Commons Sitting of 6 February 2001

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  HEALTH
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  HEALTH

    Herceptin
    Miss Anne McIntosh: What representations he has received on the prescribing of herceptin for the treatment of breast cancer; and if he will make a statement. [147327]
    The Minister for Public Health (Yvette Cooper): We have received representations, including that from the hon. Lady on behalf of her constituent, on this matter. Herceptin was licensed in August 2000, and we are keen to ensure that it is used appropriately across the national health service. We are also keen to prevent a postcode lottery for care. That is why we have referred the drug to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which expects to issue its report in June.
    Miss McIntosh: Does the Minister agree that it has been proven that herceptin can extend life? Does she also accept that it is apparently much more widely available in the south-east of England than in the north, and in particular north Yorkshire? My constituent, Eileen Quigley, was told that she could have the drug if she was prepared to pay for it. Does the Minister accept that the Government have failed my constituent, and that they must now bring forward the date by which the drug will be registered and accepted by NICE for use?
    Yvette Cooper: The drug was licensed in August. We are concerned about the postcode lottery for care in relation to a number of cancer drugs, which is why we have rapidly referred them to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. We also did that with taxanes, and 5,000 women are now receiving treatment that they would not have received had we continued with the policies of the previous Government, who promoted a postcode lottery for care by promoting an internal market.
    The case of the hon. Lady's constituent was originally raised by the patient's partner, and the trust has not yet received the patient's consent to release the details, although it has pursued that matter several times. Once consent is received, I shall be happy to pursue that patient's case.
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    It was the Conservative Government who promoted the postcode lottery for care by promoting the internal market. That is why we established the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to deal with such drugs as rapidly as they come on to the market, and to provide national guidance so that we have a truly national health service.
    Joan Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for her reply. We have real confidence that NICE will make an appropriate decision on the issue. Does she accept that the major breast cancer charities, including Breakthrough Breast Cancer, have made representations about herceptin because it is the one drug known not to have side effects and to be beneficial in cases involving metastases, and for patients for whom all else has failed?
    Yvette Cooper: I am aware of the representations that my hon. Friend mentions, and we have referred the drug to NICE for those reasons. I cannot pre-empt the guidance that the institute will give, but we have referred cancer drugs to it as a priority because of our concern about the matter. In the past it has often taken a long time for effective licensed drugs to be used routinely in the NHS; that is why this drug was referred to NICE even before it was licensed. We look forward to receiving a report speedily, so that all patients can be reassured that they are getting the best treatment, and the treatment that they need.

    Cancer Services
    Mr. David Chaytor: If he will make a statement on the Government's progress on improvements in services to patients suffering from cancer. [147328]
    Mr. Eric Martlew: If he will make a statement on the Government's progress on improvements in services to patients suffering from cancer. [147329]
    Helen Jackson: If he will make a statement about the development of cancer services in the NHS. [147335]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): After decades of neglect, cancer services are receiving record levels of extra investment. Tens of thousands of cancer patients who are urgently referred to hospitals by their GPs are now being seen within two weeks. By the end of this year, patients with acute leukaemia or testicular cancer, and children with cancer, will have a maximum wait of one month from urgent referral to treatment.
    Mr. Chaytor: That news will be welcome to my constituents in Bury, North. The importance of the hospice movement for palliative care for cancer sufferers must not be overlooked in the new approach to cancer treatment. I pay tribute to the staff and volunteers of the Bury hospice. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the hospice movement will get its fair share of the new investment going into the national health service?
    Mr. Milburn: I know that my hon. Friend has a close working relationship with his local hospices. It is important to note that across the piece—in prevention,

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    treatment and palliative care—we are investing appropriate sums of money to provide cancer patients with the treatment and care that they need.
    My hon. Friend is right; for years hospices have relied on charitable and voluntary fund-raising endeavours. I pay tribute to all those involved. The national health service has never matched the contributions from voluntary and charitable donations, but that is about to change. As a result of the extra investment now going into cancer services—particularly into palliative care—the national health service will be matching the amounts raised voluntarily to invest in hospices and the palliative care movement within three to four years.
    Mr. Martlew: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the Eden Valley hospice in my constituency, which has a tremendous reputation and full support from the community? It has recently decided to employ a consultant specialist in medical care to improve care in the hospice and take it out into the community. What my right hon. Friend has said is good news for the hospice because there will be extra resources, but may I bring him back to another aspect of our cancer care policies—regional centres of excellence? People in constituencies such as mine in Cumbria realise that we are a long way from the centre and we need a place such as Newcastle—I am sure that it will be Newcastle—where our constituents can go to receive the finest cancer treatment anywhere in the country. I hope that he will confirm that.
    Mr. Milburn: I hesitate to confirm the idea of Newcastle, or Sunderland—or even Carlisle—but my hon. Friend's general point is right. We must make sure that the best treatment is available to the maximum number of cancer patients. As he is aware, we recently announced extra funding for stomach cancer services, because stomach cancer kills so many people every year and, regrettably, the interventions generally come too late.
    We also need to concentrate the expertise in the national health service better, and make it available in specialist regional centres. The Government are investing a record amount of extra money in cancer services, but although the Conservative party, too, now says that cancer services are a priority, it is a pity that the Government in which the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) served did not earmark a single penny piece of extra investment for cancer treatment. That explains precisely why, in today's NHS, including our cancer services, there are the following problems: too few doctors, too few nurses, and not enough modern equipment.
    We are putting that right by investing extra money, which we can do because of the choices that we have made—for economic stability and more investment in public services. All that is put at risk by the policies of the Conservative party, which would return us to stop-go economics and cuts in public services.
    Helen Jackson: Sheffield health authority is absolutely clear about the fact that the combination of the Government's setting access targets and providing extra resources and investment has enabled it to develop its breast cancer centre at the Royal Hallamshire hospital, which means that nobody in the Sheffield area has to wait more than two weeks for rapid access to a specialist. The Government's insistence on access targets is important and welcome, but do we not have to keep providing
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    resources to enable health authorities to put treatment for other types of cancer at the top of their list and to receive the investment necessary to develop it?
    Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is right.
    Mr. John Bercow: What a surprise.
    Mr. Milburn: She is right and, invariably, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. There are no surprises there.
    My hon. Friend is right because, as she and other hon. Members throughout the House know, the NHS needs not what it had in the past—peaks of investment followed by cuts—but sustained investment over time. That is precisely what is happening under this Government. This year, for example, we shall invest an extra £280 million in cancer services. That will rise to an extra £570 million by 2003–04, precisely because of the choices we have made and the priorities we have set. The NHS is a priority, and within that, cancer services are a priority.
    Mrs. Marion Roe: As chairman of the all-party hospice group, I welcome any additional funding for palliative care, especially the £50 million by 2004 allocated in the NHS cancer plan. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when those funds will become available and how they will be distributed? Will he also confirm that they will be allocated not just to NHS units, but to independent hospices?
    Mr. Milburn: That is a very important point and the hon. Lady is absolutely right. Palliative care services inside and outside the NHS are excellent and, as she knows, many hospices have been established because of massive fund-raising endeavours by a few individuals, and I pay tribute to them. She is also right to say that some hospices are under financial pressure, and she will be aware that some health authorities have made extra cash available. She should also be aware that part of the £50 million extra for hospices and palliative care that I announced in September will come on stream not in 2004, but from this April.
    Over three or four years, we shall build up the investment from the NHS that goes to adult hospices—and, it is important to add, to children's hospices. By 2004 there will be matched funding from the NHS and from voluntary and charitable fund-raising endeavours; we have never been in that position before.
    Mr. John Wilkinson: Following on from the questions asked by the hon. Members for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) and for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), rather than the speech by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson), may I emphasise the importance to regional cancer centres of having not just good treatment facilities, such as exist at Mount Vernon hospital, but both exceptional research capabilities and hospices, both of which also exist at Mount Vernon? That combination is surely second to none, and should recommend itself to the Secretary of State. Does he agree?
    Mr. Milburn: I certainly agree that we need to increase our efforts in cancer research. That holds the key to some

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    of the advances that we all want to be made for cancer patients. This country has a good track record, but much more needs to be done.
    As the hon. Gentleman knows, I recently announced that for the first time we shall have a single cancer research institute, which will, I hope, harness the best of British science to provide the best of British expertise and the best for British patients. That is what we want to do, and we will do it on the basis of the extra investment that we are making.
    With respect, the question for the hon. Gentleman is this: if he thinks cancer treatment is such a priority, why does he back policies that involve cuts in public spending? Why does he back policies involving, for instance, cutting lottery funding for cancer services? That is the Opposition's policy. [Interruption.] Opposition Members deny it, but that is what their spokesman on culture, media and sport said in 1998. He said that the money that we were putting into the national health service should come not from the lottery, but from general taxation. That spokesman, or one of the Conservative Front-Bench team here now, must answer one of two questions. First, if the money is to come from general taxation rather than lottery funding, where specifically will it come from? Secondly, if the Opposition are not prepared to adopt that option, which programmes will be cut?
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call another Member, may I say this to Ministers? First, attacks on the Opposition are not really what I am looking for. [Interruption.] Order. Ministers are there to account for their Departments. Secondly, we must have brief questions and also brief answers.
    Dr. Liam Fox: Mr. Harvey-Hills, a consultant urologist, recently wrote to his chief executive about the cancellation of cancer services at St Peter's hospital. He wrote:
    "You were fully aware of three other patients of mine who were admitted for major cancer surgery (after a three months wait) only to be cancelled three times each, within thirty minutes of being called to the theatre."
    I am sure Members agree that that was unacceptable, and it is bad enough in itself, but Mr. Harvey-Hills went on to say:
    "These are but three examples of a long-standing problem. One year ago I was put under pressure by the management to treat non-urgent longwaiting patients instead of patients with cancer".
    Is there not something fundamentally flawed about a system that refuses to treat the sickest patients first? Is there not a questionable moral basis for a system that puts the targets of politicians before the needs of patients, as happened in this case, in this hospital, under this Government?
    Mr. MilburnThat was a good speech, but it does not reflect the reality of the national health service.
    I shall certainly do everything in my power to resist the temptation to attack the hon. Gentleman, Mr. Speaker. As for his attack on the Government, we have made two things absolutely clear: clinical priorities, and the sickest patients, come first. What is more, unlike the previous Government, we have put our money where our mouth is.
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    If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about cancer and heart services, why, under the Government in which he served, was not a penny piece earmarked for modernisation and investment in those services?
    Mr. Derek Twigg: The extra money provided in the recent allocation of funds is welcome in areas such as Halton, which for various reasons has the highest cancer rates in the country. Hospices have an important role in the care of cancer patients, particularly those who are terminally ill, and staff do tremendous work in that respect. When extra funds are allocated for hospices and palliative care, should it not be recognised that areas such as Halton—unlike other parts of the country that are not similarly deprived and poor—cannot raise large amounts of money? I hope that my right hon. Friend will take account of that fact.
    Mr. Milburn: I am aware of that. As my hon. Friend knows, there is concern in the hospice and palliative care movement because there is a lottery for care in those services too. Hospices have sprung up in various parts of the country, but have not necessarily best matched need. One important action that we have to take—we have asked health authorities to take it now—is to engage with local hospices and with those who are thinking of establishing local hospices to ensure that those services fit the local community's needs. Ultimately, the extra resources that we are putting in will not only help to provide better hospice services, but gear those services better to the areas with the highest need.

    Hospital-acquired Infections
    Mr. Peter Lilley: If he will make it his policy to require national health service trust hospitals to report rates of hospital-acquired infections on a common basis. [147331]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): Yes. Last September, the Government announced that from April 2001, it will be compulsory for all acute NHS trusts to report bloodstream infections caused by methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus. That information will be published from 2002, and is the first stage in improving the reporting of hospital-acquired infection across the NHS. The next phase will monitor infections in patients undergoing hip and knee replacement surgery, and those who develop hospital-acquired infections after discharge.
    Mr. Lilley: I am glad to hear that that is in train, because it certainly does not happen now in the hospitals surrounding my constituency. Is the Minister aware that the concerns that are growing most among the public are those about ward cleanliness and infections acquired on wards? Will he confirm that, in addition to making available information on infection rates in each hospital, Ministers will transfer to ward sisters the authority to hold to account those who clean their specific wards?
    Mr. Hutton: I do not quite know how to tell the right hon. Gentleman this, but we have already announced precisely that policy. I wonder whether, while he is on the subject, he has ever reflected on the success of compulsory competitive tendering in improving the

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    cleanliness of hospitals. I remind him that we have made £31 million available this year, and another £30 million will be made available next year, to improve cleanliness across the NHS. It is clear that good infection control policies and a proper emphasis on cleanliness should be at the heart of good hospital management. Under this Government, they will be.
    Mr. Paul Flynn: Will my hon. Friend have a look at Adjournment debates held as far back as 1995 on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, in which clear warnings were given about fatal cases? I do not remember the previous Government taking any action on the issue, and the present Government are to be congratulated on the work being done now. Will my right hon. Friend also investigate the action that has been taken in the Netherlands? There are fewer cases in that entire country than there are in individual hospitals in this country. The Netherlands' success is the result of years of the type of painstaking work that we are doing now. Ministers should accept congratulations on their work—but they should keep in mind the enormous number of avoidable deaths that are occurring throughout the health service.
    Mr. Hutton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, and for bringing those matters to our attention. He is right to say that the issue affects every health care system in the world. If we are to find solutions to the issue in the United Kingdom, it is clearly necessary to examine successful practice in other countries, and we shall certainly do that. My hon. Friend will be aware that in January, the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), announced that another £200 million would be made available to the NHS to improve sterilisation and decontamination of facilities. That, too, will make a significant contribution to dealing with the problem.
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: Under this Government, the number of deaths directly attributed to hospital-acquired infections has increased to a record 5,000. What possible excuse can be given in this day and age to a family who have lost a relative who went into hospital for a minor procedure but never came out? What review have the Government conducted of antibiotic policy, to stem the increase in antibiotic-resistant infection?
    Mr. Hutton: The hon. Lady asks about the incidence of hospital-acquired infection. The simple answer is that we will be able to understand the situation only because we will now be collecting the proper data. I am bearing your strictures in mind, Mr. Speaker, but the Conservative party had 18 years to put the right data collection system in place, and it spectacularly failed to do so.
    It is important to develop solutions to the problem, and we have implemented a series of actions that will help. Decisions will be informed by the best available evidence, and the data collection systems that we are putting in place will allow that to happen. That must be the basis on which all good public policy ultimately rests.

    Hospital Waiting Lists
    Mr. Laurence Robertson: On how many occasions in the last three years he has changed the methodology for compiling hospital waiting lists; and if he will make a statement. [147333]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): None.
    Mr. Robertson: Why, therefore, did my constituent Mr. Clive Currie receive a letter from the local hospital dated 30 December last year telling him that his appointment six months later had to be cancelled because of an urgent requirement for appointments? Why did the same letter tell him that he would not be offered another appointment more than a month before the date for such an appointment fell due? Is that not a case of keeping people off the waiting list—and does it not coincide with the possible date of a general election?
    Mr. Milburn: The problem with the hon. Gentleman's follow-up question is that he had not listened to my answer to his original question. I shall be glad to look into the complaint, although I am aware of the strictures placed on me by you, Mr. Speaker, and by Opposition Front-Bench Members, who keep telling me that the last thing I should be doing is interfering in individual patient complaints or in the running of the health service locally. However, the hon. Gentleman has made a representation to me, and I shall be happy to look into the matter.
    My main point is that under this Government there have been no changes in the way in which we compile the waiting list statistics. The methods are exactly the same as those used under the previous Government. There are 120,000 fewer people on waiting lists now than when we came to power. More patients are being treated because this Government are investing more money.
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: On the day that the number of people on waiting lists has risen—and with NHS managers seeking to respond to the incentives offered by his waiting list initiative, and to the targets that it imposes—will the Secretary of State say how many patients have been removed from waiting lists for non-clinical reasons?
    Mr. Milburn: I should be happy to send the hon. Gentleman a note about that, if that would be helpful. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] Amazingly enough, I do not have the figure in front of me.
    I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his Front-Bench duties. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."' As we can hear, he is deeply popular with Labour Members. I wonder what the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) has done to deserve him.
    On waiting lists, the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) told the House on 8 March last year that the problem in the NHS was that
    "some people are not waiting long enough."—[Official Report, 8 March 2000; Vol. 345, c. 1054.]
    That was not his only pearl of wisdom. Two years ago, he told the House that the best treatment for the condition of teenage pregnancy was "education and self-discipline". He went on to ask the Minister with responsibility for public health whether the condition might not be better treated by adding "something to the water". That is the sort of pearl of wisdom that we can look forward to from the hon. Gentleman.
    Angela Smith: While my right hon. Friend is looking at waiting lists, will he also consider the

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    reasons why some patients remain on those lists? I draw his attention to the tragic death of a young woman in my area, who died after waiting for two years for organs for a transplant operation. We have discovered that one of the reasons for such long waits is that many people do not carry donor cards, because the regulations were changed in 1994. The cards are no longer sent out automatically to GPs and surgeons. People have to apply for donor cards, and many do not do so. In the light of recent developments, will my right hon. Friend examine this matter urgently and reinstate the system in which donor cards are sent out automatically?
    Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. As she knows, I shall be visiting a hospital in Basildon tomorrow.
    On organ donation, I will gladly look into my hon. Friend's specific point about changes in the regulations in 1994. A huge number of people in the country—about 8 million—already carry organ donor cards. That is about 14 per cent. of the population. It is very important that they do so, and it is also important that we do all we can to encourage even more people to carry cards, because organ donation plays such an important part in advances in medical research and treatment. Before too long, I will be holding a meeting with patients organisations, doctors and others to see what we can do to ensure that the advantages of organ donation are made clear to the majority of the British people.
    Mr. Andy King: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the difference between the Labour and Conservative parties is that we are seriously trying to deal with waiting lists, while their answer is to cut waiting lists drastically by forcing everyone to take out private health insurance?
    Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is right—that is the position of those on the Conservative Front Bench, including the shadow Home Secretary, the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition. It is not the position of the Government—nor, indeed, that of the British Medical Association.
    I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a report that the BMA has published today on how best to fund our health care system. Considering the sort of policy for private health insurance that the Conservatives advocate, it concludes that
    "a tax relief scheme would result in a net loss of funds to the public sector. It would also be regressive, as those who could not afford private insurance even with tax relief would in effect be subsidising those who could afford it."
    That is absolutely right. The report goes on to say that such a policy
    "is unlikely to be popular with the public as it provides access to health care on the basis of ability to pay."
    That, too, is right. This Government—this party—believe that clinical need, not ability to pay, is the driving force behind our health care system. That is precisely the point that we will be defending at the next election.

    Beta Interferon
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: When he
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    will announce the findings of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence with respect to beta interferon. [147334]
    Mr. John Bercow: When he will announce the findings of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence with respect to beta interferon. [147336]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has extended the time scale for its appraisal of beta interferon and glatiramer acetate to commission further economic modelling. NICE will review the outcome of the new modelling in the summer, and unless there are further appeals, it expects to issue its guidance by November.
    Mr. Winterton: I ask this question as president of the Macclesfield branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Is the Minister aware that it is 18 months to the day since NICE was given the task of appraising beta interferon and disease-modifying drugs such as copaxone in the treatment of multiple sclerosis? Is he really saying to me, and to the rest of the House, that it is tolerable that some of the 85,000 people who suffer from MS should not be able to get the drug that will give them a better quality of life today, when this drug's effectiveness is already proven and it is licensed in many other countries?
    Mr. Denham: As the hon. Gentleman will know, under the policies introduced by the previous Government there was a wide disparity in the availability of beta interferon, precisely because there was not agreement and consensus about its clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. That is why it was so essential to refer it to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which has put a great deal of work into this important appraisal.
    Before Christmas, the chief executive of NICE put out a press release in which he said:
    "We have looked at carefully at these models and whilst it is clear that considerable effort has been put into their development, detailed examination has raised a number of issues that the institute's Appraisal Committee, using the information available, has been unable to resolve. The evidence relating to the cost-effectiveness of these medicines is critically important in this appraisal."
    These have to be decisions for NICE, and it is right that NICE should take care to get such important decisions right. In its judgment, it needed extra economic modelling, and that is what it has decided to do.
    Mr. Bercow: Given the frustrating delay that has already occurred and to which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has referred, will the Minister go a bit further and confirm that November 2001 will be a firm deadline and not a rough aspiration? How many people does the right hon. Gentleman estimate will be untreatable by November 2001 who could be successfully treated now? Finally, will he explain why copaxone is, in effect, being treated as an interferon for the purposes of NICE' s study and appraisal, even though it is chemically and pharmacologically different, has been successfully tested over eight years and has reduced relapses by 70 per cent?
    Mr. Denham: It is important to stress that we have not stopped, banned or prevented the prescribing of beta interferon. The guidance made available to the NHS in

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    the mid-1990s is still in place and should still be being followed by health authorities throughout the country. The question is about resolving doubts and uncertainties about clinically and cost-effective treatments.
    The hon. Gentleman asks about the November date that I mentioned earlier. That is the date towards which NICE is working, but as he will understand, NICE has to follow proper legal process. Timing can be affected by whether, for example, appeals or even legal challenges are mounted at any stage. However, November is the date towards which the institute is currently working.
    Mr. John Cryer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are three MS syndromes? Evidence already exists to show that beta interferon is very successful in treating the relapsing-remitting syndrome at least. Several of my constituents need beta interferon and cannot get hold of it because we are waiting for the NICE decision. Is it not unacceptable that NICE is extending the time for that decision? Could not the institute at least make a decision on the treatment of the relapsing-remitting syndrome?
    Mr. Denham: We have to accept the judgment reached by NICE. As constituency MPs, we all receive representations from constituents, clinicians and others about this drug. With all due respect, I very much doubt that anyone in the House has spent the same time and effort as NICE on detailed consideration of the range of evidence that has been presented. It is precisely because the institute does not believe that the evidence resolves those important questions that it has decided to commission new economic modelling. That is NICE's decision, since we entrusted it with a choice about how to handle these matters. The institute's decision suggests that the issues are not as clear-cut as we would all like them to be.
    Mr. Robin Corbett: As the chairman of the all-party multiple sclerosis group, may I say that it is a welcome development that NICE is starting to listen to MS sufferers—having changed its initial view that it was minded not to recommend the prescription of beta interferon to those who were said to be able to benefit from it? In the period until NICE makes its recommendation—it is to be hoped by November at the latest—what extra investment are the Government making in neurological services throughout the country? As well as the postcode prescribing of beta interferon, we have to contend with the fact that neurological services are extremely patchy from one region to another.
    Mr. Denham: On the two points raised by my hon. Friend, it would be wrong to speculate on reasons other than those given by NICE as to why it is commissioning extra economic modelling. NICE would say that it has always tried to understand—especially through the Multiple Sclerosis Society—the opinions and experiences of MS sufferers.
    My hon. Friend makes an important point about wider neurological services. Everyone would accept that even for MS, and certainly for other conditions, other forms of care and support are important; sometimes, they may be the only forms that are important. The extra investment now going into the NHS gives it the capacity to plan improvements in services in ways that have not been
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    available in the past and that would be threatened if our current investment plans were curtailed—for example, by a different Government in future.
    Mr. Nick Harvey: Although I regret the delay, may I at least express the hope that NICE's willingness to consider a new methodology holds out the possibility that it will reach a favourable verdict on beta interferon?
    What reassurance can the Minister give to patients waiting for a verdict, either on beta interferon or on herceptin, about which we heard earlier, that, when it issues the guidelines, NICE will indeed prove to have been the answer to the postcode lottery, as the Minister for Public Health claimed again today? Are the Government not concerned that, even where NICE guidelines have been issued, local health authorities are still choosing to ignore them? Is he aware that patients in Wiltshire are living with a health authority that will not implement the guidelines on Alzheimer's; that those in certain parts of Devon will not be able to get relenza; and that Hillingdon—the largest primary care trust—has decided to ignore NICE guidelines on cardiac care?
    If NICE is to be the answer to the postcode lottery, what steps do the Government propose to take to ensure that, when the guidelines are issued, patients throughout the country can benefit from such treatments?
    Mr. Denham: It would be wrong not to recognise, or to cast doubt over, the very significant achievements that NICE has made in tackling postcode prescribing—on taxanes for the treatment of breast cancer, on the use of stents in heart surgery, on the introduction of glycoprotein inhibitors for acute coronary heart syndromes and on the significant recent announcements about Alzheimer's drugs. All those achievements will bring thousands and thousands of extra people into treatment who were not being treated under the system of postcode prescribing. Indeed, independent judges have suggested that, overall, NICE' s work is undoubtedly leading to an increase, rather than a decrease, in NHS expenditure on the treatments and drugs that have been referred to it. All health authorities and all parts of the NHS have to take full account of NICE guidance in reaching their decisions. I would simply say that, with the investment that we are putting into the NHS, finance cannot be given as a reason for not implementing NICE guidance.
    Mr. Kevin Barron: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the introduction of guidelines under the previous Government did not provide equal treatment throughout the country and that it is vital that NICE does not just a quick job but a comprehensive one, so that we can get rid of the inequalities that now exist and so that people, no matter where they are, can truly benefit from a national health service rather than a postcode one?
    Mr. Denham: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He and I remember that the introduction of the policy of postcode prescribing by the Conservative party was a cynical political device that enabled them to say, "It's nothing to do with us" whenever something went wrong in the NHS. I am proud that we have had the courage to set up the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

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    It sometimes leads to difficult situations and dilemmas for Ministers, but we have created an institution that will tackle postcode prescribing.
    Mr. Philip Hammond: Will the Minister tell the House whether the new modelling that NICE is seeking to put in place will allow it to take account of wider economic and social costs and benefits rather than just the economic costs and benefits to the NHS? Does he not think that that should have been the basis from the outset on which NICE appraisals were conducted? Will he consider reopening appraisals that have already been completed on the basis of that narrow definition alone?
    Mr. Denham: The appraisal approach taken by NICE has been set out very clearly. NICE will directly take into account the impact on NHS and personal social services budgets, but it is open to NICE to take into account a wider range of factors and it is open to those who submit evidence to include evidence on a wider range of factors. One of the things I welcome about the way in which NICE is undertaking the current exercise is the open and transparent way in which it is seeking to commission the new economic model. The way in which it intends to do that is set out in a consultation letter issued on 25 January, which has been on the NICE website since 29 January.

    Social Services Funding
    Mr. Tony Colman: If he will make a statement on the growth of social services funding. [147337]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): The resources provided for social services by central Government have increased substantially since 1997 and will continue to grow in real terms over the next three years. Last year, the level of resources provided for social services increased in real terms by 3.8 per cent. They increased by a further 3.5 per cent. this year and will continue to rise by, on average, a further 3.4 per cent. per annum over the next three years. In 2001–02, we will be providing almost £10 billion for social services.
    Mr. Colman: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and congratulate him and his colleagues on that massive increase in funding for social services. However, would he join me in condemning the proposals from the Tory party for the massive cuts in social services spending that are part of its £16 billion of cuts? In my borough of Wandsworth, that would lead either to a huge increase in council tax or—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is out of order; I do not think the Minister need reply.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: I am sure that the Minister agrees that the partnership with the private sector in providing care home beds and nursing home beds is one to be welcomed. Has he received representations from social services departments pointing out that they cannot afford to pay the going rate for fees and are cutting the rates that are being paid? Beds are being closed in Dorset and across the United Kingdom. Will the Minister
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    consider urgently the rates that are being offered to homes, so that people can be looked after properly and according to the standards that the Government have set?
    Mr. Hutton: We have substantially increased resources for social services in every part of the country. However, the rate at which care—and particularly residential care—is commissioned is determined by precisely the local authorities that the hon. Gentleman identified. It has not been the policy of this or any previous Government to intervene directly and to set the commissioning rates for such care. We certainly do not intend to do that.
    The hon. Gentleman is right. We are considering the current position carefully and our priority is to maintain capacity in all the various care sectors that are important. However, I point out to the hon. Gentleman that—as surely as night follows day—there is no doubt whatever that, if the Conservative party were returned to office, it would cut social services spending.
    Mrs. Lorna Fitzsimons: Since my hon. Friend received our delegation, has he been aware of the success of the investment that was announced before Christmas for social services in Rochdale and especially for the long-term placement of elderly people who need to go into care homes? Will he also consider favourably the pilot that we shall present to him of a co-operative model and a co-operative commission which will take care homes into the next wave for the 21st century and ensure that we meet the care needs of more of the elderly in my constituency?
    Mr. Hutton: I congratulate the NHS and the local authority in Rochdale, which have worked hard in recent months to reduce the problem of bed blocking. We have set out in the NHS plan our proposals for dealing with that issue over the next few years. We certainly welcome innovative solutions proposed either by local authorities or the NHS further to reduce the problem of bed blocking. We shall consider with interest any further proposals that come from Rochdale.
    Mr. Julian Brazier: My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) referred to the unevenness of funding. Is the Minister aware of how the combination of the squeeze on funds for Kent social services and the heavy-handed approach of East Kent health authority to the regulation of nursing homes has led to the loss of 191 beds net in East Kent in just 12 months? That has created a bed-blocking crisis in our hospitals, which reached the point a fortnight ago where a 97-year-old woman had to wait two nights in casualty for a bed.
    Mr. Hutton: I do not dispute the fact that there are pressures on the care home sector in Kent; that is obvious and is a matter of record. I hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that, as a result of the announcements that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health made just before Christmas and as a result of the actions of the Government, Kent will have another £2.5 million added to its adult social services budget. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's protestations will ring completely hollow and sound superficial until and unless the Conservative party accepts that it will match our spending on social services. To date, it has not done that.

    NHS Operations
    Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: What steps he is taking to expand the capacity of the NHS to carry out more operations. [147338]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart): We are expanding the capacity of the national health service by providing extra beds, extra staff and extra hospitals. We are providing the biggest NHS funding boost for a generation—a growth of one third in real terms between 1999 and 2004. Our partnerships with the private sector will also ensure that even more NHS patients are treated and get the benefit of that extra investment.
    Mr. Thomas: I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent reply. Is she aware that a revamped and modernised Northwood and Pinner community hospital to meet the intermediate care needs of Harrow patients is crucial to expanding local NHS capacity in my area? Will she consider visiting Harrow to discuss with local GPs how we can accelerate that process? Furthermore, while she is considering that reasonable request, will she try to discover, through the usual channels, whether there is a chance of the Leader of the Opposition making a series of visits to Harrow as part of my re-election campaign?
    Ms Stuart: I am always open to reasonable invitations, but I find it difficult enough to deal with my own diary and would not for one moment want to assume responsibility for anyone else's—even if it did belong to the Leader of the Opposition.
    I accept my hon. Friend's point about expanding the system. There have been more intermediate care and quicker discharges this winter under the Harrow and Brent health systems. We should not forget that in 1996–97, my hon. Friend's health authority received a cash increase of only 3.2 per cent. I am sure he is delighted that in 2000–01, it received the unprecedented increase of 8.6 per cent. As for his very special pleading on behalf of the hospital in his area, I heard what he said and I shall pass it on through the usual channels.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: What is the real cause of the hold-up in operations—the failure to have proper nursing planning so that the right staff are in post, the lack of intensive care beds, the problem of sterilised instruments or the bed blocking caused by the fact that not enough people are being released into social care homes?
    Ms Stuart: The real problem is a combination of under-investment in the past 20 years and a cut both in general beds and in training places—investment, staff and hospitals have all been involved. In addition, there has been the problem of re-engineering systems. Before Conservative Members get too excited, they should never forget that they cut general and acute beds by 60,000 between 1979 and 1997 and that we will create an extra 7,000 by 2004. We are expanding the whole service, unlike the Conservatives who cut it consistently on every front.
    Mr. George Stevenson: I congratulate my hon. Friend on approving a scheme at North Staffordshire hospital which will create two
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    additional operating theatres, six high-dependency units and 28 ward beds to meet the expansion of surgical cases. Does she agree, however, that the fundamental problem for further expansion to meet surgical provision is that the hospital is on a split site and is mainly housed in Victorian buildings? Can she give an idea of when the Department may reach a decision on the next phase of the capital development programme so that we can look forward to having a 21st-century hospital on a single site?
    Ms Stuart: We have announced some 100 major hospital schemes over the next 10 years, 38 of which have been given the go-ahead. I am acutely aware of my hon. Friend's concerns and I know that he has talked to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As a constituency MP, I am in a similar position, and I very much hope that an announcement can be made by the end of the month. It is important to remember that the expansion of capacity did not happen under the Tories, who spent £30 million on consultation fees as part of the private finance initiative but did not manage to build a single hospital.
    Dr. Liam Fox: Will the Minister comment on the facilitation of increased numbers of transplant operations? A series of measures were proposed in Westminster Hall in December 1999 to help to increase the number of organs available for transplants, including putting a donor registration form in the electoral communication that must be sent by law. The Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), gave a commitment to consider the proposals made by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. What evaluation was made of those proposals and why has nothing been done?
    Ms Stuart: I do not have the answers to the hon. Gentleman's specific questions, but I shall be happy to get back to him with details. I recently took part in an Adjournment debate on organ transplantation, in which I made it clear that, in 1990, when the Tory Government set up the regional centres, they were working on the assumption that the number of organs would steadily increase. Fortunately, however, we have reduced the number of car accidents and seen a great fall in the numbers, particularly of young people, dying from stroke. As a result, there has been a reduction in the number of available organs, but we are working together to increase organ donation.

