Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Chris Bryant Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Nick Boles
I defer to my hon. Friend on elitism, a subject on which he is a great expert. However, calling people “ordinary”, and saying that if they do not have four weeks of a constant barrage of information on a particular subject they will be ill informed sounds pretty elitist to me.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman’s argument now boils down to his belief that we should not be wasting three hours—he said four hours, but actually we have been going for only three, although it may feel like four—on all this, because we have not spoken to our electors and asked them what they think. I am sure that most of my electors in the Rhondda would say that they do not want any messing around with the constitution in this particular way, so the hon. Gentleman’s argument is basically against the whole Bill.
Nick Boles
I hate to have words put in my mouth by anyone, let alone the hon. Gentleman. However, he is close to my conclusion, and I will now get to it. It is that most people, if asked, would say, “Ask us once a year what we want and what we think about how we want to be run, and then just get out of our lives and get on with it.” That is why I welcome legislation that says that once a year we will have a general election, national elections or a referendum.
I take an even more radical position. I would have, as in America, a date that everybody knows. People there can say what the dates of the presidential, congressional, mayoral or gubernatorial elections will be in 40 years’ time. Everybody knows when elections are, which is when they start to look at the questions.
Nick Boles
It is every two years, actually, because there are mid-terms.
That is the time when all this should be done. It is the right way to conduct elections and to handle these matters, because it responds to how people think about the issues, rather than politicians.
Hywel Williams
Promotion, indeed. The hon. Gentleman was heroically, magnificently incoherent—so he should go far on the Government Benches.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) distanced himself—and, to some extent, his party—from this shambles. That has a significance in Wales that some hon. Members perhaps do not quite realise.
As far as I can see, there are many, many reasons not to hold the referendum on the same date as the elections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but so far no compelling reasons have been offered for why we must have the referendum on 5 May next year, apart from the reasons alluded to earlier: that this is part of the deal between the two parties that make up the coalition. As far as I can see, that is the only reason offered.
My major concern is that the referendum is to be held on the same day as the Assembly elections in Wales. In that respect, the arguments that we have heard about political interference from one campaign to the other are pertinent. It is difficult for us to hold the Assembly elections and the referendum on the same day, not least because of the points that have already been made about the media. In Wales, English newspapers have a huge penetration. Very few people read newspapers originating in Wales. The debate is therefore dominated by UK issues, or perhaps even by English issues. That will have a significant effect on the democratic debate leading up to our Assembly elections.
The argument has been made that there is a cost element involved, but, as I said in an earlier intervention, we will now have another referendum in Wales, on 3 March—we will have one on 3 March, one on 5 May and the Assembly elections on 5 May. That blows out of the water some of the arguments about cost.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman said that there would be a referendum on 3 March. My understanding is that the Assembly has asked for that referendum to be held on 3 March, but we have not yet heard from the Secretary of State for Wales whether there will be a referendum on that date or not.
Hywel Williams
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point entirely. One of the reasons put forward for holding that referendum on 3 March is that there might be contamination between the referendum on further powers, the referendum on AV and the Assembly elections. That argument has been made by those in all parties in Wales, and it is the same argument that we are making this evening.
If we are not to have three elections on the same day in Wales, as the cost argument proposes, then why are we having two? Surely the argument against having three works against having two as well. There are a number of reasons for not holding those elections on the same day, including the difficulties of having a full and clear debate. Some hon. Members will remember the referendum that we had in 1979, when the unpopularity of the Government intruded strongly into the debate on whether devolution should have been introduced at that point. Unfortunately, the devolution question was not uppermost in many people’s minds in 1979.
There are administrative difficulties for the electoral services departments in councils. The number of ballot papers and the confusion among the general public has already been referred to, as has the ability to process electors at busy polling stations. All those reasons, which have been mentioned by other Members, are persuasive. There is also the issue of administration. Referendums have been organised in Wales on a number of previous occasions—we have even had one on Sunday opening. We are used to referendums in Wales, but they are normally organised on the basis of local government units, of which we have 22. However, on the same day as the referendum, we will be having Assembly elections organised by constituencies, 40 of which will be decided on first past the post, with a further 20 being decided on the d’Hondt 2 system. That is a recipe for potential confusion to say the least.
Mr Harper
Opposition Members seem awfully obsessed by smoke-filled rooms. Given that this House voted in the previous Parliament to ban smoking in public places, I have not detected a lot of smoke in any of the rooms where we have had our discussions.
As I said, choices will be put to the House this evening; if the opinion of the House is tested, the House can make a judgment about which of the questions it finds most acceptable. I hope that hon. Members will support the amendments that I have proposed, which the Government have tabled. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is perfectly free to test hers too, and we will see where the balance of opinion in the House lies. Given that we have only 18 minutes left and we are dealing with a number of amendments, I shall draw my remarks to a close and allow the debate to continue.
Chris Bryant
May I say first to the Minister that one of the things that has crept into the contributions made from that Dispatch Box of late is a differentiation of a Minister as a Minister from a Minister when he or she is not acting in a ministerial capacity in some way? That is a dangerous concept to begin to adumbrate, because Ministers have to act, to some degree, with collective responsibility. Once that starts to fall apart, government starts to fall apart.
Mr Harper
I made it clear that the coalition agreement says that there will be, and the Government’s policy is for there to be, a referendum on the voting system, offering a choice between first past the post and the alternative vote. The Government do not have a view on the outcome, and that has been made clear. The coalition agreement explicitly says that the coalition parties will campaign on different sides, so I do not think that there is any risk to collective responsibility.
