SEVEN HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF PARLIAMENT

HC Deb 22 June 1965 vol 714 cc1433-8

Mr. Speaker

I have to acquaint the House that I have received copies of resolutions conveying messages of greeting and congratulations passed by the Parliament of Uganda, the House of Assembly of the Bahamas, the Senate and House of Assembly of Barbados, the Provincial Legislature of Ontario and the Legislative Council of St. Vincent on the 700th anniversary of the Parliament of Simon de Montfort and the 750th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta.

I shall have the texts placed in the Library of the House, where they can be seen by hon. Members.

Sitting suspended until 2.30 p.m.

Mr. SPEAKER and the House went to Westminster Hall to attend Her Majesty, with an Address.

Mr. SPEAKER was accompanied by the following Speakers of Commonwealth Legislatures:

• The Hon. A. A. Macnaughton (Canada).
• The Hon. Sir John McLeay (Australia).
• The Hon. Sir Ronald Algie (New Zealand).
• The Hon. Sardar Hukam Singh (India).
• The Hon. Sir Albert Peries (Ceylon).
• Mr. Ofori-Atta (Ghana).
• The Hon. Dato'Chik Mohamed Yusuf bin Sheikh Abdul Rahman (Malaysia).
• Alhaji The Hon. Ibrahim Jalo Waziri (Nigeria).
• Mr. Glafkos Clerides (Cyprus).
• The Hon. Banja Tejan-Sie (Sierra Leone).
• The Hon. T. C. Golding (Jamaica).
• The Hon. C. A. Thomasos (Trinidad and Tobago).
• The Hon. Narendra Patel (Uganda).
• The Hon. Humphrey Slade (Kenya).
• The Hon. I. K. Surtee (Malawi).
• The Hon. P. Pace (Malta).
• The Hon. W. P. Nyirenda (Zambia).
• The Hon. A. S. Jack (The Gambia).
• The Rt. Hon. Sir Norman Stronge (Northern Ireland).
• The Hon. A. R. W. Stumbles (S. Rhodesia).
• The Hon. Sir John Cox (Bermuda).
• The Hon. R. H. Symonette (Bahamas).
• The Hon. J. E. T. Brancker (Barbados).
• The Hon. H. R. Vaghjee (Mauritius).
• The Hon. H. C. Kerruish (Isle of Man).
• The Hon. A. P. Alleyne (British Guiana).
• Dr. The Hon. F. J. Clarke (St. Lucia).
• The Hon. F. J. Archibald (Grenada).
• The Hon. E. F. Adams (St. Vincent).
• The Hon. L. Cools-Lartigue (Dominica).
• The Hon. W. H. Courtenay (British Honduras).
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• Mr. R. H. Le Masurier (Jersey).
• The Hon. D. W. Hurst (Antigua).
• The Hon. M. P. Allen (St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla).
• The Hon. Sir Arthur Charles (Aden).
• The Hon. W. Thomson (Gibraltar).
• Sir William Arnold (Guernsey).
• The Hon. H. Maurice Scott (Fiji).
• Mr. W. P. Stanford (Basutoland).
• Dr. The Hon. A. M. Merriweather (Bechuanaland).
• The Hon. J. D. A. Germond (Swaziland).

The Address from the House of Commons, presented by Mr. SPEAKER, was as follows:

Most Gracious Sovereign, We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, humbly beg leave to offer to Your Majesty our sincere thanks for the reference to the seven hundredth anniversary of Parliament in the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty made to both Houses at the first meeting of this present Parliament. It is fitting that the English Parliament summoned by King Henry III at the instance of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and Steward of England, to meet in London on 20th January, 1265, should be especially recorded. It was the first known English Parliament to which representatives of the citizens and burgesses were summoned, in addition to Prelates, Lay Magnates and Knights of the Shire. There were thus present for the first time in Parliament the chosen representatives of the Communities of England—the shires, cities and boroughs—who were in later generations to constitute the House of Commons. We rejoice that the principles of parliamentary government have been developed and strengthened through seven centuries of history. We rejoice, moreover, that they have been established in many countries which recognise Your Majesty as Head of the Commonwealth. It is with special pleasure that we express our thanks to Your Majesty for the arrangements which have enabled us to welcome the Speakers and Presiding Officers of so many Parliaments in the Commonwealth among us on this occasion. We humbly thank Your Majesty for this opportunity to celebrate the origin and development of this institution, the Crown in Parliament, which is the foundation of our liberties under the rule of law, and trust that with God's help it may ever be preserved.