    Health Improvement (Young Men)
    Ms Hazel Blears: What action he is taking to improve the health of young men. [1473401
    The Minister for Public Health (Yvette Cooper): We are concerned about the problems facing young men. The Health Development Agency is currently examining what measures are most effective in improving the health of men, particularly young men, and we fund the CALM—campaign against living miserably—helpline, which is aimed at dealing with depression in young men and preventing them from committing suicide.
    Ms Blears: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. I am sure that she is aware that the figures for suicide and undetermined injury in young men are

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    approximately four times greater than those for young women. It seems that we have a widespread problem of young men suffering depression and unhappiness, which clearly affects their health. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a project in Salford called "Let's get serious". We have employed young men with a background of severe social problems to act as mentors to other young men in the community. That is working: their health is improving; they are getting clean of drugs; they are managing for the first time in their lives to make a positive contribution to the community. The project is very high risk because it is about trusting people with convictions and those who have been in deep trouble, yet the health action zone has had the courage to invest in those young men.
    Will my hon. Friend assure me that in our national health service of the future, we will have the confidence to take risks and to invest in innovative, imaginative and creative projects that really do make a difference to people?
    Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right about the programme in the Manchester, Salford and Trafford health action zone. I know that the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), visited the project and was extremely impressed by its work. There is other impressive work concerning young men, particularly in many of the health action zones. We are keen to learn lessons from those innovative projects and spread them nationwide, and that is exactly what the Health Development Agency is doing. Clearly, we need to meet the serious health needs of young men suffering from social exclusion.
    Mr. David Tredinnick: Is the Minister aware that more and more young men and women are turning to complementary and alternative medicine, such as homeopathy and herbal remedies, to improve their health, very often because they are worried about antibiotics? What will she do to end the postcode lottery in complementary care throughout the nation, whereby most people cannot get such care at all on the health service, but a few, in some locations, can?
    Yvette Cooper: I know that the hon. Gentleman has tried on several questions to ask about complementary medicine, although I would not necessarily have expected
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    him to raise the matter on this question. He knows that we are considering the House of Lords Select Committee report on complementary medicine, and I would be happy to meet him to discuss its proposals.

    Renal Services
    Mr. Peter L. Pike: What recent representations he has received on treatment for kidney patients. [147341]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): We have received a number of representations, including a report from the Kidney Alliance entitled "Towards Equity and Excellence in Renal Services", which is aimed at supporting health authorities and NHS trusts in the development of services for kidney patients. Of course, the NHS plan included a commitment to provide 450 new and replacement haemodialysis stations to treat another 1,850 kidney patients and provide better treatment for a further 1,200 existing patients by 2004.
    Mr. Pike: I am glad that my right hon. Friend has read the excellent document produced last month by the Kidney Alliance, which deals with the need for additional renal facilities. He will know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened the extension to the kidney unit at the Royal Preston hospital just before the end of the year. We welcome that, but we need additional satellite facilities in north-east Lancashire, perhaps in Burnley.
    Mr. Denham: I acknowledge my hon. Friend's role in this issue, in which he takes an active interest. I acknowledge also the work of the Kidney Alliance, and especially that of its chairman, Mr. Austin Donohue. The alliance's report proposed seven national service standards. We have welcomed it as a useful tool for commissioners and trusts in the commissioning of services for kidney patients.
    My hon. Friend has called for further investment in the region part of which he represents to develop dialysis services. I can confirm that the north-west will be receiving about £1.25 million of new capital in the coming year. That will increase the number of haemodialysis stations in the region.

Points of Order
3.30
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Bill may not be exactly the most pressing problem facing the nation, has there been any request, and is there time, for some discussion on the riots that took place over lunchtime outside the British embassy in Tripoli, involving tear gas, and the ominous consequences of the Lockerbie judgment? Have you had any request from the Foreign Office for such a discussion, or is the disqualification of the clergy much more urgent?
Mr. Speaker: I have received no representations from the Foreign Office.
Sir Sydney Chapman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that four weeks ago I raised on a point of order the overlong responses of Ministers at Question Time. You gave a timely reminder to Ministers and Back Benchers to shorten their questions and answers, which you again gave today. May I invite you to study the Hansard report of the Question Time just past, which I think will strengthen my view—I know it is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House—that long ministerial answers cut the time that Back Benchers on both sides of the House have to ask legitimate questions? I accept that on one or two occasions today some supplementary questions were also rather long.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is a regular attender at Question Time. He knows that I have appealed to Ministers for short answers. I have appealed also to Back-Bench Members for short questions. I believe that I should be able to reach as many as possible of those hon. Members who have taken the bother to go to the Table Office to table a question and ballot for the Order Paper.
Mr. Ian Bruce: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Your strictures to the Government on releasing information first to the House seem again to be being ignored. On Thursday, a question was tabled for
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answer about employment agency regulations. From 7 am, there were reports on the BBC about what was going to happen with regard to the regulations. I spent all of Thursday trying to get that information from the Vote Office, without success. The Library was able to take the information off the net for me.
I have gone to the Vote Office again—we are now into Tuesday—but it does not have the draft statutory instruments which were announced by the Government via the BBC first thing in the morning, and then placed on the Order Paper at perhaps 3.30 pm. We still do not have the information. Will you look into the matter, Mr. Speaker, and ensure that the Ministers who are responsible apologise yet again to the House and say yet again that they will not release information to the BBC before it is available to Members?
Mr. Speaker: I will investigate the hon. Gentleman's complaint.
Mr. Anthony Steen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I greatly support the ruling that you gave a moment ago. I would have had the next question but for lengthy ministerial answers. Will you consider naming Ministers who respond with particularly long answers so that they receive a ticket, rather like a ticket that is given by a football referee?
Mr. Speaker: I will not go into that. However, it is nice to get support, particularly from the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. John Bercow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be grateful for your guidance. We all recognise and accept that you are not responsible for what Ministers say. However, will you confirm that Ministers should attempt directly to answer the question that is posed? Is it not unacceptable that when one of my constituents urgently requires an answer and an explanation from the Government about their policy on copaxone, the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), deliberately and flagrantly refused to deal with the matter?
Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Analysis of Costs and Benefits (European Union)
3.35pm
Mr. Michael Fabricant: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a Parliamentary Commission to investigate and report regularly to Parliament, at intervals to be determined by Parliament, on the costs and the benefits of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.
May I say what a pleasure it is to see the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), in his seat, listening to me today? I hope that he will take on board some of the points that I intend to make.
The Bill is about one thing only: knowledge. We want to find out whether being a member of the European Union is a net cost or net benefit; whether, on balance, this country benefits from inward investment or whether it costs us billions of pounds. Unfortunately, secrecy shrouds the facts. My Bill would establish a parliamentary commission that would cut through that secrecy. It would then be up to Parliament to act on the facts as it thought fit. We simply do not know whether EU membership is costing billions of pounds, but if it turned out that it was, that money could otherwise be spent on pensions, health care, schools and investment to ensure that our industry remains strong.
Of course, I recognise that there is far more to our membership of the EU than money alone. There is the political facet, too. However, my Bill does not deal with that or questions of sovereignty; it deals simply with the fiscal issues. Are we benefiting or are we losing out? It seems an incredible irony that everyone does those analyses except the British Government. The Institute of Directors produced an analysis, which was published some months ago, called "EU Membership—What's the Bottom Line?" The institute's calculation was interesting. It stated:
"The current net cost of membership is £15 billion per annum and may be as high as £25 billion——around £1,000 for every household in the country."
The institute took into account the benefits of the EU budget, the common agricultural policy, customs union, the single market, the EU social model and EU-related foreign direct investment, which have a benefit for the UK economy. The institute reckoned—although my point is that we just do not know—that that benefit was outweighed by the costs of the EU budget, the CAP and the EU social body. We do not know what will happen in future when the EU is enlarged.
More ironic still, while the British Government refuse to conduct such a cost-benefit analysis, the United States Government have. I confess that I have not read their weighty document and, judging by the quizzical look of the Minister of State, it seems that he has not read it either. It was published in August 2000, is called "The Impact on the United States Economy of Including the United Kingdom in a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Canada and Mexico", and was produced for the US Senate and the US State Department.
That document examined the matter from the US point of view. Global Britain gave a brief synopsis of it, and
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said that the "comprehensive and exhaustive study" produced by the US International Trade Commission
"is based on complex computer modelling of country-by-country and sector-by-sector trade flows."
They—the United States Government—reckoned that the United Kingdom derives no economic benefit from being in the EU, compared with not being in the EU. Admittedly, the United States looks at the matter from the US point of view. I should like the United Kingdom Government to look at it from the British point of view.
The US Government came to another interesting conclusion:
"If the UK joined NAFTA, she would be better off leaving the EU completely, rather than retaining the present Single Market arrangements."
The document went on to state:
"This is because leaving the EU completely, with the Continentals having to export to the UK over an average tariff wall equivalent to the present Common External Tariff, and vice versa, cuts the UK deficit with the EU, stimulating UK domestic output"—
that is according to the US Government
"in mining",
which would interest the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), and
"iron and steel",
which should interest many, many hon. Members on the Labour Benches, although one hon. Member is laughing and giggling continuously.
The Bill is intended not to make a judgment about the European Union, but to provide the facts about our membership. The conclusions that I have read out are those of the US Government. I want our Government and our officials to produce their own conclusions.
The Bill deals with knowledge that should be in the public domain. At present such knowledge seems to be a secret, either because the Government have conducted a cost-benefit analysis and are keeping the results secret, or because, as I suspect, the Government have conducted no such analysis.
The Opposition want to remain in Europe, but we do not want to be run by Europe. The costs of the exercise must be known; they cannot remain a secret indefinitely. The Bill would put the information in the public domain. If we benefit overall financially from EU membership, that is well and good, and we need to concentrate only on matters of sovereignty.
However, if there is a net financial cost, we must not only argue our case more rigorously and renegotiate for the retention of our national sovereignty, but we will have even greater cause to fight for a reform of the crippling common agricultural policy and directives that do so much damage to British manufacturing industry. The Bill would simply make public the costs or the benefits—nothing more, nothing less.
3.43 pm
Mr. Stuart Bell: I oppose the Bill. I have great admiration and respect for the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) and for the forthright way in which he expresses his views. The House has listened to his arguments with interest.
The last time that we had a similar parliamentary commission was in 1890, when there was a debate about whether the French would attack Britain. The commission proposed by the hon. Gentleman is of the same order.

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The hon. Gentleman asks what benefit we derive from being in the European Union. The benefit is obvious to all those who are engaged in trade: 57 or 58 per cent. of our exports go to the European continental shelf. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) says, "So what?" If he were in a manufacturing industry or a service industry selling to Europe, he would not be shouting, "So what?" He would be very grateful for the jobs and the work that had been created.
With 57 or 58 per cent. of our exports going to the European continental shelf, it would be extremely unwise for us to call for an analysis of the costs and benefits. The hon. Member for Lichfield suggests that other benefits are not self-evident. There are diplomatic benefits. We are part of Europe; we are members of all the Councils of Europe; someone in Palestine who wanted to discuss matters or to seek support would approach the European Union. In the United States, the first question asked by the George W. Bush Administration was, "With whom must we deal in Europe?" They will have asked how many telephones they have to pick up in order to debate diplomatic issues, but they want one debate, which can be conducted with the European Union, through one person.
The European Union enables Britain to debate and to exert diplomatic influence. As the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) said many years ago, we gave up none of our sovereignty when we joined the European Union. We shared and pooled it. We joined with our traditional enemies—France and Germany—to be sure that the wars that occurred during 100 years of conflict could never happen again.
802
The hon. Member for Lichfield made an eloquent proposition, but when I listen to the comments of some Conservative Back Benchers, I wonder how much of a little England we can become and how far removed we can be from the reality of the world in which we live. Clearly, that world is one of the European Union. Membership has a cost benefit, through improved trade, and a diplomatic benefit. There is also a greater overall benefit in historical terms. For all those reasons, I oppose the Bill, however well intentioned it is and however well the hon. Gentleman argued for it. This House of Commons, which represents this nation, should look the facts and history in the face. It should understand that our destiny is Europe and that the days of hon. Members who say that Europe is cut off by fog are over. The only fog that we see in the House is on the Opposition Benches.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Michael Fabricant, Mr. John Wilkinson, Mr. Patrick Nicholls, Mr. Christopher Gill, Mr. John Townend and Mr. Crispin Blunt.

ANALYSIS OF COSTS AND BENEFITS (EUROPEAN UNION)
Mr. Michael Fabricant accordingly presented a Bill to establish a Parliamentary Commission to investigate and report regularly to Parliament, at intervals to be determined by Parliament, on the costs and the benefits of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 July, and to be printed [Bill 39].
Orders of the Day

  House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.48 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This is a small Bill, but it is not unimportant. Put simply, it allows serving and former ministers of religion to become Members of Parliament, where some of them were previously disqualified. It continues the disqualification of any bishops who sit in the other place as Lords Spiritual.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: The Minister says that the Bill does not apply to any bishops who sit in the other place. However, does it apply to bishops who do not sit in the House of Lords but are on the rota eventually to end up there?
  Mr. O'Brien: Providing that bishops are not Lords Spiritual, the Bill will apply to them and they will be able to stand for Parliament if their Church permits them to do so.
  From time to time, this place has a chance to do something that sends a message that we are just a bit better then we once were. The Bill provides such a chance.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am extremely interested in that statement, not least because I am always happy when the House of Commons proves that it is better than people think. Where has the need for the Bill arisen? What evidence exists to show that vast numbers of priests and clergy of various Churches are fighting their way on to candidates' lists?
  Mr. O'Brien: I shall explain the current need for the measure; I hope that I can do that to my hon. Friend's satisfaction.
  The Government believe that the current position on clergy disqualification is archaic. It stems from earlier bigoted, anti-Catholic legislation. If a person wishes to stand for Parliament, the electorate should decide whether he or she should become a Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Robert Key: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: I shall give way for the last time on this occasion—[Interruption.] I shall give way later after making some progress.
  Mr. Key: I cannot let the Minister get away with the comment that the earlier legislation was bigoted. He does not understand Church history. The measures were based not on bigotry against the Roman Catholic Church but on maintaining the Church in England and of England.
  Mr. O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman may hold that view; others may beg to differ. Without digressing into a history
  804
  lesson, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that there was anti-Catholic legislation, which was repealed. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 was enacted to allow Daniel O'Connell to take his seat. He had been elected to represent County Clare, but was unable to take his seat because he was a Catholic.
  Some ministers of religion are debarred from being Members of Parliament through the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801, and others by section 9 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. The Bill will repeal the 1801 Act, the relevant section of the 1829 Act, and several other provisions, which will become redundant.
  Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and other religious groups, including most nonconformist denominations, whose arrangements for ordaining ministers do not involve ordination by a bishop, are not affected by current legislation or the new Bill.
  The House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801 prevents Church of England clergy from becoming Members of Parliament. However, former priests can divest themselves of their clerical responsibilities through a procedure in the Clerical Disabilities Act 1870. If the electorate so decide, they can then take a seat in Parliament.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: I shall make some progress and then give way to my hon. Friend.
  No such procedure is available to ordained clergy of other episcopal Churches. If a Catholic priest wishes to give up his ministry, temporarily or permanently, and stand for Parliament, he is unable to take a seat if elected. He cannot apply to the equivalent of the Clerical Disabilities Act 1870 and is likely to be debarred by the 1801 and 1829 statutes.
  Most hon. Members are aware of the case of Mr. David Cairns, a former Catholic priest, who intends to stand as the Labour candidate for Greenock and Inverclyde at the next general election. If elected, he could be prevented from taking his seat in the House.
  Mr. Eric Forth: That is what it is all about.
  Mr. O'Brien: The right hon. Gentleman is right. [Interruption.] The Bill will remove old, prejudiced provisions from the statute book—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) must give the Minister a hearing.
  Mr. O'Brien: The Bill will remove provisions that prevent a person who has been elected from taking a seat in the House of Commons. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to retain legislation that prevents someone who is

  805
  no longer a practising Catholic priest from being a parliamentary candidate and taking his seat, he must argue his case.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. David Winnick: Will my hon. Friend allow me to intervene on that point?
  Mr. O'Brien: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I want to make progress. Perhaps I shall then give way to one or two hon. Members.
  The case of David Cairns has exposed the manifest absurdity of the present law. I hope that the House will agree that it is right that this matter should be attended to in the run-up to a general election, whenever that falls. A change in the law is relevant at such a time, and I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will deal with the matter sympathetically. I hope that they would do so whatever party David Cairns proposed to stand for.
  Those who say that the Bill should not be passed are, in effect, saying that this man should not stand because he has been a priest. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) says from a sedentary position that he might object because Mr. Cairns is a Labour candidate. He is entitled to that rather prejudiced view, but he must be very open about it, and it is entirely a matter for him. I suggest that the present legislation is archaic and should not be on the statute book.
  The case of David Cairns is clearly the reason for the Bill.
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: Mr. Speaker, I have said that I shall not give way at this point.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister has made it clear that he will not give way.
  Mr. O'Brien: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker.
  At the time of the Queen's Speech, we thought that it might be possible to make the change without the need for a Bill. Legal advice now suggests that that is not the case, so the Bill is needed.
  We could have concluded that the matter was not a priority, but that would have been to accept that David Cairns could not stand. Perhaps Labour could have found another candidate, but our only reason for doing so would have been the fact that the law prohibited David Cairns from standing. The law is wrong. The Catholic Church accepts that it should be changed and so do other Churches.
  We cannot begin this century with a law based on the attitudes of two centuries ago or more. We are here because the issue confronts us now. The timing may not be convenient, but the issue is a genuine one and I do not believe that the House wants to acquiesce in any kind of bigotry or unacceptable, archaic legislation by omission.
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  In September 1998, the Home Affairs Committee on electoral law and administration recommended, at paragraph 127, volume 1, that
  "all restrictions on ministers of religion standing for, and serving as, Members of Parliament be removed; the exception would be in respect of all serving bishops of the Church of England who, for so long as places are reserved for the senior bishops in the House of Lords, should remain ineligible to serve as Members of the Commons."
  The Government broadly share that view, and I shall come to the second part of the recommendation about bishops in more detail in a moment.
  In June 1999, my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) introduced a private Member's Bill that would have rectified the position. The Bill had cross-party support, but failed to make any progress on Second Reading. The Government were sympathetic, but wanted to consult the Churches before changing the law. They subsequently consulted the Church of England, the Church of Ireland, the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Churches in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. All were content for the restrictions to be removed.
  Mr. John Bercow: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: I have said that I want to make some progress. I shall give way in due course if need be.
  It is already open to ministers of the Church of Wales, which is disestablished, to become Members of Parliament by virtue of the Welsh Church Act 1914, which overrides the 1801 Act.
  Needless to say, the Government do not envisage a queue of members of the clergy pressing to become Members of Parliament. In the case of serving ministers or priests, that should be a matter between the Churches and the individuals concerned. As I said earlier, it is for the individual to decide whether to stand and for the electorate to determine whether he or she should sit in this House.
  The Government believe that there should be no bar in public law to prevent members of the clergy from becoming MPs. However, it will be for Churches and their clergy to consider whether a member of the clergy can carry out his or her pastoral responsibilities effectively and properly while also sitting as an MP. I understand, for example, that the Pope does not accept serving priests being active in public office or in party politics, so we are unlikely to see serving priests, who carry out the mass, standing as MPs.
  Why not introduce legislation simply to put Catholic priests on a similar footing to Church of England clergy and allow them to divest themselves of their clerical responsibilities? There are two answers to that question. First, I would expect Parliament to consider carefully whether it has the right to legislate on matters of doctrine or discipline in the Catholic Church, even if indirectly.
  My understanding is that the Catholic Church considers that once a priest has been ordained, he remains a priest all his life, even if he no longer practises as one. Section 9 of the 1829 Act is simply a hangover from the days when the participation of Roman Catholics in public life was rejected. Today, the House can opt to get rid of that

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  anachronism and leave the Roman Catholic Church to run its own affairs rather than try to regulate and legislate on the relationship between the Church and its priests.
  The second reason not to put Catholic priests on the same basis as Church of England clergy rests on a 1951 Privy Council case. In Re MacManaway, the Privy Council decided that the 1801 Act disqualified not only persons ordained in the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, but all persons ordained by a bishop in accordance with either the order of the Church of England or other forms of episcopal ordination. In the particular case of Rev. James G. MacManaway, that included ordination in the Church of Ireland. Thus, in broad terms, any clergy ordained by a bishop are subject to the disqualification whereas clergy and ministers of religion not ordained by a bishop are not subject to the disqualification. Current restrictions, therefore, go wider than Roman Catholic clergy.
  Mr. Bercow: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: I promised to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman). This might be a suitable moment to do so.
  Dr. Godman: I am exceedingly grateful to the Minister. Am I right to think that the Bill extends to the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament? I have no doubt that all Members of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament and the overwhelming majority of Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly would support it, but can I take it that discussions have taken place with the Executives of those legislatures?
  Mr. O'Brien: The Executives will be aware of the provisions, but my hon. Friend is wrong to suggest that they will apply to the Assemblies and the Scottish Parliament as they are already enacted in the devolution legislation. For example, there is no prohibition on a Roman Catholic priest becoming a Member of either the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly.
  Mr. Bercow: The Minister has fairly referred to the 1801 and 1829 Acts, but is he aware that it has been suggested by at least one eminent authority that to answer the question, "Can a priest sit in the House of Commons?", reference to no fewer than nine pieces of legislation dating back to the 16th century is required? I feel sure that the Minister is intimately familiar with each of the other seven and wonder whether he can enlighten the House.
  Mr. O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman would not expect me to set out my great familiarity, of which I am sure he is well aware, with the other ancient and archaic pieces of legislation. Perhaps some are not so archaic; we shall have to wait and see. Parliamentary counsel have assured me that introducing a Bill referring to the 1801 and 1829 Acts will enable us to achieve the purpose that I hope the hon. Gentleman will endorse in due course. He nods; I am glad that he will do so.
  Mr. Winnick: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because I have to go to a meeting. Is he aware that I was a member of the Home Affairs Committee that
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  produced the report that he mentioned? I hope that the Bill will be passed because, in a parliamentary democracy, people should not be disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons for religious or any other reasons. Surely that is the essence of what we are trying to achieve. Ours, I hope, is an all-inclusive parliamentary democracy, so such a measure should have been introduced a long time ago. There is no reason for anyone to want to oppose the Bill.
  Mr. O'Brien: My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I commend him for his part in ensuring that these matters were brought to the House's attention.
  There is always pressure on parliamentary time, and there are always many Bills that Ministers and others want the House to debate. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) mentioned seven earlier pieces of legislation, and at some stage Members may wish to raise issues relating to those. The question for us, however, is this: at what point do we need to deal with these matters?
  It is true that the case of David Cairns is pressing. I do not dispute that he is seeking to stand as a Labour candidate, and others may try to take party political advantage of that; but, in all sincerity, I do not think that Members should wish to prejudice any member of any political party who wished to stand—they should ensure that no such person is blocked by an old piece of legislation. Indeed, I hope that no legislation would prevent someone wishing to stand as a Scottish National party candidate from at least being tested by the electorate. I suspect, however, that, once tested by the electorate, such a candidate would be rejected by the electorate.
  Mr. McLoughlin: The Minister has clearly relaxed into his speech. He described the Bill as a tidying-up measure that is necessary in view of a general election which, as we well know, could take place in the next 14 months. Can he tell us—bearing in mind the competence of the Home Office, which we all admire—when he expects postal vote forms to be available so that people can exercise their votes?
  Mr. O'Brien: I very much hope that they will be ready on 16 February. I am not sure how that relates to the Bill, but I am sure that David Cairns—if, indeed, he is able to stand for Parliament—will be pleased to hear about it.
  Mr. Michael Fallon: Will the Minister confirm that Mr. David Cairns, whom no one bears any ill will, must have known the law before he applied for selection to his local Labour party?
  Mr. O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman says that Mr. Cairns must have known the law. In fact, the law is very complex. We have been looking at it over the past few months.
  The hon. Gentleman may well ask why, if we knew about this matter then, we did not include it in the Queen's Speech. At that stage, we were not sure how its provisions would operate. We are dealing with the interrelationship between the way in which Catholic Church canon law operates and the way in which legislation passed by this Parliament operates. One of the questions is, "At what point does a person cease to be a priest?" That person

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  may continue to be a priest under the canon law of the Catholic Church, but does that necessarily mean that he will continue to be a priest under this legislation? Unfortunately, the existing legislation is somewhat ambiguous in that regard.
  As the hon. Gentleman will see if he consults section 9 of the 1829 Act, it appears to suggest that acceptance that a person has conducted a mass constitutes recognition that that person is a priest. That appears to be an on-going recognition—a recognition that the person continues to be a priest. The issue is not entirely clear, however. We cannot allow a situation whereby, if David Cairns stood and the people chose to elect him, an old piece of legislation which I suspect no one would seriously support—I should be surprised if anyone did, but let us wait and see—prevented him from taking his seat.
  The case has presented us with a dilemma. We considered it until Christmas, by which time it was clear to me that we needed primary legislation. We therefore presented the Bill at the first opportunity.
  Mr. Ben Bradshaw: Should my hon. Friend not sound altogether more enthusiastic about the fact that priests and former priests are queueing up to stand as Labour candidates and support the Labour party? Is not the pique displayed by Conservative Members caused by the fact that although they used to pride themselves on being described as the Church of England at prayer, they have long since lost the support of all the Churches in the country?
  Mr. O'Brien: I am waiting to hear whether the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) thinks that the Catholic Church and other Churches are likely to support her position. It is interesting, however, that she, I and you, Mr. Speaker, all belong to the denomination dealt with in previous legislation which sought to prevent Catholic priests from becoming members of this place. The new legislation perhaps indicates how much this place has changed and how much our society has improved. Indeed—if I may be obsequious now in the hope of craving your indulgence later—we are all very pleased to see you in the Chair, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: Will it be a sensible intervention?
  Mr. Fabricant: Yes, as always. The Minister kindly sat on the Treasury Bench while I was doing my cost-benefit analysis. Subsequently, he has talked about the number of priests who wish to become hon. Members. However, has he made an analysis of the number of former Labour Members who may wish to become priests?
  Mr. O'Brien: I should have known.
  I should like to deal with the Home Affairs Committee's recommendations on bishops. There are about 40 Church of England bishops who could qualify to sit in the other place as Lords Spiritual. At any one time, only 26 are summoned to be Lords Spiritual.
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  The Government's view is that it is those bishops who should be disqualified from House of Commons membership, as they already have a "voice" in Parliament.
  I should perhaps add that if that number were to change as a result of proposals for reform of the other place, the number of bishops who were disqualified would change. However, the general principle would not be affected. The Committee's recommendation was to continue the prohibition on all bishops from the House of Commons. Although it must be unlikely that bishops would wish to become Members of Parliament while they perform their duties as bishops, the Government feel that it is right to lessen the statutory restrictions and to allow anyone who wishes to stand as a Member of Parliament—except for bishops who have a voice in the legislative procedures, the Lords Spiritual—to do so.
  There is no bar to clergy or bishops being elected to the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the National Assembly for Wales, and the House will recall that it accepted those arrangements when the devolution legislation was passed. Nor is there any bar on clergy or bishops being elected as local councillors or mayors. That has worked perfectly well and there has been no backlash, no abuse and no discord in those arrangements. The Westminster position is increasingly anomalous, but the Bill helps to rectify that anomaly.
  I hope I have shown that the Bill will be useful in removing some archaic and unnecessary restrictions. I also hope that the House will agree that it is a worthwhile and an uncontroversial measure.
  Mr. Forth: No.
  Mr. O'Brien: The right hon. Gentleman again says that he does not think that the Bill is uncontroversial. We have introduced the Bill because someone who happens to be a Labour candidate would be disqualified without it. I do not think that any hon. Member, including the right hon. Gentleman, really thinks that there is a reason other than party partisanship to maintain such an exclusion. I therefore hope that I can count on his support, which I would value.
  Mr. Bercow: I can tell the Minister and the wider public who have an interest in the matter that there will be a free vote on the measure for Members of the official Opposition. Can he assure us that the matter is the subject of a free vote for Labour Members, too; or are they, as usual, the old robots being whipped into line?
  Mr. O'Brien: I do not think that there would be the slightest problem with people voting for the legislation; I would be surprised if there were. I have not discussed with the Whips whether there will be a free vote, and I am not sure that it will particularly matter. We shall have to wait and see whether anyone feels that he or she really wants to vote against the measure. I will listen with care to the debate, and at the end I may be able to give a more considered response to the hon. Gentleman.
  The disqualification provisions no longer perform a useful function, if they ever did. It is time that they were swept away and the relevant legislation was repealed.
  I commend the Bill to the House.
  4.15 pm
  Miss Ann Widdecombe: I hope that the debate will remain good natured, but I found rather arrogant the Minister's assumption that there could be no possible opposition to the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) has pointed out already, the Opposition are making this a free vote because we acknowledge that issues of conscience are involved, and people may have extremely strong views in both directions.
  That is exemplified by the opinions of the shadow Home Office team. I am not ecstatic about the Bill, whereas my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham is extremely enthusiastic. However, I am not so arrogant as to imagine that there cannot be two views, so I rather regret the tone of the last part of the Minister's speech.
  Mr. Forth: My right hon. Friend pointed out that the Bill could—and, indeed, should—arouse issues of conscience, but does she agree that constitutional issues might also be involved? The Bill touches on the composition of this House, and that cannot be unrelated to the composition of another place. Do not profound constitutional issues flow directly from the Bill?
  Miss Widdecombe: Indeed, and if my right hon. Friend had restrained himself for only a few seconds he would have heard me come to exactly that point. I began with the question of conscience because I thought that the end of the Minister's speech rather dismissed it as unimportant.
  My right hon. Friend will be glad to hear that I do not believe that we should dismiss too lightly the Bill's constitutional implications. For hundreds of years—and not merely since the reformation—the politics of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland were dominated by questions of religion. As late as the 20th century, Parliament passed legislation, such as the Welsh Church Act 1914, that dealt with religion. There is an on-going debate today about whether the Church of England should be disestablished. In many ways, to many communities in the United Kingdom, questions of religion are no less relevant today than they were decades, or hundreds of years, ago.
  I believe that a priest's vocation is lifelong. Speaking personally, and as one of the three Roman Catholic Members mentioned by the Minister, I would not want a priest to give up his vocation to enter this place, or to mix duties in the House with those in what I consider to be a consecrated office. A priest's office is very precious and spiritual, and it is different from that of a Member of Parliament. I cannot believe that the Minister, who is of the same persuasion as I, does not recognise that that view is held forcefully by quite a large number of people.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: The right hon. Lady will have noted that I said in my speech that the Pope takes the view—as, I believe, does the Church of England—that practising priests and clergy should not be active in public life or in a political party.
  Miss Widdecombe: That is so, and we must take that opinion into account when considering these matters. I do not believe that being a Member of Parliament is compatible with the priestly vocation. Like the priesthood, it involves a huge commitment, both in this Chamber and
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  outside. I do not believe that a Member of Parliament could represent constituents adequately while continuing to serve as a full-time priest, or that a priest could administer to his flock adequately while undertaking duties as a full-time Member of Parliament.
  I come now to the detail of what is a short but extremely important Bill. A point that may be explored in Committee has been touched on already, and I suspect that it will arise again. It has to do with the position of the more junior Anglican diocesan bishops who are not currently Lords Spiritual.
  As I read it, the Bill will allow those bishops to sit in this House. I note that the Select Committee on Home Affairs stated in paragraph 127 of its fourth report of 1997–98 that
  "the exception would be in respect of all serving bishops in the Church of England who, for so long as places are reserved for their senior bishops in the House of Lords, should remain ineligible to serve as Members of the Commons."
  If I have read the Bill correctly, the Minister is not following that recommendation, but is allowing all Church of England bishops who are not currently eligible for membership of the House of Lords to be eligible for membership of this place. The Select Committee had reason, rather than prejudice, when it recommended that all serving bishops in the Church of England should be disqualified.
  Not all Anglican bishops, as the Select Committee recommended, but only those who sit as Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords will be exempted under the Bill. What would happen if, through death or retirement, a member of this House succeeded to one of the seats reserved for senior Anglican bishops in the other place? I presume that a by-election would have to be held. What consideration has the Minister given to that question?
  It would be useful for the Committee of the whole House to consider whether it would still be appropriate to disqualify all Anglican bishops, as the Select Committee recommended. The Anglican episcopacy is already well represented in another place—it is, at any rate, represented in another place. I simply pose this question: should junior Anglican bishops be constitutionally allowed to sit in this House when senior Anglican bishops already have seats explicitly reserved for them in another place?
  I am not particularly puzzled about why we are considering the Bill now. However, is it not rather odd that the Minister should have prayed in aid the Select Committee report of 1997–98, which is nearly three years old? Since then, there have been two pieces of legislation on electoral matters in which this issue could have been encompassed if the case were as utterly unanswerable and unarguable as the Minister suggested. I refer to the Representation of the People Act 2000 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—but, however unanswerable and unarguable Ministers apparently thought the case, this issue was not included in either Act.
  Mr. Fabricant: Is my right hon. Friend surprised to learn, as I have just learned, that whereas we have a one-line Whip for a Bill that we regard as a matter of