Chris Bryant
I understand the Minister’s point, but I just want to help him avoid becoming too much like the Deputy Prime Minister, because we would not want him to morph into a Liberal Democrat—I am sure he would not want that either. [Interruption.] The Deputy Prime Minister started with this concept of a personal idea on the situation in Iraq, so I just gently say that to the Minister.
The one thing on which I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister is what he said about Government amendments 230, 231 and 232 on changing the precise wording of the question. I think that the Electoral Commission has done a good job. It has looked at this and given us a better question, and we wholeheartedly support that. However, that is not the real point. The real difficulty was pointed out by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who said that the bit that the Electoral Commission discovered that most people did not fully understand is what “alternative vote” means. I am not going to go down the route of supporting his amendment 244, which proposes
“optional preferential voting with instant runoff”
because I do not think that his is an unbiased question and I do not think it is intended to be helpful. It was presented with the usual finish and cheek with which he presents his arguments to the House.
Chris Bryant
Then why is the hon. Gentleman not presenting those amendments tonight? That would be the honest, decent and sensible thing to do. Instead, he is proposing a timorous beastie of a Bill—something that, in his honest heart, he knows he cannot possibly defend to his voters on the basis of his party’s manifesto.
Let me raise a few problems that I see with the proposal of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. First, there are complexities relating to how the amendment would work with regard to the spending limits set both in the Bill and in other legislation affecting referendums. That is not least because the legislation, as it stands, presumes that there will be a yes-no answer. In other words, it presumes that there will be two sides to the argument, rather than three, four or—as there might be in this case—five. Secondly, the amendment makes the assumption that one should arrive at the decision by use of AV; that is laid out in new clause 3. That gives rise to a problem. Finally, there is the problem that although the hon. Lady has presented some options, she has not presented all the options that might be available, as the starred amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) makes clear.
I believe that it is not time for this timorous beastie of a reform Bill, which was cobbled together not so much to bring about proper reform in the country as to keep people in government. It has not been properly consulted on, properly thought through, or given the proper time to allow it to be successful. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons is sitting there on the Front Bench. He is now using arguments that I used, in which I was not very confident, when I sat on the Government Benches. It is about time he stopped using the argument about hypocrisy and brass neck when he is the one, despite the fact that we cannot see the difference between his shoulders and his head, with the largest brass neck of all in the Chamber.
Let us not hear any more about new politics from the Government. This is a shoddy little Bill, not a braveheart root and branch reform—a Bill built on narrow party advantage cobbled between the two Ministers. Nasty, incongruous deals have been pushed through by tough whipping, as we have seen this afternoon—everything that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) used to condemn when he sat on the Opposition Benches. The only reason there were not any smoke-filled rooms for Ministers to sit in to cobble together their deals is that we voted for the legislation to ensure that people’s health improved in this country. He did not.
Mrs Laing
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made a sincere speech in support of her amendment 7, but it was wrong because she argued about giving more power to the people. Her amendment has nothing whatever to do with standards in the House of Commons. It would cause confusion and lead to the loss of the two most important factors that any electoral system ought to depend on—clarity and certainty. They are present in first past the post, but they certainly are not in amendment 7.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
What the hon. Lady thinks about the system is largely irrelevant. Amendment 7 is designed to allow the people to speak out—to put before them the choice of a preferential system. I have to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that this was exactly the wording of the New Zealand referendum. In 1993 it was decided that people did not want the first-past-the-post system, and they were given a choice about what system they wanted to replace it. In that referendum, almost 60% of people said that they wanted the additional member system. Only 6.6% said that they wanted the alternative vote.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is right, but New Zealand is a unicameral system, and I have argued and campaigned in the House for many years in favour of a second Chamber that is elected, not appointed, on a proportional system. We should have a Bill about the whole of constitutional reform, rather than picking off bits and pieces one by one.
Austin Mitchell
Why does my hon. Friend not see that it is daft to give the second Chamber a better representative system than the first Chamber? It is important that the first Chamber has a system that gives us representation according to the way people vote. That is the essence of proportional representation; that is all we are trying to include in the referendum.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Chris Bryant Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make progress before giving way again.
Some hon. Members have asked, quite reasonably, why Parliaments will run for five years, not four. That is one of the issues that has been raised by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in its report. Let me explain: five years is the current maximum length for which our legislation provides. Five years is the length of Parliaments in France, Italy, and South Africa, among others, and it is the maximum length of Parliament in India. In the United Kingdom, three of the past five Parliaments have run for five years. Leaving aside the very short Parliaments, half of all Parliaments since the war have run for more than four years, so five years is both in keeping with our current arrangements, and has international precedent.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
But if the right hon. Gentleman is to give us all the statistics, he must add that since 1832 the average peacetime length of a Parliament has been three years and eight months—nowhere near five years, which has been pretty exceptional across that time. On the international comparisons, none of the other countries that he mentioned has the same structure with the Executive coming out of Parliament, so ours is a very different system. I urge him to look again at four years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am not entirely sure whether that last assertion is correct. The hon. Gentleman wants to give the House a history lesson, so perhaps I may refer him to the Parliament Act 1911, which introduced the current five-year maximum. The then Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, told the House that five years would
“probably amount in practice to an actual legislative working term of four years”—[Official Report, 21 February 1911; Vol. 21, c. 1749.]
