Dare to Be a Daniel

by Tony Benn

  Has any right hon. or hon. Member read the homage that a bishop must recite before he is ordained? It reads:

  I do hereby declare that your Majesty is the only supreme governor of this your Realm in spiritual and ecclesiastical things as well as in temporal

  – bishops do not even recognise democracy –

  and that no foreign prelate or potentate has any jurisdiction within this Realm.

  The Maastricht Treaty will be ratified today, yet every bishop has taken an oath that ‘no foreign prelate or potentate has any jurisdiction within this Realm’.

  Let us be clear. If the Queen became a Catholic this afternoon, the throne would be vacated. Something else will happen – she will become a citizen of the European Union. Perhaps she could go to the European Court and say, ‘I have lost my job because I have changed my religion.’ Let us be sensible. It is time to be rid of all that.

  I heard that the Queen had to give her consent to the Measure – and I know that because I have often sought her consent to establish a republic and to other minor measures of that kind – before we could discuss the ordination of women, yet she is supposed to be the supreme spiritual governor of the Church. What are the Prince of Wales’s theological qualifications in this matter passes beyond belief, but he owns some benefices in Cornwall, so he had to consent, too.

  A couple of days ago, the judges intervened with a judicial review of the ordination of women. On Monday, I wrote an angry letter to the Speaker because I thought that the arrogance of the judges had gone beyond control. I was reassured by the Clerk that the judges did what they ought to have done. What nonsense that is.

  There is no spiritual requirement for being a Member of Parliament. I should be surprised if any right hon. or hon. Member put in his last election address, ‘If elected, I will vote against the ordination of women’ or mentioned the matter in any speech. No one has the political mandate, spiritual authority or denominational requirement to do that.

  As to the House of Lords deciding the matter, the last ten Prime Ministers put 800 people in another place. Are those party placemen to judge whether women are qualified to become ordained? That is an impossible position.

  I believe that the Church of England will free itself before the end of this century, and I hope that it does so by agreement. If we turn down this Measure, then, candidly, I believe that it will accelerate disestablishment because the Church will not have it – rightly so. But I do not want the freedom of the Church of England to come as a result of a row, but by general agreement.

  There is one other matter that I find offensive. I know that the Church Estates Commissioner has a job to do, but I found it offensive to be told that the House need not worry because there will be safeguards for male priests against ordained women coming into their parishes. Safeguards? My God – what sort of man wants a safeguard in case a woman gives Communion in his parish?

  I will vote for the Measure because I do not believe that we have any right in the matter. As to offering safeguards and financial compensation, if it is a matter of conscience, how many people have gone to the stake for exercising their consciences? Would Cranmer have withdrawn if the Church had offered him a cheque? Are we to believe that in a deeply spiritual matter, conscience can be overcome with money? Are we to believe that a chaplain in a private school that requires an Anglican cannot carry on because of the thought that a woman might approach his school with the Sacrament, and that money would settle his conscientious objection? The House is facing an absurdity.

  If any compensation is to be given, it should be given to the women who have waited so patiently for the right to be ordained and to be called to serve. Compensation for the promotion of women is not an unattractive idea. When Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister, we might all have been compensated for the awful business of seeing her exercise supreme power. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South [Margaret Beckett] was made deputy leader of my party, I would have been happy – having once aspired to that post – to receive some beneficial bounty from Walworth Road. Even when the Labour Party ceased to be a socialist party, I did not ask for compensation. I do not see why Church of England vicars should obtain it.

  I hope that I have not detained the House or diverted it from a very important decision. I hope to live to see the day when a woman Archbishop of Canterbury greets a Pope in a Church that has ordained women. If that sounds a little extreme, it is no more extreme than a Member of Parliament telling a male-dominated House of Commons ninety years ago that one day a woman Speaker would preside over its proceedings.

