Succession to the Crown Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

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

The Bill does three specific things. First, it ends the system of male-preference primogeniture so that, in the royal succession, older sisters will no longer be overtaken by their younger brothers. Secondly, it removes the law that says that anyone who marries a Roman Catholic automatically loses their place in the line, a legal barrier that applies to Catholics and only to Catholics—no other faith. Thirdly, it replaces the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

Under the 1772 Act, any descendent of George II must seek the reigning monarch’s consent before marrying, without which their marriage is void. That law, passed 240 years ago, is clearly now unworkable. George II’s descendants number in their hundreds. Many will be unaware of that arcane requirement and many will have only a tenuous link to the royal family.

The Bill proposes that the monarch need consent only to the marriages of the first six individuals in the line of succession, without which consent they would lose their place.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I have heard what the Deputy Prime Minister has said about the previous situation, but surely the requirement of the monarch’s permission for those first six individuals is arcane in this day and age.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is not arcane; it is a pragmatic judgment. The Bill retains the requirement for permission from the monarch for those wishing to marry who are in the immediate line of succession. It seeks to confine what had become a sprawling requirement to a much more limited and pragmatic one.

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[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

The Opposition strongly support the Bill. The Labour Government, under the premiership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), began the work on the changes that we see in it. I am pleased to say that our manifesto for the 2010 general election stated:

“Our constitutional monarchy is the source of deep pride and strength for our country…there is a case”—

I believe it to be a strong case—

“for reform of the laws concerning marriage to Roman Catholics and the primacy of male members of the Royal family.”

Those two points are at the heart of the Bill. As the Deputy Prime Minister explained, marrying a Roman Catholic will no longer prevent a person from becoming or remaining monarch, and the Bill will end discrimination in determining succession so that a younger son cannot have precedence over an elder daughter in the line of succession to the throne.

With regard to the first issue, it is surely right that the current exclusion of individuals who marry Catholics be brought to an end, especially as no other discrimination of that kind is on the statute book. The prohibition dates back to the Glorious Revolution, the 1688-89 Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement 1700. Whatever the contemporary justification for those measures, in this day and age there can be no justification for maintaining the restriction on the religion of the spouse of a person in the line of succession. Such an anachronism is an injustice and ought to have no place in a modern country with a constitutional monarchy.

We are equally committed to ending the male primogeniture rule. It cannot be justified that individuals are discriminated against because of their gender, and that basic principle of equality is firmly established in most recent legislation. Modifying the succession rule will bring the British monarchy into a position similar to that of most other European monarchies—I hope that Members will consider that to be an argument in favour of the change. Hon. Members will note that gender equality in succession laws was achieved in Sweden in 1980, the Netherlands in 1983 and Norway and Belgium in the early 1990s. It was introduced in Denmark in 2006 and is anticipated before too long in Spain. The change is in tune with enlightened attitudes in many other European countries as well as here in the United Kingdom.

As we know, there have been many calls for gender equality in the royal succession over the years. Noble Lords and hon. Members have presented numerous Bills on the subject, and I refer in particular to those tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) in 2011, and before him by a previous Member for Battersea, now Lord Dubs. The latter Bill went further than the former, but many of the sentiments in those private Members’ Bills have now found voice in this Bill. I add that there has been extensive and positive consultation on it with the Opposition as well as with interested parties.

[Mr MacNeil]

In the light of the hon. Gentleman’s words, perhaps he could tell us why, in 2004, when an attempt was made in the Lords to reform the succession, the Labour Government did all in their power to block it.

[Wayne David]

That is an interesting point, and I am sure there was a very good reason, but I do not think it is germane to our discussion today.

There has been extensive consultation on the Bill, and I note the consent of the Queen, as expressed by the Deputy Prime Minister at the start of the debate.

There is a third measure in the Bill that needs to be commented on. Although the Prime Minister did not refer to it in his statement to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth on 28 October 2011, it was referred to in his invitation to the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth, and the Government have recognised the need for the change. I refer to the requirement for all the descendants of George II to seek permission from the monarch to marry. In place of that, the Bill proposes a more limited requirement for the monarch to agree to the marriages of a specific number of individuals in the line of succession. That is surely a sensible proposal.