That is a quote that I picked up from the Committee’s report, rightly pointing out that when a Parliament is expected to last for only four years, as is now the case, it very often ends up, in effect, a three-year Parliament. So our view is that by fixing the cycle at five years, we help to mitigate—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that that is a ridiculous decision. He knows as well as anybody else that for 12 or 18 months before an election is held, work in the House is blighted by all the parties politicking in advance of polling day. Therefore, if we want Governments to govern for the long term, we think five years is the right period of time.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Bryant Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The Attorney-General
As I indicated a moment ago, the view of the Serious Fraud Office is that, on the basis of its submissions, it will have the necessary resources—including that £2 million—to do what is necessary in this area. It is worth remembering that the policy, which was commenced by the previous Government, was designed to limit the number of contested cases. For example, section 7 of the Act, which covers the failure by commercial organisations to prevent bribery, is intended to encourage commercial organisations to self-refer and co-operate. This is one of the reasons why it is hoped and expected that, in many cases, expenditure on major trial processes will not be necessary. The £2 million that has been identified is the Serious Fraud Office’s best assessment of what will be needed to take this policy forward.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May I suggest one other area in which the Serious Fraud Office should do a bit more work? It relates to the suborning of police officers. We have only to read a couple of tabloid newspapers every day to see that newspapers and journalists pay police officers for stories, which constitutes suborning a police officer.
The Attorney-General
By its nature, the Serious Fraud Office is concerned principally with offences of serious fraud. I certainly think that suborning a police officer is an extremely serious offence, but it seems to me to be a matter that is more likely to lie with the Crown Prosecution Service.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
8. When he expects the Church of England to consecrate its first woman bishop.
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Tony Baldry)
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago.
Chris Bryant
As one who did go into the Church ministry and then discovered that I had plenty of vices, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to be a little more impatient about the issue of women bishops? To be honest, it felt as if he was saying, “Nearer and nearer draws the time”, but will it be the time that will surely come when we have women bishops, and why on earth does this legislation have to come back to this House? Surely the Church of England should be freed from the shackles of bringing its legislation here, so that we can move forward on this issue rather faster.
Tony Baldry
If the hon. Gentleman reads what I said to the General Synod, he will see that I made it clear that many of us want this legislation to come forward as speedily as possible, but we have to get it right. The reason it comes back here is that we have an established Church, and until such time as Parliament decides that we do not, we will continue to have an established Church.
Political and Constitutional Reform
Chris Bryant Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I recognise, of course, the outstanding job that my right hon. Friend does across a constituency that is by far the largest in the country. That is why, taking the cue from his constituency, we will specify in the Bill that no new constituency can be any larger than his present constituency—just shy of 13,000 sq km. As for the basis upon which the Boundary Commissions will make their decisions, the exceptions on the face of the Bill will be very limited—for obvious reasons, the two island constituencies that I set out, and the geographical cap in size that I specified. Beyond that, the duty will be on the Boundary Commissions to deliver what we have always intended should be delivered—constituencies that are more equal in size in terms of the number of voters in each constituency.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
If one were to cut the number of MPs but keep the same number of Government Ministers, as is laid down in statute, one would have increased the stranglehold of the Government over the House. If the Deputy Prime Minister is to proceed with the cut, will he undertake to cut the number of Ministers, and if so, could he cut it by 22?
Act of Settlement
Chris Bryant Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
We move from a matter of modern, enormous significance to one of historic significance. None the less, it matters to today’s society, particularly, I would suggest, to many Roman Catholics in this country, as well as to people of other faiths. I am talking about the Act of Settlement, which makes a series of provisions. I will not deal with them all, because some have been dealt with in previous legislation. I shall instead focus on those that state, first, that the throne was to pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant successors; secondly, that the monarch
“shall join in communion with the Church of England”;
thirdly, that anyone who is married to a Catholic should be barred from the line of succession; and fourthly, that the monarch should make a series of oaths and declarations when they accede to the throne or are crowned.
The provisions of the Act of Settlement built on the Bill of Rights of 1688, particularly where it reads that
“whereas it hath beene found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfaire of this protestant kingdome to be governed by a popish prince or by any King or Queene marrying a papist the said lords spirituall and temporall and commons doe further pray that it may be enacted that all and every person and persons that is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the see or church of Rome or shall professe the popish religion or shall marry a papist shall be excluded and be for ever uncapeable to inherit possesse or enjoy the crowne and government of this realme”.
In addition, the Coronation Oath Act 1688 provided that the new monarch would have to take an oath upon their coronation that they would
“maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law…and…preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm and to the churches committed to their charge all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them.”
One further provision springs from common law and means that the succession in the United Kingdom falls to a male, rather than a female, which is known as male preference primogeniture—another element that many people now would think to be rather outdated.
Subsequent Acts have amended elements of the Act of Settlement. The Scottish and English Acts of Union in 1707 ensured that there would be no alteration to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, that the new monarch, when monarch of both kingdoms, would ratify the confession of faith, and that a new oath would be undertaken by the monarch in relation to the Church of Scotland stating that the monarch
“shall inviolably maintain and preserve the foresaid settlement of the True Protestant Religion”—
I note that “True Protestant Religion” always comes with a capital T, capital P and capital R—
“with the Government Worship Discipline Right and Privileges of this Church as above established by the Laws of this Kingdom.”
