Ways and Means or a Deputy Chair of Ways and Means in the event that the Speaker cannot perform them. The amendment would ensure that if the Speaker was indisposed and unable to perform the relevant functions, the functions would be performed by the Chairman of Ways and Means or a Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means rather than giving the option to the Speaker to appoint someone else. In addition, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) expressed concern about who would perform the Speaker’s duties in the event that the Speaker was the person whose behaviour had triggered the recall conditions. The amendments put it beyond doubt that in such a situation the functions relating to the recall petition process would be carried out by the Chairman of Ways and Means or his deputies.

Some matters of detail will need to be addressed, but if my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge is content not to press his amendments I am totally confident that those matters can and will be addressed in the House of Lords. I hope that the House will consider the full range of points made in the debate when considering these amendments.

[Dr Huppert]

This has been a brief and fairly agreeable debate. I hear what the Minister has said. I said that I would not press any proposal that was criticised in the House, and I will not do so. In particular, I should listen carefully to what the Electoral Commission has said, especially because my predecessor is one of the commissioners, so I would not challenge his wisdom. I accept the Minister’s commitment to address these matters in the House of Lords, although I do have a concern about the habit of this House to wait for the other place to fix things. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Third Reading

Recall of MPs Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

We have had an impassioned debate and I am very grateful to all hon. Members for their contributions. I will do my best in the time remaining to address as many of the points raised, but I think that will prove challenging.

As we have seen, there are many different views on ways in which we ought to hold MPs to account. For some, this does not require a recall system at all. For others, a recall system should be available on any grounds and at any time. All three parties committed to a recall system in their manifestos and it was included in the coalition’s programme for government. MPs are elected to serve a term of five years and we believe they should continue to have the freedoms to carry out their job and make difficult decisions where necessary. However, the Government think it important to fill a gap in the current accountability of MPs by providing assurance that where an MP has been found guilty of serious wrongdoing—whether serving a prison sentence for committing a crime or a long period of suspension from the House for breaching the MPs code of conduct—the public will have a chance to have their say on whether the MP should continue to represent them.

It would be a much better situation if there were no instances of wrongdoing that engage the triggers in the Bill, but where MPs commit serious wrongdoing, whether in the eyes of the law or the House of Commons, under the Government’s Bill they will be subject to a recall petition, We hope we have struck a middle ground by providing sensible and balanced proposals for a recall mechanism aimed at addressing wrongdoing. Our proposals aim to provide a robust, fair and open process that is suitable for our system of parliamentary democracy.

In the time that remains, I will try to address some of the comments, concerns and criticisms that were raised. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), in the Opposition’s opening and summing-up speeches, referred to cash for questions. I think the suggestion was that cash for questions would not be covered under the Government’s proposals. That is not correct. Cash for questions would clearly constitute a breach of the code of conduct. It would therefore be perfectly in order for the Standards Committee to consider the matter and recommend a duration of suspension that could lead to a recall.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) made a number of points. He suggested that the Bill sets back democracy because its scope is too narrow. That is not the Government’s view. The concerns we have about his proposals—this point was not picked up by him, or by any of the supporters of his proposals—relate to the 5% petitions: the initial stage where, as far as I understand it, people or campaigns could spend as much as they wanted on drumming up support that could then be transferred or translated into the starting point of the petition process. That issue needs to be addressed and he did not respond to it. As I understand it, when he and colleagues had an initial discussion on this, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) raised the need to address it because he had identified that it was a problem in the Californian system. As I understand it, this is not a matter that has been addressed in the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Richmond Park.

The hon. Gentleman referred repeatedly to the threshold of 14,000 or 15,000 people to achieve the 20%. That is true, but I think that in most constituencies the process of initiating the 5% petition—the indication of the need for a petition—will be used again and again, rather than people necessarily raising the 20% required for a referendum.

The hon. Gentleman said that we are all susceptible to the pressures of newspapers. That is exactly the point about how the process of starting the initial petition, the indication of the 5%, will be used. He referred to the fact that in America recall has apparently been used only 40 times in the past 100 years. However, the figures I have are that in 2014 alone, and in California alone, there have been 30 recall petitions initiated at different levels of government. It is not a process that happens only once in a while; it happens regularly. He also challenged the Government’s estimate that a constituency referendum would cost about £90,000. If he has a different figure, I would like to see it, but I stand by ours.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) raised an interesting point about whether courts would give an MP a lesser sanction than others found guilty of a similar offence. On the contrary, I wonder whether they might not impose a higher sanction.

