Bishops in the House of Lords

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Patrick Grady

Thursday 6th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) on securing the debate. My first email from a constituent asking me to participate in the debate was in February, so I congratulate Humanists UK on the effectiveness of its campaigning machinery and the passion of its members. I echo the thanks to the all-party group, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate.

My hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh East and for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) have a record of making interventions on the subject of the Lords Spiritual and Lords reform, and they have wide agreement among our SNP colleagues. Our position is clear: the House of Lords should be abolished. There is no place in a modern democracy for an unelected legislature, let alone one that grants membership to religious clerics as of right.

In 2005, I was proud to move the resolution at SNP conference that most recently confirmed our party’s long-held position that no SNP member would take a seat in the unelected House. It is important to be clear, as we were in the debate that I led from the Back Benches in January about reform of the Lords, that we hold the individuals concerned in the highest regard; nothing we say is meant with any personal disrespect or questioning of their sense of duty and commitment to the roles that they have accepted.

We can also appreciate the role of faith leaders more widely across society. In Westminster Hall we often have debates about the importance of freedom of religion and belief around the world, and we hear of many places where these rights are not respected, so we should be proud to live in a modern, pluralistic society where people can practise their faith and speak openly about their beliefs in the public square.

Faith communities continue to make up a significant proportion of our society, and it is right and proper that the leaders of those communities are accorded respect and, where appropriate, a voice in our national discourse. We need only look at the service in St Giles’ cathedral yesterday, where leaders from the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and humanist communities were invited to greet the monarch after he was presented with the Honours of Scotland. Our views on a constitutional monarchy notwithstanding, that gives an indication of the importance of faith and belief communities to our wider civic society. But providing that kind of representative role, having a platform in the media or being a statutory consultee on certain aspects of public or planning policy is very different from having an active role in a legislative Chamber of Parliament.

The unelected Chamber is already anomalous. The presence of bishops as ex officio members is more or less unique in western democracies; it is even more peculiar when we consider the special privileges accorded to the bishops in the House, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire outlined. All that comes on top of the antiquated and essentially undemocratic role, and frankly existence, of the House of Lords itself. These points have been well made by my hon. Friends and do not need much more rehearsing.

Ironically, there are more people in the Lords than in the Commons who want the upper Chamber abolished or reformed, because so many Members of the Commons, particularly on the Government and official Opposition Benches, want to be appointed to the Lords at some point. That is why I concluded in my debate back in January—as the Lord Speaker concluded in his thoughtful intervention for the Hansard Society, and even Gordon Brown conceded in his latest weighty tome, which I think is already gathering dust on the shelves of the Leader of the Opposition—that the biggest barrier to reform of the Lords is that no meaningful reform of the Lords can be carried out without also reforming the Commons. And any meaningful reform of the Commons would mean taking power away from the Government. And no UK Government, of whatever colour, will readily give up that power.

Despite all the grand talk about parliamentary sovereignty, the House of Commons is essentially a plaything for the Government of the day. The Government set the agenda, control the time, and control the standing orders and rulebook, no matter what myths and conventions say otherwise. An elected Lords would challenge the primacy of the Commons. A cap on the size of the Lords would limit the powers of patronage held by the Prime Minister. The removal of the bishops would call into question the relationship between Church and state, meaning the relationship between the Church and Crown.

The Crown in Parliament and the royal prerogative are the Government’s free hand to wield Executive authority. No matter what nice words the Government use to dress up how much they value the House of Lords and appreciate the work of the bishops, the reality is that any tinkering at the edges or pulling on the thread of the UK’s constitutional tapestry risks unravelling the whole thing—and no UK Government would want to do that.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Apologies, Mr Davies. I was pretty much finishing, but I will hear from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

My hon. Friend was talking about the issue of establishment and the role of Church and state. The Cecil Committee in 1935 was very clear

“that a complete spiritual freedom of the Church is not incompatible with Establishment.”

Does my hon. Friend agree with the Cecil Committee?

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is right. The points about the establishment of the Church of England have been well made. The point that I am trying to make is that we cannot unpick. This is the nature of the UK constitution, such as it is. Everything is so tightly interwoven that if we start picking at one part, the whole thing will fall apart. That is not in the interests of the Government, because the point of the UK constitution is to give the Government as much unlimited and unchallenged power as possible while retaining the pretence of democracy. The alternative to that, for the people of Scotland, is for us to vote to become independent.

Jagtar Singh Johal

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Patrick Grady

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on all the work that he has done on behalf of his constituent, and, indeed, his constituents. Plenty of constituents in Glasgow North are regularly in contact with me about this issue—not just people who worship at the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple in Otago Street, but members of the Amnesty groups and the wider community. They understand that Jagtar has been arbitrarily detained. The United Nations understands that that is what has happened to him. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must recognise that and that they have to call for fair due process and, ultimately, for Jagtar’s release?

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We are at the point now where that needs to be vocalised on the Floor of the House. It is one thing to say it in private, but it does need to be vocalised by the Minister.

The United Kingdom Government are, of course, not the only relevant party: the Government of the Republic of India, their judiciary and their police forces are the ones who continue to hold my constituent in a fashion that is consistent with arbitrary detention—