Subsequent reforms also included the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which provided that the monarch could determine who any member of the royal family or anybody in the line of succession could marry. Today, still, the Lord Chancellor has to issue certificates for anyone in the line of succession stating whether they have married a Catholic or someone who has now renounced their Catholic faith. Not the most recent—there was an instance last June when the Lord Chancellor had to do this—but the better known recent case is probably that from 9 April 2008, when the marriage of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly had to be signed off by the Lord Chancellor.
In 1801, when the Parliaments of Ireland, England and Scotland were joined together, there was further reform of the Act of Settlement, which meant that the Irish agreed to the provisions in the Act. Later, the Accession Declaration Act 1910 specified that on accession, the monarch would have to declare:
“I am a faithful Protestant”—
capital P again—
“and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.”
The Statute of Westminster 1931 further determined that if there were to be any changes to those or many other provisions, they ought to be consulted on around the Commonwealth so that, on a particular day, one could not have a different monarch for Australia from the monarch for Canada and the United Kingdom. However, it is worth pointing out that, because we had to perform another piece of legal jiggery-pokery over the abdication of Edward VIII, there was one day when Ireland had a different monarch from the United Kingdom.
There was one further, tiny, Church of England measure that affected the position, which was the Admission to Holy Communion Measure 1972. That meant that any person in good standing with their Church—in other words, not necessarily a member of the Church of England—was able to receive communion in the Church of England. In theory, that could mean that a monarch who was not an Anglican—or, for that matter, a Presbyterian member of the Church of Scotland—but was, for instance, a Methodist, would be able to enter into communion with the Church of England without being a member.
All those different provisions have meant that, in sum and in total, there is a complete bar on any Catholic—and probably also any member of various other religions—sitting in the line of succession or becoming the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and, by extension therefore, of her further territories and the Commonwealth. I believe that this is now wholly inappropriate. The legislation that was written in 1688 and 1701 was, in one sense, deliberately offensive to those whom it termed “papists” or “followers of the popish religion”, because it was believed to be against the secure interests of the people of this land. Notwithstanding the fact that anti-Catholicism is, unfortunately, still a vibrant part of many sections of the British media and British society, I do not believe that there are many in this country who believe, in all honesty, that the Roman Catholic faith undermines our national security.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for raising something that is not only offensive to Roman Catholics and people of many other faiths, but offensive to anyone who wants equality under the law in our constitution in all respects. He will know that one of the arguments made against taking any such measure forward with urgency is that it would require agreement among all the countries of which the monarch is the Head of State. If by some chance we were to amend the legislation here in the UK, but Tuvalu, Belize, or St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, inspired by some form of anti-Catholicism, did not change their constitutions, so that we ended up with a different monarch in the UK from those countries, would that really be a particularly worrying matter?
Chris Bryant
I do not think that it would be, but I happen to know that some of those discussions have already happened with many parts of the Commonwealth, and I do not see any reason why we would not be able to proceed fairly swiftly. It is worth pointing out that, for the abdication of Edward VIII, we had to ensure that the rest of the countries to which my hon. Friend referred also subscribed to the change of monarch, so that not only Edward VIII, but any of his children or successors would also be barred from the succession. I therefore do not think that the issue that my hon. Friend has raised is too much of a problem, although I will come to some of the problems that I think the Minister might raise a little later.
The other point is that it is not just Catholics, but Muslims, Jews, Unitarians and Quakers who are all barred from being the monarch, either by virtue of the fact that the law expressly says that they have to be in communion with the Church of England or by virtue of the fact that they have to make a series of oaths that they would not be able to make. In addition, we have this ludicrous process of certification by the Lord Chancellor of those in line to the throne. The state in this country should not be deciding who can marry; the Crown should not be deciding which distant relative is able to marry or whom they can marry. That should surely be something of the past; indeed, it was much criticised in 1772 as well.
We also have a series of oaths, including a Protestant declaration, an oath in defence of the Church of England and an oath in defence of the Church of Scotland, which are made at different times—either in a Privy Council meeting, at the coronation service or at the first meeting of Parliament—but this is all hideously anachronistic now. We have protection for the Churches of Scotland and England but, to be honest, I think that the Churches of Scotland and England can defend themselves. There was a time, in the 13th century and the early 14th century, when the lower clergy, as well as the prelates, of the Church of England were invited into Parliament, but that has long gone. I hope that in the near future we will see the end of the prelates in Parliament, but it is surely time to give the Church of England and the Church of Scotland their own protection without any special pleading.
It is also wholly wrong to have a male preference in the line of succession. Now is the time to change this, before the young princes have children—just in case they were to have a daughter before they had a son, whereupon there would suddenly be a constitutional crisis. In other countries that have changed the law, they have sometimes had to do so when they are already effectively changing the next in line to the throne. I think that it would be better to do it now.
What would I like to see, then? First of all, we should remove all objectionable references to Catholicism from our constitutional settlement. That means significant repeal of large elements of the Act of Settlement 1701. Before anybody says, “But the Act of Settlement is quintessential to our national identity; this will be undoing and rubbing out parts of our history,” it is worth noting that we have already rubbed out large parts of that history. One element of the Act of Settlement states that the monarch should never be allowed to travel abroad without permission of the House of Commons. That was repealed many years—indeed, several centuries—ago, and rightly so. We need to make sure that our constitution is silent—absolutely silent—on this matter, so that there is equality for all.