The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) made a balanced and sensible contribution. He thinks that perhaps MPs have lost respect because we have given too many powers away, but often one of people’s greatest concerns about Westminster is that we are holding on to far too many powers, as opposed to giving too many away—or at least that we are not giving powers away in the right places by pushing down the decision-making process.

The hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) referred rather disparagingly to Westminster grandees and the lay people on the Standards Committee. I should perhaps declare an interest in that I know one of the lay people, Sharon Darcy, who is also a leading light in my local citizens advice bureau, and in no way is she a Westminster grandee, and nor would she have her views pressurised by anyone in this place, be they Whips or anyone else. He also drew some parallels between trusting a jury and trusting the electorate, but my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton), who is no longer in his place, intervened to point out that there must be something to answer for before reaching the jury stage, which is not the case in relation to the proposals from the hon. Member for Richmond Park.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Last weekend, in response to the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell), the Prime Minister agreed that the Government would look at the amendments, yet the Deputy Leader of the House seems to be setting his face against them. Do the Government intend to table amendments accepting the central premise of the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith)?

[Tom Brake]

Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have indicated that the Bill could be improved and that we are willing to listen to proposals, but that does not necessarily mean adopting the proposals from the hon. Member for Richmond Park.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden said we were better off trusting our own constituents. Like all Members, of course I trust mine, but it is not the constituents who are the issue; it is the campaign groups and vexatious individuals who might decide to launch repeated recall petitions with no basis, as opposed to challenging MPs because they have committed serious wrongdoing.

The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil)was worried that people who had been detained in a police station might be caught by the Bill. Clearly, that would not be the case in any circumstances. The word “detention” is designed to capture circumstances where an MP, having been convicted and sentenced, is ordered to serve their sentence somewhere other than in a prison—for example, a young offenders institution or a hospital.

I welcome the very rational comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) on the EU and immigration—I am just sorry they will not do him any good. I wonder, however, whether in three years he might not feel that it is his party that has deserted him and that instead of him leaving his party, he should stay put and other people should move to another party.

[Mark Field]

I can confirm that I will not be joining the Liberal Democrats.

[Tom Brake]

I was not suggesting that was what the hon. Gentleman had in mind; I was thinking he might set up a party called the “One Nation Conservative party”.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

I need to make some progress.

The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) gave a very blunt critique of the Bill, which as a Member who is leaving the House he is perhaps in a better place to do than others.

The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) asked how we restore faith in this place and was of the view that recall will not help. My view is that it will and, in fact, when the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee considered the issue and commissioned a poll, it found that the public do not understand why MPs can continue to sit if they have committed a serious crime and it also found that a massive nine out of 10 people thought that MPs who committed a serious crime should face a recall.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hon. Members]

Give way!

[Tom Brake]

I am sorry, but I am not going to give way. I want to pick up on a couple of points that were made by Members who were present during the debate.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made the point that hon. Members should be protected in doing their duties in this House. I am not sure that the amendments he is supporting will enable that to happen. I was pleased that we had two contributions from expert former Leaders of the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) put his finger on it immediately when he said that the issue is with Members being subject to a notice of intent to recall and the damage that is associated with that. He also asked a specific question about the Standards Committee. I certainly agree with him that the disciplinary procedures of the House must be robust and I welcome the review that a sub-committee of the Standards Committee is undertaking to consider its disciplinary procedures. These matters are for the House as a whole, but the Government would certainly support any amendments to the procedure that Members felt improved it. That might well include introducing measures that increase the role of the lay members and ensure that their views are properly represented.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh pointed out, quite rightly, that in some states in the US, after a recall petition, rather than a member of another party being elected someone from the same party is appointed to replace them. To draw too many parallels with the US is not very helpful.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

I will not give way, as I still want to respond to a couple of speeches.

I understand why the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) is proposing her amendment, but, in an intervention, the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who is not in his place, pointed out that simply having the name of the sponsor is not a solution as any vexatious individual or campaign can replace it with another when they need to. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) spoke about the need to balance the rights of individuals with the risk of vexatious campaigns.

We were very fortunate to have a contribution from another past Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who pointed out succinctly that much of the debate is about cause and conduct. He comes down, as I do, on the side of this being about conduct, or misconduct, not cause. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) made the same point about cause or conduct.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) said, to summarise his speech, that it was time for us to grasp the controls in the cockpit of democracy. I would fully support that.

Finally, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) said that the public feel cheated about the extra hurdles that he suggested we are putting in people’s way. However, I would say that the issue is more with the proposals made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park. They contain more hurdles, and the time it would take to complete them is longer than that proposed by the Government.