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  conscience—and which I will be supporting—the Government are pushing the Bill through, at this late stage, on a three-line Whip?
  Miss Widdecombe: I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. I congratulate my hon. Friend on knowing more than the Minister, who had not a clue about what his usual channels were proposing with regard to a free vote.
  I am disappointed because traditionally in this House, Church matters have been subject to a free vote. I remember the very lively debate on the ordination of women as priests. That was subject to a free vote. Other debates, perhaps less lively, on the ordination of divorced persons as clergy and several other Church issues have been subject to a free vote. I am not surprised, because this is a very dictatorial Government, but I am disappointed.
  Mr. Ben Bradshaw: Before the right hon. Lady moves on from her very interesting point about suffragan bishops, does she seriously believe that the Church of England would appoint a suffragan bishop who was a full-time Member of this House to a diocesan bishopric? If not—as is almost certainly the case—that bishop would have no chance of becoming a Member of the other place anyway.
  Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Gentleman has a great deal more faith than I do in what the Church of England might or might not do. I have no idea whether it would make such an appointment, but our duty is not to second guess the judgments of others; it is to try to establish a coherent set of rules that will cause as few problems as possible.
  Mr. Frank Field: May I suggest to the right hon. Lady that one of the differences between a whipped vote on this issue and free votes on the other issues that she cites is that, on those issues, we were receiving measures from the Church of England for consideration? We were not initiating those measures. On such occasions, we usually have a free vote. May I also suggest that, if we were to have a free vote on this matter, it would make no difference to Labour support for the measure?
  Miss Widdecombe: I usually have a huge amount of respect for the right hon. Gentleman. I was expecting an extremely difficult intervention from him, but that piece of sophistry is rather disappointing. He suggests that if Church business is initiated by the Government, conscience does not come into play and a three-line Whip can be imposed, whereas if the measure originates from the Church, the matter is entirely different. That is a piece of reasoning to which the right hon. Gentleman would normally award delta double minus if he were in his usual form.
  Mr. Field rose—
  Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman is not in his usual form, so I ask him to sit still for a bit and regain it. Perhaps later on, when he has thought about the ludicrous proposition that he has just made, I might be happy to take a further intervention.
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  As to the right hon. Gentleman's second point—that a free vote would make no difference—if we applied that logic to issues of conscience, we would be whipped on some that were extremely serious, and he would be the first to decry the practice. We know why the measure is being whipped: because this constitutional business is not being undertaken on its own merits, but for a particular Labour candidate in a particular constituency.
  Mr. Stuart Bell: The right hon. Lady is certainly in excellent form; I congratulate her on that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) made the point that synodical and Government legislation are dealt with differently. The right hon. Lady is right to point out that we could have a vote of conscience on Government legislation. However, is she really telling the House that a slight change in our electoral law to permit clergy, or others, to stand for Parliament is a matter of conscience?
  Mr. Forth: The change is for a Labour party candidate.
  Mr. Bell: The right hon. Gentleman intervenes more often from a sedentary position than he ever does standing up. He knows full well that the measure has nothing to do with an individual parliamentary candidate; it meets a long-standing Labour obligation to rectify the constitution and rid it of a small anomaly.
  Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Gentleman renders beautifully to Caesar, but he is not wholly convincing. The change is not small; it is major. I do not say that just because a provision has been on the statute book for a long time, it can never be overturned, but the measure overturns a long-standing law. It is not a slight change; it is one that will mean a great deal to many people.
  Before that long series of interventions—some clever and some not so clever—I was saying that—
  Mr. Fallon: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for taking one more intervention; I am not sure in which category she would place it.
  My right hon. Friend refers to timing. Although the Bill might well favour Mr. David Cairns, does she agree that, as it is being introduced so late in this Parliament, it also discriminates against people who might have wanted to pursue a parliamentary route but who did not offer themselves for selection by either party? Such measures should be introduced on an all-party basis at the beginning of a Parliament, rather than at its tail end.
  Miss Widdecombe: I am extremely sympathetic to my hon. Friend's point—in other circumstances, the Minister would be sympathetic too. It is undeniable that, during the course of this Parliament, opportunities have arisen for the introduction of the measure at a stage when more than one particular candidate could have benefited. However, the point is theoretical; we shall never know whether there would have been other candidates. For the reasons that I outlined, I hope not. We will never know whether others—perhaps from other parties or, perhaps, from the Labour party—might have benefited from the measure, but we know that the opportunities were there.
  Before that long series of interventions, I was saying that the Representation of the People Act 2000 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000

  815
  could have provided an opportunity to introduce such a measure. There was a Select Committee report, and a very distinguished one at that. I might not agree with all its detail, but it was well thought out and properly presented. However, it has not been acted upon, so the Bill cannot be described as a tidying-up measure.
  Indeed, the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) reminded the Government about the matter when she introduced the House of Commons Disqualification (Amendment) Bill under the ten-minute rule in June 1999, before both the Acts to which I refer were even published. So despite the fact that there has been a Select Committee report, a ten-minute Bill and two Acts, the Government did not think it worth while to introduce this very important measure until a particular prospective parliamentary Labour candidate needed to take advantage of it.
  The Minister's determination to introduce what he ignored for four years is now so great that there is a three-line Whip and a rushed Bill has been introduced right at the end of this Parliament. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) has said, the Bill will probably benefit only one person. I agree that if such a measure has to be introduced, it should be done on an all-party basis either at the beginning of a Parliament or at the end of a Parliament, but to take effect after the next one, rather than being done only to ensure that an individual—however worthy he may or may not be—can stand for election.
  Although my views on such matters differ from those of many other hon. Members, I recognise that an anomaly exists and that there is a case to be made, but it is being made in entirely the wrong context and in too rushed and too cursory a fashion. Therefore, I am afraid that I shall not be able to support the Bill. That is not a party position; Conservative Members, unlike Labour Members, are perfectly free to take their own line, but I find intriguing the possibility of a priest in holy orders—which demand poverty, chastity and obedience—functioning in the House, but strange things happen.
  Mr. Forth: I may wish to develop this theme if I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend mentions obedience. In this context, would she care to elaborate on obedience to whom? Is not it perfectly possible that if the Bill were unfortunately passed and an ordained priest were duly elected, there could be a very serious and real conflict of loyalty between obedience to the Caesars of the House and perhaps to other authorities elsewhere?
  Miss Widdecombe: Clashes between God and Caesar are not unknown to those of us who take such matters seriously. I think that my right hon. Friend was hinting at the fact—we shall probably hear a lot later—that he believes that people of my persuasion are somehow dominated by some interesting European power, rather than by the monarch and Parliament. That is not so. I find intriguing the possibility that a priest with those vows should function here, but strange things happen. Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that issues of Church and state are being determined by the self-interest of an obscure prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour party in Greenock and Inverclyde.
  4.34 pm
  Ms Joan Ryan: Unlike some Members, I welcome the Bill as it will remove what are essentially discriminatory and outdated disqualifications from becoming a Member of Parliament. The Bill attempts to correct some of the inconsistencies in our complex electoral law. Although it will introduce only modest reform, it forms part of a wider debate that includes issues of fairness, choice and the changed relationship today between the Churches and the state.
  When my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh)—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Where is she?"' I shall come to that point. When my hon. Friend introduced a ten-minute Bill to end the disqualification on the clergy taking a place in the House, she concluded by saying:
  "Fundamentally, the rationale behind those antique statutes passed away a very long time ago, and those statutes have no place in the parliamentary electoral law of our multicultural society, with its community of religious faiths, as we prepare to enter the 21st century."—[Official Report, 16 June 1999; Vol. 333, c. 394.]
  If this Bill is seen through successfully, the first election of the 21st century will not be marred by the continuation of those discriminatory statutes. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work that she has done on this issue, but I am afraid that she cannot be with us today.
  We cannot expect to promote a fair and more equal society—a tolerant, multi-faith and multicultural society—when we continue to draw distinctions on religious grounds with regard to eligibility to sit in the House. The Bill will remove the majority of those distinctions and, therefore, will be an addition to the democracy within our system. It is essentially about equal rights—the equal rights of our citizens to sit in the House. I see this as a matter not of conscience—I understand why some see it that way—but of equal rights.
  It is clearly undemocratic that a potential candidate for election could, first, be selected by his or her party and, secondly and more important, receive a mandate from the electorate, but be unable to take up the seat because of restrictions embedded in complex electoral law.
  The leading constitutional expert, Professor Robert Blackburn, has said that this aspect of the law is
  "incoherent, illogical and virtually impossible for anyone except a legal expert to discover."
  The existing arrangement has become a barrier to the provision of equal rights and, as such, responsibility for removing it lies with the House.
  Mr. Forth: The hon. Lady said that the candidate had been properly selected but, presumably, the local party organisation either knew or would have been advised that a legal obstacle would prevent that candidate, if elected, from taking his seat in the House. I presume that it went ahead with the selection on that basis. Was that not irresponsible of the local party and the individual himself?
  Ms Ryan: The Labour party selects candidates on the basis of equal rights in the party. I am suggesting that candidates should be able to put themselves before the electorate on exactly the same basis.
  Dr. Godman: I hope to elaborate on this point if I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I want to make

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  it clear that the local party in Greenock and Inverclyde did not behave irresponsibly. I can give my hon. Friend my word on that.
  Ms Ryan: I accept that word.
  We have a pressing responsibility. A case in which the electorate granted an electoral candidate the right to sit in the House, only for him to have that right denied, has already occurred in the MacManaway case and could have occurred again when Bruce Kent stood in 1992. We should not wait for such an unacceptable case to occur again before we decide to reform the law, although I accept the point that we have had other opportunities to do that.
  One of the basic duties of the House is to serve our citizens—to protect their rights and to protect and enhance democracy. As soon as we know that a piece of legislation inhibits equal rights—in this case, there are numerous such pieces—we should act to change or remove it. We should not wait until an individual is placed in a position where he or she cannot take up a seat when elected, and we are forced to remove the disqualification in those circumstances.
  Given the amount of time that the legislation has been in force—on the whole, unnecessarily so—it would be difficult to claim that we are taking a lead in the matter. We at least have the opportunity to jump before we are pushed, and this debate on removing the disqualification is taking place not a minute too soon.
  Mr. Bercow: The hon. Lady emphasises that the matter has been a festering sore for a long time. I hope she will accept that considered study of the historical background is entirely appropriate on whatever side of the argument one happens to sit. What assessment has she made of the report of the Select Committee on Clergy Disqualification in the 1952–53 Session?
  Ms Ryan: I have considered the history. It is because of that and my view of equal rights that I am pleased that the Government have introduced the Bill.
  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Ryan: No, I should like to make progress.
  Discovering the history of the disqualifications is not for the weak hearted. The intrepid researcher has to begin somewhat earlier than the 1950s, around the 1670s, and plough through numerous conflicting statutes, common law and Privy Council decisions, taking in the constitutional conflict of the MacManaway case, the possible conflict caused by Bruce Kent's decision to stand for election and the problems that may arise in the near future.
  The conclusion of such research is that some clergy are able to stand for Parliament, but others are not; some clergy are able to resign their orders to stand, but others are not; certain Christian clergy are disqualified from sitting in the House by statutory provision, but ministers of other religious faiths are eligible; the imam and the rabbi—should their religious organisations agree—could take up a seat in the House, but a Roman Catholic minister would be disqualified from doing so.
  818
  The matter has been further complicated by a later decision by the Privy Council, which meant that those clergy who are episcopally ordained are subject to disqualification, whereas nonconformists are not. Although the Clergy Disqualification Act 1870 contains a provision that enables clergy of the Church of England to renounce their position so that they are free to stand for election and take up their seat in the House after six months, there is no parallel procedure for the clergy of other religions.
  However, I would not seek such a parallel procedure because it would only make some people less unequal than they are now. If a parallel procedure were introduced, all those people who are episcopally ordained—whether Roman Catholic or Church of England—could renounce their positions and take up a seat after six months, but they would still suffer inequality in relation to ministers who are not episcopally ordained and who could take up their seats with no requirement to renounce their position and wait six months.
  We can conclude that the present framework is inconsistent and discriminatory, deriving from multiple sources over different periods of time. The reasons for the prohibitions have long since lapsed or become irrelevant and, as such, can no longer be justified. Roman Catholic priests are no longer thought of negatively by the state and Anglican clergy no longer represent the fourth estate to the realm. The context in which the decision to implement such restrictions was first taken is no longer relevant in modern society.
  The lack of clarity in the law is made more incomprehensible by the fact that there is no relation between the active engagement of a minister and his eligibility for Parliament. An active nonconformist minister could stand in a constituency where his church is situated and where many of the electors are of the same belief, but a retired episcopally ordained priest who had changed his personal beliefs and had no adherence would be disqualified from taking up a seat. It is clear, then, that it would be too simplistic to say that those who wish to take up seats in the House should simply resign their orders.
  That is especially pertinent for Roman Catholic ministers. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 states:
  "No person in holy orders in the Church of Rome shall be capable of being elected to serve in Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons."
  It is that definition of holy orders that causes conflict. It can be argued under ecclesiastical law that, once a Roman Catholic priest has been ordained, he will remain in holy orders whether or not he remains active. The law does not, therefore, recognise the status of ex-Catholic priests, so the current arrangements effectively conspire to prevent them from ever taking up their seats, if they are elected. Why should the state legally prevent some ministers from making a choice about their career, while other clergy are free to do so? A civil servant can resign and choose to enter politics, while the existing electoral law prevents some members of the clergy from doing the same.
  It is of course reasonable to argue that there is a deal of tension between the role of a Member of Parliament and that of a practising minister of religion. Whether or not it is desirable for members of the clergy to stand for Parliament is a separate question for debate. However,

  819
  such decisions are matters not for legislation but for the custom of individual faiths or ecclesiastical law. The Bill would officially make the eligibility of the clergy of all religions to sit in this House a matter for the Churches and other religious organisations involved.
  Laura Moffatt: Does my hon. Friend agree that if someone has been ordained as a priest but, no matter how deeply held his views, feels unable to continue as a priest, the House and its Members have no right to prevent him from pursuing another career, if he wishes to do so?
  Miss Widdecombe: Priesthood is a vocation, not a career.
  Ms Ryan: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) says that this is a matter of vocation. The point is that it is not a matter for us, and it is a question of equal rights. However someone's career, occupation or vocation is defined, legislation should not prevent that person from entering the House.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: As I understand it, the hon. Lady is arguing for the Bill on the basis of equal rights for different religions. Does she hold the same argument on the established Church of England? Would she argue for disestablishment?
  Ms Ryan: I thought that I had made myself clear: I am arguing for the removal of the disqualification of clergy; I am not discussing the disestablishment of the Church of England.
  There are no grounds for continuing to distinguish between the clergy of different religions in this matter. Whether or not ministers of any religious groups should be able to be elected to the House is a matter of choice for the electorate and the parties and religious groups involved, not a matter for legislation. This disqualification does not exist in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament, local government or the European Parliament; those bodies have not had to consider a Bill such as this.
  The relationship between the various Churches and the state has changed immeasurably since the first discriminatory measures were introduced, and it is now time to reform them. Reform must be based on equal rights for all citizens, be they ministers of religion, ex-ministers of religion or, indeed, not ministers at all. The playing field must be level. We cannot have legislation that lays down different rules for different religious organisations. That is a matter not for the House but for the organisations themselves.
  The implementation of the Human Rights Act 1998 makes these changes even more timely. Existing electoral law could be deemed to be a breach of the convention on human rights on several counts. Article 14 of the convention refers to religious discrimination; article 9 refers to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and article 11 to freedom of assembly and association. Article 3 of the first protocol sets out the right to free elections. It is important that we act to remove clerical disabilities in relation to membership of the House before a situation arises where our human rights record is called into question.
  820
  The Bill will help to clarify—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am being disrupted by chatter from both sides of the House. I wish it would cease. I want to listen to the hon. Lady.
  Ms Ryan: The Bill will help to clarify the relationship between the state and religious groups in this area of electoral law, and will remove some of the complex arrangements for which the state has legislated that create inequality rather than ensure equal rights. Far from interfering in matters that should be left to the discretion of individual religious leaders, the Bill will enable exactly that to happen. It will reduce the influence of the state to some degree.
  The Bill is a modest measure. There are many other issues that we should debate, many of which have been raised by Opposition Members from an sedentary position. However, the Bill can achieve an important reform of equal rights. I commend its Second Reading.
  4.51 pm
  Mr. Andrew Stunell: One of the delights of being a Member of Parliament is that we have the opportunity to explore rare legal and historical byways from time to time, and this is one of those occasions. Perhaps I should start by declaring that I do not have an interest. When volunteers were called for, I was a little slower than others in taking one pace backwards.
  The topic is arcane in the extreme. As a nonconformist—as a Baptist and now a member of the Methodist church—I am not affected by the proposed exemption or legislation, unlike previous speakers who claim so to be. I believe not in the ordained priesthood but in the priesthood of all believers. It would create a problem for the Chamber if that belief were applied in the sense of the Privy Council's decision of 1951. I do not hold with bishops, and to save an intervention from a Conservative Member, it is my party's policy that the Church of England should be disestablished, as the Church in Wales and elsewhere has already been.
  I approach the issue from a direction that is diagonally different from those who have already spoken.
  Mr. Bercow: Even diametrically different.
  Mr. Stunell: It might be diametrically different, but I think that it is more diagonally, and I chose my words carefully.
  Fortunately, all Members are equal, although some are more equal than others. I suspect that the reality is that we all recognise that we are faced with legislation that has long outgrown any purpose or value that it had.
  If we go back to 1801—we are repealing the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801, among other measures—legislation was introduced because a Church of England priest won an election for Old Sarum. That was when the issue arose. The 1801 legislation was

  821
  the product of a specific electorial event to decide whether the Rev. Horne Tooke—a name to conjure with, if ever there was—should take his place in the House.
  Mr. Fabricant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Stunell: Why not? The opportunity to repeat that name is always to be welcomed.
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, at that time, there was not an established party system, as there is now. Does he realise that when the 1801 Act took its place on the statute book, there would not have been a three-line Whip? Is he as surprised as I am that the issue before us, which is primarily one of conscience, is subject to a three-line Whip on the Government Benches, whereas on the official Opposition Benches it is subject to a one-line Whip?
  Mr. Stunell: I may have a slight advantage over the hon. Gentleman in age and experience, so I am not at all surprised.
  The Bill attempts to look back only 172 years, since when there has been mess, delay and dither on the issue. Fifty-one years ago, Rev. MacManaway—another name to conjure with—created yet another opportunity for the House to look seriously at the situation. There was much detailed thought, but the opportunity to take action and reform matters was thrown away. Three years ago, the Select Committee on Home Affairs had another go and made recommendations.
  The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) made some potent points about why on earth those matters were not considered in electoral legislation that has come before the House since then. However, the fact that opportunities have been missed in the past does not mean that we should fail to take them now. The Home Affairs Committee report stated that there is
  "a picture almost totally lacking in consistency or, in modern terms, any rational basis. Restrictions apply only to Christian ministers and not those of any other faith. They differ between Anglican priests, Roman Catholic priests and non-conformist clergy. And the position differs in England, Scotland and Wales."
  One might have understood the position if Church of England clergy were not permitted to offer themselves for election to the House. After all, bishops have a route into the House of Lords. Extraordinarily, however, the Clerical Disabilities Act 1870 permits them to relinquish and make their way into the House in certain circumstances. On the other hand, Roman Catholic priests, orthodox priests and Church of Scotland ministers who have no route into the House of Lords cannot seek relief or get excused. Retired orthodox priests cannot offer themselves, but imams, shamans and rabbis certainly can. Presbyterians in England are in a different position from those in Scotland, and retired Anglican vicars in Wales are in a different position from those in England.
  The situation is a hotchpotch. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that, contrary to what the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald said, it is not the case that former Roman Catholic priests cannot offer
  822
  themselves to the House. They can, if they have been defrocked. Defrocked priests can offer themselves, but those who have merely retired cannot.
  Mr. Forth: They know what to do about that.
  Mr. Stunell: The right hon. Gentleman would have to go through several stages if he wanted to enter the House via that route. However, that is a matter for him.
  The House already has ordained Members—obviously not ordained by bishops, or they would not be here. However, I hope that provides some answer to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, who asked whether it is appropriate to mix those two careers.
  Rev. Martin Smyth: The hon. Gentleman confirmed the difference between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England. Church of Scotland ministers are not ordained by bishops; they are members of an established church. That is the issue.
  Mr. Stunell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his informed intervention.
  I want to make the general point that it is unusual to hear Conservative Front-Bench Members make the case that those who come into the House should have only one job. It is very much the norm for Conservative Members to have two jobs in Opposition; when challenged, they always claim that that brings advantages to the House. I wonder whether the work load and demands involved in being a Queen's Counsel differ greatly from those of a priest. Certainly, the profession is better paid, but the work load and demands are not very different.
  I want to put it clearly on the record that Liberal Democrat Members certainly want an end to the anomalies that the existing legislation creates. We want to end the outdated religious discrimination that underlies it, and the Bill delivers that, albeit late in the day. It is, in principle, right, and we shall support it on Second Reading.
  Mr. Bercow: Earlier, I made the point that, for Conservative Members, this is a free vote. I asked whether it was for Government Members and, eventually, it became clear that it was not. Is it a free vote for free-thinking Liberal Democrat Members?
  Mr. Stunell: I was about to say that for the Liberal Democrats, every vote is a free vote.
  The question that the Government have not answered, and which they must answer, is whether the measure is at the top of their list of priority reforms for this Parliament. I remind the Minister that the second stage of Lords reform, the introduction of legislation for the devolution of regions in England and a referendum on proportional representation are outstanding. Those all appeared in the Labour manifesto, but the removal of clergy disqualification certainly did not.
  There must be more than a suspicion that, whereas progress on those matters has been slow because the Government fear the loss of influence and of power, the Bill has been accelerated because it is in the interests of their candidate in Greenock and Inverclyde. It is a pity that such a modest and long overdue reform is tainted

  823
  with Government self-interest. It would be nice, just for once, to see reform that was exactly that—reform—rather than it turning out to be expedience dressed up as virtue.
  I seek an assurance from the Minister. Should the unthinkable happen and the Bill not make progress in this parliamentary Session, would he still see it as an urgent priority in the next Parliament, when his party's pressing need for it will have evaporated? The test of reformers is that they are ready to reform, even when it is not solely in their own interest.
  We wish the Bill well; it is long overdue. The pity is that it is tarnished by its cynical timing and its opportunistic intentions.
  5.1 pm
  Mr. Stuart Bell: I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), who said that, as the provision has been on the statute book since 1801, we have dithered in removing it. That is probably true, although it sits ill with the view that the Bill is being rushed through Parliament for the benefit of a particular prospective parliamentary candidate.
  I was interested in the intervention of the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), who makes some fine interventions on the Floor of the House. He said that in 1801, we did not have the party system. At that time, there was the Napoleonic throne and William Pitt was Prime Minister. Macaulay stated in his "History of England" that the system of parties began in 1843. As this is a wide-ranging debate, I throw in that insignificant and irrelevant piece of information.
  Mr. Bercow rose—
  Mr. Bell: I await the Exocet missile that will come from the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).
  Mr. Bercow: Not at all. It is always a pleasure to joust, in the friendliest way, with the hon. Gentleman. My question is simple. Why was the measure non-urgent after 197 years of the anomaly, and why has it become spectacularly urgent after 200 years?
  Mr. Bell: I am grateful for that intervention, to which I am able to respond. I imagine that the reason behind the Government's thinking, to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary referred, was that the legislation has the support of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, and the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and Ireland. That being the case, the legislation is appropriate for the statute book.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is right. As I said, a private Member's Bill was introduced. The Government did not support it at that stage because we wanted to consult the Churches. We have now consulted them and they have indicated their support. Moreover, a particular case has presented itself and, if we did not change the law now, someone whom the people might wish to elect would be prevented from standing.
  Mr. Bell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention and for referring to the case of a particular
  824
  individual. As the House likes its history lessons, we can go back to the case of Charles Bradlaugh, who was regularly elected and would not swear the oath on the Bible, but wished to affirm and could not do so. It was many years before that anomaly was removed from the statute book.
  I speak as the Second Church Estates Commissioner. The Church of England welcomes the Government's intention to legislate to remove the disqualification, except in the case of Lords Spiritual.
  The Bill responds to a long-standing wish of the General Synod and of other Churches. We have had some debate on whether bishops who are not yet Lords Spiritual should be permitted to become Members of the House, and it has been asked whether such a practice will cause a great number of by-elections. I am reminded of a Dean Inge phrase that was liked by Winston Churchill:
  "I've had a great many worries, most of which never happened."
  Some of the scenarios about which hon. Members have heard today are not likely to happen during most of our parliamentary lives.
  However, questions have been asked about Lords Spiritual and I know that the Church of England has expressed concern about factual language and draftsmanship points. Most of those concerns relate to paragraph 8 of the explanatory notes on the Bill. The Church of England is considering the matter with the aid of our legal adviser and we are seeking to iron out rucks in the Bill—a process that will, of course, improve it.
  I do not wish to detain the House—
  Mr. Bercow: Go on.
  Mr. Bell: Notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman's encouragement, I shall conclude my remarks. The Church of England supports the Bill and wishes it well on Second Reading and in Committee. We hope that it will be safely launched on to the statute book.
  5.6 pm
  Mr. Robert Key: I shall vote tonight on the ecclesiastical issues that are raised by the Bill, rather than on the party political ones. As a matter of principle, I shall delight in voting against the guillotine that the Government are imposing.
  I do not oppose the Bill. We are assured that the Church of England and other Churches were consulted and are content. I should like to declare an interest, as my late father was a Lord Spiritual, or, more technically, a Lord of Parliament—as opposed to a life peer—during his tenure of the See of Truro. A short while ago, during the passage of other legislation, hon. Members discussed the interesting question whether the time had come for them to record in the Register of Members' Interests their religion and denomination. That is an intriguing possibility, as such a practice would clear the air in relation not only to the matters under discussion, but to similar ones.
  The Government are seeking to change the law for the worst possible reasons. The Under-Secretary just managed not to say that the history of the measure started in 1997, but we almost heard him make such a remark. He did not go far back in time, but I shall go much further in deploying my arguments. The introduction of the Bill is

  825
  in the interests of the Labour party and of one man who wants to stand as a Labour parliamentary candidate in the forthcoming election. I do not know Mr. David Cairns and I hold nothing against him personally. I merely point out that, when the previous Government changed the law a few years ago in the interests of one of our colleagues, that person was ejected by his electors at the ensuing general election in 1997.
  I understand that Mr. Cairns served as a Roman Catholic priest. Thus, unlike Church of England priests, he cannot draw up a certificate of relinquishment under the Clerical Disabilities Act 1870. Such a certificate would ensure that he relinquished not his holy orders, but the exercise of them. The Under-Secretary will wish that he had remembered that point. It is not that priests stop being ministers under the 1870 Act, but merely that they relinquish the exercise of their holy orders. As a Roman Catholic, Mr. Cairns has had to obey the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law 1983. Paragraph 3 of canon 285 of that code forbids clerics from assuming public office whenever it means sharing in the exercise of civil power. That is what the Roman Catholic Church says.
  However, the Government are today inviting us to repeal the whole of the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801 and parts of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, the Clerical Disabilities Act 1870, the Welsh Church Act 1914, the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 and the Representation of the People Act 1983. We are tinkering, but on a grand scale, and we must pause to remind ourselves why we are doing so. I say "we" not only as a communicant and practising member of the Church of England, but as a Member of Parliament, which itself has been interwoven for hundreds of years with the Church in England.
  The Bill is part of a process of removing civil disabilities on the ground of religion that goes back at least to the 1780s and attempts to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. Those attempts concerned the emancipation of Roman Catholics, notably the 5.5 million Roman Catholics in Ireland who came within the jurisdiction of Parliament in 1800 and 1801. That pattern of reformation continued as the Church of England functioned throughout the 18th and early 19th century as the religious embodiment of the state. Church and state belonged to each other, and the Church was expected to embody and express the religious aspirations of our nation. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 and the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829 brought an end to the absolute primacy of the English Church. I stress that it is not only the Church of England but the English Church.
  I want to acknowledge the help that I received in sharpening my ecclesiastical history from the staff of Sarum college in my constituency and especially the Very Rev. John Moses, the Dean of St. Paul's. I commend his excellent book "A Broad and Living Way" to those who wish to get more involved in that esoteric subject.
  How relevant is the subject to the House? Some of my hon. Friends have said that the Bill has been introduced because it is expedient for the Government before a general election, that not many people are interested in it, and that it has a low priority. I have tried to ascertain the Bill's relevance and the state of belief in this country.
  826
  The 17th report of "British Social Attitudes" was published last year. The table for church membership in Britain shows that 46 per cent. of the population declare that they are Christian; 10 per cent. declare that they are of another religion, and 44 per cent. claim to be of no religion. Those statistics are interesting because the trendy talk nowadays suggests that religion is for a tiny minority. The table for church attendance shows that 45 per cent. of the people of this country claim that they go to church, although 13 per cent. say that they go once a week. A little more than 54 per cent. say that they never go to church.
  Do people believe in God? According to the report, 77 per cent. of the people who were polled in 1998 said that they did. Forty-eight per cent. said that they believed in God now and that they always had. Only 13 per cent. said that they did not believe in God now and never had. Again, those statistics are interesting for the doubters.
  The Bill may be perceived as unfinished business and further ad-hocery. However, it is characteristic of the way in which the Churches have reformed throughout the years. In the 19th century, the process of disengaging Church and state was piecemeal and pragmatic, like the Bill. The establishment principle was qualified but not abandoned. It should not be abandoned in the 21st century.
  For 200 years, the British Government have sought religious neutrality for our state. I shall cite some examples: the removal of restrictions on ground of religion for election to Parliament and public office; the abolition of the powers of church courts; the abolition of compulsory Church rates; the secularisation of the ancient universities; the introduction of civil marriages; the provision of public burial grounds and municipal cemeteries; and the establishment of civil parishes.
  Another interesting move was made in the Church of England (Worship and Doctrine) Measure 1974. The redoubtable Enoch Powell spoke passionately in the debate. On the comprehensive nature of the Church of England, he said:
  "It was because the liturgy and the articles of religion, being part of the law of the land, were so difficult to alter, were so near as possible to being permanencies, that in age after age successive waves of thought and religious feeling were nevertheless able to find a place within the Church of England and within its unity."—[Official Report, 4 December 1974; Vol. 882, c. 1673.]
  Section 6 of the Measure states:
  "Section 3 of the Submission of the Clergy Act 1533 (which provides that no Canons shall be contrary to the Royal Prerogative or the customs, laws or statutes of this realm) shall not apply to any rule of ecclesiastical law relating to any matter for which provision may be made by Canon in pursuance of this Measure."
  In other words, we must go back a very long time—way beyond 1921 or even 1801—when we are asked to revise these issues.
  In spite of all that, because the Church of England is the English Church, and because of the nature of the reformation settlement and the responsibilities attached to establishment—which the Church of England should trumpet with much greater confidence—the Church of England has an outreach throughout the land unequalled by any other religion, Church or sect.
  The Bishop of Durham said in a debate on the Wakeham report in the House of Lords:
  "The presence of bishops in Parliament can point to an abiding validity of the Christian tradition to public doctrine and ethical norms. It is the national ministry of the Church of England 'by law

  827
  established' that makes this role possible. Through the dioceses and parishes, through a small army of clergy and licensed lay ministers, through church schools and chaplaincies to many kinds of institutions, the Church of England has a vast constituency of pastoral contact which extends far beyond the core of committed churchgoers. The expression 'national church' is not an anachronism."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 March 2000; Vol. 610, c. 932.]
  The English Church has, therefore, no cause to feel threatened by the Bill. It should, however, wake up and remember why it is the Church "by law established".
  Mr. Bercow: I have listened to my hon. Friend's historical exegesis with interest and respect. I have also noted what he said about church attendances, which I found slightly more surprising. Will he confirm that he is not suggesting that the somewhat better church attendance figures than I had imagined are either an argument for the Bill or against it?
  Mr. Key: The figures are an important matter of background information. Some people have suggested that it is a waste of time for Parliament to consider this matter, and that the people outside are not interested. The figures that I have quoted—they are not my figures—prove my point.
  The Venerable Bede wrote, in his "Historiam Gentis Anglorum Ecclesiasticum", that there was, in the sixth century, an awareness of England and of the English without parallel in other parts of Europe, and that the English nation was the child of the Church. The Church gave its authority to kingship, to law and to the unity of the nation. It provided the King's chief office-holders and was, effectively, the civil service. The state granted the Church privileges and gave it land and money.
  England was never part of the holy Roman empire. The Normans drew England closer to the papacy, but still the English Church fought for independence. The Magna Carta of 1215 asserted:
  "ut ecclesia Anglicana libera sit."
  That means: thus the English Church will be free.
  In 1392, King Richard II stated in statute 16—the statute of praemunire:
  "The Crown of England, which has always been so free and independent as not to have any earthly sovereign but to be immediately subject to God in all things touching the prerogatives of royalty and the said Crown, should be made subject to the Pope and the laws and statutes of the realm defeated and set aside by him at pleasure, to the utter destruction of the sovereignty of our Lord the King, his crown and royalty, and his whole kingdom, God forbid."
  That was too much for the Pope, and Richard II withdrew it on pain of excommunication. However, it was an expression of the independence of the English Church that eventually bore fruit in the reformation statutes of the 1530s.
  School history teaches us—or probably does not, under this philistine Government—that the Tudor reformation was about Henry VIII' s desire to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. It was about far more than that. It was about the extent of papal involvement in English life, the relation of the papacy to the Crown, and the meaning of sovereignty in a nation state.
  Henry VIII's reformation Parliament of November 1529 set in train a process that took until Elizabeth I's
  828
  Parliament of 1559 to establish the monarchy as defender of the faith, and—in the Act of Supremacy 1559—as
  "the only supreme governor of this realm as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal."
  Against the background of that and all the strife and struggle that followed the reformation, I wish Mr. David Cairns no ill, but as the House debates the Bill on Second Reading it is well for us to remember that the English Church and state are two facets of one society, inextricably bound together in this nation and both much stronger for it.
  Mr. Stuart Bell: The hon. Gentleman has given us an interesting recital of historical background that brings us to the concept of Church and state. In the same mould, does he accept that during the 19th century, between Gladstone and Disraeli, the argument about Church and state and the established Church rippled on throughout? It will continue to ripple on, but will the hon. Gentleman confirm that if one disentangles Church and state, the monarchy itself comes into focus? Whether we have a republic or a monarchy is the next issue to be dealt with.
  Mr. Key: That will no doubt occupy those who sit on these Benches in a thousand years. I am sad that some hon. Members have not recognised the interweaving of Church and state in this country, which makes it wholly different from any other nation in the world bar none, particularly our continental neighbours. In 1920, the French Church was disestablished.
  Mr. Bell: It was 1903.
  Mr. Key: I was several years out, which is terrible, but that intervention makes the point that the French Church was disestablished. Only this weekend, I happened to be in old Catholic Munich for a security conference. As we looked at the two onions of the Marienkirche, a French academic laughed about the fact that no one ever goes to church in France, saying that it was a load of mumbo-jumbo. I thought, "Well, that's just a bit different."
  Mr. Forth: I am slightly puzzled, I must confess, given my hon. Friend's analysis of the relationship between Church and state and the continued presence of Church of England bishops in a House of Parliament as of right, that he still seems to think that we are able legitimately to legislate as the Bill suggests without giving proper consideration or reconsideration to the related matters of Church and state and the presence of bishops in the other place. How can he suggest that?
  Mr. Key: If I considered such matters in detail, I dare say that I would be ruled out of order. However, I would be happy to explore them because I know that, under the Wakeham proposals, the number of Church of England bishops in the other place would be reduced from 26 to 16. That I regret, but the quid pro quo is that there would be more appointees from other Churches and other religions. I have no difficulty with that. When I was a Minister, I established the Inner Cities Religious Council with a number of distinguished theologians and the Bishop of Leicester, Tom Butler, who is now Bishop of Southwark. Were I allowed to, I should have considered

  829
  that important development under the terms of the Bill. I would be happy for a wider discussion along such lines to take place.
  Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has a legitimate grievance about which, I might add, he chuntered furiously to me earlier. Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason for the problem arising—we do not seem to be dealing with interrelated issues in an orderly fashion—is that the Government have engaged in a disgraceful go-slow on reform of the composition of the other place?
  Mr. Key: Yes, of course. My hon. Friend is right. If I appear to take a rather long-term view, I make no apology for that. The seat that I represent, Salisbury, sent its first Members to the House in 1260. We in Salisbury tend to think long. We also find it important to take in our stride reforms that have taken place over those many hundreds of years. There is an historical continuity about this place and about our country.
  I shall not be surprised if we give the Bill a Second Reading, but I am very surprised that the Government have chosen to rush it through just before a general election, without blushing. It is heroically appalling that they should hurry to the House to legislate so that one of their own party's candidates can stand for election in a few weeks. Nevertheless, that is entirely in character with the way in which the House, over many centuries, has dealt with such issues, the difference being perhaps that 300 or 400 years ago, someone would have been burnt at the stake. I have no intention to vote for that tonight.
  5.25 pm
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: Listening to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), I could well imagine him conducting a Church of England service in a church in deepest Salisbury. I have to say that I have heard livelier debates at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. Listening to some of the interventions, I came close to thinking that I should perhaps make a personal statement, given that we are dealing with my would-be successor, Mr. David Cairns.
  I welcome the Bill, which is of great interest to those whom I have the honour to represent. Incidentally—as you well know, Mr. Deputy Speaker—my constituency is Greenock and Inverclyde, and not, as some hon. Members insist on pronouncing it, "Grennock" and Inverclyde.
  Let me say in response to a couple of interventions from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) that I played no part whatever in the selection of my successor. I kept myself at a great distance, feeling that that was the honourable thing to do. Obviously, like every other Member, I tell the truth in this place, so I will say that I wanted to be succeeded by a woman with good, honourable, old-Labour qualifications, but that was not to be.
  Let me also say—I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Ms Ryan) for giving me the opportunity—that at no time did members of my party behave in a deplorable or underhand way in selecting Mr. Cairns to represent Greenock and Inverclyde, if he is
  830
  successful. If I may borrow a term from industrial relations legislation to respond to a sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), it could be said that they were in a condition of justifiable ignorance anent this anomaly. Anyway, I hope that the Bill is passed.
  Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Godman: I will in a moment.
  My earlier question to my hon. Friend the Minister about the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly was badly phrased. The Bill brings us into line with the sensible legislation that established those legislatures: the Government of Wales Act 1998, the Scotland Act 1998—I played a large part in the passage of that Bill, along with the late Donald Dewar, who took it through the House in his inimitable style and with his wonderful elegance—and the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
  May I refer the Minister to paragraph 14 of the explanatory notes? It states, among other things:
  "Each of the four statutes—the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1978, the Government of Wales Act 1998, the Scotland Act 1998 and the Northern Ireland Act 1998—presently provide that a person who is disqualified from membership of the House of Commons other than by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 is also disqualified from the legislative body in question. This would disqualify clergymen because they are disqualified from the Commons by the Acts of 1801 and 1829 mentioned above. In order that such clergymen can sit in these legislatures each of those four statutes goes on to provide expressly that a person who is ordained or who is a minister of any religious denomination is not disqualified from membership of that legislative body. It will no longer be necessary to make that express statement as regards the entitlement of clergy to be members of those bodies."
  Mr. Bercow: A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman said that the Greenock and Inverclyde constituency Labour party was in a state of justifiable ignorance. It is important to emphasise that, whether it was acting in ignorance or knowingly, it certainly was not acting illegally. The absurdity of the current situation is that it is legal for an individual such as Mr. Cairns to stand as a prospective parliamentary candidate—there is nothing illegal about that—but illegal for him to take his seat. It is important to make that clear.
  Dr. Godman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I know that he will accept my word that members of the Greenock and Inverclyde constituency Labour party acted in good faith.
  Were the Bill not to be passed but Mr. Cairns to be elected by the Greenock and Inverclyde constituency, an important issue might arise to be addressed in a judicial review at the Court of Session in Scotland. I think that if those two events were to happen, there could be an infringement of human rights. However, as the House knows, I am not a lawyer and I never desired to become one, so I may not be entirely correct on that point. Nevertheless, I believe that no one should be denied membership of this place, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Welsh Assembly on the ground of ordination or of being a minister of a certain religious denomination.
  Like the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), I look forward to the disestablishment of the Church of England. I also welcome the point made by the hon.