Secondly, I believe that we should have a new single accession and coronation oath. This oath should be determined by this House—not by the heir to the throne; not by the monarch when he or she decides to come to the throne; and not by the Archbishop of Canterbury in consultation with anybody. It should be determined by this House, as has been our history and our tradition. I think the oath should be made between the monarch and Parliament, all sitting together, having been previously determined by us.
Thirdly, we need to remove all references to marriage. We need to repeal the Royal Marriages Act 1772. We need to make sure that any member of the royal family or anyone in distant line to the throne—it is remarkable, looking down the list, who is still caught by this provision—is free to marry precisely as they want to. We should establish in our constitutional settlement absolute, straightforward equality between men and women.
I was contacted by Hansard and asked whether I could provide a copy of my speech. I pointed out that it was unusual for Members to read out their speeches—indeed, it is proscribed—but Hansard said, “Well, it is absolutely certain that the Minister will read out his speech, so he is likely to send it to us beforehand.” I hope he has not, as I want him to respond to the things I have said. I suspect, however, that one thing he might say is, “Yes, but this is awfully complicated, as there are so many bits of legislation.” I hope he will not do this, but he might go through all the legislation with which I have already bored the House. I hope he is not suddenly going to say, “Aha, the hon. Member has left out Princess Sophia’s Precedence Act 1711.” I can see from the Minister looking through his notes that he was toying with mentioning that Act.
To be honest, when I have heard Labour Ministers advancing from the Government Benches the argument that it is all too difficult, I have said, “Poppycock. Absolute tosh. Posh tosh maybe, but absolute tosh.” I know that the Minister is a stout, worthy, independently minded person, who is determined to see reform in many things. He is bringing forward, I hope, many pieces of legislation that we will be able to support. I hope he is not going to advocate delaying “because it is so awfully difficult in the Commonwealth” or say that we do not want to open up this Pandora’s box. If he is thinking of invoking Pandora’s box—it has been written into many Ministers’ speeches in the past—let me point out that at the bottom of that box is one important thing: hope.
I very much hope that the Minister is going to open Pandora’s box so that we can move forward. There are many people—not just Catholic prelates, not just Catholic priests, not just Catholics—who find it deeply offensive that we retain a piece of legislation that we could change, which would bring in full equality. I hope that this Minister will be like Alexander and cut through the Gordian knot. It will be a simple piece of legislation. Many others have brought forward legislation before and Labour Ministers have found ludicrous reasons for saying no to them in the past. I hope that this Minister is not going to be like that, and I hope that we shall be able to say of him, as the Archbishop of Canterbury said of Henry V in Shakespeare’s play “Henry V”,
“Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter”.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) tests us with flattery, hoping that it will get him somewhere, but I fear that he may be disappointed.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his choice of subject. The House will know that it is a subject in which he has been interested for some time. Indeed, in 2008 he presented the last Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), with his plans for reforming the constitution. I presume that they were broadly in line with what he has just proposed. He nods in assent. I understand from a report in The Guardian at the time that his plans were given to the last Prime Minister’s new adviser on the constitution, but not much seems to have happened to them in the following two years.
Mr Harper
They may have got into the Labour manifesto. Many things may have got into the Labour manifesto. I fear, however, that the hon. Gentleman might have been disappointed even if Labour had been successful in the election.
As the hon. Gentleman said, many Members of both Houses have sought debate on this issue, and it is important for us to discuss it. However—I know that this will disappoint the hon. Gentleman—it is complicated. He himself listed a significant number of pieces of legislation that would have to be considered, amended or possibly repealed: the Bill of Rights 1689, the Coronation Oath Act 1688, the Act of Settlement 1701, the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Union with Ireland Act 1800, and the Regency Act 1706. This is not a straightforward matter, and I do not think that pretending it is straightforward or simple does any of us a service.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Government —indeed, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and I—will be introducing a number of pieces of legislation that are mentioned in the coalition Government’s programme for government. We will introduce legislation on a referendum on the alternative vote, on reviewing the boundaries, on fixed-term Parliaments, and indeed on reform of the House of Lords, which may deal with the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised about the position of bishops in the other place. He can be confident that we have the appetite for reform, but I think that this particular matter involves a number of complicated issues.
Chris Bryant
As I said, posh tosh. The Minister is going to cite arguments that the civil servants around the corner will have prepared for him about how awfully difficult this is and how many pieces of legislation are involved, but if he is going to reform the House of Lords he is going to have to start with Magna Carta, and that is going considerably further back than the Act of Settlement.
Mr Harper
I said that merely to illustrate that this is a Government who are happy to carry out reform when it is necessary.
Clearly we would not legislate today to give men precedence over women in the line of succession, and I do not think that we would concern ourselves today with the religion of the monarch’s spouse or treat differently members of a particular religion. However, it is one thing to say that we would not legislate in that way today, and quite another to say that there are no obstacles to change. We need to think through the changes and their consequences before making them.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Act of Settlement is part of a political and constitutional settlement with strong historical roots. It does not, of course, prevent those in the line of succession from marrying Roman Catholics; it merely means that if they do so, they will lose their spot in the line of succession. It raises complex issues about the relationship between Church and state. There are many who, like the hon. Gentleman, do not think that the Church of England should be the established Church—
Mr Harper
That was the implication of what the hon. Gentleman said when he talked of allowing the Church of England to rush off by itself. In any event, the Act raises issues connected with the establishment of the Church, and it does us no service to pretend that it is not so.