I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for the Bill on Second Reading and we make no apologies for the time it has taken to introduce the Bill. I would prefer that we had decent, well-researched legislation than rushed legislation. He referred to police and crime commissioners and councillors. Clearly, the Government will want to consider them in the future, but they do not fall within the scope of the Bill. He also referred to the situation in Scotland, but this is clearly a matter on which the Scottish parties need to get agreement.

To sum up, I reiterate that the Bill is about providing public accountability when there have been proven cases of wrongdoing. I have tried to address the points that have been raised. The Bill proposes a recall system that is open and fair and that fits with our unique constitutional system and I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

As Iain Anderson, the deputy chair of the Association of Professional Political Consultants, recognised—again, this is the industry’s view, not mine—the vast majority of lobbying is not about meeting Ministers or permanent secretaries but advising organisations about how the political process proceeds. That is why, under the Government’s definition, more than 95% of all lobbying activity will simply not be covered by the legislation.

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

Under the hon. Gentleman’s approach to lobbying, how many companies would be on the register and how many contacts would have to be logged each year? What would be the cost of running his alternative?

[Jon Trickett]

This is a £2 billion industry, and what we propose would cover almost all the activity that we can identify in it. It would not need to be costly; we have sat down with the industry, taken their advice and listened to their criticisms. They have told me that to complete a form of the kind proposed would take only a few moments a year and dramatically open up the whole industry. We will come to the register when we discuss other clauses. I am sure that you, Ms Primarolo, will tell me that I cannot pursue a matter that is the subject of later amendments. We will come back to the costs of the register.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is of course right. The whole industry agrees without exception and universally—there is total consensus—that this Bill simply does not meet the challenge of the day. The industry wants a register. It wants transparency because it lives in the shadows. Many professional and ethical lobbyists feel that they are being criticised unfairly. They also feel that they have been undermined by a small minority of lobbyists who are behaving unethically and do not register on any of the voluntary registers. They want a level playing field—they are right to do so—and the public want to know how decisions are made.

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations summed up the situation perfectly when it said:

“The Government’s lack of engagement with the industry is reflected in a poorly drafted and narrow definition which does not accurately reflect the work undertaken by lobbyists, including those the Government perceive to be acting in the capacity of a consultant lobbyist.”

Let me return to the problem of who will be caught under the Government’s definitions and who will be excluded. It is reported that in 2011 the British financial sector spent £92 million on lobbying politicians and regulators. Documents have now come to light that suggest that they secured a series of governmental financial measures that were very favourable to the finance industry. However, all this lobbying activity was carried out by in-house lobbyists and therefore would not count within the definition of “lobbying” that the Government have sought to deploy in the Bill.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

No—I am about to finish.

The consequence is that the public would have no knowledge of how any of these decisions were made. That is why we have tabled our amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes wise points. Perhaps I should excuse myself for having a little fun at the expense of the Deputy Leader of the House and the Minister who, in my experience of working with the Political and Constitutional Reform, are committed to what they do. However, that is not enough in this case. They have been put up as the fall guys to promote a Bill that has very few friends and does not do what it should.

My hon. Friend spoke of the public perception, which I mentioned on Second Reading. The public expected the House of Commons to do something about lobbying. The Prime Minister said something should be done about it. The coalition, in its agreement, and the Opposition had almost a contractual agreement that lobbying should be dealt with. All were committed and said clearly that lobbying should be dealt with. My hon. Friend is right that the people who will suffer most—I do not wish to repeat the points I made on Second Reading—are the public, who will be disillusioned that we will fail to do what we should. We agree that something clear, honest and open should be done, so perhaps the biggest losers will be hon. Members—the House of Commons as an institution, which is recovering from difficulties in the recent past. We have it in our power over the next three days to make a better Bill. It will not be the perfect Bill, but we have it in our power to try to make a better Bill. I will therefore take the opportunity to press amendment 48 to a Division, so that hon. Members have the opportunity of supporting their colleagues who serve on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.

I should make one other procedural point. I am surprised that knives will not operate on any of the next three days. I will cut my remarks short, but we should have knives so that we can have a sensible debate and vote on each of the key clauses. We need to deal with five key clauses today, but we may only get past clauses 1 and 2. If we had a more sensible arrangement on the division of time, we could do a better job—I am not making a point against the Government.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify one thing? I have sought clarification from the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who speaks for the official Opposition, but it has never been explained to me. Ministers already report their meetings with in-house lobbyists. What do we gain by extending the register to include in-house lobbyists when Ministers already report such meetings?