  7

  Democracy

  My commitment to parliamentary democracy grew inevitably out of my family’s roots in Parliament, and has been strengthened by witnessing the abuse of power. The right to know, the right to vote and the right to decide are crucial for a society that claims to be self-governing. Yet each generation has to reassert these demands, which are easily denied and threatened by the powerful.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATE ON THE ELECTION OF BETTY BOOTHROYD AS SPEAKER, 27 APRIL 1992

  THIS DEBATE WAS chaired by Edward Heath as Father of the House; the Speakership was contested, rather than given to a senior member of either the Labour or Conservative Party, and Members of Parliament chose Betty Boothroyd, the first woman to hold the post.

  You, Sir Edward, and I have sat in thirteen Parliaments under seven Speakers, and I think that we are the last remaining Members of the House who saw Attlee and Churchill at the Dispatch Box and heard the last King’s Speech from the throne. We were elected in the same year; you are the Father of the House and I was then the baby of the House. I must now be the uncle of the House, and it is in that capacity that I want to speak. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow [Tam Dalyell] introduced, in my opinion, the most important element into this debate – the Speakership itself. As a young Member I once moved a motion of censure on the Speaker – a daring thing to do, for which I paid a heavy price. I did it because he refused me an emergency debate on the possibility of military action in Oman. Also, I was kept out by Harry Hylton-Foster on the ground that I was a peer, so I have had conflicts with one or two other Speakers as well.

  Before we come to the names – there is a candidate whom I strongly wish to support – I wish to stress that this is a House of Commons matter. Previously, Speakers have been chosen by patronage, nudging and winks, through the usual channels, which are the most polluted waterways in the world. All the candidates who have been mentioned have exceptional qualities – I am not arguing about that – but the House should remember that the reason that we regard the Speaker as important is that in this Chamber – or where it was 450 years ago this year – Mr Speaker Lenthall refused to bow to the King when he wanted to arrest five Members. He said, using the famous phrase, ‘May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor Tongue to Speak in this Place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.’

  Therefore, if we are talking about the Speakership, we must bring it up to date and ask where executive power lies now and how the House can be strong in defending it. We need a Speaker who will defend the legislature against the Executive, and defend the electors against those who abuse power, whether it be state power or private power.

  The power of Charles I has long gone and his successors have no power left, but in that 450 years state power has grown enormously in many ways. For example – and I am looking at the Prime Minister [John Major] – all the prerogatives that Charles had are now in the Prime Minister’s hands. You, Sir Edward, know it yourself. The Prime Minister can take the country to war without consulting Parliament – he did. He can sign treaties and choose archbishops without consulting Parliament. He can create peers without consulting Parliament – the previous ten Prime Ministers have created 800 Members of the other place without doing so. The Prime Minister can, without consulting Parliament, agree to laws being made in secret in the Council of Ministers in Brussels that take precedence o
ver our laws. He also has other powers. Therefore, the divine right of kings is alive and well in the person of the Prime Minister of the day.

  Other powers have grown: the City of London votes every day, and so will the European Central Bank, to decide the policy of this government and every other government. We are no longer even the primary source of debate, as television has taken it over. Mr Speaker Sissons and Mr Speaker Paxman presumed to tell us what the nation should think. When I first came here the Division Lobbies and polling stations were supposed to be the places where the nation’s will was expressed, but now the arrogant pollsters – the inaccurate pollsters – presume to tell us what the nation thinks. I say to whoever succeeds to the Chair that democracy is being bypassed, and the responsibility for that rests largely with the House of Commons and all the parties which have allowed it to happen.

  We have some powers: we can speak freely. Our speeches are printed in Hansard – the only newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch. We also have access to television, without being interrogated in the star chamber by David Dimbleby. But our most powerful weapon is Mr Speaker, and I wish to speak about the Speakership.

  Apart from keeping order, which is not as difficult as it might appear, the Speaker can allow or disallow parliamentary questions to ministers, and thus expose or protect them; accept or refuse closure motions, which can prolong or stop debates; select or reject Back-Bench motions or amendments, and thus deny a minority view in the House from ever being put in the Lobbies; permit or deny private notice questions or emergency debates; call or not call individual Members; and give or withhold precedence to Privy Counsellors, which is the source of much anger. He can determine which Bills are hybrid and which are not; use a casting vote if there is a tie; recall the Commons in a recess – a formidable power – in the event of some international crisis; certify a money Bill; and rule on matters of privilege.