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  Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) on the Church of Scotland. The principal representative of that denomination is of course the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, who is chosen annually.
  Paragraph 8 of the explanatory notes mentions Lords Spiritual and the 26 archbishops and bishops who sit in another place. If we are to continue with that place—one of my abiding regrets as a Member of Parliament is that we have not abolished it and replaced it with a senate—I believe that leaders of other Churches and religions should be entitled to sit, as the bishops do, as Lords of Parliament. Some of the other religious leaders might regard sitting next door as a somewhat doubtful privilege, but if the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York can do so, why cannot the Moderator of the Church of Scotland and Cardinal Thomas Winning?
  I know that the Church of England is sympathetic to widening the ecclesiastical membership of the other place. However, I also appreciate that there are complicated elements to the issue that will have to be addressed. I hope that that happens in the next Parliament.
  Paragraph 9 of the explanatory notes states that the Churches were consulted on the proposals and
  "are content for the statutory disqualifications to be removed."
  It therefore seems that the Bill has the approval, although perhaps qualified approval, of the Churches concerned.
  What will happen, however, if a person should decide to give up and return to his or her Church? As the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) said, the traditional view of both Catholics and Anglicans is that holy orders cannot be relinquished, and that although one can renounce the exercise of one's orders, one is ordained for life. The right hon. Lady is of course a recent convert to Catholicism. Perhaps I should say that although I am a lapsed Catholic, I maintain a very keen and paternal interest in Catholic Church matters.
  As the Minister and the hon. Member for Salisbury said, there is a question whether, even if the Bill is enacted, a Catholic priest who is in "good standing"— I think that that is how it is described in Catholic canon law—can serve as a Member of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman mentioned paragraph 3 of canon 285 in the Roman Catholic code of canon law 1983. It states:
  "Clerics are forbidden to assume pubic office whenever it means sharing in the exercise of civil power."
  That is unequivocal, and at first glance it suggests that a Catholic priest cannot in principle hold political office other than in the obvious and special case of an office in the Curia. However, Catholic priests have held senior political positions. One example is the first President of Haiti, who took that office after the fall of the Duvalier family. I assume that he had a special dispensation from the Vatican.
  Would a priest who wanted to stand as a candidate for election to this House while retaining his good standing with his church need a dispensation from his diocesan bishop—or, failing that, from Rome? Alternatively, a priest has the right to petition Rome to have his orders annulled by rescript under paragraph 3 of canon 290 of the Catholic code of canon law. However, that is granted
  "to deacons for only grave reasons, and to priests for only the gravest of reasons."
  832
  Catholic constituents for whom I have the greatest regard and affection have raised the concern that, regardless of civil law on the subject, it appears unlikely that a Catholic priest in a western European democracy would be permitted by his church to hold political office and remain in good standing. I sincerely hope that I am wrong in that belief.
  In conclusion, any cleric—Anglican or Catholic—can simply walk away from his Church and stand as a candidate in an election. However, that person would no longer be in good standing under the law of his Church. My hope is that compassion and sensitivity would determine the outcome when a prospective candidate is caught in such circumstances. If such a problem were to arise with a candidate in Scotland, I hope that Cardinal Winning and his priestly colleagues would show precisely that compassion and sensitivity.
  I welcome the Bill and I sincerely hope that it becomes law before the general election.
  5.38 pm
  Rev. Martin Smyth: I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman), who in opposition used to sit on the Benches behind those occupied by members of my party. We have had a long friendship, although recently we have sparred more than we have supported each other. For example, his final comment concerned the standing of Roman Catholic priests in the western democracies, yet I recall that a priest in the United States was removed from office when he challenged papal authority. That is another possibility that we must bear in mind. The Minister said earlier that we should not introduce theological arguments into our debate, but the harsh reality is that those arguments are part of the debate.
  As the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) propounded, the issue at the heart of the debate is that priests are clerks in holy orders who receive remuneration under the Crown. If this reforming Bill is to succeed, the bar on candidates standing for Parliament who are now in receipt of such remuneration—for example, through membership of a quango—may have to be removed. I drew attention to that issue in connection with the Church of Scotland, which is in a different situation. Over the years, however, there has been a barrier to ministers ordained in the Church of Scotland.
  I am an ordained minister of a sister Church, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. I have not resigned my office; I was relieved from the pastorate. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland allows us to be ministers without charge under the care of presbytery, able to perform duties to help our colleagues and to carry out pastoral work if we are called on to help someone out. Often I do not deal with political or housing issues in my surgery but with some of the issues that regularly came my way when I was pastoring a congregation.
  I am one of those with links with 1950. I was a student in Londonderry, in the constituency of Belfast, West, where Rev. J. G. MacManaway sought guidance from the then Attorney-General of Northern Ireland, who I believe was right in his interpretation. I think that even Professor Blackburn would give that impression. The late Edmund Warnock said that he would be qualified to stand for election to the House of Commons and he was so elected, but the electoral court went into more rarefied arguments.

  833
  I believe that the people of Belfast, West, where I was a constituent at the time, were robbed of a very useful representative, but, at the same time, I can understand some of the arguments.
  I do not believe that anyone wants this place to be full of ministerial or clerical clones. However, the issue seems to be that those who have been priests are barred. I sympathise with that, but when does a person cease to be a priest? I read during the week of an elderly priest who was unfrocked because of some obscene behaviour in the past. It is rare for a priest in the Church of Rome to be unfrocked; they are quite often simply removed from the office of public priesthood.
  The Minister referred to priests being barred because of their activity in political circles. Desmond Wilson in Belfast, West was barred from public priesthood by Bishop Philbin. I remember Gerry Fitt, now ennobled in another place, coming to me in real anger because Desmond Wilson had published a book with a worldwide imprimatur that gave a different opinion of what was happening in Northern Ireland. He said, "I can never understand why Bishop Daly restored him to the office of public priesthood." That day, I was walking through Heathrow airport to get the plane back to Belfast and I met Dr. Daly. I said to him, "Bishop, my constituents and some of your flock have been asking why you restored Desmond Wilson to the office of public priesthood, when Dr. Philbin, your predecessor, removed him from it." The gracious Dr. Daly was rather taken aback that a mere Presbyterian politician should ask him such a question. He stepped back with a little start and, giving that lovely smile, said, "I tried to win him back but I failed."
  I wonder whether the Bill is premature and whether there is any real reason for it. I have no difficulties with people coming here who are elected by their people. I had to face that challenge myself, although, interestingly, it did not come from political circles. When my parliamentary predecessor was murdered, I, as someone interested in public life, encouraged others to put themselves forward, but two of my brothers—not filial but ministerial—from different spheres of the presbyterian ministry asked me, "Is it not your turn?" I could not encourage someone else to stand when danger was involved, unless I faced that danger myself. I prayed about the matter and the doors opened. I believe in and understand the concept of ordination for life. I am an ordained minister for life.
  I am glad that the trite expression "Ye cannot serve God and mammon" has not been used today. After my election, I received several letters expressing that view, but they were unsigned so I could not respond to them. I remind all of us who claim the Christian profession that the Master said those words not to disciples—apostles—but to followers. When we are dealing with issues of conscience, it behoves all of us, even in this place, to put that loyalty to the Master clearly to the fore. If the Almighty could shut doors for Paul, who wanted to go here, there and everywhere, and yet open another door that could not be closed, He had a great opportunity, through the selection and electoral processes, to shut the door on Martin Smyth.
  Today, we are debating whether the law of the land should shut doors on people or open other doors that may cause problems in the future. We glibly say that anyone
  834
  who is a leader of any religious community should have a right to be a Member of this place if he is elected, but would we be as keen if they belonged to the strange cults that have developed in the modern world, and could brainwash other people into selecting and electing them?
  Mr. Fabricant: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument with considerable interest. He presents a powerful case. However, surely those who are ministers of strange cults can be elected to this place anyway. Is not that correct? I look to the Minister for clarification, but he is engaged in a private conversation so I am not getting any help. The Bill specifically aids members of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.
  Mr. Forth: That is not what the Bill says.
  Rev. Martin Smyth: The hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) makes a valuable point, with Lichfield's two lovely towers, but he is wrong this time. It is possible that the earlier argument is rather superficial and we should be careful about following it.
  Mr. Forth: Does the hon. Gentleman share my worry about the Bill? It loosely uses the words "minister" and "a religious denomination" without giving any definition. That could open the door to the situation described by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). The measure could be widely or loosely interpreted and might lead us in directions that we cannot yet anticipate.
  Rev. Martin Smyth: The right hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point and it should be borne in mind. It might be argued that the arguments made earlier were about preventing the election of people who hold offices of profit under the Crown. However, Presbyterian ministers were in that position at one time. There was the regium donum—the gift of the Crown—but many years ago, my forebears commuted their money and invested it in central church funds. As a result, we are under no obligation to the Crown.
  Dr. Godman: Can the hon. Gentleman remind us whether he raised similar objections in respect of membership of the Northern Ireland Assembly during the passage of the Northern Ireland Act 1998?
  Rev. Martin Smyth: I do not believe that that objection was raised. There was a powerful lot of things in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and we did not always have enough time to explore them and expose some of the weaknesses that are still being worked out in Northern Ireland, not least of which is the failure of having an unaccountable Executive—we do not know where we are with them.
  5.50 pm
  Ms Sandra Osborne: I declare a personal interest, which will become clear shortly. I very much welcome the Select Committee on Home Affairs 1997–98 report, "Electoral Law and Administration", which recommended the change that we are discussing. However, I agree with those hon. Members who have said that it has taken some time to institute a change which is

  835
  long overdue. For reasons that will also become clear, it is a matter of great regret to me that the change did not occur under the previous Government.
  In 1951, a Select Committee report on clergy disqualification recommended no change on the basis of practicality. Various hon. Members have argued today that there is no groundswell of clergy desperate to stand for election to the House. That may well be the case, but this is an issue of principle which should be addressed, and it does not matter whether David Cairns or two other people want to stand for election.
  I fully accept that under the current legislation—which dates back centuries, as hon. Members have said—non-Church of England and former episcopalian ordained priests and Catholic priests suffer a double discrimination in that they have no practical remedy, as no provision exists to alter their status if they want to stand for election to, and be eligible to sit in, the House. However, I wish to highlight the issue from a different perspective: for most ministers of religion, especially those who have been ordained and served for a considerable time, it is not an insignificant decision to demit their status.
  The Labour candidate in Ayr at the 1992 election was a victim of the discrimination the Bill will end. He had spent six years at university, training to be a Church of Scotland minister. He then spent 15 years working in some of the poorest areas in Paisley and Ayr. Alongside his parish work he was involved in politics, so it was a natural progression that members of the local party asked him to stand as the Labour candidate in Ayr in 1992. However, as a Church of Scotland minister, he was barred from taking a seat in the House. The Church put no impediment in his way, but the law of the land did.
  To stand for Parliament, he had to demit his status as a Church of Scotland minister—the equivalent of a doctor having his or her name removed from the general medical register, or a lawyer having his or her qualified practising certificate revoked. Can hon. Members imagine the outcry if people had to abandon their right to practise law if they wanted to become a Member of Parliament?
  Mr. Forth: A good idea.
  Ms Osborne: Indeed, but there would be an outcry in the highest places if that were ever suggested and there would no longer be any learned Members.
  When I said that I declared an interest in the matter, I should have added that the Labour candidate in Ayr in 1992 was my husband—in fact, he still is. If he ever wanted his ministerial status back, he would have to petition the general assembly of the Church of Scotland at its annual gathering. When I was elected in 1997—a worthy successor to my husband as candidate in Ayr—I was aware that there had been a time, not so long ago, when I, too, would have been barred from sitting in the House—not because I was a minister, but for the specific reason that I was a woman, and no remedy would have been open to me to circumvent that ruling.
  In 1992, my husband stood for Ayr—a highly marginal seat at the time, although it is obviously no longer one—with no guarantee of winning. Indeed, as most hon. Members will know, he was defeated by 85 votes out of 55,000—a small margin by anyone's standards, except perhaps in Florida. Yet the law requires such people to sign away years of study, hard-won qualifications and a
  836
  lifetime of work and service, perhaps 18 months or two years before an election, to stand for a seat that they may well not win.
  It was ultimately my husband's decision to make that stand, but a democratic deficit is involved. As I have said, the Church itself placed no impediment in his way. Indeed, the Church of Scotland has a long and honourable record of encouraging not only its members and adherents but its clergy to be involved in the political process. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) about the clergy's involvement in political activities, as does the Church of Scotland.
  The moderator's annual visit to the House is a well-established and happy occasion. Only last week, the press reported that this year's moderator is ready to join an anti-nuclear protest outside Faslane and has declared himself undaunted by the possibility of arrest as a result. The Church of Scotland's church and nation committee speaks out on all issues affecting the life of the Scottish people and is listened to by the Government at Westminster and Edinburgh.
  Parallel bodies of the Church exist at local presbytery level to speak out on community and social issues. Countless ordinary members have viewed it as a natural extension of their Christian faith to be involved in politics for the good of humanity and society. That involvement can range from going along to the local tenants group, or campaigning for the cancellation of world debt in the poorest nations, to becoming a local councillor, or even a Member of Parliament. Why should one part of the political process be barred to a particular group of Christians—the clergy—and then only to the clergy of certain denominations?
  Many clergy have held elected political office. I think of those who have been councillors. One giant figure of the Scottish Labour movement comes to mind—the Rev. Geoff Shaw. Geoff was the founder of the Gorbals group and went on to lead Strathclyde regional council, serving a population half the size of Scotland's. If he had not died so tragically young, who knows where his politics might have taken him?
  Reference has been made to other clergy who have been Members of Parliament. I know from my own experience that people often refer with some puzzlement to the position of the hon. Members for South Antrim (Dr. McCrea), for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) and for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth). They are still bemused when I try to explain that they are not clergy of an established Church, debarred under current legislation. Indeed, going back in the history of the House, Scottish Presbyterian ministers—albeit of denominations other than the established Church of Scotland—have made a significant contribution.
  A great figure of the Scottish Labour movement was the Rev. James Barr—a pacifist and socialist. He was elected to the House in 1924 as the Independent Labour party Member for Motherwell. He was a forceful opponent of Ramsay MacDonald's National Government and lost his seat opposing it in 1931. He was returned as Member for Coatbridge in 1935. Along with great early socialists, such as Keir Hardie, he campaigned tirelessly for home rule for Scotland, a minimum wage and temperance. I am sure that he would have given this Government a pass mark of two out of three.

  837
  One of James Barr's claims to fame was that he made one of the longest ever maiden speeches—88 minutes and stretching to 18 columns in Hansard. I considered reading out his speech verbatim to hon. Members, but I thought better of it; I am sure that that would be the last thing they would want to hear. However, I know from personal experience that clergymen often like the sound of their own voices, can make excellent contributions to debate, and tend to be accomplished public speakers.
  Suffice it to say that James Ban was attacking the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925 in his maiden speech. He vehemently opposed any link between Church and state and thought it wholly the responsibility of the Church to support and maintain itself on a voluntary basis. When the union took place in 1929, he felt so strongly about this that he stayed with the rump of the United Free Church. If he had not, he would have found himself debarred from membership of the House of Commons.
  Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and, among other matters, has referred to the position of her husband. Does she accept that those hon. Members, such as myself, who are not adherents of any religion support the Bill? Indeed, I do so as a member of the Home Affairs Committee, because the existing position represents a form of discrimination that certainly cannot be justified. Does she also agree that if any criticism is to be made, it is that such a measure should have been introduced years ago?
  Ms Osborne: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. If this Bill had been introduced 15 years ago, my husband would probably still be a practising minister in the Church of Scotland. However, he had to demit his status when he stood as a candidate.
  Another great figure of the Scottish Labour movement was Campbell Stephen. He was elected as MP for Glasgow, Camlachie in 1922 and he was one of the famous Clydeside group of Independent Labour party Members. He, too, lost his seat in 1931 only to be re-elected in 1935. What is not so well known is that he, like Barr, started life as a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland. He gave up his charge in Ardrossan to fight unsuccessfully the Ayr Burghs seat in 1918 and he never resumed his ministry.
  The point of my argument is to illustrate that there is no real difference between a politically active minister of the Church of Scotland and one of any number of other mainstream denominations in Scotland who are not caught up by this arbitrary legislation that debars membership of the House of Commons to ministers of the Church of Scotland.
  I do not think that we should be too parochial when considering this matter. Internationally, clergy have played a significant role in the politics of their respective countries. I think in particular of the African continent and north and central America. Other aspects of the issue, particularly the case of former Roman Catholic priests, will be, and have been, taken up by hon. Members. I have concentrated on the Scottish Presbyterian dimension.
  I would never wish to suggest that being an MP is the highest expression of political involvement. There are many ways of being involved in the political process and
  838
  for many people being an MP would not be their chosen way. George Bernard Shaw might have been thinking of ambitious would-be MPs when he wrote:
  "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."
  The third tragedy might be to be barred from achieving what may not be one's heart's desire at all, but should be a democratic right—to become a Member of Parliament.
  The Bill should not be about any particular person's smooth passage into the House. It is, like the separate case for the repeal of the Act of Succession, an issue of individual human rights—a matter of religious and civil liberties and an opportunity to add to the democratic credentials of the House.
  6.2 pm
  Mr. Eric Forth: I cannot share the general support for the Bill for a number of reasons. My instinctive reason always in such a case is that, when nearly everyone agrees on something, it is probably wrong. That seems to be so in this case. The fact that the Bill was introduced with smug complacency and the fact that almost all those who have spoken seem to be of one religious persuasion tend to set my antennae quivering. I wonder what it is all about.
  The Minister was originally coy, and then blustered when he was asked why we were getting the Bill now. The answer appeared straightforward once we got it. The Bill is the legitimisation of a Labour candidate, and I can think of no worse reason to change the law of the land. There may be many good reasons for the changes to be introduced by the Bill, but to legitimise a Labour candidate now is the worst possible reason that I can think of. We can dismiss that as a proper reason; it does not explain why we should support the Bill at this time.
  The tragedy is that the local Labour party either selected the candidate in ignorance of the law—that would not say much for the party's support for its local organisations—or, worse, it selected him knowing that the law as it stands would prevent him, if elected by the voters of Greenock and Inverclyde, from taking his seat. Either way, that is not a good recommendation for the House to approve the Bill at this stage, however excellent the individual may be. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) pointed out, none of us has met this man, and, in one respect, we have absolutely no interest in whether he is elected. We would rather that a Conservative is elected in Greenock and lnverclyde, but—although I have been away from the Clyde for quite a long time—I suspect that the chances of a Conservative being elected there are as about as strong as the chances of a Labour candidate being elected in Bromley and Chislehurst.
  Dr. Godman: May I point out again to the right hon. Gentleman that local Labour party members were unaware of the anomaly? He should not denigrate decent, ordinary activists in a particular party. How many Members of this Parliament—let alone ordinary activists in a local party—knew of the anomaly?
  Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman should not get too excited. I will denigrate whoever I like, whenever I like, and for whatever reason I like. I, not the hon. Gentleman, will decide whether the good Labour supporters of

  839
  Greenock and Inverclyde are immune from that. However, my criticism is directed at the professional agent—if there is one—or the Labour party in Scotland, which should concentrate on such matters instead of the other nonsenses that it gets up to. That is where my criticism is levelled. I repeat my point that, because the Greenock and Inverclyde Labour party found itself in this position, that is no reason to change the law. That is my first argument against our supporting the Bill on this occasion.
  My next point echoes a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon). If we were to change the law now, that would give rise to legitimate grievance among many people who were aware of the law, respected the law and did not offer themselves as candidates. They would find that they had suddenly been put in a most unfortunate position. For whatever reason, Mr. Cairns is being presented as a candidate and he is having the law changed for him just before an election. However, all the other people who may well have wanted to become candidates and who chose not to because they believed that the law did not allow them to would have good cause to say, "Hold on a minute; this is completely and grotesquely unfair." Believe it or not, the law is being changed to benefit one individual when, for the reverse reason, it could disbenefit many other people.
  Mr. Bercow: It is very rare for my right hon. Friend and me to be at loggerheads, but may I suggest that the thrust of his point runs counter to his general enthusiasm—an enthusiasm that I share—for risk-taking and entrepreneurship? Does he accept that it would have been entirely open to any other individual to put himself or herself forward as a prospective candidate in the knowledge that it was legal to stand but would be illegal to take his or her seat? That person could hope, plot and collaborate with others to campaign for a change in the law and take his or her chance. Why has my right hon. Friend not considered that perfectly estimable possibility?
  Mr. Forth: Of course, it is a possibility. However, in this case it helps if that person is a member of the Labour party and not any other party—a fact that may, unusually, have escaped my hon. Friend's attention. He is right, but I gather that Mr. Cairns is quoted as saying, "Don't worry, chaps. We'll have the law changed, and that will put everything right." My point is that the timing is most unfortunate. Although my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) rightly emphasised that official Opposition Members would have a free vote, she pointed out that there have been several opportunities recently to change the law.
  Miss Widdecombe: Four.
  Mr. Forth: My right hon. Friend assures me that were four occasions when we could have legislated on this matter in proper time, allowing time for proper consideration and allowing other people to benefit from the change in electoral law. In almost every respect, the timing of the Bill's introduction is not only unfortunate, but unacceptable and unconscionable. The fact that the Government gave priority not to this measure, but to anti-hunting Bills and piffling Bills on vehicle crime says much about their sense of priorities. I shall return briefly to the issue of timing, because it is important.
  840
  I am also uneasy about the Bill because I do not think that it should be dealt with in isolation. In his typically learned and well-researched way, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury provided the background to the matter and brought out strongly the fact that such a Bill cannot be considered as a tiny piece of a large mosaic. It should not be considered entirely in isolation, because it carries with it important constitutional implications, not least, as he suggested, for the position of the established Church.
  As a result of our history, there is an unusually complex relationship between the state and the Churches, especially the established Church. Different Churches and religions have a different status. A Labour hon. Member prattled on, as Labour women do, about equality. She used the word frequently and the implication was that as the issue concerns equality, it must be right to change the law. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury explained, we do not live in an age of equality, certainly in this respect. Our different faiths, religions and Churches have an unequal status in society. Whether that is right or wrong is of huge importance. To single out an aspect of it—a by-product of our history—and deal with it in isolation without tackling other important issues is wrong, but that is symptomatic of the way in which the Government have gone about making piecemeal and unrelated changes in our constitution, which have been to our detriment.
  We are also suffering from that approach to reform of the other place, which has a direct bearing on the Bill. Our constitutional and statutory arrangements contain a right for a number of Church of England bishops to sit in a House of Parliament and participate in the legislative process. That has a bearing on the eligibility of people to be elected to this place. How much sense does it make for bishops of any Church to have a place, as of right, in a Chamber of these Houses of Parliament, and does that have implications for the question of whether people should be eligible to serve in this place? Those two questions are connected, but we are deliberating on eligibility to this House while paying no regard to the composition of the other place. That makes no sense.
  We are being invited to narrow our vision to one individual in one set of circumstances and to change the electoral law of the land, but we are expected to pay no regard to the context within which it was set, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury. Having said that, the relative position of different religious faiths and Churches and their representatives should be borne in mind. It is a convention that leading figures of other faiths are given a seat in another place. That might be admirable for as long as that Chamber is not properly elected, which I should like it to be, but it raises the issue of the different status of different Churches. If there are 26 bishops from our established Church in our legislature, why should there be only one chief rabbi or one representative of any other faith or religion? Those are important matters and they relate to the subject of our debate.
  Mr. Bercow: I am anxious to establish—although I think that it will gradually become clear—whether my right hon. Friend is objecting simply or primarily to the cack-handed manner in which the matter has been handled, or to the proposed change on principle. If the Government had not introduced the Bill with such haste and had got on, as we would both favour, with the

  841
  important project of creating an elected other place with no automatic entitlement for bishops to sit in it, would he be in favour of what many of us think is a simple and common-sense measure?
  Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is inviting me to deliver my punch line before I have reached it. As I have such respect for him, I shall accede to his request. My view is simple: whoever is elected by our electoral process to represent a constituency is entirely a matter for the voters in that constituency. Whether people who are elected are acceptable to us is neither here nor there. Debarment by statute is probably wrong. History is important and we should be prepared to adjust our view appropriately, but not in this Bill, not now, and not in the piecemeal way in which we are being invited to consider the matter.
  Although police officers and some others are debarred, I want there to be a minimum number of restrictions on people's eligibility to be elected to this place because it is for the voters to decide. By and large, people in this country get the politicians they deserve.
  Mr. Stunell: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman's approach correctly? Is he saying, "Make me good, but not yet"? Is not a little reform better than no reform? Is not a little movement better than no movement?
  Mr. Forth: Absolutely not. Perhaps I should start my speech again because obviously I have not persuaded the hon. Gentleman of my case. I condemn the Government and their fellow travellers in the hon. Gentleman's party for doing what he has described and claiming it as a virtue. They introduce piecemeal, disconnected and ill-thought-out change for the sake of it. They usually call it modernisation and think that that will fool us, but it does not. My argument is that the Bill is wrong, ill-conceived and has been introduced at the wrong time. That is why I am unhappy with it.
  I want to raise a more sensitive and delicate matter, even at the risk of offending some colleagues and people outside the House—I have, of course, never shrunk from that. I am concerned about possible conflicts of loyalty. My understanding of history does not begin to rival that of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury, so I am diffident about raising the issue. However, at the time of Henry VIII and the reformation, the question of to whom people in this country owed their primary loyalty must have arisen. Was it to our sovereign monarch and sovereign state, or to something or someone beyond, which at the time was the papacy? That issue is still alive. Indeed, it might be even more potent in our multi-faith society. Some people might believe that sections of our multi-faith, multi-cultural society have, in some circumstances, not only a divided loyalty, but a greater loyalty than that given to the Queen and the state.
  Mr. Key: My right hon. Friend might agree that, although the cold war is over, instability is all the greater as a result.
  Mr. Forth: Indeed. That is becoming daily more evident, which is why the Bush Administration's concept
  842
  of a missile defence system is something that we can all wholeheartedly support. The sooner they put their umbrella over me, the safer I will feel.
  Mr. John Redwood: My right hon. Friend's point about Henry VIII is important. He was the first successful Eurosceptic, and he showed that a single Act of Parliament can remove the power of European courts. I understand my right hon. Friend's argument and agree entirely with what he is saying about where allegiance lies.
  Mr. Forth: I hope that my right hon. Friend's excellent book, which he launched today in the Jubilee Room, will contain more on that matter. I am sure that we will all be much the better for reading it, although I have not managed to get around to it yet.
  Mr. Winnick: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the status of Catholics at the time of the reformation. Is he suggesting that Catholics are not loyal to the United Kingdom or have a wider loyalty to an outside force?
  Mr. Forth: No, that is a matter for Catholics. I am simply saying that we should not duck this issue. I confess that my understanding of the intricacies of the Catholic Church is limited, but I am making the more general point that it is possible that the total loyalty that someone has, by dint of their vocation, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald called it, expressed in formal terms to a deity or moral authority could clash, in some circumstances, with the loyalty that we should all feel to our state and our monarch. That may manifest itself in many different ways, and it is directly relevant to the Bill because of the removal of the disqualification that we are now discussing.
  Mr. Mark Hendrick: The right hon. Gentleman makes a serious charge, and a great deal of what he says seems to be based on innuendo. Will he give us an example of circumstances in which loyalties may be challenged?
  Mr. Forth: I do not think that I was using innuendo at all; I thought that I was making the perfectly clear point that potential conflict exists and we should not duck that matter or skate over it. My difficulty with the Bill is that in the warm glow of consensuality that is becoming ever more popular in this place and in the body politic, we risk not squaring up to such issues and resolving them to our satisfaction before we move on. Surely, as a political institution, we are still sufficiently mature—although I sometimes wonder—to discuss these matters properly and deal with them or dispose of them before we move on to legislate. That is my point, and if it makes Labour Members uncomfortable, I am doing my job.
  I turn briefly now to one or two of the details of the Bill. My first difficulty is whether the term
  "a minister of any religious denomination"
  is sufficiently precise or accurate to do the job that Members imagine the Bill will do. It strikes me that in this ever-evolving world of denominations, faiths and sects, there is at least the possibility of difficulty arising from the lack of a proper definition of the term "religious denomination". I put it no more strongly than that,