[Mr Allen]

I am very much in favour of extending the register to in-house lobbyists because many people regard the biggest scandals—the ones reported in the national press and elsewhere, and those that come to hon. Members’ attention—as resulting from the activities of people who work inside large multinational companies, whether engineering, arms manufacturing or many other things. It is not beyond our wit to produce such a measure.

The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) has courageously underlined how much lobbying takes place outwith the scope of the Bill. She highlighted with great tenacity some of the most poisonous and difficult things to deal with in the lobbying arena. We should listen to her and learn how to improve the Bill with her proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. Indeed, let us get it all out in the open: I used to be a lobbyist. I used to lobby for the BBC in Brussels. All right, the Daily Mail hates me. That is just about every bad thing knocked into one. However, I believed that the work that I was doing had to be done openly, transparently and publicly, and I was entirely happy about that. The European Parliament has a register, everything must be declared openly, and it is all above board. I wish that we had the same arrangement here.

In recent years I have worked with the UK Public Affairs Council, which now produces a voluntary register. It is online, and it is pretty good. It is possible to detect a fair amount of the lobbying that is going on, and to detect who represent what clients and so on. I fear that if the Bill is passed, it will not be in the interests of the vast majority of the people who are currently signed up to an online voluntary register. The Bill means that they will not have to register, and it will not be in their interests to go the extra mile and sign up to the voluntary register, so we shall end up with less transparency rather than more.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I am happy to give way to the Minister if he can assure me—he need only nod—that he will tell me how many organisations will be caught by the Bill. I have not seen him nod yet. I will not give way to him until I see a nod.

[Tom Brake]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

All right.

[Tom Brake]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), will respond to him on that point. [Interruption.] However, I wanted him to explain why he felt that organisations that are currently on a voluntary register—there is no requirement for them to be on it—would automatically choose to cease to be on that register. Many consider that being on it is to their commercial advantage, because it is a unique selling point when it comes to working with their clients.

[Chris Bryant]

We now know that a Liberal Democrat nod really means a shake of the head. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was going to tell us how many organisations would be caught by the Bill, but now he says that the other Minister will answer my question. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West referred to albatrosses earlier. As I recall, in Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the mariner shoots the albatross, which then hung around the mariner’s neck until all the people involved on the ship had died. I fear for the Parliamentary Secretary. I fear that, charming and wonderful as she is, this Bill will be hanging around her neck, and the necks of several other Members, until they have all passed on, politically at least.

Let me say this to the Minister. The reason many people will choose to opt out of the voluntary register on which they are listed at present is that there will now suddenly be a mandatory register to which only a tiny proportion of people will be required to sign up. Until the Government are prepared to say what proportion—

[Tom Brake]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

If the Minister wishes to intervene, he should nod again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

Right—that is the second nod. I can tell the Minister that the voters will not be prepared to accept three nods and still get a shake of the head from the Liberal Democrats. I hope that this is a real nod.

[Tom Brake]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman the answer to his earlier question: 350 organisations will be covered. However, he has still not responded to my question. Will he explain why organisations that are currently on a voluntary register should decide to remove their names from it. What advantage would they gain?

[Chris Bryant]

It is not a question of the advantage that they would gain; it is a question of the disadvantage of being on the voluntary register. If the Government are to introduce one mandatory register, saying that it is all that is required by public society, of course such organisations will make that decision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend expresses far better than I could exactly what I was trying to say earlier, and she is absolutely right.

Let us consider how two areas would be affected by the Bill and the proposed amendments. The first of them is the introduction of droit de suite. When the European Union insisted that every country in Europe had to have an artists’ resale right, the Government at the time—a Labour Government—were wholeheartedly opposed. However, some members of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee were wholeheartedly in favour and wanted to persuade the Government to take a different course of action, which we thought was going to be inevitable anyway.

At the time the Design and Artists Copyright Society, the body that administers copyright for artists, was lobbying very hard to have droit de suite introduced in the UK, and on a generous basis—more generous than that originally intended by the UK. So far as I am aware, it never lobbied the permanent secretary, but it certainly lobbied all the Culture, Media and Sport Committee members and a lot of junior DCMS and Treasury officials, and in the end it won its case. It would not be caught by this Bill, however, because its primary purpose is not to lobby, but to administer a system of collecting rates for artists. My argument is that that is wholly inappropriate. The body that was opposed to the introduction of such a right was the body that represents all the art houses and art galleries. It, too, would not be covered by this Bill, but I think it should be.