The issue of primogeniture, particularly male preference primogeniture, has been raised from time to time, as has the hon. Gentleman’s point about giving female descendants of the sovereign the same rights as their male siblings. The title to the Crown, however, derives not just from statute but from common rules of descent. Succession to the throne in this country is based on a form of primogeniture which favours sons over daughters, but favours daughters of a sovereign over the siblings of that sovereign, so an older sister would lose her place to a younger brother but not to an uncle. Again, changing that arrangement would be a major constitutional measure. The hon. Gentleman pointed out one thing that is important to note, which is that currently the first three members of the royal family in line to the throne are all male and so we have some time until there may be a pressing issue to address.
The hon. Gentleman highlighted an issue that is complicated and I do not think it is right to sweep it away, pretending it is not. I am talking about the fact that this is not just an issue for the United Kingdom, because Her Majesty the Queen is sovereign of a further 15 independent nations and they have a right, with us, to decide on the line of succession. I do not suggest that they would necessarily have any problems with removing outdated provisions, but it is not the substance of the issue that is the problem; the problem is how we go about doing that. Because of the nature of our Parliament, this House and the other place can change the most fundamental of our constitutional provisions by a simple Act of Parliament, so the Act of Settlement could indeed be amended in this House, as could any of the other Acts that he mentions. That is true of some of the other countries of which Her Majesty is Queen, but it is not true of all of them. For some that have a federal constitution, such as Australia and Canada, amending those rules is a more complicated process, involving the states in those countries; it is not as straightforward as it is here.
The relationship between the Crown of the United Kingdom and the Crown of the other realms is complicated. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the one occasion when it has been tested, which was the abdication of Edward VIII. In those days, there were only six realms involved—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and Eire. Only three still survive as realms, although there are now a further 12, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), who is no longer in his place. Even then, when the concept of the “imperial crown” and the “imperial Parliament” was much stronger, there were, as the hon. Member for Rhondda highlighted, a number of different views about the extent to which the United Kingdom could legislate on their behalf and the extent to which if we changed the line of succession to our throne, that would automatically feed into their arrangements. So if we were to go ahead and legislate in the UK alone, we would either be presenting the other realms with no choice in their own Head of State or we would cause a divergence in the line of succession.
The hon. Gentleman alluded to the fact that discussions have started with those Commonwealth countries and are continuing, but they should involve careful consideration of how we would implement change, the consequences and the timing. I do not think that those matters should be unduly rushed. Dealing with our non-codified constitution is complicated without having unexpected consequences. The Act of Settlement is part of the backbone of our constitution, and tinkering with it lightly without thinking through all the changes would have unforeseen consequences.
Chris Bryant
I sort of sympathise with the Minister because he has officials who want to make life difficult for him about this. But the truth about timing is that if Prince William were to have a daughter first and then a son, in realms other than this, where people wanted to assert that they thought it was unfair to have an unequal system that disfranchised or shoved the daughter further down the list, there would be a constitutional crisis. That is why it is timely to do this now, while there is not a problem.
Mr Harper
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, but that is why I thought it was important to highlight the fact that discussions are under way with other Commonwealth countries. It is not that the Government are in favour of no change; we are simply considering change carefully and thoughtfully.
The hon. Gentleman mentions timing, so it is worth picking up on the issue relating to the exclusion of Roman Catholics from the throne. We should examine the view of the Church on this, although I appreciate that there are divergent opinions. The previous Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said that he thought that the Act of Settlement was
“discriminatory. I think it will disappear, but I don’t want to cause a great fuss”.
The current Archbishop of Westminster has said:
“I wouldn’t rush to support such a change in the law. I think that the position of the Queen and the monarchy is to be handled with great sensitivity”.
Chris Bryant
However, Catholic cardinals in Scotland have asserted very forcefully that they believe the law is entirely discriminatory and should be changed, and many prelates in the Church of England have also said it should be changed. I think I am right in saying that the General Synod of the Church of England also believes that it should be changed.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that point. Cardinal O’Brien in Scotland, for example, is much firmer about wanting to move quickly on this. However, this merely highlights the complexity of the debate. There is not even a single clear view within the Catholic Church in these islands. Some very significant Catholics think that the law should be changed, but should not be rushed or done in a way that causes the monarchy difficulty.
Chris Bryant
But there is not a single Catholic in the land who does not think that the law should be changed.
Mr Harper
I cannot possibly know the views of every single person in the United Kingdom, and neither can the hon. Gentleman.
As I have said, the Government are not saying that there should be no change. We are simply saying that, if we are to undertake change, we need to do it in a careful and thoughtful way. We are not saying that the parts of the Act of Settlement that we are discussing should never be changed. We do not rule out change. We simply argue that, if there is to be a change, it should be thoughtful, and undertaken carefully and with due consideration for our obligations to the other Commonwealth realms of which Her Majesty is Queen. We should also have consideration for the consequences not only for the Crown and the succession but for the position of the established Church in this country.
To give the hon. Gentleman hope, let me assure him that we have not ruled out change, but it would need to be done carefully and thoughtfully. If done in that way, it is much more likely to endure and not have unforeseen consequences. I shall leave him with that positive message, although I am sure that he will go away disappointed. I will also leave him with the thought that, although I will give the Hansard reporters a copy of my speech, I have waited until after the debate to do so, rather than giving it to them in advance, as he suggested. He was probably expecting the comments that I have uttered tonight. I fear that he will have to be disappointed in the pace of reform in this area, but when we bring to the House the measures on other areas of constitutional reform that were in our manifesto, I shall look forward to his wholehearted support for them.