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[Paul Flynn]

We are tinkering with it today. It must be a matter of some concern, but we are tinkering with it. Pandora’s box is open now, and having tinkered with one part of it, we can tinker with other parts of it.

[Mr MacNeil]

Many Acts, including and especially the 1701 Act of Settlement, are nothing other than tinkering.

[Paul Flynn]

Indeed, absolutely. They were based on the prejudices of the past. To look at our history, we can go through the length of this building and see representations of royalty in portraits, coats or arms and statues—there must be at least a thousand—but where would we look to find mementos of the work of the Chartists, the Levellers or the suffragettes? There are precious few, yet they, not royalty, were the ones who contributed to the development of our democracy.

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[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I rise to support this important constitutional Bill. Even though the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and I do not agree on very much, I think we share admiration and affection for Her Majesty the Queen and what she has done for the country.

The Bill is making history in provisions that I believe are long overdue. I will speak more specifically to clause 1. In 2002, just after I finished working in the royal household, I published an article saying that the Queen Mother’s death would be a catalyst of change in the monarchy and the nation. I remember the time when people lined the streets, others queued for hours at the lying in state in Westminster Hall, many signed books of condolence and millions watched the service. Those were simple signs of deep respect, love and admiration for someone who had touched their lives. Why? The Queen Mother stood for history, service and duty; she embodied a century of experiences, inventions and discoveries, times of war and times of peace. It showed that the British people care deeply about their past, and about history and tradition. Now, 11 years later, we are considering this important change.

Why should we make this change? Partly, it is a legacy for the Queen and the Queen Mother—a legacy of respect for what they have done. Perhaps it is also to reach out to women across the nation to say how much we value women and what they do. No one can doubt the tremendous impact that the Queen has had in her 60-year reign. We need only look at last year’s diamond jubilee to see the huge public support that Her Majesty still has in this country and elsewhere. More than 15 million people in the United Kingdom watched the celebrations on their television screens and the jubilee was thought to have brought more than £1 billion to the economy. More than 2 billion people across the world—about a third of the global population—watched the most recent royal wedding. What those occasions brought to Britain was an increased sense of unity and pride in being British.

Let us not forget the Princess Royal, who has played a full part and cannot be faulted in her role as a senior member of the royal family, absolutely committed to supporting the charities and voluntary organisations she works with. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) said, even though he has concerns about this Bill, this country has had wonderful examples of Queens and we should build on that.

As for the succession to the Crown, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) talked about the Queen of England. As someone who was born in London but brought up in Scotland, I would like to remind him that Her Majesty is not just Queen of England. She is Her Majesty Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories.

[Mr MacNeil]

May I correct the hon. Lady? The Queen is not Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom; she is Queen Elizabeth I of the United Kingdom.

[Mary Macleod]

I am so glad to hear the hon. Gentleman being so supportive of Her Majesty the Queen.

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[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod). I agree with what she said about the Queen, who is held in very high respect. I remember that, in my childhood, she was a frequent visitor to the Hebrides, which of course testifies to her good sense and to the loyalty of many in the Hebrides, including myself, to the Queen and to her ongoing reign. Long may it last.

We all agree that, while human understanding has progressed over the past 300 years, the rules governing the succession to the Crown have not kept pace with that. The present monarch is happily the Queen of 16 realms, a shared monarchy of many independent countries. The Commonwealth countries, which comprise a quarter of the nations of the Earth, maintain a looser social affiliation with the monarchy.

We should perhaps reflect on how we got to this point. The Union of the Crowns came about in 1603. Had that been the only Union that we were considering today, I would indeed be a happy Unionist, because the monarch of Scotland took the Crown off England. Many would argue from a legal perspective that that would leave Scotland the successor state, given that the monarchy follows the Stuart line, rather than the Tudor line. That is an argument for another day, however.

[Wayne David]

Would the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Tudor line began with Henry VII, who was a Welshman?

[Mr MacNeil]

I would be happy to acknowledge that. That was probably one of the few times when the Welsh beat the Scots. They certainly will not beat them in the rugby this spring. But we digress once more.