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  but with the seeming proliferation of different organisations calling themselves churches and faiths, there could be very real difficulty. We may want to pay attention to that matter in Committee.
  Mr. Stunell: I hesitate to provoke the right hon. Gentleman, but is he suggesting that there might be an occasion when the House would want to proscribe certain religions from putting forward candidates? That seems to be the direction in which his argument is going. If I understand him correctly, he is saying that although this measure might be good enough for Roman Catholics and other well-known denominations, there might be others that we have not yet invented which the House would want to prevent from offering candidates. Is that his thinking?
  Mr. Forth: Yes, it is indeed. I have in mind the possibility of organisations that many hon. Members may find offensive, subversive, dangerous or threatening calling themselves a religious denomination for the purposes of the Bill and seeking to promote their members as politicians or Members of Parliament. We may have to think about that.
  Mr. Stunell: We seem to be moving from a discussion about whether we should repeal legislation that restricts certain people to an argument that we should retain that legislation in case we want in future to restrict certain people who are not currently covered. I look forward with considerable interest to the right hon. Gentleman's amendments in Committee.
  Mr. Forth: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman looks forward to that. Let us hope that we have enough time in Committee to deal with all the matters in detail and at whatever length is necessary. However, that is the next debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and you would not want me to anticipate that, would you?
  I have another simple query that I am sure the Minister will be able to answer. The heading of clause 2 is "Short title, commencement and extent", but I see no reference in the Bill to a commencement date. When does the Minister envisage that will be? Timing is an important consideration, and here we must pause for a moment and work backwards from when the Minister thinks the general election is likely to be. As the whole reason for the Bill is to allow one individual to be elected to this place, it is obviously essential, if the Bill is to fulfil its purpose, that it is enacted and commenced in time for the general election. We are therefore entitled to hear a bit more from the Minister about whether he believes there is sufficient time left properly to consider the Bill in all its stages in this House and in the Lords before Parliament is dissolved.
  I ask because no date has yet been named for the remaining stages of the Bill, and I understand from the next item of business that the Government are to ask the House to deal with the matter in a Committee of the whole House. We have a short recess coming up, so I assume that the matter cannot and will not be dealt with until afterwards, which takes us to the end of February. That means that the Government will presume upon the House of Lords to deal with the Bill rapidly and peremptorily in time for it to be enacted so that the individual Labour candidate gets statutory cover for his candidature and can come to the House.
  844
  I shall be interested to see whether the Minister has any comment to make about that. It strikes me that, in their typically arrogant way, the Government are making a series of presumptions about the parliamentary process, both in this House and in another place. I think that those presumptions are unacceptable, but the Government have long since ceased to bother themselves with that. Perhaps as a result of the matters that I and other Members have raised, we will pay attention to the Bill in Committee and on Report, and the House of Lords will want to examine it closely. I hope then, at the very least, that the Government are presuming too much about the parliamentary process, and all their plans, ploys and plots to get one person elected by altering the law of the land may well not come to fruition. If that is the case, I will certainly shed no tears.
  6.27 pm
  Mr. Stephen Hepburn: I take the opportunity to speak in this debate because it is about fairness and tolerance. I remember that, many years ago, when I was at St. Mary's Catholic junior school in Jarrow, one of the highlights was when the Catholic missionary from Africa or elsewhere came to the classroom to inform us about his work with the poor. That gave us an insight into his vocation and into what seemed to be an idyllic existence, helping the poor in an exotic country. I also remember the tales told in school about the famous Father Rooney from Hebburn, a town in Jarrow. He was a great priest, a fund-raiser for the Catholic Church, who travelled widely and had many famous friends, such as the Kennedys and the Sinatras. He even had a racehorse named after him, such was his notoriety in the Catholic world for his good work.
  Of course, as I grew older, reality sank in and I realised that the priesthood is not the glamorous life that it was portrayed to be when I was a young child. Very few people become a priest because it is such a hard life and such a difficult vocation. That is why those who make it, and those who stay in the priesthood, are such special people. Priests are great men because they have a vocation and a way of life that very few people can follow. Very few people embark on becoming a priest without serious thought. Once they are in the priesthood, they must make an important decision if they want to leave. Some young men get so far, fail and do not bother trying to be ordained. Some are ordained and then decide that they do not have the calling, so they drop out.
  The question is whether those who decide, after they have been ordained, that they do not have the calling, should be discriminated against for the rest of their lives for their honesty. They are honest to themselves, to their God, to their community and to their congregation when they say, "I don't think this life is for me. I want to serve God in the community in a different vocation." Should they be classed as second-class citizens, and should they be discriminated against for the rest of their lives? Surely that is what the debate is about.
  Mr. Key: Is not the greatest discrimination that the Roman Catholic Church refuses to ordain women?
  Mr. Hepburn: I shall continue with the point that I was making. Any sort of intolerance or unfairness should not be tolerated by any society. It is not for me to

  845
  comment on what the Catholic Church does internally. I am talking about what the state can do to try to create a fair environment in which people might prosper.
  We know that the Bill is not entirely about Catholic discrimination, but it was the Catholic issue that caught my eye originally. We know that there are anomalies. Some members of the clergy are disqualified and some are not. Some priests can relinquish their ministry and become Members while others are unable to do so. Certain Christian priests are disqualified whereas ministers of other religious faiths, such as Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, are eligible. I merely point out the anomalies.
  Is it right that a Catholic priest, who decides that he no longer wants to continue in that role and wishes to join society, to marry and to have a family, for example, because the vocation is not for him, cannot become a Member, whereas a practising Jewish rabbi or Muslim cleric can stand for Parliament and become an elected Member? It is obviously not right.
  Ministers of the Church sit in the House. The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) made his point clearly. The example should be given again of Bruce Kent, a former Catholic priest. No matter what anyone thinks about him politically, his views were pinned to the mast. He is a CND supporter and a socialist. He has always seemed a loving and caring man to me. He stood for Labour at Oxford in 1992. If he had been successful, he would not have been able to become a Member. There seemed no reason for that.
  The present position is nonsensical. It stems from some historical row that took place about 100 or 200 years ago, or 500 or 600 years ago when Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife. I do not care especially what the reason was. The unfairness should be challenged.
  One valid concern is whether the passage of the Bill will result in the House being awash with clergy. However, that is a matter for the Churches and not for Parliament. If the Churches want people to stand for Parliament, that can be done.
  We are in a new era of fairness, equality, caring and modernisation. We do not stand for discrimination in our modern society. That should not be tolerated on any basis, whether it be age, gender, disability or religion. What goes for Members should stand also for the monarchy.
  When I was younger, there were young people alongside me who decided, "I might go for a calling and go into the priesthood." Some might have been successful and become missionaries, for example. Some might have become great priests doing a great job for local congregations in carrying out the work that suited them. Others may have tried. Some might have been ordained, only to decide that it was not for them. I would hate to see those people condemned for life because of religious discrimination that stems from centuries ago, which we as a responsible Parliament, made up of all parties, seem to be upholding.
  6.34 pm
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn). He represents the area that was the home of the Venerable Bede. On this occasion, I find myself agreeing with him entirely. Perhaps that is dangerous.
  846
  It is extraordinary that we are debating this issue as we enter the 21st century. It is an old hangover from old law and prejudices. There is a list of those people who are not allowed to stand in Parliament. They include, as we all know, undischarged bankrupts, offenders sentenced to more than one year in prison, persons convicted of corrupt practices at elections—they are disqualified for seven years—and those holding offices listed by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, which includes the class of people that we are now debating.
  It includes also senior civil servants, judges, ambassadors and members of the regular armed forces. It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce) in his place. I had the pleasure to speak after he made his powerful maiden speech. The hon. Gentleman was in the armed forces. The list continues with members of the police force and paid members of the boards of nationalised industries. How few such board members are left? Also included are Government-appointed directors of commercial companies and directors of the Bank of England.
  I will not name those who I think are disreputable and those who I believe are to be admired. However, it is astonishing that included in the list are practising clergy of the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church of Ireland and former or practising priests of the Roman Catholic Church.
  I would not wish to try to emulate or even compete with my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) in his historical knowledge, but I read some information that told me that in 1678 there was the second Test Act. It did not effectively prevent Roman Catholics from serving in Parliament, but it required them to make a declaration abjuring transubstantiation, worship of the Virgin Mary and the celebration of mass. In practice, that would bar all Roman Catholics, especially Roman Catholic priests, from serving in this place.
  There might have been a problem at that time with dual loyalty. I usually agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), and there might have been a dual loyalty between the Holy See and that of England. I am sure that now there would be no conflict of interest in, to use my right hon. Friend's word, a deity and the House of Commons. Most of us probably believe in a god of some sort, and I hope that most of us exercise our conscience from time to time. Conscience is often dictated by one's religious views, whether they be Christian, Jewish, Islam or whatever.
  I was keen to speak in the debate because I believe that one of the greatest Prime Ministers that we ever had, certainly until the 1980s, was Benjamin Disraeli. He was baptised at an early age, but if that had not happened and if he had followed the religion of his antecedents—Benjamin Disraeli is considered generally as being Jewish—he would not have been able to be Prime Minister. I think that we all agree that that would have been wrong. It is equally wrong now to say that Roman Catholic priests should be barred from membership of the House.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about Disraeli. We all know the story of why he was baptised by his father. It arose from a dispute with the synagogue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that being the supreme opportunist that he was, even if Disraeli had not

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  been baptised, he would have made sure, without the slightest hesitation, of becoming a Christian at the appropriate age so as to be able to come to this place?
  Mr. Fabricant: It is not for me to try to imagine what Benjamin Disraeli might or might not have done. I do not think that he was an opportunist. He was a patriot. He recognised that in years to come there would be a party like the Labour party, which would seek to nationalise everything. He knew that he had to create the modem Conservative party—which he did, in effect. If that is called opportunism, I say "Hear, hear". I remind the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) that new Labour tries to emulate today's Conservative party, especially that of the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Let us not have no doubt whatever about that.
  Although I do not object to the principle of the Bill, I object to the way in which it is being introduced today. As hon. Members have pointed out, the Select Committee on Home Affairs recommended in 1998 that such a Bill should be introduced in Parliament. The hon. Member for Walsall, North and I serve on that Committee, but I did not have the honour of doing so when it made that recommendation. One has to ask oneself why the Bill is being introduced now? I have to say that the answer is plain, simple opportunism, and is to do with the Labour candidate who is standing for Greenock and Inverclyde, who earlier fought for Ayr, where he was rightly rejected by the electorate.
  Incidentally, I note that in The Independent, Mr. Cairns was reported as saying that he is "confident" that the law will be changed before the next general election. I wondered how he could be so confident? After all, for my party, the Bill is to do with one's conscience and there is a free vote on a one-line Whip. As I have argued, there are good reasons for introducing the Bill, although perhaps not at this point. I popped out of the Chamber when my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) was speaking and checked with an honest and honourable Labour Member—whose name I shall not divulge in the House, lest he be hanged, drawn and quartered—who showed me his Whip. I was amazed that, for the Government, this is a three-line Whip, not a matter of conscience. Mr. Cairns therefore has every right to say that he is confident that the law will be changed before the next election.
  Dr. Godman: If I may say so, I was hoping to leave this place—but that is another story.
  May I help the hon. Gentleman by putting the record straight? He said that Mr. Cairns fought the Ayr parliamentary constituency in a previous election. That is simply not the case.
  Mr. Fabricant: I stand corrected. A previous speaker—I cannot remember who, although perhaps it was the hon. Member for Ayr (Ms Osborne)—said that about Ayr.
  Ms Osborne rose—
  Mr. Fabricant: I think that the hon. Member for Ayr wishes to intervene and set the record straight. However,
  848
  all that I am saying is that I was listening to the debate, and took that information from her. I may have misheard her, but I shall give way to her.
  Ms Osborne: It was my husband, a former Church of Scotland minister, who stood for Ayr.
  Mr. Fabricant: Earlier, I said that, although I am good at languages, I am not good at dialects. I do not mean to be offensive, but I must have misheard the hon. Lady. I happily withdraw my remark.
  Nevertheless, David Cairns is standing for election. Why have the Government left the matter for so long? I do not expect that the Government in power acted a year later on the second Test Act of 1678. However, given that the Home Affairs Committee reported on the need for change more than two years ago, it seems that the Government are motivated to make a change by introducing the Bill now to enable David Cairns to stand for the constituency of Greenock and Inverclyde and, they hope, to be elected.
  That is wrong and it is equally wrong, as I said earlier, that the Government have subjected the Bill to a three-line Whip. That breaks a sort of understanding in the House that, on matters of conscience—no matter what hon. Members have said, this is a matter of conscience—there should not be a three-line party Whip. I am rather pleased that members of my own Front Bench have demonstrated that principle. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) has yet to make his speech, but he has said already, as I have, that he supports the general principle of the Bill. However, I know that our right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald is not keen on the Bill for good reasons of religion and conscience. I do not agree with her, but she is free to oppose the Bill because Conservative Members believe that matters of conscience should remain so and should not be a question of party political opportunism.
  Mr. Tony McNulty: What a pile of nonsense.
  Mr. Fabricant: That opportunism has been created, as the Government Whip has just pointed out.
  Is the Minister aware of any Labour Members who oppose the Bill on the ground of conscience? Will they be allowed to vote against i,t or will the full might of the Government Whip be thrown at them, which, in the shape of the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), would be a very frightening prospect indeed? [Interruption.]
  Mr. Bercow: I am truly horrified by what has just been uttered by a Member from a sedentary position. Did my hon. Friend overhear the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick)—who, unless I am mistaken, is a lifelong and inveterate opponent of the death penalty—advocating the death penalty for any Labour Member foolish or brave enough to vote against the Bill?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. Perhaps it would be a good idea if we returned to the contents of the Bill.
  Mr. Fabricant: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

  849
  In conclusion, the Bill is overdue in the macro-chronology of events. It should have been introduced in the House two and a half years ago and should have been voted on according to conscience. I will support the Bill if it is put to the vote, but what would have been a renowned Bill, which would have been respected in the House, has been degraded by the Government, who have acted opportunistically, for party political ends, in their embittered fight against the Scottish National party in Scotland. For that reason alone, the Bill, as it appears before the House today, is to be deplored.
  6.47 pm
  Mr. John Redwood: I rise in response to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who argued that this is a case of allegiance. While I rush to give him historical illustrations, what I mean by saying that this is a matter of allegiance is very different from what it would have meant in the 16th century when these debates were initiated. I do not believe that, in the modern world, the problem case is that of the Catholic priest. Paradoxically, it is that of the Anglican.
  If we look at the list of disqualifications, we see that civil servants have been disqualified from membership of the House. I believe that even the present Government intend to continue that disqualification. That is sound: the argument runs that the prime loyalty of a civil servant is to the Department, the service in general and to a particular Minister who may be either in the House of Lords or the House of Commons. He may also be loyal and responsible to one Minister in the other place and another in the House of Commons. It is therefore thought inappropriate, if not impossible, for someone to stand for election, to continue that prime loyalty to an individual Minister through the civil service and, at the same time, to do the job of a Member of Parliament, exposing the pros and cons of Ministers and subjecting the Executive to the necessary scrutiny and examination. That decision is right.
  One problem in the case of the Anglican priest is that we still have an established Anglican Church. Ultimately, the Anglican priest reports to, or is responsible to, a peer in the other place. There is some similarity or analogy between the argument about the prime loyalty and allegiance of the civil servant to the Minister and the argument that the prime loyalty and allegiance of the full-time, employed priest, through those to whom he reports, is to the bishop who is sitting in the other place.
  There could be a complication, were the practising Anglican priest to secure election to the House. If his career as a priest also flourished and he was invited to become a Lord Spiritual—the ultimate honour in the Anglican Church—he would immediately have to vacate his seat in this House or be faced with a difficult and painful choice. The problem arises both for the individual and for the House as a result of the fact that the Church is still established.
  I am in favour of the Church remaining established. Perhaps the Government intend to introduce legislation to disestablish the Church, in which case the Bill would be more consistent and would make more sense, but the
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  Government are putting the cart before the horse by including serving Anglican priests in the current legislation.
  Mr. Stunell: I have been following the right hon. Gentleman's line of thought carefully. Does he think that we should pass legislation to forbid the sons of the remaining hereditary peers to stand for election to the House, on the ground that one day there might be a by-election?
  Mr. Redwood: No, that would not be sensible. Given the way the hereditary peers have been treated by this miserable Government, a further insult to them would hardly be justified or sensible.
  The Bill deals with a far more important set of cases. I hope that when the Minister responds he will try to answer my dilemma. I broadly welcome freedom. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and other colleagues, I want to open up access to the House as widely as possible. I am a democrat. I want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to come forward. I certainly do not wish to penalise anyone for having a faith other than my own.
  There are elements of the Bill that I therefore find attractive, but I am worried by the general conundrum concerning the role of an established Church. It used to mean a great deal. The relationship between Church and state has been carefully thought through and worked out.
  If the Minister wants to win over someone like me to his cause, I hope that he will explain how it is possible for us to continue—rightly, in my view—with a disqualification for a civil servant who reports to a Minister and could otherwise get into a conflict of interest, but not to have similar worries about an Anglican priest who reports to a Lord Spiritual and bears allegiance to the established Church of the country, which is still carefully interwoven with our partly written and venerable constitution. I hope that that point will be cleared up.
  I hope, also, that the Minister will say more about the timing of the legislation. I was disturbed by the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), who believes strongly that the Bill is a rush job, with a particular candidate and a particular election in mind. Good law is not made out of hard cases. These matters need considering in the general and in the round, and the relevant legislation should be put through when it is not particularly contentious.
  If it is the Government's plan to rush the legislation through before the election for electoral purposes, we can discover that if the Minister will give us an honest answer about the timing of the Bill's coming into force. I would be more swayed if he promised me that the legislation would not come into force in time for the likely general election in April or May this year. We would then know that my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield had, uncharacteristically, been too sceptical about the Government, and that they had no intention of legislating for hard cases in the run-up to an election.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Is he seriously saying that he wants to keep the disqualification on the statute book, and that he would vote for the Bill only if it did not become law until after the general election, so that someone would be prevented

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  from standing in a constituency where he might be elected to Parliament simply because he was a priest, although no longer practising as such? Is that really the right hon. Gentleman's view?
  Mr. Redwood: No, I was not saying that that was my view, but I have found out something very interesting about the Minister's intentions. Although he has not been prepared to write into the Bill, or to tell the House, the date by which he wants the legislation to pass and come into effect, we have now discovered that it is a rush job and that the Government failed to think about the matter in good time, over the past three and a half years, when we could have had a more leisurely discussion and the House could have given the Bill proper consideration. Now they suddenly have a problem and they are trying to rush the Bill through before the general election.
  I repeat that that is not a good way to legislate. I do not want to trespass on the debate that might follow on the timetable for considering the legislation, but it is relevant to this important debate on its principles that there is no date in the Bill, and that the Minister seems to have expressed the wish to move rapidly to a conclusion.
  Dr. Godman: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Redwood: I shall give way when I have dealt with the Minister's point. [Interruption.] I shall be happy to give way to the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman). This is a debate, and I am delighted that hon. Members are taking it seriously.
  I shall complete my answer to the Minister. I am not saying that people should be barred from standing for election. I have just explained that, in general, I welcome the broadening of eligibility as much as possible. However, I have raised one issue, and if the Minister can deal with that satisfactorily, he may well sway me, even as regards Anglican vicars. I have already said that I have no problem with other types of minister. I was always referring to people who are practising and are on the payroll in their Church, not to people who have ceased to be on the payroll and are moving on to an entirely different career.
  Dr. Godman: I thank the right hon. Gentleman. May I point out to him that if the Bill becomes law, it will bring us into line with the laws governing election to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly? He speaks of the relationship between the state and the Church. May I remind him that this Parliament governs a multinational state, not an English state?
  Mr. Redwood: I agree that this is a Parliament for the whole United Kingdom, but it is also the Parliament responsible for the established Church that covers the biggest part of the United Kingdom. We know that successful battles have been fought in the past to disestablish Churches in the United Kingdom. I understand why that happened, and I understand the historical context.
  There is still an established Church for the largest part of the United Kingdom, and the way in which that Church is established and its relationship to the House of Commons are important parts of our inherited constitution. I am
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  asking the Minister to explain a little more how it will be changed, damaged or improved if the legislation goes ahead. From what I have heard so far, I do not think that that issue has been thought through fully.
  The fact that the same rules do not apply in the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly does not surprise me. If, in Scotland, there is no established Church like the Anglican Church in England, there is not the same complication as the one that I raised for the Parliament of the Union. That is exactly my point. The fact that the Minister remains in his seat suggests that he cannot answer the conundrum.
  Mr. Stunell: It is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman was not present for some earlier speeches, when he would have heard a number of times that the Church of Scotland is directly affected by the legislation. In the light of that, will he reconsider his last remarks?
  Mr. Redwood: I do not need to reconsider my remarks. I did not say that the Church of Scotland was not affected by the legislation. I said that it was in a different position. I am speaking of the established Anglican Church and its relationship to this Parliament. That is not a matter for the Scottish Parliament and it is not a complication in the case of Scotland.
  Ms Osborne: The Church of Scotland is the established Church of the Scottish nation.
  Mr. Redwood: The Church of Scotland has arrangements with the Scottish Parliament different from the arrangements that the established Anglican Church has with the Parliament of the Union. That is my point. I am interested in the latter, because I am a Member of the Parliament of the Union. As the hon. Lady knows, I am not a member of either the Scottish Church or the Scottish Parliament, so that is not my direct concern. The Bill is of direct concern to the House of Commons, which is the Union Parliament and also the Parliament of the established Anglican Church.
  Mr. James Gray: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I speak as the son of the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland is an established Church in this Parliament. Its relationship to this Parliament is precisely the same as that of the Church of England.
  Mr. Redwood: I cannot accept what my hon. Friend says. Of course, the Church of Scotland has an arrangement in which this Parliament has a legitimate interest, but it does not have the same arrangement as the established Anglican Church, because of the differing histories of those Churches. I, as an Anglican and a Member of this House, am primarily interested in that relationship, which is the dominant relationship because the Anglican Church is the established Church of the largest part of the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Stuart Bell: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene as the Second Church Estates Commissioner. The Church of England fully supports the measure before the House and believes that it has no relevance or significance to the established Church.
  Mr. Redwood: I am delighted about that, but it does not surprise me. Of course the Bill provides a greater

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  freedom. If a civil servant were present and it was proposed that we should remove the disqualification of civil servants from the House of Commons, he might say that it was an excellent idea that provided greater freedom. However, that would not necessarily mean that it was the right thing to do.
  I do not want to prolong my remarks, as I know that hon. Members want to make progress. However, I hope that the Under-Secretary will clarify the Bill's bearing on the important constitutional balance that was fought over and debated for many centuries in order to achieve an established Anglican church for the greater part of the United Kingdom. Will he describe the Bill's impact on the reporting lines of the clergy in respect of Lords Spiritual? I suspect that he will argue that there is no truth in my analogy between a civil servant reporting to a Minister and a vicar reporting to a Lord Spiritual. Why does he believe that to be the case?
  7 pm
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: I rise to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), with whose remarks I agree almost entirely. I am sorry that I have not been present to hear all the speeches that have been made. I was especially sorry not to hear the one by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), who understands better than most people the history of the matters under discussion.
  The House must carefully consider any proposed changes to its composition and should not introduce them in a hurried fashion. A number of modifications have been made to the electoral system during the current Parliament. Indeed, we debated other disqualification measures last year, when the Government proposed that people who owed no allegiance to this country should nevertheless be entitled to sit in Parliament, even though the taking of an oath of allegiance is a condition of membership of this House.
  The Bill is important and deals with a matter that is not to be trifled with. Even if we live in more secular times than we used to, I greatly deplore it. Nevertheless, the Church of England is the established Church in this country. Every coin in our pockets bears testimony to that fact, as each coin of this realm carries the two letters "FD", which stand for the term "fidei defensor". Her Majesty the Queen is defender of the faith—the Anglican faith. That is inextricably bound up with this Parliament and the way in which it enacts legislation. That is why I believe that the matter should not be dealt with hurriedly.
  Miss Widdecombe: The title "fidei defensor" was granted by the Pope, and related to defence of the Catholic faith.
  Mr. Howarth: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that additional information, although it does not detract from the fact that Her Majesty is defender of the faith today. I understand that the title was conferred by the Pope on Henry VIII, so she is correct, but I hope that she will agree on today's practice, in which Her Majesty
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  is the defender of the faith. Perhaps the cardinal archbishop will have noted her enthusiasm to leap to the defence of her newly espoused Church.
  Miss Widdecombe: It was seven years ago.
  Mr. Howarth: Seven years is not a long time in my right hon. Friend's political career, past or future.
  When the Select Committee on Clergy Disqualification considered the matter in 1951, it reported that no evidence was
  "offered to Your Committee of public demand for an alteration of the law."
  The same applies today. I have not received from my constituents any letters urging me to change the law. I have not even received letters from members of the clergy in my constituency, or anywhere else in the country, urging me as a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs to bring about a change in the law. The Bill appears to have sprung out of the ether.
  Mr. Forth: Has my hon. Friend received any letters from Labour candidates asking for the law to be changed?
  Mr. Howarth: I confess that I have been sent no letters by Labour candidates, although I have received a letter from a Member of Parliament—the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). The letter begins with the words "Dear colleague" and is signed by the hon. Lady herself, who I do not think is present. It states:
  "I am writing to each of the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee to alert you to the above measure, which is receiving its second reading on Tuesday 6th February. This government Bill is entirely based on a recommendation of your committee, which in turn formed the basis of a Ten Minute Rule Bill that I introduced unsuccessfully in June 1999.
  I am taking the liberty of enclosing some notes that I have prepared."
  In the attached notes, she sets out the Church's view and explains why she believes a change in the law to be necessary. However, she does not refer to an important fact of which I have since been advised: her research assistant is intended to be the Bill's immediate beneficiary.
  I find it astonishing that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden did not come clean with me and other hon. Members. Why did she not explain that she had a clear interest, because her research assistant was a candidate in Greenock and Inverclyde and was to be the first and principal beneficiary of an extensive and wide-ranging proposal to change the law governing the composition of the House of Commons? It appears that the Bill is not a matter of conscience for the Labour party or even of implementing a recommendation made two years ago by the Home Affairs Committee. Instead, it appears that it has been produced hurriedly—indeed, I suspect that it was formulated at the last minute—in order to benefit a chosen Labour party candidate.
  I ask the Under-Secretary to imagine what would have happened if the Tories had done the same thing. Mr. Campbell would have been weaving his way around all the Fleet street editors saying, "What a disgrace. The Tories want to use Parliament to change the ancient laws of this land simply to benefit one of their own."
  Mr. Redwood: Is my hon. Friend saying that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) paid a research assistant, out of House of Commons research allowances, to produce a brief recommending a measure that would advance his future career, but not revealing that that was the case?
  Mr. Howarth: My right hon. Friend asks an important question that I cannot answer. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden is not in the House and I am relying on a briefing, so I may be entirely wrong. However, she may have paid her research assistant to produce the briefing and then have failed to tell hon. Members what was going on. It is no good the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland shaking his head. That is the perception that the Government are promoting.
  I am not against the Government saying that they have a problem. They could have told us that they had a good candidate and wanted to clear the way for him to stand for Parliament and take his seat if he was elected. They could have said that the matter focused attention on the fact that, as Professor Blackburn pointed out, the law was somewhat archaic in this respect. Furthermore, they could have told us that they wanted to seize the opportunity provided by an individual case to tidy up the law. If the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department had said that in the first place today, I would have understood. However, they did not do that. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden cited the report of the Home Affairs Committee and sought to dress up the issue as a matter of principle.
  Caroline Flint: Is it not a convention of the House that hon. Members should inform other Members if they intend to launch a personal attack on them? The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) began the onslaught. I cannot explain why my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) is not present; there may be serious reasons for her absence. However, if she is to be attacked, it would have been courteous to inform her in advance. The attack is obviously premeditated.
  Mr. Howarth: I am sorry if the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) perceives my comments as an attack on the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. Does the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden expect me to remain silent on a matter about which she has written to me, not only as another Member of Parliament but specifically as a member of the Home Affairs Committee, which produced a report that she cited to support her contention? She has claimed the Bill as hers. I cannot account for her absence today; I understand that there may be good reasons for it. However, her absence should not prevent me from taking the opportunity to point out my anxieties about the submissions that she made to me. She chose to stay away; I did not choose to exclude her from the debate.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not absolutely sure of the facts, but it is possible that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) has a very good personal reason for not being present today.
  Mr. Howarth: I am grateful for that guidance. I made the point to the hon. Member for Don Valley that there
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  may be good reasons for the absence of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. I was not criticising her for her absence. However, she took the trouble to write to me, but she did not declare that she had a specific interest in the measure. I believe that the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) is good enough to acknowledge that by nodding his head.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would be a good idea to consider the content of the Bill.
  Mr. Howarth: I am more than happy to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was trying to respond to a challenge from the hon. Member for Don Valley.
  Mr. Redwood: I should like to respond to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). My comments were not premeditated. I listened to the debate and a question occurred to me. I should be delighted if the matter could be cleared up. I was not attacking the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, but I should like to know the precise relationship that we are considering and how the research reached my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Howarth: Like my right hon. Friend, I generally support the idea that the law should be tidied up. I was a member of the Home Affairs Committee, but I was not present to vote on the conclusions of the whole report on electoral law reform. I made it clear during our discussions, when Professor Blackburn appeared before us, that currently ordained and serving clergy of the Church of England were debarred from membership of the House for the good reason, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham explained, that they are represented in the other place by the Bench of 26 bishops.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham explained why it would be difficult for a clergyman who had been ordained in the Church of England to serve in the House while answerable to his—or nowadays her—bishop, who might sit in the other place. The Anglican clergy are all over the place on some important issues, and their presence in this place would be a disaster for the Church of England, of which I am a staunch member. It would not be beneficial for the Church of England to have many practising clergy here.
  If a clergyman resigns from the Church of England and ceases to run a parish, or resigns from the Catholic Church, as Mr. Cairns has done, it is logical that such people should be able to stand for Parliament. I have no problem with that. I also have no problem with the current arrangement whereby some of the nonconformist Churches permit their ordained members to serve in the House. That seems to work, and I have no desire to turn the clock back and exclude them. However, as long as we have an established Church with 26 bishops in the other place, allowing currently practising clergy from the Church of England to serve in this place would cause difficulties and overturn the longstanding relations between the House and the Church.
  Mr. Key: I have been to the Library and confirmed that David Cairns is employed in the House out of the public purse. Does my hon. Friend share my distress at the Government's refusal to come clean about Labour Members being on a three-line Whip and at our discovery that the man who stands to benefit directly and financially

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  from the Bill works for a Labour Member of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster? The Government did not tell us that.
  Mr. Howarth: You have already ruled on the matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but perhaps you will permit me to say that, sad to say, my hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. What would the Minister think if the Government were Tory and had put Conservative Members on a three-line Whip? The Opposition would have gone berserk. I do not oppose the Government's attempt to change the law, because some legislation is anachronistic and needs reforming. However, that is not the reason that the Government advanced.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I do not want my position to be traduced in the way some hon. Members have traduced it. I introduced David Cairns to the debate. I mentioned him first and pointed out that he was a Labour candidate. I also said that I believed that, whatever political party a candidate represents, it is right that legislation should not prevent electors from voting for that person. I believe that the hon. Gentleman shares that view.
  Mr. Howarth: I am sure that hon. Members are grateful to the Minister for making that absolutely clear. I am also acutely aware that a former hon. Friend sought to change the law. I do not oppose the principle of the Bill, but it is unfortunate that the reason for it was not made clear at the outset. I accept that the Minister mentioned it in his opening speech, but we should have advance knowledge of the reasons for measures. We know why the Criminal Justice and Police Bill and the Hunting Bill were introduced. However, I had to get a briefing from the Library to learn the reason for the Bill that we are discussing. I subsequently received the letter from the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden that said that she had introduced a ten-minute Bill in 1999. I picked up a briefing this morning on which I read Mr. David Cairns name. I therefore discovered the true purpose of the Bill only this morning.
  Mr. Fabricant: I was present for the opening speeches. The Minister was less than open, unusually for him, when I asked him whether there was a three-line Whip. He did not volunteer the information that David Cairns is a paid employee who works in the House.
  Mr. Howarth: I understand my hon. Friend's point.
  I shall not support the Bill in the Lobby. I do not believe that we should stick to the status quo, but I oppose the proposal that all clergy, whatever their denomination, whether currently practising or not, should be allowed to stand for the House of Commons. I believe that Church of England clergy should be excepted because they are answerable to their bishops who sit in another place.
  7.20 pm
  Mr. John Bercow: This has been a good and instructive debate, to which 14 right hon. and hon. Members have contributed. This is a grim, and arguably gruesome, occasion for me because it is one of the relatively rare—and, I hope, decreasingly common—
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  occasions on which I find myself substantially in agreement with Labour Members, to whose defeat I have dedicated the past four years. I also find myself somewhat out of sympathy with a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which is a deeply uncomfortable experience.
  Rarely do I agree with the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and I feel somewhat unclean at the prospect of siding with him in a Division. However, Conservative Members have a free vote and, in the event of a Division, I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends will not all go into the same Lobby. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) made it clear that she had substantial reasons for conscientious objection to the Bill, which would cause her to vote against it. For my part, I have studied the Bill and the sequence of events that form the centuries-long background to its introduction, and I am sympathetic to it.
  The presentation of the Bill has, however, been badly handled, shabbily introduced and inappropriately conducted in typical new Labour fashion—in other words, in a disingenuous, untoward, hasty and arrogant fashion that is contemptuous of the rights of the House of Commons. Nevertheless, one has to make a judgment about the content of the Bill, and I agree with its provisions.
  There have been good, well-considered and carefully thought through contributions from both sides of the House. In circumstances such as these, we should try to disagree with one another while respecting one another's motivations. I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Ms Ryan), who argued the classic position in support of the Bill that keeping the disqualification on the statute book was undemocratic, a violation of rights and an historical anachronism, and that the time had now come to dispense with it. A similar argument was developed in witty and entertaining fashion by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) and, with his customary gravitas, by the parliamentary representative of the Church Commissioners, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell).
  We are accustomed to the historical exegesis of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), which I always find entertaining and from which I always learn things of which I was previously ignorant. His speech today represented no exception to the general rule.
  I understand and respect the motivation of the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) and I accept without question his assurance that his constituency Labour party selected Mr. Cairns in ignorance, perhaps, of his background, but, certainly, of the fact that unless the law were changed, he could not take his seat in Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) made a perfectly legitimate point about the level of intelligence, or information, in that constituency Labour party. That is a fair point to make, but I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde that his constituency party did not know that this problem would arise. It is now for the House to decide how we want to tackle the issue.
  Dr. Godman: I think that I used the term "justifiable" in my arguments about my constituency activists. May I