Sitting resumed at half-past Two o'clock.

Mr. Speaker

I have to report that the House has attended Her Majesty with its Address to which Her Majesty was pleased to give a Most Gracious Answer, which I will have recorded in the Journal.

Her Majesty's Most Gracious Answer to the Addresses from both Houses was as follows:

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons

I thank you for the loyal and dutiful Addresses which on your behalf the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Speaker have presented to me.

The event, whose 700th anniversary we are celebrating today, occupies a most important and distinguished place in the history of our Country, of the Commonwealth, and of free institutions throughout the world. In the manner of constitutional developments in this country, what was at the time little more than an expedient devised from earlier practice, became first an example and then a convention. It is now memorable as the prototype of our Parliamentary system which has, itself, served as a model for many others.

Today we celebrate more than the event itself. We are here to commemorate together the long and often troubled evolution of Parliamentary processes which stemmed from that first meeting, to which, in the course of time, the customs and traditions of Scotland and Ireland have so fruitfully contributed, and which now forms a common legacy cherished by the sister nations of the Commonwealth, whose Parliamentary Representatives it gives me particular pleasure to welcome today.

It is a legacy of practice and also a legacy of intent. The evolution of our system owes much to the mixture of shrewdness and caution which prompted our predecessors throughout the centuries not hastily to devise and then to discard new forms of Government, but always where possible to adapt old forms to new needs; and to their ability to recognise the forms and precedents most suitable to that purpose.

The Parliament of 1265 has a particular significance in relation to the events of the time, but its importance to us today is that it stumbled upon and gave expression to ideas and principles which have been recognised and maintained with growing conviction ever since.

The combination of Knights and Burgesses, strengthened and confirmed in the following century by the convention that the Knights should sit in the same House as the Burgesses and not with the greater nobility, was the growing point of our Parliamentary Institutions. They were to be fashioned and adapted during the succeeding centuries, at first with the encouragement of the Crown, later in conflict with it, and finally in happy union; but all the time expressing more surely the aspirations of the people as a whole.

No one would claim that Parliament has maintained an unblemished record in its evolution but never has it abandoned its care for the liberties of this Kingdom, as succeeding generations have conceived them. The fulfilment of those liberties has been its greatest glory. Nor can this task ever he at an end; for each generation mast still interpret and assert its liberties anew.

Whatever mistakes may have been made in these 700 years, the persistent attachment to the great guiding principles of our way of life has served again and again to evoke that idealism and spirit of self sacrifice that is interwoven in the normal sober and pragmatic character of our peoples.

This combination of idealism and pragmatism has been never more needed than today when we are called to adjust ourselves to rapid changes of world influence, to new social forces and to unprecedented advances of science and technology. We are proud to say that never has Parliament failed in these qualities. Had it been otherwise, then what happened 700 years ago would be remembered now only as a discarded constitutional curiosity, and there would be no cause to which to rededicate ourselves today.

We are glad to meet here in the Great Hall of Westminster. We do not know for certain whether the Parliament of 1265 met here or not, though it seems that the conclusions of that Parliament were proclaimed here. But this Hall has been the scene of so many events, splendid or sombre, which have marked the course of our history, that it is forever associated in men's minds with those great principles for which Parliament has consistently striven. It is from that magnificent past, enshrined in the shadows of this Hall, that we can most surely look towards what the future may hold.