Question put and agreed to.
G8 and G20 Summits
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May I urge caution on my right hon. Friend when it comes to Turkey’s membership of the European Union? Unless we have already left the EU by that stage—I can but hope—Turkey’s membership could lead only to the British taxpayer being asked to put his hand further in his pocket and further strain on immigration into this country.
The Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman says, there is not quite complete agreement on this issue, but as I would say to the French President or German Chancellor, even if people do not agree with me that Turkey should be a member of the EU, we should be straining every sinew to think of ways of encouraging Turkey to play a full role in the affairs of our continent. It is a member of NATO, and we have a strong bilateral relationship and a trading relationship with the country. Turkey wants those relationships with us, and we should do everything that we can to enhance them.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
9. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the proposed defence technical college at St Athan.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mrs Cheryl Gillan)
This proposal is being considered as part of the strategic defence and security review, which was debated in the House on Monday. The review is due to be completed by October and I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Defence is made fully aware of the importance of our armed forces to Wales.
Chris Bryant
I do not feel sorry for the right hon. Lady; I welcome her wholeheartedly to her post. However, she gave a rather partisan answer to the earlier question about the defence technical college in St Athan, and I urge her to recognise that this issue has involved a cross-party alliance in Wales. All the political parties in Wales have been supporting it, so will she meet a cross-party group of MPs so that they may put the arguments strongly? This is about protecting our armed forces, particularly the soldiers from Wales, who deserve the best training they can possibly get.
Mrs Gillan
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having raised this matter not once but three times in the past week or so. I have read the replies to him from both the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said:
“Everyone who has spent time in south Wales with the military knows that there is an incredibly strong case for the St Athan defence training establishment.”—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 430.]
I would be delighted to meet a cross-party group to discuss the future of St Athan. The hon. Gentleman will know that it was one of the first things that I signed up to when I was appointed as shadow Secretary of State for Wales. I will not demur from that support.
European Council
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The Prime Minister
Well, the right hon. and learned Lady is right about one thing: the general election is over.
The right hon. and learned Lady is absolutely right about Iran. We do need great unity on this issue; and Europe forging ahead together with a very strong statement about sanctions, then introducing sanctions, is right. She asked when it would be finalised. That will happen on 26 July, at the Foreign Affairs Council, and the sanctions should come into effect in October.
The right hon. and learned Lady asked about the BBC service in Farsi. I can confirm that it will continue to be funded well, because it is important. We should be looking at all the elements of soft power and how we project our influence in the world, and that is clearly one of them.
The right hon. and learned Lady mentioned the millennium development goals and the importance of prioritising development. We agree with her about that. It was on the insistence of the British, among others, that we put the annual review of development assistance into the Council conclusions, partly so that we could ensure that other countries are living up to the obligations under which they place themselves. We will continue to do that, although we are clearing up the most almighty financial mess at home. As for making it legally binding, we agree with that, and will produce plans to make it happen.
The right hon. and learned Lady spoke about consistency, and about the importance of recognising the gross inequality of women. We will set out measures for greater transparency, including transparency in pay. We are in favour of that.
The right hon. and learned Lady mentioned our MEPs at great length. I can tell her that I will be keeping a careful watch on what Labour MEPs vote for, because they do not always vote in a sensible way.
The Prime Minister
We will be having a look at them too.
The right hon. and learned Lady also spoke at great length about borrowing. She mentioned the dangers of falling behind South Korea. I have to say that if we followed her advice, I think we would be falling behind North Korea, but let me say this to her about the issue of borrowing. The Council’s conclusion could not be clearer. It said:
“We reaffirm our collective determination to ensure fiscal sustainability, including by accelerating plans for fiscal consolidation where warranted”.
Where is it more warranted than in Britain, where Labour left us with a £155 billion public sector deficit?
It is interesting that, following the sovereign debt crisis and what has happened in Greece, the Labour party is completely isolated in Europe in not believing that we need to take early action on the deficit. Every other country is having to take this sort of action, including painful action. The right hon. and learned Lady does not have to talk nonsense because she is not taking part in the Labour leadership election, so she should talk some sense and recognise that we have to get our deficit in order, we have to take action and it is the right thing to do.
Constitution and Home Affairs
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make progress and then I will give way again.
First, we need to relinquish Executive control. The Government are determined that no Government should be able to play politics with the dates of a general election. [Interruption.] I am addressing the point that was made. Parliamentary terms should be fixed for five years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me make some progress, and then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. Let him hear me out first.
We need a new right for Parliament to request a Dissolution, taking away the Prime Minister’s exclusive and traditional right to call an election when he or she wishes. The majority required for early Dissolution—set at 55% in the coalition agreement—has clearly sparked a lot of anguish among the Opposition. It should; it is an important decision that will, of course, be properly considered by the whole House, as the legislation progresses. But the Opposition in their amendment today are wilfully misrepresenting how that safeguard will function. Their amendment deliberately confuses that new right with traditional powers of no confidence, which will remain in place intact.
Let me assure the House that we are already conducting detailed work on the steps that are necessary to remove any theoretical possibility of a limbo in which a Government who could not command the confidence of the House would refuse to dissolve Parliament and give people their say. That would clearly be intolerable. Any new arrangements will need to build on existing conventions, so that a distinction is maintained between no confidence and early Dissolution.