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  point out to the hon. Gentleman that a large number of my constituents are Catholics, and that the Catholic Church in Scotland supports the Bill?
  Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, and I shall go on to say something about support for the Bill in a moment. May I also clarify an observation that I made a moment ago, which was possibly infelicitous? When I referred to the intelligence level of people in the constituency Labour party, I was not suggesting that they were dim-witted. I used the word "intelligence" in the sense of the possession of information.
  The hon. Member for Ayr (Ms Osborne) explained clearly the background to her strong support for the Bill, and that is respected. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst gave a characteristic tour de force, and he was joined in that enterprise by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth).
  It is not surprising to note that my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) is a supporter of the Bill, as he frequently supports the reform of institutions that he judges to have become antiquated and indefensible. He gave us another example today of his relatively modern outlook on politics. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) is no longer in the Chamber. He, too, made a sincere contribution, and that is respected.
  The position on disqualification is obviously anomalous. Whatever view we take, we all recognise that. The disqualification applies to some people and not to others. It applies to members of the clergy in the Church of England and Ireland—but not Wales—to ministers in the Church of Scotland, to Roman Catholic priests, significantly, and to priests ordained by a bishop, all of whom are disqualified from sitting in this House.
  There are no similar disqualifications for ministers of other religions. Nonconformist ministers are unaffected by the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801 and the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. We are, therefore, specifically concerned with the practical effect of the 19th century legislation, which is to constrain non-Church of England, former episcopally ordained priests, including Roman Catholic priests.
  I shall not dilate on the MacManaway case. However, an awareness of that case and the follow-up to it are essential to an understanding of the issue. The individual concerned, the reverend, had been ordained a priest in 1925 by the Bishop of Armagh, but subsequently relinquished all his rights as a priest in the Church of Ireland. The question arose as to whether his election in 1950 in Belfast, West should be allowed to stand.
  The Minister, who is undoubtedly well versed in the intricacies of the matter, will be aware that a Select Committee considered whether Mr. MacManaway's election was void. In a report in 1950, it concluded that immediate legislative action was necessary to clarify the law. Regrettably, the Home Secretary at the time referred the issue to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council at the request of this House, and that Committee concluded that the use of the words
  "ordained to the office of priest or deacon"
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  meant that that disqualification extended beyond priests and ministers of the established Church to all episcopal ordinations.
  I challenged the hon. Member for Enfield, North earlier on the subject of the rather pusillanimous response of the Select Committee on Clergy Disqualification as long ago as 1952–53. I emphasise that point, to which I know all my right hon. and hon. Friends are keenly attending, because the Select Committee recognised that the situation was anomalous. It then pondered whether to recommend reform, but timidly retreated from the fray. It stated in memorable and, frankly, damning words:
  "Your Committee think that it would not be desirable to introduce any legislation to deal with the anomalies ahead of any general legislation which may hereafter be contemplated to deal with the qualifications and disqualifications of Members generally."
  In a nutshell, that meant that the Select Committee at the time saw that there was a problem, worried that it was a hornet's nest and did not want to stir it up. I politely suggest that, 48 or 49 years on from its inconclusive and hedging report, there is now a good case for acting and for not allowing the problem to fester any longer.
  Two key developments have brought us to where we are now. The first is the Select Committee on Home Affairs report of 1997–98 on electoral law administration. Giving evidence in that report, Professor Robert Blackburn, whose contribution was mentioned earlier, said that answering the question "Can a priest stand for Parliament?" involved consulting no fewer than nine separate Acts dating back to the 16th century. Significantly, the professor also said:
  "The present situation whereby the disqualification of clergy operates in a discriminatory fashion between different faiths is no longer acceptable."
  Many, and perhaps most, right hon. and hon. Members agree with that verdict. If we agree with that verdict, if we believe that there is a case for change and if we consider there to be no reason for the discrimination to persist, I do not believe that objections to the procedure—there will be a free vote, however—and to the Government's rather grubby handling of the matter should allow us to neglect the big issue, which is whether the Bill is right or wrong.
  Miss Widdecombe: It is wrong.
  Mr. Bercow: My right hon. Friend, chuntering from a sedentary position, suggests to me that the Bill is wrong. I say to my distinguished boss, who will be Home Secretary in a matter of weeks, that she thinks that I am wrong, but I know that she is. That will have to do for tonight as that was a risky thing to say to the person who will soon be Home Secretary.
  Sir Teddy Taylor: Although many may agree with my hon. Friend that it is wrong to discriminate between different faiths when considering whether people are eligible for election, does he agree that it seems a bit daft to go ahead with the Bill when we are doing nothing about the most appalling discrimination in the other place? The Home Affairs Committee report referred to the Church of England, which has a number of bishops sitting in the other place even though other Churches such as my own and the Church of Scotland have no entitlement whatever. Instead of introducing a Bill to sort out a problem for one

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  candidate in one seat, would it not be wiser to consider discrimination between the faiths throughout the parliamentary system?
  Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend speaks a lot of good sense, but my response must be that two wrongs do not make a right. I share his enthusiasm for speedy Government action to reform the composition of the other place. For my part, I favour a fully elected second Chamber and wish to goodness that the Government would get on with that important project. However, the fact that they have chosen not to do so in no way justifies us failing to take the right decision on the merits of this case, although the overall position lacks consistency and has no rational basis. It ought to be changed.
  I must tease right hon. and hon. Members about matters tactical for future reference. They had a good case, but they spoiled it in two material particulars, at least as far as I and, I suspect, many of my right hon. and hon. Friends are concerned. First, most Conservatives—certainly those of us here present—could not give a tinker's cuss as to the view of the European convention on human rights about the matter. The fact that we might be under pressure from the European convention or as a result of passing the iniquitous, ghastly, risible, detestable Human Rights Act 1998 matters not a jot as far as many of us are concerned.
  Secondly, Labour Members should not ruin the argument by jabbering on about the merits of Father Bruce. I refer, of course, to the fortunately defeated Labour candidate in the Oxford, West and Abingdon constituency in 1992. If there were one good reason to keep the discrimination, it might conceivably be to keep out the discredited former leader of communists, neutralists and defeatists. Really, that cuts no ice with me. Even though I have no regard for Monsignor Kent, I could not bring myself to do other than support the Bill in a Division. I could not have brought myself to do other than that even when he was standing for Parliament and would have taken his seat in the House if elected.
  I make my final observation by way of an appeal to some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. As Conservatives, we oppose wholesale change and we believe in gradual reform. We favour evolutionary rather than revolutionary development, but we most certainly do not oppose change on principle. My view, which hails from that of Burke, the father of modern Conservatism and one of the most distinguished statesmen ever to serve in the House, is as follows:
  "The state which lacks the means of change lacks the means of its own conservation."
  A good case has been made. The content of the Bill is sound. We can no longer defend the current iniquity. That is why, if there is a Division, I for one shall vote for the Bill, though I know that many will be inclined to do the opposite.
  7.34 pm
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: With the leave of the House, I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) for supporting a measure introduced by the Labour Government, which he will not do often. I wish
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  that I could thank the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), but we shall wait and see how she votes.
  I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Buckingham. In passing, I remind him that the support given by Conservative Front Benchers to the Human Rights Act 1998 is noted by us and will be commented on by us at every possible opportunity. May I deal with the free vote and the Whip? The Conservatives have a free vote because their Front Benchers are split. As usual, they are rowing among themselves, but they want to make a virtue out of a quarrel. Just because they cannot agree does not mean that everyone else has the same problem.
  Labour Members are united: we oppose discrimination; we oppose the disqualification of priests; we support equality; we support the Bill. This is a Government Bill, it is whipped and the Whip will be applied, but Labour Members, even on a three-line Whip, are not obliged to vote against their consciences. If any consider the Bill to represent an issue of conscience, they can exercise their conscience. Furthermore, Opposition Members are under a one-line Whip. They are not only split, but have been told that they need not even bother to turn up for the vote. We heard all that verbiage and nonsense about matters of conscience, but this is not enough of a matter of conscience to make the Opposition ask their Members to turn up to vote. That is the shambles of today's Conservative party, but enough of party politics: let us deal with the more serious points raised by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald.
  The right hon. Lady does not believe that priests should be both Members of the House and practising holy orders. I understand that view, but, with the greatest respect, that is not the issue. Whether priests should be MPs is a matter for the internal rules of their Church. The issue is whether the state should intervene to forbid priests of the Catholic Church, the Church of England and the Scottish Church from being MPs when most other religions encounter no such state prohibition. The Government believe that the state should not exercise that prohibition, but should leave it to the people to decide who their representatives should be and to the Churches to decide their own internal rules.
  The right hon. Lady also said that she did not believe that a priest should sit in this place. Although David Cairns remains a priest under canon law, he no longer practises as a priest and no longer celebrates mass. That does not mean that he is not a practising Catholic, which he remains. The law, because of the way in which canon law operates, forbids him from becoming a Member of Parliament. I believe that that is wrong. Obviously, the right hon. Lady is entitled to her own view. However, if she believes that no clergyman—even a man not practising his holy orders—should be allowed to sit in the Chamber, does she therefore favour extending the ban to cover all ordained ministers, such as the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) and the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley)?
  Miss Widdecombe: Theology is not much discussed these days, but the Minister will know that there is a massive difference between priest and minister—and I said "priest".
  Mr. O'Brien: The right hon. Lady did indeed say "priest", but if she takes the principled view that those

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  who are ordained should not be Members of the House, surely she cannot seek to use the law of the state to exclude only Catholics and members of the established Church.
  The right hon. Lady also asked why we have not used the Representation of the People Act 2000 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to make the changes. There are a number of reasons, and the obvious one is that the short titles did not allow it, although we could have dealt with that. At that time, we were awaiting responses from the Churches to inquiries about their views and, following the publication of the Home Affairs Committee report and the selection of David Cairns as a candidate, we wanted to ensure that we knew those views before legislating.
  Let me add that at that stage we were not sure whether the legislation was needed. We were exploring the possibility of non-legislative means and considering whether there was a way in which, within the law, David Cairns could become a Member of Parliament. Following a full investigation, the level of doubt was high enough to make us feel that we should present this Bill.
  Miss Widdecombe: I thank the Minister for his elucidation, but two issues are being considered. The first is the case of David Cairns, an ex-Roman Catholic priest; the second is the question of serving clergy.
  It was always clear that the second issue would have to be addressed through the law, and that there would never be any question of a non-legislative option. I think that the Minister is trying to make the best of a very bad job. He knew about the position for a long time, but did not do anything about it until faced with an immediate case. We have already dealt with the disqualifications legislation; the word "disqualifications" should have made it possible to encompass this provision in that Bill.
  Mr. O'Brien: The right hon. Lady is not making an entirely unfair point. It is because we are now faced with the case of a particular individual who wishes to stand for Parliament, and who would be excluded under existing legislation, that allowing the current law to stand has become an immediate question of unfairness. I have always been clear about the fact that the David Cairns case is the reason for urgency. As the hon. Member for Buckingham said, the existing law is wrong, and it would be unjust to allow that law to prevent someone's election because of that person's former membership of the priesthood.
  The right hon. Lady said that the process was all too rushed. I think that after 200 years we are entitled to argue that when a case such as the one we are discussing arises, getting rid of prejudice—far from being too rushed—is long overdue.
  The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) asked why we had waited so long. To some extent, I have already dealt with that. Parliamentary time is always at a premium, and many members of the hon. Gentleman's party constantly demand the presentation of this or that Bill. Members of Parliament are here to be legislators, after all, but the injustice of David Cairns's position is manifest, which is why we had to present our Bill now. That is not opportunist; we are dealing with the practical circumstances of an individual, and a case of injustice would have had to be dealt with had we not presented the
  864
  Bill. The hon. Gentleman may not care about injustice. He may well feel that those who seek to deal with a particular injustice are mere opportunists. I say that this is a matter of principle—and I am glad to note that the hon. Gentleman will support it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Ms Ryan) said that we were discussing an issue of equality. It is indeed the case that the Catholic Church, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland are subject to restrictions that are not placed on other religions. It is time to end that inequality.
  In what I considered to be the best speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Ms Osborne) said that this was an issue of principle, regardless of whether David Cairns was involved. She was entirely right. We should all heed her description of the problems that arose in her constituency and the way in which she and her husband were personally affected—it lent a particular conviction to her passionate contribution.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) set out his case with characteristic clarity and, again, passion. He asked whether a priest could renounce the priesthood. Catholic priests can be defrocked; indeed, a Catholic priest who had committed child abuse in my constituency was defrocked yesterday. I am very pleased about that, as I cannot think of a better case for defrocking, but David Cairns—whose case has brought this issue to the fore—is not a defrocked priest, but a priest who no longer celebrates mass and acts as a priest. He cannot cease to be a priest without enormous difficulty, which is why we should ensure that he is not prevented from becoming a Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Edward Leigh: The Minister rightly says that no one should be disqualified from holding an office in the state, serving this Parliament or otherwise, simply because of his or her religion. Do the Government consider that that applies to the position of head of state?
  Mr. O'Brien: There are always exceptions to every rule, and there are always exceptions relating to those who can stand for Parliament. The hon. Gentleman was not present earlier—I know where he was: no doubt he was working very hard on the Hunting Bill—but if he had been, he would have heard the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) list all the people who, for various reasons, were prevented from standing for Parliament. I certainly accept that in many instances there were justifiable reasons for restricting their candidature, but this is not such a case.
  We listened carefully to the hon. Member for Belfast, South. He has the benefit of being ordained, and as an ordained person he illustrated the value of not shutting the doors, as he put it, on members of other religions who are also ordained.
  I turn now to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), which I always do with particular pleasure. He said that the Labour party in Greenock and Inverclyde had selected someone in breach of the law. As I have said, the law was unclear at the time, and the party cannot therefore be challenged on that basis.
  I welcomed the right hon. Gentleman's support for the principle, although I do not think he liked the Bill or its timing. I hope I have been straightforward about why the timing was necessary.

  865
  The right hon. Gentleman seemed to question the loyalty of Catholics to this country. Catholics will be deeply offended by his comments. He says he does not care about that, and it is certainly his right to make such comments, but I think he will find that many conclude that some of the old prejudices are still rampant on the Conservative Back Benches. I suspect that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald will have to watch her back.
  Mr. Winnick: I do not know whether my hon. Friend was present when I intervened on the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), but his questioning—it could only be described as such—of Catholic loyalty to this country, and having a wider loyalty, was surely unacceptable and, indeed, downright disgraceful.
  Mr. O'Brien: I agree. The right hon. Gentleman always seeks to be provocative, and on this occasion he was indeed provocative. There is no justification for questioning the loyalty of Catholics to this country: many sacrifice their lives fighting for it and seeking to protect it. I am sure that, on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman will feel that his comments were unjustified.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that Catholic priests would not come here because the Church would not allow them to do so; but former priests will, I think. The Church of England is content for its clergy to be here if they choose to be so, but it is indeed the case that the Catholic Church does not allow practising priests to become MPs.
  In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) asked why a priest who no longer acted as such should be banned from Parliament, while a rabbi, mullah or Methodist minister could be an MP. That, I think, sums up the Government's basic case.
  The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst asked another question, which I forgot to mention earlier: he asked whether there would be enough time to deal with the Bill before the election. I can only say, "I hope so; I do not know; wait and see." He also asked for the commencement date of the legislation. It will come into force by Royal Assent, and an amendment will be tabled for that purpose at the Committee stage. He asked about the definition of "minister". It is in the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1978. I do not think that we have had any problems with that definition, and we are relying on it.
  The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) asked whether a Church of England minister could be subject to instructions from a bishop. I thought the analogy with a civil servant's allegiance to a Government Minister was particularly spurious, but there is no evidence to suggest that a Church of England minister who became an MP would be suborned by a bishop, whether he belonged to the Church of England or the Church of Scotland.
  The right hon. Gentleman began to dig a deep hole for himself when he challenged the established position of the Church of Scotland. At that point, it looked rather as
  866
  though he had wandered into the debate at a late stage, with a speech that he had not particularly considered. Indeed, I think that that is exactly what had happened.
  Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman does me less than justice. I was very clear about the different established position of the Anglican Church and its very special relationship with both Houses of Parliament. He has also not done justice to the question that I asked. Will he explain to the House what difference it will make to the role of the established Church if junior members of the priesthood of the established Church can be Members of Parliament, in the lower House, when the spiritual peers are in the upper House?
  Mr. O'Brien: I can see no particular change that that would create in relation to the established Church. A bishop would not seek to suborn a Member of this place. That is just not going to happen, and it is an entirely spurious point. The right hon. Gentleman can accept that or not, but it is certainly my view.
  Mr. Stuart Bell: May I echo the position that the Minister has just confirmed? It is totally impossible for the Church to suborn its bishops in the Lords and have them vote in a particular way. The idea that they could suborn a Member of Parliament is ridiculous.
  Mr. O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He proves the point that I was making about the way in which the right hon. Member for Wokingham made his point.
  Whatever justification there may or may not have been in the past, there can now be no reason to keep measures on the statute book that prevent ordained clergy, though they be few in number, from being elected to serve in this place. The Government are firmly of the view that Catholic priests should have similar status to Church of England clergy and that both should be able to present themselves to the electorate unless they have a voice in another place.
  The Bill is a small but significant measure that will remove unfair and anachronistic legislation that prevents both serving and former ministers of religion from taking seats as Members of Parliament if they are elected. It deserves the support of all hon. Members and I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.

  House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Bill (Programme)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That the following provisions shall apply to the House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Bill:

  House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Bill (Programme)

    Committee
    1. The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
    2. Proceedings in the Committee of the whole House shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at Eight o'clock on the day on which those proceedings are commenced or, if that day is Thursday, at Five o'clock on that day.

    Consideration and Third Reading
    3. Any proceedings on consideration, and proceedings on Third Reading, shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at Ten o'clock on that day or, if that day is Thursday, at Seven o'clock on that day.
    Programming Committees
    4. Sessional Order B (Programming Committees) made by the House on 7th November 2000 shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House or on consideration and Third Reading.

    Lords amendments and further messages from the Lords
    5. Paragraphs (6) and (7) of Sessional Order A (varying and supplementing programme motions) made by the House on 7th November 2000 shall not apply to proceedings on any motion to vary or supplement this order for the purpose of allocating time to proceedings on consideration of any Lords amendments, or on any further messages from the Lords, and the question on any such motion shall be put forthwith.—[Mr. Mike O'Brien.]
    7.52 pm
    Mr. Bercow: I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), chose to move the motion formally because it is a matter of the greatest importance. We have just had a debate about the merits or demerits of the Bill itself, and now we proceed to the issue of its consideration and the time allotted thereto.
    I am not remotely embarrassed by the fact that there were differences of opinion among Opposition Members about the Bill's merits, and I tell the Minister—who, in fairness, in a slightly light-hearted and good-natured fashion teased us about those "divisions"—that it is not surprising that there should be such differences. We are talking about an issue of conscience rather than one of party politics. Just because the new robots who permeate the Labour Benches all subscribe to the same view—because that is what they are told they have to do upon pain of the most dire consequences being visited upon them—it does not follow that Conservative Members operate on a similar basis. I am not at all embarrassed by the fact that there are genuine differences of opinion among Opposition Members about a matter that should not be party political.
    The question that we have now to consider is whether the Government's proposed allocation of time for the Bill is adequate. The first point is that—on this occasion, as on so many previous occasions when we have debated a timetable motion—it is peculiarly difficult, if not impossible, to state with confidence whether the time will be adequate. One of the principal reasons why, at this stage, we can have no idea whether the proposed time will be adequate is that we do not know how or to what extent right hon. and hon. Members will seek to amend the Bill. Without knowing how many amendments there will be, how complicated their content will be, or how strongly held opinions on both sides of the House might be, it is absurd to speculate on whether there will be sufficient time to consider the issues.
    The Government's programme motion clearly states:
    "The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House."
    For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that that proposal in itself is right and proper. This is a constitutional measure, and it is perfectly reasonable that it should be
    868
    considered by a Committee of the whole House. However, the Government's subsequent proposals in the motion are singularly inadequate. Paragraph 2 states:
    "Proceedings in the Committee of the whole House shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at Eight o'clock on the day on which those proceedings are commenced or, if that day is Thursday, at Five o'clock on that day."
    We are invited to conclude, I say to this packed and attentive Chamber, that that will be adequate time for our deliberations. Judging by today's debate, however, I am not at all sure that there will be adequate time. In today's debate, including my own speech and the Minister's reply, there were no fewer than 16 speeches. The subject of those 16 speeches was the general principles of the Bill, the background to it, the rationale for it and the likely consequences of it. We were of course also talking about a Bill with two clauses and two schedules.
    Mr. Mike O'Brien: Perhaps I can gently tease the hon. Gentleman with the fact that sitting with him on the Front Bench is one Whip and sitting behind him are three Opposition Back Benchers who are obviously very worked up about the Bill. It seems that among the assembled ranks of the Conservative Opposition there is not, as he suggests, great interest in either the programme motion or the Bill itself. Moreover, he supports the Bill.
    Mr. Bercow: I do support the Bill, and I am not overly embarrassed about that. I am, however, grateful for small mercies. It is the most enormous relief to me—it will save me the loss of sleep that I otherwise would have incurred—that I have not had to go through the Lobby with the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). That is obviously very satisfying from my point of view.
    Nevertheless, the Under-Secretary is right that I support the Bill. However, I think that he is unwise—indeed, rash—to make the observation that he has just made. The first point is that some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have been strenuously devoting themselves to the terms of the Bill since we began debate shortly after 3.30 pm. Consequently, although we all know the fearsome constitution of the Under-Secretary, some of my hon. Friends have repaired for cups of tea.
    My second observation—or prediction, and only time will tell whether I am right or the Minister is correct—is that when we consider the Bill in a Committee of the whole House, there will be far more than merely three of my hon. Friends behind me. Several hon. Members will be wanting conscientiously and in detail to consider and to speak in support of or in opposition to not only the Bill's clauses, but the amendments that have been tabled.
    Mr. O'Brien: How many hon. Members?
    Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman challenges me, rather vulgarly, to say precisely how many hon. Members will attend the debate. I am not psychic; that is not among my qualities. I do not know and I cannot be sure, but I say confidently that it will be more than three. I also say that, just as size is not everything—I have very good reason for regularly making that point—numbers are not everything either. Despite our disagreement on this issue, I would sooner have one of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) than six dozen of the right hon. and hon. Members who pepper the Government Benches.
    Mr. Stunell: May I give the hon. Gentleman one very small sliver of comfort? Liberal Democrats Members also

    869
    support the Bill and oppose the programme motion, for many of the reasons that he is outlining. We also believe that size is not everything.
    Mr. Bercow: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman and I respect his good intentions. However, I am bound to say—I hope that he will not take it the wrong way—that I do not know whether that intervention and that assurance of Liberal Democrat support for the official Opposition's position is intended to make me feel better or worse. We shall have to see. It is rare indeed to have a Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance in this House.
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that I for one feel extremely strongly about the Bill. I have nothing against Catholics; if the Catholic Church wants its ordained members to stand for Parliament, that is fine by me. In the debate on Second Reading I explained why I take issue with my own Church, the Church of England. I did not call for a vote at the end of that debate as I wanted to spare my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) the personal humiliation of having to go into the Lobby with Labour Members, instead of joining me, as he so often does.
    Mr. Bercow: I am indebted to my hon. Friend. His natural kindliness and his conscientious regard for my preservation are greatly appreciated. However, I know that the Minister is not at all embarrassed about the Government's draconian behaviour and that he will want me to return to the point that I was making about timing.
    The key part of the motion states:
    "Proceedings in the Committee of the whole House shall … be brought to a conclusion at Eight o'clock on the day on which those proceedings commenced."
    For the edification of people outside the House listening to our proceedings, I must explain that that means that if there is a statement after 3.30 pm—which is commonplace, especially when the Government are keen to truncate consideration of a Bill—it is possible that we would not start consideration of the Bill until 4.30.
    If the Government were inconsiderate and malicious enough to hold two statements on that day—and those statements might be followed by a Bill under the ten-minute rule—it is entirely conceivable that consideration would not begin until 5.30. The House would therefore have two and a half hours to digest, consider and pronounce a verdict on a Bill that is a crucial constitutional measure and to which an unknown number of amendments might have been tabled.
    The Minister must not underestimate the Bill's significance. He said that it was small but important. He is right; it is not a megameasure, but it is important, with potentially important ramifications. We should have adequate time in which to debate it.
    The motion suggests that, if Committee consideration of the Bill falls on a Thursday, we should finish by 5 o'clock. However, it is entirely conceivable that any statements on a Thursday might run until 2 o'clock or even 2.30, so that proposal is, frankly, alarming.
    The Government display an overall disdain for the House—habitually, unselfconsciously, and almost unknowingly. That is what so distresses Opposition
    870
    Members. Even those of us who consider, as I do, that the Bill is sound in principle, believe that the House ought to be able to look at the detail and that the Government should be willing to entertain any amendments that might be tabled.
    I am very confident that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst will table a number of amendments to the Bill, and I should not be surprised if other Conservative Members also have proposals in mind to improve it. We need proper time to consider such proposals but, so far, it is not clear that that time will be made available.
    The Minister is usually fairly candid in his public utterances, but he is being a little shifty about the Government's intentions. My right hon. Fried the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst challenged him in characteristically robust fashion about whether the Government intended and expected to get the Bill through both Houses of Parliament before the general election. There was a slight twinkle in the Minister's eye and what bordered on a smirk on his face when he said that he did not know and that we would have to wait and see.
    To judge by the Government's enthusiasm for the rights of the prospective Labour candidate for Greenock and Inverclyde—and I do not cavil at that enthusiasm—they will break a leg to ensure that the Bill is rammed through Parliament in time for the general election. They will do that with no regard for the reservations that some of my colleagues feel about the Bill.
    It is a great pity that the Government should display such haste in this matter, and such indifference to the rights of the Opposition.
    Mr. O'Brien: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that he would prefer that the Bill were not put through the House before the general election, as the Government hope to do? If so, is he suggesting that the law as it stands should be allowed to prevent David Cairns from standing for Parliament?
    Mr. Bercow: The answer is simple. Speaking for myself, I do not suggest for a moment that a deliberate attempt should be made to prevent the passage of the Bill in order to frustrate the legitimate political ambitions of the prospective parliamentary candidate for Greenock and Inverclyde. However, getting the Bill right is the paramount—indeed, the only—consideration in my mind, as it should be in the Minister's mind.
    I do not know Mr. David Cairns, who may or may not be an estimable fellow. I have no strong feelings about him either way. I defend his rights, as I would those of other people, but Parliaments's overriding responsibility is to pass good law and to prevent the passage of bad law. To ensure that we achieve that, we need adequate time. My concern is that we do not have that.
    The Government should have been prepared to consult on the matter. Instead, they indulged in their usual hole-and-corner and devious manoeuvres. Had they not done so, we might have reached a better outcome than the motion before the House this evening.
    8.6 pm
    Mr. David Heath: I find myself in uncharacteristic agreement with the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). As my hon. Friend the

    871
    Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) said, we support the Bill and want it to reach the statute book. We appreciate that there are good reasons why the Minister should want to press it through the House with a degree of urgency, but the timetable on which the Government are insisting has not been debated or discussed. They are trying to railroad it through the House—an attitude that Liberal Democrat Members find deplorable.
    As we have said, we will be happy to vote against the motion, if it comes to a vote. We do not believe that the House's business should be conducted in that way. No amendment has been tabled yet, and we do not know how much consideration will be required by those hon. Members with an interest in the Bill, yet the Government have insisted on this programme motion. We oppose it for that reason, and urge the Government to think again.
    I do not think that the Government's action is hole-and-corner or deceitful. It is a quite flagrant abuse of the House to use programme motions on every Bill, yet that is what the Government have done since this Session began. However, it is perverse for Opposition Members to stand up and complain at great length about lack of time on programme motions.
    I shall not detain the House, beyond making it clear that we do not believe that this is the right way for business to be conducted.
    8.7 pm
    Mr. Mike O'Brien: The Bill is straightforward, with two clauses and two consequential schedules. Clause 1 is the substantial and major clause, as clause 2 deals merely with the Bill's short title, commencement and extent. I cannot see any great need for prolonged debate on the Floor of the House on the detail of the Bill: there was not even a Division on Second Reading, so the level of controversy aroused is clearly minimal.
    The Government's proposals for the timetable motion are in order and entirely reasonable. I believe that the House should be able to deal with the Bill within that time scale.
    Question put:—
    The House proceeded to a Division—
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
    The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 570.

    Division No. 106]

    [8.9 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

    Best, Harold

    Ainger, Nick

    Blackman, Liz

    Allen, Graham

    Blears, Ms Hazel

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Borrow, David

    Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Austin, John

    Brinton, Mrs Helen

    Banks, Tony

    Browne, Desmond

    Barron, Kevin

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Battle, John

    Burden, Richard

    Bayley, Hugh

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Benton, Joe

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    872

    Cann, Jamie

    Hendrick, Mark

    Caplin, Ivor

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Caton, Martin

    Heppell, John

    Cawsey, Ian

    Hesford, Stephen

    Chaytor, David

    Hill, Keith

    Clapham, Michael

    Hinchliffe, David

    Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Hope, Phil

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Clelland, David

    Howells, Dr Kim

    Coaker, Vernon

    Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Cohen, Harry

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Coleman, Iain

    Hurst, Alan

    Colman, Tony

    Hutton, John

    Connarty, Michael

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Cooper, Yvette

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Corbett, Robin

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Corston, Jean

    Jamieson, David

    Cousins, Jim

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Cox, Tom

    Cranston, Ross

    Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

    Crausby, David

    Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Cummings, John

    Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Joyce, Eric

    Darvill, Keith

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Davidson, Ian

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Kemp, Fraser

    Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Dawson, Hilton

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Lammy, David

    Dobbin, Jim

    Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

    Doran, Frank

    Laxton, Bob

    Dowd, Jim

    Lepper, David

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Leslie, Christopher

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

    Edwards, Huw

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Efford, Clive

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Ennis, Jeff

    Lock, David

    Etherington, Bill

    Love, Andrew

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    McCabe, Steve

    Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

    McCafferty, Ms Chris

    Flint, Caroline

    McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

    Flynn, Paul

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    McDonnell, John

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    McFall, John

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    McGrady, Eddie

    Foulkes, George

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Galloway, George

    McIsaac, Shona

    Gapes, Mike

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

    McNulty, Tony

    Gerrard, Neil

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    McWilliam, John

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Godsiff, Roger

    Mallaber, Judy

    Goggins, Paul

    Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Martlew, Eric

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Maxton, John

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Meale, Alan

    Grocott, Bruce

    Merron, Gillian

    Hain, Peter

    Michael, Rt Hon Alun

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Hanson, David

    Miller, Andrew

    Healey, John

    Moffatt, Laura

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

    873

    Morley, Elliot

    Sarwar, Mohammad

    Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Shipley, Ms Debra

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    Mudie, George

    Skinner, Dennis

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    Naysmith, Dr Doug

    Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Olner, Bill

    Snape, Peter

    Organ, Mrs Diana

    Spellar, John

    Osborne, Ms Sandra

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    Palmer, Dr Nick

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Pearson, Ian

    Stevenson, George

    Pickthall, Colin

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Pike, Peter L

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Plaskitt, James

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Pollard, Kerry

    Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

    Pond, Chris

    Stuart, Ms Gisela

    Pope, Greg

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Powell, Sir Raymond

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Prescott, Rt Hon John

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Purchase, Ken

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Rammell, Bill

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Rapson, Syd

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Raynsford, Nick

    Tipping, Paddy

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Todd, Mark

    Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

    Touhig, Don

    Trickett, Jon

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Rooney, Terry

    Turner, Neil (Wigan)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Roy, Frank

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Ruane, Chris

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Ruddock, Joan

    Watts, David

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    White, Brian

    Salter, Martin

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    874

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

    Woodward, Shaun

    Woolas, Phil

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Wright, Tony (Cannock)

    Wills, Michael

    Winnick, David

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Mr. Clive Betts and

    Wood, Mike

    Mr. Mike Hall.

    NOES

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Livsey, Richard

    Bercow, John

    Llwyd, Elfyn

    Body, Sir Richard

    MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

    Brand, Dr Peter

    Malins, Humfrey

    Burnett, John

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Burstow, Paul

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

    Flight, Howard

    Oaten, Mark

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Öpik, Lembit

    Fraser, Christopher

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Rendel, David

    Gidley, Sandra

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Gill, Christopher

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

    Sanders, Adrian

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Shepherd, Richard

    Greenway, John

    Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

    Grieve, Dominic

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Stunell, Andrew

    Hammond, Philip

    Syms, Robert

    Hancock, Mike

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Hawkins, Nick

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Hayes, John

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Horam, John

    Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Kennedy, Rt Hon Charles (Ross Skye & Inverness W)

    Willis, Phil

    Key, Robert

    Tellers for the Noes:

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Mr. Oliver Heald and

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Mr. David Heath.

    Question according agreed to.