Had Scotland maintained its political independence, we could have kept the kingdoms united, but not the Parliaments. The Act of Settlement of 1701 was disliked by many for religious reasons, but it was also the precipitator of the tawdry political Union of 1707, which, with the help of the coercive Alien Act of 1705 and in concert with straightforward bribery, brought about the union of the two Parliaments.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

At the time of the Act of Union in 1707, were not a lot of the Scottish nobles—for want of a better word—bankrupt? Some people might think that that is where the coercion came in.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman reminds me of the words of Burns. Those people were “bought and sold for English gold”. That gives me an idea about taking people back—the 150 who have a vested interest in Westminster, for example. All that Alex Salmond and the Scottish Government need to do is buy and sell them for Scottish gold. If the vested interests could be bought off in that way, we might bring about independence a bit earlier.

It was the Scottish reaction to the Act of Settlement of 1701 that led to the events that I was describing. The motivator was the desire not for a political superstate but for a unitary monarchy, and the question had to be decided before the death of Queen Anne. Fortunately, for the benefit of the House, the Scottish National party can allay the fears created by the Act of Settlement: the monarchy will continue to be shared with Scotland and England, and the need for the Acts of 1706 in England and 1707 in Scotland will disappear. We can therefore proceed to independence and dissolve the two Unions. I am sure that I am alone in this Chamber in holding that belief, but I am not alone in Scotland in so doing.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)]

Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that he has kept the royal household informed at every stage of his plans?

[Mr MacNeil]

I do not have Her Majesty on my text message list, but if she wanted to drop me an e-mail, I would be happy to respond to it. However, I do know that her personal private secretary is a visitor to the Hebrides and has relatives there. The links are indeed multi-faceted, as the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth can testify. She, too, has links with the Hebrides and has worked in the royal household. As we can see, the monarchy reaches us all in many ways.

History aside, the Bill is surely flawed. Many people have described how flawed it is. It is only a halfway house —a real dog’s breakfast of broken biscuits. It deals with succession and partially with freedom of religion, but it leaves the question of full freedom of religion untouched. It also leaves with the monarch the bizarre, arcane requirement for marital approval of six people in the line of succession. Some cultures have an adaptation of that requirement in the form of arranged marriages, but here in Westminster, we are institutionalising it.

The Bill affects other realms as well, and I wonder whether they will progress further than this Parliament and deal with this issue more fully, rather than having a halfway house, waiting for Westminster to catch up—as it inevitably will some day. They are free and independent, and by doing so they will save themselves an immense amount of time and hassle in the future, but they will also signal their fairness and egalitarianism to the wider world. Indeed, in Australia, republican zest seems to appear from time to time.

It should be noted that in 1999, the Scottish Parliament pushed for a motion for the removal of any discrimination linked to the monarchy and the repeal of the Act of Settlement. So progressive opinion—at least in Scotland—is 14-years-old before this issue has come to Westminster. While there may be a lot of huff and puff here at Westminster about allowing the monarchy to be Catholic, practically, I do not think it really matters. I do not think that the current or future royals are likely to convert to Catholicism, any more than would the King of Norway or the Queen of Denmark. The fact that a Parliament has gone to such lengths to discriminate against a certain faith group is surely odd in an international context. No doubt it will be ripe for lampooning, perhaps on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” on CNN because it is a step back and truly bizarre. I am sure that history will judge it as bizarre, especially when we think that such contrary views existed in the Scottish Parliament 14 years ago. I am not sure whether bans on Catholics exist in Denmark and Norway—if they are so allergic to the idea—or whether bans against Protestants exist in Spain. Surely there is enough smeddum and sense in those societies to remove such proscriptions.

Equally, I hope that other monarchies do not hold the power over their relatives’ choice of spouse—a power that is rightly alien to their subjects when it comes to their nearest and dearest. When Scotland becomes independent in the next few years, we will certainly retain the monarch, as Canada, New Zealand and Australia have done, but we shall remove such infantile restrictions as we see here today. We will wait until the keystone Parliament—in a way Westminster will always be that mainly due to the residency of the monarch in close proximity to it—catches up. In the meantime, we can look forward to saying, “God save the Queen of an independent Scotland”.

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[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

rose—

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[Chris Bryant]

Yes, but that does not change the fact that when somebody becomes monarch, they have to make an accession oath on the Church of Scotland. That is my only point. We have a suite of legislation and once we start pulling at one of the elements of it there is a danger we will unpack the whole lot.

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I have given way rather too often already.