Communications with Members of Parliament should be included, as the new clause of the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) would allow, just as much as communications with Ministers or anybody else should, because knowing who is trying to influence proposed legislation, and who tables amendments and who does not table amendments and so on, is a vital part of knowing what is going on in the lobbying business.

Let us consider, too, recent events in the newspaper industry. I think all Members would agree that it has been ferociously lobbying for quite some time, sometimes through direct means and sometimes through indirect means. The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission is Lord Hunt. I am not sure whether he is still the chairman, but he is a Member of the other House. I am not sure whether he would be included in this legislation by virtue of being a Member of the other House, but he has certainly been lobbying on behalf of a whole set of other newspaper agencies, and he is paid to do so. The Government may say, “Yes, he probably would be included, as that is consultant lobbying.”

[Tom Brake]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister is nodding, so Lord Hunt would be included, but what about Peter Wright? He is the former editor of The Mail on Sunday, but he is now working solely on lobbying on this business on behalf not just of The Mail on Sunday, but other newspapers, too. Would he also be included? I do not think so, as he is a full-time employee of what was Associated Newspapers.

What about Lord Black of Brentwood? He is an executive director of the Telegraph Media Group. He has tabled amendments in the House of Lords and visited Ministers and so forth. He has been lobbying ferociously as well. Would he be included by virtue of the Government’s legislation? I suspect not, but I think most people in the country would think that that kind of activity should be publicly available so that we can all know the basis on which Ministers are making decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

That is a perceptive intervention with which I wholeheartedly agree. I bear lawyers no ill will, but it is correct that all that will happen is that some of the smaller third-party companies that might be caught and faced with this hefty bill will simply move that element of their business to the likes of DLA Piper or MHP Communications, which I will come on to.

The Deputy Leader of the House asked a genuine question when he said that surely companies would still wish to register through the APPC register or elsewhere. The answer to that genuine question is this: why would they when they are not required to and there is no commercial benefit in doing so? Having met the APPC on a couple of occasions—I was briefly a member of its board—I know that its huge concern is that its members will say, “We’re paying money already for regulation and red tape, so why would we choose to take on this second voluntary code when the Government themselves don’t think it’s necessary?”

[Tom Brake]

It was indeed a genuine question I asked, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has answered it. He asks why organisations would continue to maintain their entry on a voluntary register under what the Government propose, but of course those organisations have already entered a voluntary register, which they were not required to do.

[Thomas Docherty]

With your indulgence, Sir Roger, let me try to answer what I think is a genuine intervention from the Deputy Leader of the House. I was involved in the APPC back in 2008-09, when the previous Government effectively told the industry that it was drinking in the last chance saloon. In the previous Parliament, we had the Public Administration Committee report that, as I recall, recommended a statutory register if the industry did not improve public confidence and Parliament’s confidence in it. I made the point that those firms that are working in the correct manner and striving to improve their reputation would join a voluntary body, which they duly did, and the UK Public Affairs Council was set up to try to bring those things together. Regrettably, it was clear that the small number of dubious lobbying firms—dubious individuals, to be more accurate—would choose not to. Many of those who sign up to the voluntary register do so because they want to demonstrate that they are playing to the highest ethical standards and that there is bureaucracy and paperwork involved. It is not a case of chaps sitting around and signing off each other’s practices.

Firms also made the point that, when asked by potential clients whether they are a member of a register, they would simply say, “Well, we don’t do that activity.” In my three years as a consultant lobbyist—I understand that the Government do not accept my definition of a lobbyist—I do not recall once having a meeting with a permanent secretary or Minister, so my firm would have had no need to register. That is why I think that there is a real danger that those firms would say, “We don’t undertake that activity, so the Government and Parliament do not think we need to register,” and therefore the provisions will fall away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as ever—I can see why the good Scots of Corby made such an excellent choice last year—and very perceptive. It goes to the heart of the debate about the Government’s intention and what lobbying is. To be fair, the Minister and the Deputy Leader of the House have set out what they are trying to achieve. The first clause does exactly what they want it to do, which is capture only third-party lobbyists. As the Deputy Leader of the House has said, all they are interested in is a scandal that has never happened, and frankly is never going to happen, and so they do nothing to tackle all the scandals we have had. If I understand it correctly—the two Ministers are present, so they can correct me if I get this wrong—all they are interested in doing is ensuring that if a consultant lobbyist sits in a room with a Minister, that Minister, who one would hope is a fairly bright person, is left in no doubt that that person is a lobbyist, as if he could not have worked that out beforehand—

[Tom Brake]

And who they were lobbying for.