    Political Parties
    8.24 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. George Howarth): I beg to move,
    That the draft Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Disapplication of Part IV for Northern Ireland Parties, etc.) Order 2001, which was laid before this House on 25th January, be approved.
    I am grateful for the opportunity offered by this debate to explain why the Government believe that the order is necessary.
    During the debates on the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, clause 70(1), which permitted the Secretary of State to exempt the Northern Ireland parties from part IV of the legislation, was covered at some length.
    In some parts of the House, the strength of feeling about those exemptions was made clear, so I want to explain why we think they are still necessary if all the parties in Northern Ireland are to function on a fair and equal footing with their counterparts elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
    In the course of my speech, I hope to demonstrate that the only way to ensure fairness and equality for political parties in Northern Ireland is to recognise and allow for the special circumstances in which politics has to operate there.
    First, I briefly remind the House of the purpose of the order. The order exempts political parties in Northern Ireland from registering the source of their donations and exempts them from the specified list of permissible donors set out in the Act. The exemptions are to last for four years but can be revoked before that time, although they may also be renewed after the four-year period.
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: The four-year period is an upper limit. Given that we really want to move on from these provisions as quickly as possible, will the Minister consider reducing the time to two years?
    Mr. Howarth: Later in my speech, I intend to address the circumstances in which we might need to consider a review of the legislation. As matters stand, a review could be triggered by events rather than at a particular point in time. I shall reflect on the hon. Gentleman's comments and if we see some merit in the argument, we could return to it when the order is debated in another place.
    The order is based on the recommendations of the Neill report. After taking evidence in Northern Ireland the Neill committee made two specific recommendations. The first of these was that
    "the Government should consider in the context of the development of the peace process whether it would be expedient to introduce a short term and reviewable exemption from the reporting requirements in respect of donations made to political parties in Northern Ireland."
    That recommendation reflected the widespread concern expressed to the committee that the publication of names and other details of donors could and, in some cases, probably would lead to intimidation. The recommendation has been accepted because we have no intention of endangering people's security, nor of inadvertently discouraging them from donating to political parties.
    876
    The second recommendation acknowledged the importance of the Good Friday agreement and of our relations with the Republic of Ireland. As a consequence, the committee recommended that
    "in relation to donors to political parties in Northern Ireland, the definition of a permissible source should also include a citizen of the Republic of Ireland resident in the Republic subject to compliance with the Republic's Electoral Act 1997."
    Again, we accept that recommendation. It is a matter of some regret, however, that it did not prove possible to draft the definition of a permissible source in quite the way that the Neill committee envisaged.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate that the Minister said that it was not possible to define the phrase, "permissible source", but can he tell us what definition is used in the Republic's electoral law? Which circumstances govern such subscriptions there?
    Mr. Howarth: At the moment, the Republic of Ireland has no equivalent legislation. I intend to comment further on that matter as I develop my speech, and I shall then cover the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.
    The Electoral Commission—a United Kingdom-based organisation, which will have the responsibility for policing the arrangements—could not reasonably be expected to verify whether those in the Republic of Ireland who made donations were in compliance with the Republic's law, even as it stands.
    A consequence of accepting the second recommendation—that donations from the Republic of Ireland were to be permitted—was that there was no way of preventing donations from elsewhere in the world being routed to Northern Ireland via the Republic.
    Although we recognise that we are making an exception to our own policy on party funding, I hope that the House will understand, and perhaps agree, that we should not make provisions that would be impossible to police. It must be recognised that if anonymity is needed and donations from the Republic of Ireland are to be allowed, the amount of checking that can be completed in an entirely separate jurisdiction is very limited.
    To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) at moment ago, I am aware that the Irish Government are examining the arrangements regarding foreign donations to political parties. That is clearly a matter for that Government, and it would not be appropriate for me to express a view one way or another on what they should do. However, I recognise that such a change in law in the Republic of Ireland would have implications, depending on how it was framed, for the exemptions listed in the order. I therefore acknowledge that, in those circumstances, it would be proper to review the exemptions, and I am happy to assure the House that we would do so in the light of any changes in Irish law.
    To ensure that the exemptions were considered necessary, I undertook a round of consultations with many of the political parties in February 2000. To be fair, that round of meetings revealed that there was a range of views among the Northern Ireland parties about the matter. On the whole, however, a majority of the parties at that time expressed fear for the safety of those who were named as donors—whether individuals or businesses—and thought that anonymity should be

    877
    permitted. There was also a general recognition of the role of the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland's political life, which is, of course, entirely consistent with the Good Friday agreement.
    As the House will probably remember, because of the concerns expressed about the exemptions—not least by the official Opposition—we promised that there would be a second round of consultations before the order was presented to the House. To fulfil that commitment, I invited all the Northern Ireland parties to a second round of meetings, which took place in January this year. During that round of meetings, it became apparent to me that the consensus for the exemptions has, to some extent, broken down. Nevertheless, even those parties which thought that complete anonymity was not warranted still sought an assurance that names could be given on a confidential basis to the Electoral Commission.
    I hope that the House will understand that it is no reflection on the Electoral Commission when I say that no such assurance of complete confidentiality can be given. In any case, some of the parties have already indicated to me that a list compiled on a confidential basis, not to be published and available only to the commission, would still be enough to frighten away their donors on the grounds that there may be a leak and inadvertent disclosure.
    As a Government, we have a responsibility to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland can make contributions to political parties without fear of reprisals or intimidation of any kind. We also have a responsibility to ensure that democratic parties are allowed to flourish. In my view, the only way that we can achieve this is by allowing complete anonymity for four years, so that the democratic process in Northern Ireland is not vulnerable in any way to those who would intimidate or inflict violence on others.
    Similarly, there are sound reasons for allowing contributions from the Republic of Ireland. The truth is, however, that we do not have any realistic or reliable way of checking whether such money originated outside the Republic of Ireland. So, while we regret that these exemptions are necessary—I say that in all sincerity—there is a need to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland can be allowed to show their support for their chosen political parties without having any reason to fear for their own safety. Even those Northern Ireland parties that wished for full transparency acknowledged the need for some protection for certain groups of people.
    For the reasons I have just given, we will obviously, as I said earlier, keep the need for the exemptions under review. If the political situation changes in the Republic of Ireland or the fears for the security of donors recedes, we will come back to the House and revoke the order. On the other hand, if, after four years, the Government's view is that the exemptions are still needed, we will seek to renew them for a suitable period and will come to the House with an affirmative order as we have done tonight.
    Mr. John Bercow: Although we respect the way in which the Minister is moving the order, many of us think that, at heart, it is a miserable measure. Does he not accept that the conduct of politics is not only about political parties but, not least in the context of Northern
    878
    Ireland, about cross-community organisations? Will he confirm that, if the order is passed and there is subsequently a referendum on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein will be able to take money from abroad, but a cross-community organisation that is manifestly and indisputably committed to peaceful means will not be able to do so?
    Mr. Howarth: I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman seeks to make. If he cares to elaborate on it, I shall try to give him a considered answer. If he is implying that the measures are designed purely to facilitate Sinn Fein, he is quite wrong.
    Mr. Bercow: I intended to be clear; I am sorry if I was not. My point was that it is entirely conceivable that an organisation that was not a political party could and would have a view about the yes or no answer to a question in a referendum but, unlike a political party, it would not be able to receive funds from outside the country.
    Mr. Howarth: The exemption in the order is designed entirely to cover political parties. It has no bearing on the conduct of a referendum. Other parts of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 deal with referendums and, if the hon. Gentleman has any concerns about them, I suggest that he takes them up with the Home Office. We are dealing exclusively with the funding of political parties, and the two relevant issues that flow from the Neill committee report.
    Mr. Öpik: I had assumed that a non-political organisation could get funds for a referendum or something else from wherever it can secure them. Will the Minister clarify whether that is the case?
    Mr. Howarth: In general terms, it is the case. The point that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) made related to the fact that referendums are covered by the Act and he wanted to clarify whether there was a difference between a referendum and the provisions in the order. If that is the clarification that he sought, I am happy to confirm that there is a difference. Although a referendum would be funded on a different basis, that would apply across the United Kingdom. My case is that the funding of political parties is subject to different pressures in Northern Ireland.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I want to press the Minister on that issue. The order is on political parties, elections and referendums, but referendums do not always affect the whole of the UK; some have been held in Northern Ireland specifically on Northern Ireland issues. Does the fine print in the order mean that cross-party groupings and non-party groupings can get money from anywhere and that it is only political parties that are restricted on donations?
    Mr. Howarth: If the hon. Gentleman reads the order, he will see that the headings refer to Northern Ireland parties, the disapplication of schedule 7, which covers political parties, the registration of the meaning of a registered political party and the registration of donations by regulated donees in Great Britain. It does not mention referendums that are held only in Northern Ireland or UK-wide.

    879
    Referendums would be affected only if a political party chose to campaign on them. The considerations that relate to any other means of fund-raising would apply in those circumstances because they are disapplied from the Act. There may be circumstances in which resources that were donated to a political party could be used for campaigning in a referendum, but presumably that would not be the purpose for which those general campaigning funds had been raised.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Perhaps I can help the Minister. When challenged on this matter during the Bill's passage in another place, Lord Bassam said:
    "I fully accept that the situation as it stands will mean that a Northern Ireland party would be able to use foreign donations in any future referendum … Another consequence … which I do not seek to hide is that a Northern Ireland party could use foreign funds in a referendum but any other permitted participant could not. I do not pretend that the position is ideal."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2000; Vol. 619, c. 768.]
    Mr. Howarth: I am in no way disagreeing with my noble Friend. I said that in those circumstances it would be possible for political parties to campaign in a referendum as described. However, the Act sets expenditure limits on campaigning generally in referendums. Unlimited expenditure of any kind would be penalised.
    I feel bound to draw one further factor to the attention of the House. At least one party, the Social Democratic and Labour party, which is represented in the House tonight, has been fund-raising in anticipation of the exemptions. I also understand that some of its prospective donors have promised funding on the basis that the Northern Ireland parties would be exempted and not identified. In view of the fact that we signalled that the order would be introduced, it was not unreasonable for the party to do that. However, if we were to backtrack on that commitment, it would represent a breach of good faith. In those circumstances, we are honour bound to meet that commitment. Having made those important points, I commend the order to the House.
    8.45 pm
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: We strongly and passionately oppose the motion, for reasons that I and others outlined during the passage of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill through both Houses of Parliament.
    The Minister's speech was uncharacteristically confusing, and I did not think that his heart was entirely in it. I hope that he will forgive me if I am a little critical.
    Mr. George Howarth: To dispel any misgivings that the right hon. Gentleman might have, I can assure him that, whatever my speech conveyed, my heart was properly in it. I have given the measure careful consideration and I believe that, in the circumstances, it is exactly the right thing to do.
    Mr. MacKay: I am grateful to the Minister. I shall be happy for him to intervene again, but perhaps I could first make a little progress.
    Our first fundamental objection concerns the fact that it has been decided, rightly, that political parties in our country should no longer accept overseas donations.
    880
    When my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) became Leader of the Opposition, one of his early decisions, before the Neill committee reached its conclusions, was that the Conservative party would not in future accept overseas donations. There was no real dispute about that during the Bill's passage. Our concern is that Northern Ireland is being treated differently.
    I passionately believe in the Union of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. As a unionist—and I emphasise the small "u"—I believe that, wherever possible, Northern Ireland should be treated in exactly the same way as the rest of our country. It is fundamentally wrong that political parties in Northern Ireland are able to obtain funds from abroad when parties based on the mainland are not.
    I am particularly concerned that the measure is largely, but not exclusively, a sop to political parties that are still close to violence and inextricably linked to paramilitaries. I willingly acknowledge to the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) that I am obviously excluding his party. I acknowledge also that, as the Minister said, the hon. Gentleman and his party are anxious to obtain money from abroad. I think it fundamentally wrong for any party to do so, and it is particularly sad that the majority of parties that will try to do so have past and present paramilitary links. That is the first fundamental reason for our opposition to the motion.
    Secondly, there is a red herring in the debate. The Minister says that even if we banned donations from abroad in Northern Ireland, the security situation means that there could be threats to donors, so their names would not be revealed and we would not know whether the donations were from abroad. We fully accept that, in the present climate in Northern Ireland, it would be wrong to publish the names of donors, whether individual or corporate. There is nothing between us on that point, and I do not think that any Member would think that publication was wise at the moment. The Minister and I hope that the situation will change, and that such precautions will not be necessary in future if the peace process that we support reaches a logical and happy conclusion.
    I beg to differ on one point. I notice that the Minister was particularly cautious in his reference to the Electoral Commission, when he said that he hoped that it would not be insulted by what he had to say. On the commission's behalf, I would have accepted those remarks, had they come from some Ministers, as an insult, but I did not in this case. However, the commission is a neutral, secure body, and if the commissioners alone were given the names of donors, they would be able to establish whether or not they were foreign. It is therefore an excuse and a red herring to use legitimate concerns about publicising donors' names in this instance. There would be no problem in giving them to the Electoral Commission alone, and we should do that.
    There is another separate and serious aspect of the Act and the order. I think that we have established that the Minister was incorrect when he started to suggest that the order had nothing to do with referendums. As I illustrated in my intervention, it clearly does; I quoted his ministerial colleague in another place, Lord Bassam of Brighton, at some length. That is another of our serious complaints about the order.

    881
    It is conceivable that there will be a border poll in the future. It might even be advantageous at some time to have a further border poll. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) mentioned, it is outrageous that a political party—for instance, Sinn Fein—can obtain money from abroad to campaign in such a referendum, yet a cross-community group supporting the peace process and the Union would not be allowed to do so. That is far from a level playing field; indeed, it is unfair and unreasonable.
    The Minister will know—it could be that the note coming from the officials' Box is confirming this—that the situation is straightforward, and that political parties can obtain money from abroad but groups campaigning in a referendum that are not political parties cannot. These are groups with which he and I would probably want to associate. In anybody's book, that is deeply unfair and wrong.
    The Minister said that this does not really matter, because there are severe limits on how much each political party can raise from abroad in a referendum campaign. I remind the House that there are rather generous limits, with which I do not quibble. Each political party is allowed to raise £500,000 for each referendum campaign. That is not a trivial amount. In the case of Sinn Fein, much of it might come from abroad. That gives it a distinctly unfair advantage.
    In general, I have the greatest reservations about referendums. I believe in our parliamentary democracy wherever possible. We should use this elected Parliament to make decisions. If the electorate does not like the decisions that we make, it has an opportunity every four or five years to put others in our place who might make more favourable decisions. However, I acknowledge that occasionally there is need for a referendum. One of the obvious examples, going back over the past 60 or 70 years, was the border poll to which I referred earlier.
    If we are to have referendums, it is vital that there be a level playing field. The last referendum to take place throughout the United Kingdom was conducted in 1975. The Minister and I were perhaps on the same side of the argument. I campaigned for a yes vote—[Interruption.] Apparently, he did not. I nevertheless welcome the Minister's conversion.
    I still believe that Britain's future is within the European Community, but I had great reservations about the funding that turned out to be available to the two different campaigns. That is why limits must be set and why, wherever possible, there should be equality of campaigning so that the British people can make a decision in any referendum that is based on equal spending and equal advocacy by both sides. On reflection, 26 years later, that did not happen in 1975, which is regrettable. I think that I would have won and the Minister would have lost—as in fact happened—even if the funding had been different. However, the matter was rather distasteful, and it appears more distasteful as the years go by. We therefore learned a lesson from the 1975 referendum, and we should ensure that the same thing never happens again.
    I hope that I have expressed clearly my serious concerns about specific referendums in Northern Ireland, of which the most obvious is about the border poll that
    882
    will probably take place in the near future. I should now like to move on to the wider issue of referendums elsewhere in the United Kingdom and I shall explain, Madam Deputy Speaker, why I am not trespassing out of order. The most obvious referendum to come up Europe-wide—that is a wonderful Freudian slip, but I mean United Kingdom-wide—in the foreseeable future will be on whether or not we should join the single currency. Again, I suspect that the Minister and I would be on opposite sides of the argument, which is a pity. However, it is essential that we have a level playing field.
    I should like to look at the situation in Northern Ireland. Political parties registered in Northern Ireland would be able to obtain £500,000 abroad and add that to the referendum campaign throughout the UK. The Minister will say that they are not allowed to pass that money on to political parties on the mainland, but they will have to. They can take advertising space and publish leaflets. It is quite easy to spend £500,000 on a referendum campaign on a single currency. That would however be wrong, and it would influence unduly what happened in the campaign.
    I shall give a spurious example which, I hope, is not sensitive in the context of Northern Ireland politics. The Conservative party in Northern Ireland is a registered party in the Province, and it could spend £500,000 on billboards and advertising, quite separately from the separately registered Conservative party on the mainland. It could spend that money on the same campaign as the Conservative party, but it would pay for different advertisements in different places. We could easily take a logical step further and divide the Conservative party in Northern Ireland into individual constituencies, so that there are separate Conservative parties registered for Strangford, South Down and Belfast, South. Each party could then accept £500,000 from people who were against entry to the single currency. We could direct that money to them and they would spend it on the referendum.
    I believe that the Minister would think that wrong and unfair and that it would act against his desire to join the single currency. Lest there be any doubt, may I add that the Conservative party would have no intention of doing what I have just said? I am simply saying that that option would be available to us; it drives a coach and horses through the order, which is highly dangerous.
    Mr. Öpik: I have always regarded the right hon. Gentleman as highly dangerous. He has just answered his own point: he is being theoretical and building a castle in the air, but has also pointed out the real fact that no responsible party in the Chamber would undertake such action. I accept his concerns—although we have different views—since parties could indeed do that. Surely, as he said, wherever possible Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK should be the same. On this occasion, however, there are mitigating circumstances that, perhaps, would lead to the need to have a temporary difference. Would the right hon. Gentleman not accept even a partial justification on that basis?
    Mr. MacKay: No, I do not accept that. The only exception is the fact that, in the rest of the United Kingdom, the names of donors who give more than a certain sum have to be published, whereas that is not the case in Northern Ireland, for legitimate security reasons. Northern Ireland should be treated differently from the rest of the United Kingdom only in respect of security issues.

    883
    I take issue with the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik). I said that I had deliberately used a sensitive example that would not offend people in the House and in Northern Ireland—the example of my own party in Northern Ireland. I went on to say, quite reasonably, that we would not abuse the order in that way.
    However, political parties in Northern Ireland may feel strongly about a certain issue. For example—the hon. Member for South Down will correct me if I am wrong—the Social Democratic and Labour party is closely and legitimately linked to the Labour party, takes the Whip in the House and is strongly in favour of joining the single currency. Under the order, there is no reason for the SDLP not to accept large donations from abroad for the euro referendum and to pay for a great many pro-euro advertisements in the campaign on the mainland.
    There would be nothing wrong with the hon. Member for South Down doing that. We know that his party is a democratic, non-violent party which has substantial support in the Province and always acts with due propriety. It would not be doing anything illegal or out of order if the measure were passed tonight.
    The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire is wrong if he thinks that that is just wild theory, with no chance of being realised. The House must always make sure that the laws that it passes are tight, exact and well defined; otherwise, they can be abused. That in turn brings the House into disrepute and causes serious problems later. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire may be relaxed about the order being so open to abuse, but that is not a prospect that the Liberal Democrats, with an honourable history over many years, have ever countenanced in the past.
    Mr. Steve McCabe: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. So that we do not become obsessed with hypothetical models, will he confirm that the order would last for four years? If his concern is about a referendum, is he conceding that there will be a referendum within four years? If so, he obviously knows which party will be in power.
    Mr. MacKay: The hon. Gentleman's seat is one of our leading target seats in the west midlands, as he knows full well. I believe and expect that there will be a new Member for Hall Green in the next Parliament, but I do not want to trespass on the hon. Gentleman's personal grief.
    I say to the hon. Member for Hall Green, as I said to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, that we must legislate for every possibility—even the horrendous possibility of the re-election of a Labour Government, and the re-election of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe). Much as I hope and expect that that will not happen, I would be unwise and not fulfilling my parliamentary and legislative duty if I did not take it into account. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that.
    To return to the serious arguments against the order, I conclude and summarise by saying that the order is wrong because it treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom, without good cause. The order is wrong because it prays in aid the security situation and the non-publishing of donors' names, although the electoral commissioners could scrutinise any money coming from abroad. The order is wrong because it will allow abuse and an uneven playing field for referendums in Northern Ireland and possibly elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. John Burnett: The right hon. Gentleman makes some powerful points. If the
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    Electoral Commission is to scrutinise contributions in camera, what happens when there has been a breach of the law? What sanctions will be imposed, and will any subsequent litigation also be dealt with in camera?
    Mr. MacKay: I have no doubt that the Electoral Commission will take the same action and impose the same sanctions as it would in relation to a party that is registered elsewhere in the United Kingdom and which is found to be taking money from abroad. I am glad to see the Under-Secretary nodding.
    The hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) is a lawyer, so I shall not try to second-guess him on whether subsequent court action or appeals should be heard in camera. Off the top of my head, my answer is that they should not be. I would trust the commission, which is an independent body. Indeed, I think that it has the confidence of all political parties. Once again, the Under-Secretary nods. If it finds abuse in Northern Ireland or any other part of the United Kingdom, the commission should act accordingly. If the political party and donor in question think that they have been wrongly treated, perhaps because the donation did not come from abroad, the decision can be tested in the courts. That is fine and proper. It is up to the donor and party to decide whether to pursue the case. The more I reflect on the hon. Gentleman's question, however, the less I think that the court case should be heard in camera.
    For all the reasons that I have given, I believe that the order is profoundly wrong, and I hope that the House will reject it.
    9.6 pm
    Mr. Eddie McGrady: I rise to speak on behalf of my party in support of the order. I should like to return to the practical reality of political life in Northern Ireland and move away from the castles in the air to which the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) referred.
    In the SDLP's submission to the Neill committee, we stated our firm belief in
    "the principle of openness, transparency and accountability in the funding of political parties in the context of a normal and modern democratic society."
    We asked the committee to be sensitive to the practical difficulties of applying such principles in what is still a deeply divided, sectarian and troubled society. That is where Northern Ireland is today. It is different from Great Britain—a difference that is addressed through its exemption from the requirements of section 65 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
    In past years, the SDLP party headquarters has been bombed five times. Our members have been physically intimidated and abused, and their property has been damaged and destroyed. Only two weeks ago, the constituency headquarters of my colleague Alban Maginness, the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Belfast, North, were bombed. That context creates fear. We cannot say that it does not exist and that Northern Ireland is the same as Great Britain. It is not the same, and that is the problem that we are trying to address in order to sustain a proper democratic process. Of course, members of other Northern Ireland parties have suffered equally, and Members of Parliament have previously paid the ultimate price of political violence by having their lives taken from them.

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    We have resisted violence over the years and have tried to create a normal political society. We have been tested in every possible way by sectarianism and violence. Now, every morning in news bulletins, we hear about pipe bombing. That is where we are at. In that context, we asked the Neill committee and the Government to exempt Northern Ireland parties for a trial period of four years to ascertain whether we could achieve some normality and subsequently be covered by the whole Act.
    I am a wee bit surprised by the comments and attitudes of the Conservative and Unionist party spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay), because the Ulster Unionist party agreed with us on the matter and made similar requests to the Neill committee. Jack Allen, the central treasurer, said in paragraph 6667:
    "Over a number of years, because of the political situation in Northern Ireland, people did not want to be identified with political parties … because of the risk factor in Northern Ireland."
    That statement was supported by the late president of the Ulster Unionist party, Josias Cunningham, when he referred to foreign donations in paragraph 6676.
    Funding from the Republic of Ireland cannot be banned because such a ban would contravene section 2(1) of the Ireland Act 1949, which states:
    "notwithstanding that the Republic of Ireland is not part of His Majesty's dominions, the Republic of Ireland is not a foreign country for the purposes of any law … in any part of the United Kingdom".
    That is the answer to jibes about such funding.
    The exemptions in the order were originally proposed by the Neill report, which states:
    "The Government should consider in the context of the development of the peace process whether it would be expedient to introduce a short term and reviewable exemption from the reporting requirements in respect of donations made to political parties in Northern Ireland."
    I stress that that is a proposal from the Neill committee, not from the Government. Nothing could be more specific than that recommendation from the report on standards. The proposal is reflected in the order.
    During the drafting and in the debates, we lobbied jointly with the Ulster Unionist party until the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 was passed and the two exemptions for recorded donations and foreign fund-raising were made. There was consensus throughout the discussions between us and the top officials at the centre of the Ulster Unionist party. Our chair and central treasurer received a letter, which stated:
    "As you know, business people and individuals are already wary of making donations to political parties and are likely to be even more sensitive if their donations are to be recorded"—
    recorded, not publicised. The letter continues:
    "I am afraid that reassuring people and organisations that their donations will be recorded but not published will make no difference."
    That is a statement from the Ulster Unionist party in a letter to us. I have not quoted it out of context. The last phrase of the letter asks us to feel free to refer to it in our discussions with anybody, so I am not betraying any confidence by using those quotations.
    Something subsequently happened. The leader of the Ulster Unionist party insinuated or even said that the Under-Secretary had misled the House. However, I have
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    the submission to us from the Ulster Unionist party in writing; it is there for the public to see. The Under-Secretary did not mislead the House.
    Furthermore, the SDLP, with the approval of the Electoral Commission, supported the Bill on the basis that the Northern Ireland parties would be exempt from recording donations. As a result of the Act and with the guidance already received from the Electoral Commission, we have informed potential donors in good faith that there will be no requirement to declare their donations at least for the four-year exemption period.
    We believe that our future will be based on normalising politics in Northern Ireland, and we look forward to a normality of the kind enjoyed by Members of the House here in Great Britain, but not, as yet, by us. We look forward to a normality in which people will be free publicly to express their support for a political party, to put their party posters up in the windows of their homes and businesses without fear of intimidation, and to donate openly to political parties without fear of threats to themselves or their families.
    I pray and hope that that day will come, but it is not here yet. Meanwhile, we must be conscious of the potential threat to individual personal security if donations are disclosed or written down in any way. I ask all hon. Members, who are democratically elected and proven to subscribe to the democratic process, to trust us. We shall not usurp any powers, or do any wrong.
    Hon. Members may be worried about the wrongdoers doing wrong, but they will continue to do wrong anyway. They will have the advantage of doing wrong and not being caught. If a paramilitary organisation wants to get funds from Timbuktu, it will get funds from Timbuktu irrespective of any legislation passed by this House. However, the democratic political parties, which form a bulwark against such activities, must be given the ability to sustain themselves until the day arrives when we have normal politics in Northern Ireland. I support the order.
    9.16 pm
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: I would very much like to see normalisation in Northern Ireland, as would the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay). Indeed, I think that we all would. We are making good progress, but we are not there yet.
    In some of our debates on Northern Ireland, it almost feels as though we are so focused on the issues and so willing to accommodate Northern Ireland in its efforts to achieve normality that we sometimes fashion individual bits of policy round the needs of individual parties, or perhaps even round individuals in Northern Ireland. Is that not a great model for Parliament, in which politics fits itself round the needs of a community in transition rather than expecting the community to fit round the needs of the policy-makers? In that context, it is reasonable, on a judgment call, to make this exemption. My party has consistently felt, throughout the debates on this issue in the House and elsewhere, that we probably need to make the exemption, as long as it is temporary.
    We have been told by the Minister and by the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) that individual donors could be at personal risk. The hon. Member for South Down cited some examples that I found very persuasive. There have been real examples of intimidation of a nature that we do not tend to experience on the

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    mainland of the United Kingdom, which alter the political environment for providing donations and support to particular parties.
    For now it is, therefore, probably defensible to protect the anonymity of the individuals making such donations. However, four years seems to be too long a time for such an exemption. A two-year exemption would make much more sense, not least because having to re-justify it sooner would provide a driver and a focus for the Government. It would still be an exemption, and the right hon. Member for Bracknell rightly described it as one that should, preferably, not exist at all.
    As I understand it, under a two-year exemption the political processes of the House would require the Minister to ensure that the order was laid again in the upper House, because it would be hard to rescind it in two years' time and it could not be modified. Will the Minister consider re-laying the order in a format that incorporates a two-year upper limit when it goes to another place? That might involve a little more administrative messing about than he would have wanted, but a 24-month exemption just makes more sense. To that extent, I agree with the implication in the comments of the right hon. Member for Bracknell that we should get out of these arrangements as quickly as possible with regard to Northern Ireland.
    However, I disagree that the measure is a sop to party politicians who are involved with paramilitary organisations. The hon. Member for South Down, who spoke for the SDLP, can hardly be described as public enemy No. 1. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Bracknell did exclude the SDLP—[Interruption.] I am acting as a messenger for the right hon. Gentleman, who rightly points out that he went to great trouble to do so. [Interruption.] If he wants to say more, he will have to intervene because I do not get paid to speak for the official Opposition.
    The right hon. Gentleman seemed to miss the fact that the SDLP is obviously one of the key organisations that need the exemption now. He acknowledged that the SDLP was not culpable in a paramilitary sense, but perhaps did not acknowledge that it is typical of a party political organisation that clearly thinks that there is a political imperative for the exemption in the short term. That is a persuasive argument and we must respect the people on the front line of Northern Ireland politics who say that they need the exemption.
    The right hon. Gentleman also said that, wherever possible, Northern Ireland should be treated in exactly the same way as the rest of the UK. The crucial words are "wherever possible". Northern Ireland has done a good job of catching up, but is not there yet. He also regards it as outrageous that political parties could take money from abroad and said that it is fundamentally wrong for political parties to obtain money from abroad. Not that long ago, his own party did exactly that. Northern Ireland is only about five years behind the rest of the UK, which is not bad. We must recognise that the normalisation of Northern Irish politics will happen, but it must be given the space to allow that.
    Incidentally, it is equally outrageous that political parties on the mainland are willing to accept enormous private donations—£5 million, for example. That implies that, on occasion, the wealth of donors to political parties represented in the Chamber can have an impact on
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    the ability of those parties to campaign effectively. The Liberal Democrats have long talked about state funding and I would like to think that the implication of comments in the debate is that other parties now seriously recognise its benefits. We could remove the cheque book's influence on the quality of debate and the strength of campaigning here on the mainland.
    Whatever hon. Members feel about the situation, the problem will go away because some time in early summer, when the Liberal Democrats form the next Government, we shall return to it and make sure that everything is put right. Until then, let us continue apace with the normalisation of Northern Irish politics and acknowledge, in all seriousness, that we have room to differ. In fairness, the right hon. Member for Bracknell and his party have been consistent throughout the debate. This is a judgment call, not a matter of principle, and I tend to side with the Minister and the hon. Member for South Down. The right hon. Gentleman and his party simply take a different view.
    Time will probably tell who is right, but, for now, we are prepared to live with the risk. I remind the Minister again that, although we agree that the order should be approved, two years would be better than four. I say to the right hon. Member for Bracknell that we still think two years better than none.
    9.23 pm
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik), especially if we have to wait until the next Liberal Government come to power for improvements to be made. There are problems. I understand the points made by the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady), but we have not given enough credit to people in Northern Ireland who have carried on democratic politics despite all the fierce opposition that has been directed towards them.
    I have lost colleagues—one I replaced as Member of Parliament for Belfast, South and the other, who represented Belfast, South in the Assembly, was one of the brightest young lawyers on his way up in the United Kingdom—and seen other members of our party brutalised and killed. I understand something of the terror, but the harsh reality is that we are discussing not that but how Northern Ireland has constantly been made somewhat different from the rest of the United Kingdom. Some Members of the House, who have continually made us different, have the audacity to say, "But Northern Ireland is different."
    If the order is passed, registered parties in Northern Ireland will not have to adhere to a specified list of permissible donors, make quarterly reports with respect to donations or make weekly donations reports during election periods. An individual donor will not have to make a report to the commission if he or she has made an aggregate donation of more than £5,000 in any given calendar year, and the commission will not have to keep a register of donations reported to it.
    I understand why the secretary, chairman and treasurer of the Ulster Unionist party may say that they are concerned about even reported donations to the commission, given that the Parades Commission released names submitted to it to a Sinn Fein representative. That, however, does not strike me as a final answer.
    Our main concern relates to foreign funding. I know that in earlier years, for a considerable time, the SDLP was a major beneficiary of the National Democratic

    889
    Institute, which trained and funded the party for election and other purposes. The order, however, does no service to the people of Northern Ireland. It fails to provide transparency in the financing of Northern Ireland political parties.
    In recommendation 24 of its fifth report, the Neill committee said:
    "Political parties should in principle be banned from receiving foreign donations".
    The order permits foreign funding for Northern Ireland. It is true that the committee said in recommendation 29:
    "In relation to political parties in Northern Ireland"—
    the Minister referred to this—
    "the definition of a permissible source should also include a citizen of the Republic of Ireland resident in the Republic subject to compliance with the Republic's Electoral Act".
    I should like to know what that really means, and why we are being asked to sign a blank cheque.
    The Neill committee incorporated a Northern Ireland exception in its fifth report. That exception was not to benefit the Ulster Unionist party or any other unionist party, but to benefit Northern Ireland nationalist parties. We know that nationalist parties in Wales and, in particular, Scotland may well have benefited from exceptions, but no exception was made for them. What is before us might be called a Northern Ireland nationalist party order—or, to be more exact, a Sinn Fein rather than an SDLP order.
    The order will go beyond the Neill committee's recommendation of an exception for Northern Ireland parties. It will permit financing by any country, not just the Republic of Ireland. That was not recommended by the committee.
    Republicanism is international—Irish republicanism, that is. It goes beyond Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Indeed, it is abroad that the romantic message of "mother Ireland" sells best. Men like Martin Galvin find those in the United States easy prey: they have not witnessed the misery and brutality of the Provisional IRA campaign in Northern Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom for the past 30 years. Galvin has now declared his support for the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA.
    Lest we forget what those groups are doing in Europe, I remind the House of a recent report in the Swedish paper Aftonbladet that the IRA was raising funds through a restaurant it was running in Stockholm. That money could easily be used for the Armalite or the ballot box, such is the fluidity of the relationship between Sinn Fein and the IRA.
    Ulster Unionists have an exceptional problem because our people regularly say that we do not do enough. However, they would not allow us to be funded by the types of sources used by Sinn Fein-IRA. Those sources include not only foreign donations, but the proceeds of criminal acts in the community.
    What about records and transparency? Disapplying chapters I to III of part IV of the 2000 Act to Northern Ireland will result in all the provisions on donations not being applied. The term "permissible donors" will mean nothing. All sources will be permissible; indeed, the concept of permissibility will not even exist. Unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom, if a party in Northern Ireland
    890
    cannot identify the source of a donation, there will be no issue. Anonymous donations will continue to be permitted in Northern Ireland.
    Hon. Members have suggested that, because of the terror, business men do not want to be identified. When I was a young assistant, we were building an extension to a church. A certain business man said to my senior, "We see that you've made a start. We'll give you a £100 contribution." That was almost 50 years ago, when £100 was a fair sum. The church was extended and the hall was built. However, regardless of how closely one searches the records, one will find no mention of a £100 donation from that business man. I think that, sometimes, people who are interested only in making money for themselves, not in supporting democracy, say that they do not want to be seen to be supporting a political party.
    Unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom, no improperly obtained funds will be subject to forfeiture in Northern Ireland because there would be no concept of improperly obtained funds. In Northern Ireland, funding sources will not need to be voluntary, as is implied in the term "donor", and racketeering will continue to be a legitimate form of funding for paramilitary-linked parties. The order will ensure that the
    "evasion of restrictions constituting an offence"
    will not apply to Northern Ireland. Then again, as there will be no restrictions, there will be no restrictions for one to evade.
    Northern Ireland parties will not need to concern themselves with reporting on donations weekly, quarterly or otherwise and regardless of whether they are made in an election period. Although disapplying part IV will reduce administration for Northern Ireland parties and might be perceived as beneficial, there is clearly no benefit in comparison with what is being lost by not subscribing to the rules and regulations that will apply to the other United Kingdom parties. It is essential that, sooner rather than later, Northern Ireland political parties, like political parties elsewhere in the United Kingdom, are subject to the rules on funding sources.
    Only Sinn Fein and other paramilitary parties will really benefit from a non-regulated system and a lack of transparency. It is they—not the Ulster Unionist party and other constitutional parties in Northern Ireland—who have something to hide.
    At the beginning of the debate, hon. Members had exchanges with the Minister on referendums. It is strange that there is confusion even about those. We cannot have referendums without the involvement of political parties, but, in Northern Ireland, political parties will not be restricted. Conversely, the order seems to provide that cross-community groups could be restricted. Additionally, if referendums were to follow the precedent set by the 1973 border poll and the United Kingdom European referendum, the sums provided to one side could entirely skew the result. Not for one moment am I suggesting that Ulster Unionist people will vote to withdraw from the Union. However, the weight of funding available for publicity could have an adverse effect on turnout. That is why it is important for us to consider the matter again.
    The Belfast agreement, with its concept of the principle of consent, provides for the possibility of such a referendum on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. I shall be brief, as other hon. Members want to speak and I do not want to curtail the time available for

    891
    the Minister's response. However, as I said, we do not believe that extravagant campaigning by republicans and nationalists in any future referendum on Northern Ireland's constitution would persuade Unionists to be anything other than Unionists, but there could be an adverse effect on turnout.
    A further anomaly is that those organisations set up especially to campaign in a referendum under the Belfast agreement would be banned from receiving foreign funding. If we read the legislation aright, those parties are dealt with in a different part of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Minister seems to have missed that.
    Campaigning organisations have been dealt with, and I noticed that the hon. Member for South Down was a little puzzled when his party was referred to as the sister party of the Labour party. I do not understand that, as he and his party leader have regularly proclaimed that both parties belong to the socialist federation.
    Mr. McGrady: The hon. Gentleman must have misinterpreted my facial expression to reach that conclusion. I am sorry to have misled him in that way. I agree that there is a good relationship in the socialist international between my party and the Labour parties of these isles.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate that clarification. I did not have my glasses on, so I put the hon. Gentleman's response down to a facial aberration. However, he merely confirms what the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) suggested—that it is possible for the SDLP to get money and use it to promote the Labour party's position in Great Britain. I hope that a miracle will happen, and that a Conservative party in Northern Ireland will get £500,000. I should be especially glad to take the crumbs from the table if that happened in Belfast, South.
    Finally, I turn to the matter raised by the hon. Member for South Down. I do not challenge his quotations, but he said that he had noticed a change in the submission made by the Ulster Unionists. In evidence to the Neill committee, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Allen—my party's former president and current treasurer, respectively—said that we would be reluctant to have a public register for security reasons. However, we can still argue for transparency coupled with security. A register could still be maintained by the electoral officer or the Electoral Commission, so that the security of donors would not be compromised for transparency. It is important that the books are clearly open, so that no one could be hoodwinked in a general election.
    9.38 pm
    Mr. Peter Robinson: I recognise that the Minister wants an opportunity to respond, and I simply wish to put on record my party's position on this matter.
    First, I thank the Minister for the courtesy that he has extended to my party in our meetings on this matter and other electoral issues. He has kept us abreast of the Government's thinking and he knows our views. We have been on common ground for the most part, but there is a degree of difference in regard to this motion that we must set out.
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    It was interesting to hear the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) talk about amounts of money that might be put into a Northern Ireland context. Most hon. Members from the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties would probably roll around on their Benches with laughter if they knew just how little political parties survive on in Northern Ireland. It is a pittance compared with the funds available to parties on the mainland. Therefore, a level playing field becomes all the more important, because the position is easily distorted when a party or group is capable of bringing in resources from outside Northern Ireland.
    That is why funding from outside Northern Ireland becomes particularly important. It has distorted the position to the detriment of the SDLP, although it would not admit it. Substantial funds from outside Northern Ireland have assisted Sinn Fein-IRA in bettering the SDLP in almost every by-election in recent times, and increasing substantially its share of the votes in every general election as well. Such distortion is a result of the influence of those outside the territory of Northern Ireland. That is wrong. For that reason, and a number of others, we are opposed to foreign donations.
    I agree with the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady), who has left the Chamber, that Northern Ireland is different from other parts of the United Kingdom with regard to the dangers of people being identified with a political party. If people are seen to donate money to a Unionist party, they might believe—correctly or not—that there is a danger of being targeted by a republican organisation. Equally, if a firm is seen to donate to a nationalist party, it might see itself as open to being targeted by what are described as loyalist paramilitaries. This will ensure that firms do not easily give money to political parties.
    I find it laughable that the hon. Member for South Down raised the issue. There is a recent instance in which a firm identified itself with a democratic political viewpoint and the SDLP hounded it. The Ulster Unionist party has had a discussion within its ranks about matters relating to the Belfast agreement. A firm—McCann Erickson—provided a viewpoint which was consistent with those whose views are against the Belfast agreement, and did so publicly. It was hounded by the SDLP. When I was Minister for Regional Development, I received questions from SDLP Members wanting to know how much McCann Erickson was getting in Government contracts. The clear implication was that if a firm was against the views of the SDLP or the First Minister, it should not receive contracts from Departments in Northern Ireland. More than that, the SDLP went to Mr. Hennessy, the controller of New York, and got him to apply pressure on McCann Erickson, threatening the job of the person who had been prepared to put his head above the parapet.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his illustration of what happens in Northern Ireland is true of businesses throughout the kingdom, and that it is regularly said in company reports that no charitable or political donations have been given during the year?
    Mr. Robinson: Yes, indeed. There is clearly a difficulty with firms putting their heads above the parapet and identifying themselves, albeit by subscription, with political parties. That is a reality with which we have to live.