I would quite like to change things as I think there are many different ways of being an established Church. I do not want to disestablish the Church of England, but I think that it could be established in a different way.

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[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. It has been a great pleasure to listen to it. I have heard some excellent speeches, made by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), with whom I profoundly disagree, and by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), with whom, frighteningly, I find much common cause—it is as frightening for me as it is for him. I was impressed, too, by the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames), with whom I very much agree. He does not speak so much for the Conservative party as for the constitution, and we all honour him for that.

I am profoundly pleased that I have had an opportunity to speak before my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), because I suspect—I shall allow him to speak for himself—that when we hear him speak he will not prove himself to be so much a scion of high Toryism as a dangerous radical. We very much look forward to hearing what he says in the fullness of time.

I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate, because the intention of the Bill is laudable and sensible, as it will update the rules on the succession to the Crown so that they are in keeping with the modern values of our people. A monarch must reign with consent: that is the case now, and it must be the case in future. The Bill removes unnecessary discrimination, and it tidies up what we might call the sinuous tentacles of the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which is welcome. However, I should like to make a couple of points about the Bill’s provisions, which I hope my hon. Friend the Minister, in the absence of the Deputy Prime Minister, will be able to address so that I do not have to make them again in Committee.

In that positive spirit, I shall address the question of retrospection in clause 2. I am instinctively against retrospective legislation, no matter how good the intent might be. Clause 2 attempts to restore to the line of succession those people who have married Catholics down the years. I quite accept that we should remove the disqualification bar preventing people who have married Catholics from succeeding to the Crown, but in making those changes—the Earl of St Andrews, for example, and Prince Michael of Kent will be restored to the line of succession—we are changing the order of succession. Those further away than the Earl and Prince Michael are pushed further from the line of succession by the changes. If we are prepared to make changes to the order of succession by dint of restoring Catholics to that order, is it not right that we make clause 1 retrospective, so that female heirs of the Queen move up the order of succession? Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, is the only living person who would be affected, together with her heirs, so it would not be a massive change to the order of succession, but it would be a logical change and one in keeping with the retrospective nature of part of the Bill.

The second aspect that I wish to address relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda about the Royal Marriages Act 1772. I find myself, strangely enough, making common cause with him. Although I agree that we should remove the Act or change it so that there are not thousands of people to whose marriage the Queen could technically give or withhold consent, it is odd that clause 3 states that

“the 6 persons next in the line of succession to the Crown must obtain the consent of Her Majesty before marrying.”

Where did the number six come from? Why not three, five or 12? Six is not a prime number, a biblical number or a lucky number.

[Mr MacNeil]

The only thing that springs to mind is that if we add up the number in the Queen’s family and the number in Prince Charles’s family, we get six. That is the long and the short of it, I think.

[Christopher Pincher]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s arithmetic, flawed though it may be. Perhaps that is why he is a member of the Scottish National party. I look forward to the Minister explaining what the rationale is.

As the hon. Member for Rhondda rightly pointed out, if we put in place a rule that says that the monarch can and must give consent to the marrying of the six persons nearest in line to the throne, imagine a scenario where a monarch has three children, who each have two or three children. The monarch will soon be in the invidious position where grandchild No. 4, who is fifth in line to the throne, must seek consent of the monarch to marry, but grandchild No. 6, who is seventh in line to the throne, need not seek that consent. That does not seem fair.

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[Jessica Lee]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, I am sure, agrees that there is a fine history in this country of monarchs hiding their feelings. Whatever historians may report in future, the private thoughts of the current Queen Elizabeth remain private.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am a bit alarmed by what the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said about Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth I of the United Kingdom is Queen at the moment, so I hope we do not end up in the Tower.

[Jessica Lee]

I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about this point, which has already been raised, and believes that the current monarch is Elizabeth I. I, for one, will not enter into that debate any further.

I will end by quoting from what is perhaps one of the most famous and well-documented speeches made by Elizabeth I. It provides another reason to support the Bill and is a timely reminder that leadership requires determination and strength rather than on whether the sovereign is a man or a woman. When Elizabeth addressed her troops at Tilbury in 1588 in the midst of the threat from the Spanish armada, she famously said, midway through her speech:

“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”.

In supporting the changes to the rules on primogeniture, if there were ever words to put the case squarely that women can perform a task of great leadership and strength, they are those words.