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman referred earlier to hoarding power. Will he explain the length of time that he is talking about—the five-year term—bearing in mind the fact that, since 1832, the average peacetime Parliament has lasted for considerably less than four years, at three years and eight months. Australia and New Zealand have three-year Parliaments. The countries with five-year Parliaments are Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and France. Which is he measuring against?
Mr Deputy Speaker
I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that his views have been heard by the House, but that is a matter for debate, not a matter of order for the Chair.
Chris Bryant
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It has been customary in the House for the appointment of Committees to be subject to votes in the House, so it is not for the Deputy Prime Minister to announce the creation of a Committee of this House or of another place.
Mr Deputy Speaker
It is for the Government to decide what the membership of a Government committee should be, so that is a matter for debate.
Mrs Laing
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point, and it gives me great pleasure to be able to say for the first time in a long time what I actually personally think, because as a Back Bencher I am bound by no collective responsibility. I agree with him entirely. I personally believe that those funds will have to be ring-fenced and not simply put into the local government pot, because some local authorities, such as Epping Forest district council, handle these matters extremely well, whereas others do not do so quite so well. I therefore agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the funds will have to be ring-fenced, and also that that review of the electoral system must be undertaken as a matter of urgency.
The issue of a fair electoral system is also important. There has been much talk this afternoon about the alternative vote or AV, but there is a far more glaring anomaly, because as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in his remarks—I think I mean my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, although that is also quite difficult to say—constituencies should, of course, be of the same size. Every vote cast in a general election should be of equal weight and value. Some Opposition Members talked about the size of certain constituencies in terms of square miles, yet we are elected to represent not pieces of land but people. What matters is the number of people in a constituency, not its geographical size. Every vote should be of equal value, but the argument over the alternative vote is a red herring—
Mrs Laing
Yes, I will accept that. AV would not create fairness; it would be even less proportional than first past the post. I ask the House to consider this: why should someone who supports a minority party effectively get two votes in an election, whereas someone who votes for a mainstream party have only one vote? More importantly, although I understand why my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have agreed to a referendum on AV, the facts have not changed since we debated this matter only a few weeks ago, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn said. A referendum will cost in the region of £80 million. How many special needs teachers, how many cancer nurses, could we employ for £80 million? How many serious matters could be dealt with in this country for £80 million—matters of far greater importance in the current economic climate than arguing about how people are elected? The fact is that the British people do not care about or want a referendum on AV. If they did, they would have voted for it. Far more people said at the general election “I don’t agree with Nick” than said that they do.
The third point concerns the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) dealt with extremely well. The general election has changed the political picture, but it has not changed the constitutional principle. I cannot speak here today from the Government Back Benches and say something fundamentally different from what I said at the Opposition Dispatch Box only a few weeks ago. My principles have not changed and I do not believe that the constitutional principles of this House should change. I am very concerned about the proposed imposition of a 55% threshold, which takes power away from Parliament and gives it to the Government. Perhaps I will be persuaded in due course, but principle does matter. It is the duty of elected Members of this House to do not what is popular but what is right.
Debate on the Address
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The Prime Minister
No, I have given way enough.
As this Government start the job of building our country’s future, the Labour party is clearly thinking about its own future. As experts in leadership elections, we shall be watching with interest. I have to say, however, that if Labour thinks that having a leadership election is the answer to its problems, it is wrong. The truth is that it is not the leader that is the problem; it is Labour. The whole approach has been wrong—the idea that for every problem there is a bottomless pit of public money, that for every situation there is a Government solution and for every issue there is a Whitehall initiative. It ended up giving us an economy that is nearly bankrupt, a society that is broken and a political system that is bust. That is why this coalition has come together—because this country needs strong, stable government to sort out the mess that the Labour Government made. They gave us big spending; we will bring good housekeeping. They trusted in bureaucracy, we will trust in community. They governed in the party interest; we will govern in the national interest.
This Queen’s Speech marks an end to the years of recklessness and big government and the beginning of the years of responsibility and good government. It takes the deficit head-on; it shows the world that Britain is reopening for business; it tackles the causes of our social problems; it means better schools for our children, real hope for those out of work and a stronger NHS for everyone; and its means having a Parliament that belongs to the people, not the politicians. It means a new start for Britain, and I commend it to the House.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You said earlier that for the sake of accuracy you had managed to obtain a copy of the Queen’s Speech. You need not have done any such thing, as you might just as well have bought a copy of The Sunday Telegraph. Will you confirm that this is the first time that a draft of the Queen’s Speech has ever been leaked to a national newspaper? Will you personally conduct an investigation to find out whether it was leaked from No. 10 Downing street and whether any money changed hands in connection with it? You rightly used to excoriate Labour Ministers if ever we made announcements before making them to this House, so will you make sure that that lot over there do not announce things to the press—as they have done, day in, day out over the past 10 days—without first bringing them before this House?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, which warrants an immediate response. The House will share the hon. Gentleman’s disappointment that it and he did not hear for the first time the details of the Government’s legislative programme while listening to the Queen’s Speech this morning. This gives me the opportunity to say at the start of this new Parliament that I shall continue to expect, as I said two days after first being elected Speaker last June, that
“Ministers ought to make key statements to the House before they are made elsewhere.”—[Official Report, 24 June 2010; Vol. 494, c. 798.]
If they do otherwise, I—and, I am sure, the House—will expect to hear explanations and apologies as necessary.