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    There is an element of the Bill that is too important for us to allow it to be overcome. Our submission to the Minister and the body that considered it was that we should allow firms to have their donations recorded and the Electoral Commission should be told the nature of those donations to each of the political parties, but there should be no publication of that list. That would have ensured that the political parties were acting in the best interests of the electorate, and that people in the United Kingdom would have the safety of knowing that the matter was properly scrutinised.
    I think that the issue of what happens when a matter is brought to court was rather bogus. Almost daily, the courts in Northern Ireland decline to allow the names of individuals and groups to be published. The case would be against the political party, not against the organisation which subscribed to it. That could easily be kept out of the public arena. It could be overcome by the Minister, while allowing Northern Ireland to stay as far in step with the rest of the United Kingdom as possible, given the special circumstances.
    I regret not being able to speak for a longer time; I realise that the Minister is keen to respond to the debate. It is important, however, to record our opposition. We are opposed to permission being given for nationalists—we should be clear about that—to receive foreign donations. We oppose the refusal for publication to be withheld; the Electoral Commission should receive details of all donations to political parties in Northern Ireland.
    9.45 pm
    Mr. George Howarth: The debate has been genuinely useful. Differing opinions have been expressed—indeed, every possible variation of opinion on the matter has been expressed during this short debate. It is both useful and important that those voices are heard.
    I shall deal with two or three of the points that have arisen. The right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) said, in effect, that the order was a sop to Sinn Fein. He may think that. He may even doubt the sincerity of Sinn Fein; he is entitled to do so—as, no doubt, will others. I can only tell him that in the two consultations on the issue that I have held with Sinn Fein during the past 12 months, its publicly stated position, repeated to me, is that the party is content with complete transparency and that it does not seek exemptions for Northern Ireland.
    I realise that there will be scepticism in some parts of the House as to whether Sinn Fein's private position is the same as that stated publicly. However, if I was planning to give a sop to Sinn Fein, it would be somewhat surreal to offer something for which the party had never asked. I should certainly receive no credit from Sinn Fein for doing that, so such speculation is bizarre.
    I do not doubt that Sinn Fein, along with every other party in Northern Ireland, will benefit from the exemptions. That is unquestionably the case. My major concern is that the SDLP, both in representations to the Neill committee and to me during two rounds of consultations, has made it absolutely clear that there are legitimate grounds for the exercise of an exclusion for four years.
    894
    The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) has been entirely consistent. Last month, he repeated what he told me 12 months ago. His party has concerns, although its members believe that they could be addressed in a different way.
    We should listen carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady), who made an important contribution. It is not for me, for the right hon. Member for Bracknell or for any Member to say that the requirements would pose a particular problem for the SDLP. It is right, however, that we listen to the SDLP. Its position has been perfectly consistent. From the beginning, the SDLP has pointed out that, in an ideal world, the party would want complete transparency with no exemptions, but that, in its particular circumstances in Northern Ireland, such exemptions are right and proper. My hon. Friend put that case fully and well.
    I have been persuaded not by Sinn Fein but by my hon. Friend and by a party that is represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly—the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. It, too, feels that the matter is important and that if the exemptions did not apply, the party would be damaged.
    The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) has made it clear that there was some movement in his party's view on the issue. In no way do I condemn his party for that; any party is entitled to change its point of view over time, and I accept that his party had genuine reasons for doing so. The hon. Gentleman is a serious politician and he takes such matters seriously. I hope that he will accept that our intentions are not to favour nationalists or anyone else. The order was drafted and the exemptions exist because we have a concern for all of the political parties in Northern Ireland.
    I shall make a brief point in response to the comments of the hon. Member for Belfast, East. He believes that foreign funding can be separated from registration. He has repeatedly told me that on behalf of his party. Frankly, the difficulty is that if there is not a register, it is impossible to track whether or not foreign donations are being made to any political party—one piece of information depends on having the other, and it is not possible to separate the two. The hon. Gentleman would concede that that is the case. However, he says that he would like the Electoral Commission to hold that information, but not to publish it. That is his party's stated position. In no way do I wish to impugn the commission's integrity, but I have to say in all honesty that there can never be any guarantee that the information will not leak out in some way or another.
    I shall give the hon. Gentleman a perfectly reasonable example. If there were reason to believe that a donation was made improperly and the commission felt that it had to investigate the matter, the very act of launching an investigation could prejudice the secrecy of the register. The hon. Gentleman well knows that, in Northern Ireland, a rumour has only to start in Coleraine in the morning and he will probably hear about it in Belfast in the afternoon. Such is the nature of all political information. If an investigation were under way, there could be no guarantee that the information could be kept entirely confidential.
    On referendums, I simply say that such matters are set out in schedule 14 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Of course, political parties could be involved in referendums, but equally, as I said earlier, they are subject to strict limits. I will not trade

    895
    reminiscences with the right hon. Member for Bracknell about where we were respectively during a referendum in 1975, but when he was campaigning for a yes vote, I was the leader of the Huyton no vote campaign, which consisted of me, as the secretary of the Huyton young socialists, the Huyton Communist party and two Conservatives, who ran a ballroom dancing academy. What else we had in common, I do not know.
    Question put:—
    The House divided: Ayes 304, Noes 123.

    Division No. 107]

    [9.54 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Ainger, Nick

    Cummings, John

    Allen, Graham

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Darvill, Keith

    Austin, John

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Banks, Tony

    Davidson, Ian

    Barron, Kevin

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Battle, John

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Bayley, Hugh

    Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

    Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Dawson, Hilton

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

    Dismore, Andrew

    Benton, Joe

    Dobbin, Jim

    Best, Harold

    Doran, Frank

    Betts, Clive

    Drew, David

    Blackman, Liz

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Blears, Ms Hazel

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Borrow, David

    Edwards, Huw

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Efford, Clive

    Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

    Ennis, Jeff

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Etherington, Bill

    Brand, Dr Peter

    Fearn, Ronnie

    Brinton, Mrs Helen

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Browne, Desmond

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

    Burden, Richard

    Flint, Caroline

    Burnett, John

    Flynn, Paul

    Burstow, Paul

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Foulkes, George

    Cann, Jamie

    Gapes, Mike

    Caplin, Ivor

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Caton, Martin

    George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

    Cawsey, Ian

    Gerrard, Neil

    Chaytor, David

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    Clapham, Michael

    Gidley, Sandra

    Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Godsiff, Roger

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Goggins, Paul

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Clelland, David

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Coaker, Vernon

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Cohen, Harry

    Grocott, Bruce

    Coleman, Iain

    Hain, Peter

    Colman, Tony

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Connarty, Michael

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Corbett, Robin

    Hancock, Mike

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Hanson, David

    Corston, Jean

    Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

    Cousins, Jim

    Healey, John

    Cox, Tom

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Cranston, Ross

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    Crausby, David

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    896

    Hendrick, Mark

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

    Heppell, John

    Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

    Hewitt, Ms Patricia

    Morley, Elliot

    Hill, Keith

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Hinchliffe, David

    Mudie, George

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

    Hope, Phil

    Naysmith, Dr Doug

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Howells, Dr Kim

    Olner, Bill

    Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

    Öpik, Lembit

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Organ, Mrs Diana

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Osborne, Ms Sandra

    Hurst, Alan

    Palmer, Dr Nick

    Hutton, John

    Pearson, Ian

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Pickthall, Colin

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Pike, Peter L

    Jamieson, David

    Plaskitt, James

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Pollard, Kerry

    Pond, Chris

    Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

    Pope, Greg

    Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

    Pound, Stephen

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Powell, Sir Raymond

    Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

    Prescott, Rt Hon John

    Joyce, Eric

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Purchase, Ken

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    Rammell, Bill

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Rapson, Syd

    Kemp, Fraser

    Raynsford, Nick

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Rendel, David

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

    Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

    Laxton, Bob

    Rogers, Allan

    Lepper, David

    Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

    Leslie, Christopher

    Rooney, Terry

    Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Roy, Frank

    Livsey, Richard

    Ruane, Chris

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Ruddock, Joan

    Llwyd, Elfyn

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Lock, David

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    Love, Andrew

    Salter, Martin

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Sanders, Adrian

    McCabe, Steve

    Sarwar, Mohammad

    McCafferty, Ms Chris

    Savidge, Malcolm

    McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Sheerman, Barry

    McDonnell, John

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    McFall, John

    Shipley, Ms Debra

    MoGrady, Eddie

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    McIsaac, Shona

    Skinner, Dennis

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    McNulty, Tony

    Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    McWilliam, John

    Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Mallaber, Judy

    Snape, Peter

    Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

    Soley, Clive

    Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

    Spellar, John

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    Martlew, Eric

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Maxton, John

    Stevenson, George

    Meale, Alan

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Merron, Gillian

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Michael, Rt Hon Alun

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

    Miller, Andrew

    Stuart, Ms Gisela

    Mitchell, Austin

    Stunell, Andrew

    Moffatt, Laura

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    897

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Wareing, Robert N

    Watts, David

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    White, Brian

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

    Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

    Timms, Stephen

    Willis, Phil

    Tipping, Paddy

    Wills, Michael

    Todd, Mark

    Winnick, David

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Touhig, Don

    Wood, Mike

    Trickett, Jon

    Woodward, Shaun

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Woolas, Phil

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Turner, Neil (Wigan)

    Wright, Tony (Cannock)

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Vaz, Keith

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Mrs. Anne McGuire and

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Mr. Jim Dowd.

    NOES

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Horam, John

    Amess, David

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Baldry, Tony

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Bell, Martin (Tatton)

    Key, Robert

    Bercow, John

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Blunt, Crispin

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Body, Sir Richard

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Boswell, Tim

    Lansley, Andrew

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Leigh, Edward

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

    Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

    Brady, Graham

    Lidington, David

    Brazier, Julian

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

    Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

    Loughton, Tim

    Burns, Simon

    Luff, Peter

    Cash, William

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

    McCrea, Dr William

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

    MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Collins, Tim

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Cran, James

    Malins, Humfrey

    Curry, Rt Hon David

    Maples, John

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    Mates, Michael

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Day, Stephen

    Moss, Malcolm

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

    Evans, Nigel

    Ottaway, Richard

    Fabricant, Michael

    Page, Richard

    Fallon, Michael

    Paice, James

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Fox, Dr Liam

    Pickles, Eric

    Fraser, Christopher

    Randall, John

    Gale, Roger

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Garnier, Edward

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Gibb, Nick

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Gill, Christopher

    Ruffley, David

    Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

    St Aubyn, Nick

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Green, Damian

    Shepherd, Richard

    Greenway, John

    Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

    Grieve, Dominic

    Soames, Nicholas

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Hammond, Philip

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Hawkins, Nick

    Spring, Richard

    Hayes, John

    Steen, Anthony

    Heald, Oliver

    Streeter, Gary

    Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

    Swayne, Desmond

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Syms, Robert

    898

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Whittingdale, John

    Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Wilkinson, John

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

    Townend, John

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Tredinnick, David

    Yeo, Tim

    Trend, Michael

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Walter, Robert

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Waterson, Nigel

    Mr. Keith Simpson and

    Whitney, Sir Raymond

    Mr. James Gray.

    Question accordingly agreed to.

    SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
    Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [31 January],
    That the Select Committee on Science and Technology shall have leave to meet concurrently with any committee of the Lords on science and technology or any sub-committee thereof, for the purpose of deliberating or taking evidence, and to communicate to any such committee its evidence or any other documents relating to matters of common interest.—[Mr. Dowd.]
    Hon. Members: Object.

    SITTINGS IN WESTMINSTER HALL
    Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [23 January],
    That, following the Order [20th November 2000], Mr. Nicholas Winterton, Mr. John Mc William, Mr. Barry Jones and Frank Cook be appointed to act as additional Deputy Speakers at sittings in Westminster Hall during this Session.—[Mr. Dowd.]
    Hon. Members: Object.

    SELECT COMMITTEES (JOINT MEETINGS)
    Motion made,
    That, for the current Session of Parliament, Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended as follows:
    Line 40, before the word 'European' insert the words 'Environmental Audit Committee or with the'.
    Line 50, before the word 'European' insert the words 'Environmental Audit Committee or with the'.
    Line 52, at the end insert the words:—
    '(4A) notwithstanding paragraphs (2) and (4) above, where more than two committees or sub-committees appointed under this order meet concurrently in accordance with paragraph (4)(e) above, the quorum of each such committee or sub-committee shall be two.'—[Mr. Dowd.]
    Hon. Members: Object.

    LANGUAGE OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS
    Motion made,
    That—

    (1) this House approves the First Report from the Procedure Committee, Session 2000–01 (HC 47); and

    (2) the Resolution of 5th June 1996 on the Language of Parliamentary Proceedings be amended accordingly by inserting, after the word 'Wales,', the words 'and at Westminster in respect of Select Committees'.—[Mr. Dowd.]

    Hon. Members: Object

  PETITION

    Nuclear Waste
    10.10 pm
    Mr. Bob Russell: This is the "Colchester says no to burning nuclear waste at Bradwell" petition. It is the petition of Susan Brooks, Judith Lunn, Bridget Searle and 1,570 residents of Colchester and surrounding areas.
    The petition declares their opposition to the burning of low level nuclear waste, including oils and solvents, at Bradwell Nuclear Power Station, Essex. The Petitioners state that burning does not destroy radioactivity; instead it spreads radioactive particles into the atmosphere to be inhaled and ingested internally by populations downwind such as those living in my Colchester town constituency and surrounding areas including Mersea, Brightlingsea and Clacton. The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons takes action to prevent low level nuclear waste, including oils and solvents, from being burned at Bradwell Nuclear Power Station.
    And the Petitioners remain, etc.
    To lie upon the Table

    School Bus Services
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dowd.]
    10.11 pm
    Caroline Flint: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for granting me the opportunity to present this short but, I think, important debate.
    Time and time again over the past three to four years since I have been a Member, I have sat through and contributed to many transport debates. The school run and its contribution to congestion on our roads has often been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I have sometimes found it annoying that parents continually are blamed for using a car when I think that there are real reasons for them choosing to do so. So far, we have not come up with an expanded proposal to change their minds.
    I think that there are three reasons why parents choose to take their children to and from school by car. First, there is the issue of safety, whether that is road safety or the risks that parents feel their children may face from other adults. Most parents will not let their children go unescorted to school.
    Secondly, the reality is that more mums work. In doing so, they have to drop off their children at school and get to work on time. With the opening hours of school, that is not always possible to do either by walking or by using other forms of public transport. That being so, they choose to use the car.
    We expect people to travel further to their place of work than was expected of them many years ago. That is all the more true in some communities such as mine of Don Valley, where many people used to have work literally on their doorstep in the local coalmine. Today, as part of our regeneration, we are having to challenge people to move further to work, and to provide transport in order for them to do so.
    Thirdly, we have seen the deregulation of bus services, which is the legacy of the previous Tory Government's 18 years of office. That has left many parents unable to rely on public transport. When time is at a premium, I do not blame any parent for using the car to save time. For many of them, there is no other practical choice. I want to show how the experience of a journey as day to day and mundane as that of being taken to and from school, for many children and older pupils at Don Valley, can be reformed to contribute to improving the larger picture that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), must always consider. That is a picture of too many cars crowding into too many bottlenecks at peak hours, and too many public transport services as yet unable to resolve the congestion problem, which is made worse by the school run.
    I have spoken to transport providers, local authorities, schools and parents, and the message is clear. The deregulation of bus services by past Conservative Governments is continuing to have a disastrous effect and impact on the provision of rational local bus services that meet people's needs and, especially, the needs of children and young people.
    My concern this evening is primarily school transport. However, in offering new options on the way forward, I hope that I can help the Government to reduce congestion.

    901
    Up to 20 per cent. of morning rush-hour traffic is that of parents doing the school run. I want to help our children by reducing road accidents and creating the safe travel to and from school that the Government seek. I want also to help our schools by reducing late arrivals and support working parents, for whom time on a weekday morning is at a premium. I also hope that I can help the Government to support our local transport authorities and councils by contributing to the sensible planning of complementary services, quality education and quality public transport to and from school.
    My hon. Friend the Minister will know that, under the Education Act 1944, local authorities have a legal obligation to provide school transport, based on a reasonable walking distance to and from school of two miles for children under eight and three miles for older children. The three-mile walking distance dates back to section 74 of the Elementary Education Act 1870, under which a reasonable excuse for school non-attendance was that there was no elementary school within three miles of home.
    I am afraid that things appear to have moved on very little in 130 years, as we are still applying those two and three-mile rules. I contend that those rules are out of date, and I ask any parent in the House to walk their five, six or seven-year-old child up to two miles to school every day. In this day and age, it is just not practicable to expect parents to walk their under-eight children up to two miles to school and their over-eight children up to three miles. For many parents, therefore, the use of the car is an understandable necessity.
    As a constituency Member of Parliament, I believe strongly that good policy derives from understanding the life style and goals of ordinary people. We politicians are at our best and most useful when we can help the many, not simply the few, to meet those day-to-day challenges. A parent from Warmsworth, who was paying £100 a term to send her children to their catchment school by public transports commented:
    "It would be cheaper to take my children to school in a car, but as a responsible family we try to use public transport as much as possible and agree with Mr Prescott's ideas of cutting congestion during the school run."
    When I raised my constituent's case with my hon. Friend the Minister, he observed in September 1999 that only a quarter of secondary school pupils travelled to school by bus. Only 4 per cent. of primary school pupils travelled to school by bus—the same figure as in 1975.
    A parent from Sprotbrough, whose children have a free bus pass because of the distance at which they live from school, was concerned because what the children thought was a school bus was full, and they were left at the bus stop because the operator had registered the bus as a commercial service; the bus had picked up additional fare-paying school children on its circular route. A grandfather wrote to me concerning his grandchildren, who attended a local primary school just under two and a half miles from their village of Blaxton. On occasion, those children were left stranded at the bus stop after school because the public service bus was full on arrival at the stop. Young primary school children were left for 35 minutes on a cold, dark evening while their grandfather, without a car, waited at home, distressed at their failure to arrive home on time, but powerless to respond.
    902
    Children attending a school outside their catchment area face a problem, as they are at the mercy of deregulated bus services which, as we know, may be varied or cancelled with 42 day's notice. Last July, my constituents in Rossington, whose children attend the Hayfield school in Finningley, had a bus service going from Tickhill via Rossington and Bawtry to Finningley. In September, however, the bus route by-passed the less affluent area of Rossington altogether, leaving those children isolated and potentially excluded from attending their chosen school. Children in the villages of Edlington and Sprotbrough have encountered similar problems in travelling to the Danum school in Doncaster.
    Those children benefit from the exercise of parental choice. My hon. Friend is a transport Minister, but he will be aware of the anomaly that, on the one hand, parents have some opportunity to choose schools beyond their catchment area, which local authorities accept, while on the other, local authorities have no responsibility for assisting with those children's travel to school, so that they fall victim to the whim of deregulated commercial bus services which may, or may not, meet their needs. I could cite many more cases and, no doubt, those stories are replicated throughout the country.
    I shall clarify my proposals. First, a dedicated school bus service should be available to every child, whatever the distance at which they live from school. I should like the two and three-mile rules to be scrapped. However, I am not demanding that all children, however close to a school, should have a free bus service. It would be far better to make a low-cost flat fare available to every child, regardless of the distance at which they live from school, but I honestly believe that children living 200 or 300 yd from school will not be queueing up to pay bus fares.
    Low-income families could qualify for free bus passes on the same basis as they qualify for free school meals, with no extra bureaucracy. All children could be offered season tickets, with parents being offered discounts for purchasing a season ticket in advance. If children from low-income families automatically received season tickets, there would be no stigma and, possibly, school attendance may improve.
    Evidence from South Yorkshire shows a fall of nearly 10 per cent. in peak-time car journeys during the school holidays. Nearly one in 10 cars are on the road exclusively to take children to school, while a further 10 per cent. of cars do the school run prior to the rush to work. How many car miles would be saved if a reliable, dedicated school bus service was available?
    My second proposal is that local authorities or transport authorities should be obliged to work with schools to provide a transport plan for all the pupils. Thirdly, the transport funding of local authorities must be reconfigured to place emphasis on funding the provision of school transport.
    In South Yorkshire, concessionary fares for 4.5 per cent. of all schoolchildren account for more than 20 per cent. of expenditure on school transport. In Doncaster, provision for children with special needs account for well over half of the funds for school transport held by the local authority. I respect those children's needs, but by extension, I also believe that all children, parents and society will gain from a comprehensive and inclusive school transport strategy.

    903
    Although the UK is certainly not the USA, I see some attraction in the no-frills yellow bus, which my children see on "The Simpsons" cartoon programme every day, which offers a door-to-door service. The idea of a dedicated yellow bus service has attracted considerable interest, including from my own transport authority, the South Yorkshire passenger transport executive.
    My hon. Friend knows of the widespread enthusiasm for school travel plans from the many bids that he received from local authorities to fund the preparation of local travel plans. I understand that 263 bids were received for work or school travel plans, and that a majority of them related to school travel. I also understand that my hon. Friend is funding 111 posts to prepare those local plans.
    Is that the precursor of a radical expansion of school transport? Will we see a quantum leap in the number of children arriving at school by means other than by car, or will we simply see a large number of safe walking routes established at minimum cost which, to be honest, appear to miss the point? For many of those children, the answer is a bus.
    The Government—the most radical Labour Government that the country has ever seen—have laid the foundations for a first-class transport network in the national transport plan. For that, I compliment my hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues on all their work.
    South Yorkshire is a centre of transport excellence, which will be enhanced when Doncaster has its own airport, located within minutes of the east coast main line and a short bus ride from Doncaster's new interchange. However, plans for school transport look undeveloped, and safe walking routes are only a small part of the solution.
    We may never solve every problem, and different communities may need different solutions, but time and again we seem to overlook the central role that the school bus could play in contributing to sustainable transport. Knowing my hon. Friend's shared commitment to safe travel, traffic reduction and the efficient use of the road network, I urge him to ensure that when he and the Government are re-elected for a second term, we create an efficient, locally delivered school bus transport strategy.
    10.22 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) for raising the matter of school bus services. I thank her for her courtesy in giving me notice of some of the main issues that she intended to discuss in the debate. I hope to offer her an encouraging response.
    It goes without saying that we all want to be sure that children travel to school in safety and, wherever possible, by sustainable modes of transport. As my hon. Friend rightly observed, 18 per cent. of cars on the road in urban areas at the peak of the morning rush—that is, at 10 minutes to 9—are taking children to school.
    The proportion of journeys to school by car has almost doubled since the mid-1980s, to 30 per cent., with 38 per cent. of primary pupils and more than 20 per cent. of secondary pupils travelling to school by car. Bus use has remained relatively stable, at around 20 per cent. Walking
    904
    and cycling have declined, although 53 per cent. of primary pupils and 42 per cent. of secondary pupils still walk to school.
    We know that children sitting in cars in congested, slow-moving traffic can be exposed to pollution levels three times higher than those outside the car, yet there is a range of alternatives to the car for the—usually short—journey to school. There is a widespread perception that healthy, sustainable travel to school largely involves walking and cycling, rather than bus use. The vast majority of children who live within a mile of school do walk, but because the average journey length has increased to 1.5 miles for five to 10-year-olds and 3.3 miles for 11 to 16-year-olds, fewer trips are now within walking distance. The bus should therefore be a positive choice for more parents and their children.
    Caroline Flint: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a lack of adequate discussion and consultation on the production of transport plans to meet the needs produced by school reorganisation? Such reorganisation can occur in the form of school closures, which happen because of falling numbers, or as a result of the conversion of the structure of primary, middle and secondary schools to a two-tier system.
    Mr. Hill: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The production of such plans is one of the tasks that we expect the 111 travel plan co-ordinators for schools and firms, whom she mentioned, to address as school mergers develop. The Government have just introduced those co-ordinators, at a cost of £9 million.
    Buses take up far less road space than the cars that are needed to carry an equivalent number of passengers. More bus travel during the peak school run would cut congestion on the roads and thus help to reduce vehicle emissions. With a few hopeful exceptions, bus travel has steadily declined during much of the past half century and is only now starting to show signs of recovery. Bus travel to school allows children to socialise with their peers, to gain greater independence and self-confidence and to learn important skills such as an understanding of timetables.
    Bus travel is safer than car travel, and by ensuring that children use buses, we might even encourage them to become lifelong public transport users, with all the benefits that that would bring. Greater bus travel to school would benefit both schoolchildren and the environment, but getting pupils out of cars and on to buses requires partnership. Local authorities need to work in partnership with operators, parents and other stakeholders to achieve that aim.
    The Government have put buses at the heart of our integrated transport plans. We have set ourselves the target of increasing bus passenger journeys by 10 per cent. by 2010. Local authorities have just received a good revenue support grant settlement, and there has been substantial growth in Government funding for the third year running. There will be a national average increase of 4.4 per cent. in general grant money next year. The settlement took into account the increase in bus contract prices that is being experienced in a number of areas.
    We are also providing growing support for rural bus services, including continuation and expansion of the rural bus subsidy grant scheme; its contribution will increase to

    905
    £140 million over the next three years. In addition, £60 million will be provided for the rural bus challenge and we are introducing a new urban bus challenge to improve transport links for deprived urban areas, which will provide £40 million over the next three years. We are also implementing a range of policies to improve bus services generally.
    All those measures are encouraging bus operators and local authorities to work together to drive up quality, frequency and reliability, and to extend bus coverage. We have now put in place arrangements that give a proper role to local authorities and ensure a clear system of local transport planning. At the same time, we recognise the need to harness the commercial expertise and innovation of the private sector.
    I perfectly understand my hon. Friend's concerns. She would like a national school bus strategy to be established. I understand that to mean that she wants an increase in free home-to-school transport and in other local bus services that serve schools. We are working towards implementing the recommendations made to Ministers by the school travel advisory group, which is known as STAG, on the use and availability of buses for the journey to school. STAG wants walking, cycling and bus use to return by 2010 to the levels of the mid-1980s. That would mean that 80 per cent. of primary school children and 90 per cent. of secondary school children travelled by such means.
    We are aware that many people feel that the current statutory walking distances—two miles for pupils aged up to seven, and three miles for those aged eight and above—that govern qualification for free home-to-school transport are unreasonable, and that legislation does not support parental preference on school choice. Indeed, my hon. Friend made that point forcefully. We know that, of the children who live between one and three miles from school, more than 60 per cent. of those aged five to 10 and about 30 per cent. of those aged 11 to 16 currently travel by car. Recent research has shown that a significant number of those children might be expected to travel by bus if the statutory walking distances were reduced. Reduced congestion benefits could then be expected, especially in urban areas.
    To that end, STAG recommended that better use be made of the substantial resources already devoted to statutory school transport, so that arrangements are better targeted on safe, healthy and environmentally friendly travel to school.
    Let me remind the House of the real purpose and function of statutory school transport. It is not and never was designed to be an all-inclusive school transport service. It is a safety net to ensure that no children are denied the right to attend a suitable school because they live too far away, have special needs or face a dangerous journey.
    Caroline Flint: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mr. Hill: I would rather not. I have much to say and relatively little time. However, I appreciate the customary devotion and assiduity that my hon. Friend brings to such matters.
    The amount budgeted for and spent on statutory school transport by local education authorities has been increasing above inflation in recent years. It is now a
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    substantial sum—more than £440 million in 1998–99. However, some two thirds of the figure is spent on pupils with statements of special educational needs. That leaves approximately £150 million for the 7.5 million pupils of compulsory school age who do not have statements. It gives local authorities little scope for additional discretionary provision.
    My colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment are, however, considering proposals for pilot schemes to enable local authorities to test the supply and take-up of additional school transport for children who are not currently entitled to free transport. In advance of that, my Department has invited tenders for a survey of attitudes to test the likely take-up of additional school transport services and the extent to which it would be influenced by a range of factors, including fares.
    Statutory school transport is not the only source of assistance. Local authorities have the power, but no duty, to establish concessionary fare schemes in their areas under the Transport Act 1985. About 40 per cent. of shire counties have a scheme for young people, though few are countywide, and some do not provide fare reductions in the morning peak. By contrast, in the metropolitan areas, all six passenger transport authorities provide flat fares or half fares on local buses that are valid in the morning peak. Those schemes are supported by Government subsidy.
    In the shire areas, it is common for discounted fares to be offered commercially by private sector bus operators, and the discount is usually half fare. In London, Transport for London, rather than local authorities, operates a discount scheme for young people at roughly half fare. It is regarded as a commercial scheme without Government subsidy, it covers the five to 18 age group and it is available in the morning peak. In the light of that, STAG also recommended that affordable bus travel to school be made available to all children in compulsory education. My Department plans to discuss that further with major bus operators.
    The Department has also commissioned consultants to identify current best practice in increasing bus use for the journey to school. We consulted local authorities, schools and bus operators, and they identified many examples of local action to promote bus travel for the home-to-school journey. The consultants reported last year and we shall shortly publish a guide for local authorities, bus operators and parents groups that draws together the main lessons from the study. It will be full of real-life examples of the way in which schools, parents, bus operators, local businesses and the police have worked together successfully to increase travel to school by bus. We hope that the guide will stimulate other authorities, and especially operators, to consider the further measures that they can take.
    We know that some local authorities and bus operators are currently developing innovative school bus schemes. One is in Surrey, where the recent local transport plan settlement conferred large sums of Government money on a pilot project that provides direct transportation from home to school for 40 primary schools in the county. Other schemes are based directly on the American school bus system. We are watching their development with interest. My hon. Friend is evidently doing so too.
    The Department has been working with the bus operators FirstGroup to identify where American yellow bus vehicles might be modified to meet construction and

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    use requirements, and where special authorisation might be required. I understand that FirstGroup has agreed to make all the required modifications to ensure that the vehicles comply with the conditions of initial fitness regulations. It will hold urgent discussions with the Department on the further modifications that are required to fulfil the accessibility regulations.
    Any exemptions granted to FirstGroup vehicles will have to be fully justifiable, and other operators will need to be treated in a similar fashion. I have already received representations from other vehicle manufacturers, operators and groups representing disabled people. My ministerial colleagues and I have given an assurance that the Government remain totally committed to a fully
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    accessible public transport system, and that will be borne in mind when deciding whether those vehicles are to be accepted on UK roads.
    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. My colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment and I regard the issue of promoting travel to school by safer and more sustainable modes as very important. I hope that I have been able to demonstrate that we are currently very active in this area. I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend this evening, just as I welcome all other constructive suggestions about further work to be done.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes to Eleven o'clock.