[Thomas Docherty]

Yes, but that does nothing to tackle what the rest of the Committee thinks are the real scandals, such as those we have seen even in the past three or four years: Fred Michel, Fijigate, Lords for hire, as exposed by The Sunday Times, MPs like cabs for hire—I could go on. None of those scandals would have been caught or stopped by the Bill.

[Tom Brake]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, however, that some of the cases he just referred to would be covered by things like the MPs’ code of conduct and that we do not require a register of lobbyists to address some of those issues?

[Thomas Docherty]

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to set out which of the scandals—MPs for hire, Fred Michel, Fijigate or whatever—are covered by the codes, I would be happy to hear him do so. The problem is that they are not. We have already heard some eloquent speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and others showing that that is not the case.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I want to thank the House for the gripping debate that took place last Tuesday and for the scrutiny that has been provided. I was very glad to see that Members had sufficient time in Committee to consider all the amendments that were selected. I particularly want to thank various participants, such as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who brought such a deep understanding of our complex and colourful constitutional settlement to the Floor of the House. I would also like to thank the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who cruelly described my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset as the Member for the middle ages but then went on to refer to the Roman era—so presumably he is the Member representing the Roman occupation in today’s debate.

I also wish to thank the royal household for its engagement and should mention the tireless work of Governments from across the Commonwealth, ably marshalled by Rebecca Kitteridge the New Zealand Cabinet Secretary. It has been a remarkable achievement to ensure that the changes we are discussing can be effected across the realms of the Commonwealth for which Her Majesty is Head of State.

I should like to make a point of clarification on an issue discussed in Committee. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) asked whether, under the Statute of Westminster 1931, individual Parliaments in the respective states of the Commonwealth need to give their assent. The relevant part of the Statute of Westminster is the preamble, which includes the following:

“And whereas it is meet and proper to set out by way of preamble to this Act that, inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom”.

To put it another way, our opinion is that the Statute of Westminster 1931 is politically rather than legally binding. A statement in a preamble is different from a section in an Act. Bearing that in mind, the Government have consulted the 15 other Commonwealth realms in order to reach agreement as to how the laws on succession to the throne should be changed. We have secured confirmation from Heads of Government and Cabinet Secretaries that each realm is in a position to take the steps necessary to bring the changes into effect. We consider that the appropriate steps are a matter for each respective realm in their particular context. Although some realms will not find it necessary to involve their Parliaments, others will.

The Bill is about equality. The Prime Ministers of the 16 Commonwealth nations of which Her Majesty the Queen is Head of State agreed during their meeting in Perth in 2011 to work together towards a common approach to amending the rules of succession to their respective Crowns. All those countries wish to see change in two areas: first, to end the system of male-preference primogeniture, under which a younger son can displace an elder daughter in the line of succession; and, secondly, to remove the bar on the heir to the throne marrying a Catholic. One effect of the proposed change is that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a daughter and then a son, the daughter would precede the son in the line of succession. I am proud that the Bill will remove two long-standing pieces of discrimination and modernise and affirm the place of our constitutional monarchy.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

On that issue—my right hon. Friend uses the example of a daughter and a younger son—has he managed to provide clarification on the points raised last week on what would happen to titles such as the Duke of Rothesay that specify a male heir in their deeds or patents provident?

[Tom Brake]

That matter has been brought up at various stages of the Bill. Titles are a matter for the monarch. Because we are restricting the scope of the Bill, we can move forward.

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way but I believe he might not understand me. The monarch is the fount of honour and can create a title, but most titles are not the privilege of the monarch once they are created—most titles are in fact a matter for Parliament. It takes an Act of Parliament to change or abolish a title except those deemed, under the doctrine of merger, to resort back to the Crown. In that case, will he tell us what will happen to those titles not under the doctrine of merger?

[Tom Brake]

On the titles to which my hon. Friend refers, the following might be helpful. The Scottish titles currently held by the Prince of Wales—Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Lord of the Isles and Baron of Renfrew—can pass automatically to a female heir apparent. Those titles have always hung together. The removal of the male bias in the line of succession could therefore not result in the detachment of the titles from the Crown. We have consulted the Court of the Lord Lyon, the official heraldry office for Scotland, on that. I hope that reassures my hon. Friend.

As we look forward to the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child, we can also celebrate the fact that a baby boy or girl will have an equal claim to the throne.