  That is the office which we are discussing and, although the vote will resolve who occupies the Chair, we must pay attention to the office itself. Every Member present brings his or her own experience and convictions to the House. We were not elected to be robots, trembling before the party Whips. Ultimately, we are responsible to ourselves and our consciences. All party leaders get it wrong sometimes and, often, one lone voice may turn out to have got it right. We must speak out more plainly for the people we represent, many of whom have no confidence in the House. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland [James Wallace] questioned whether this is a representative assembly. That is now on the agenda, whether we agree or not. Ethnic communities and those who poured into the polling stations but could not vote because they did not pay their poll tax do not feel represented in the House. Others can live abroad for twenty-five years and still have a vote without even being asked to pay poll tax.

  The point is that we must not have another cosy little election for a Speaker without recognising that these are difficult times. I believe – I have been here for a long time – that we need a reforming Speaker. We modernise everything, but the Speakership goes on. We need a Speaker to call more Members from minority parties and more minority Members from other parties. We need more debates on emergency matters – why should the television channels cover matters that we cannot discuss even when the business of the House is only a trifling amendment on a government Bill? I want a Speaker who will demand better conditions for the staff who work in the Palace of Westminster, including comprehensive and complete child-care for the many parents who have come to the House: I should like a Speaker who will allow Westminster Hall to be used so that we do not leave pensioners freezing outside in the winter when they come to lobby their Members of Parliament. I should like the Strangers Gallery to be renamed the ‘Electors Gallery’. We have never caught up with 1832 when this place was done out.

  I should also like a Speaker who does not wear a wig every day, because it is so intimidating – [Interruption.] I know that Mr Speaker Weatherill was popular on television, but many people watching thought that he was appearing in the High Court. We need a Speaker who will defend the rights of those represented here.

  Although I am not speaking for my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West [Betty Boothroyd], whom I support, I hope that she and the other candidates are listening. If Parliament is to survive, it must be a workshop, not a museum. For one reason or another, the years ahead will be very troubled. There will not only be difficulties in the House, but social unrest – [Interruption.] I am giving my opinion to the House – I thought that that was what the House was famous for. I do not believe that democracy can be taken for granted anywhere. We would do well to elect a Speaker who will help to do the difficult task that falls to those of us who have the honour to serve in this House.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATE ON PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY, 13 MAY 1999

  … I hope that the Hansard of today’s debate is not made available to our troops and airmen involved in the war in Kosovo. Most hon. Members know that, over recent years and for a variety of reasons, Parliament has become less and less relevant to decision-making in our society. To avoid following the pattern of the previous speakers, I should point out that the process of bypassing Parliament; the centralisation of power; the use of patronage; and the use of the royal prerogative to avoid serious debate began under earlier governments and is being continued under the present government.

  I wish to speak about the relevance of this debate to next Tuesday’s debate on Kosovo. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow [Tam Dalyell] and I have asked on a number of occasions – the request has been echoed by Opposition Members – for the House of Commons to be allowed to express its view on this major war, which is involving not only our servicemen but their families, and which will cost the people of this country a great deal. The government have consistently refused to allow that.

  I asked my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House [Margaret Beckett] – whom I have known and worked with closely over the years – whether we could have a vote. In reply, on 22 April, she said, Although I well understand the express wish of Members on both sides of the House for a decision-making procedure of the type that he describes and suggests, there is no precedent for that in the House [Official Report, 22 April 1999; vol. 329, c. 1053].

  That is to say that the present government, who are committed to modernisation, are basing their decisions on the medieval principle that the question of going to war is a matter of royal prerogative – and so indeed it is.

  I looked back to the journals of the House for 1621 – a month or two before I got here – when James I sent a direction to the House of Commons that it had no business discussing foreign or defence policy. The House passed a protestation, and the King then dissolved Parliament. The question whether the legislature has any role in the conduct of foreign and defence policy must concern people who take different views in this House.

  Some of my hon. Friends are in favour of the deployment of ground troops and of stepping up the bombing, and should be allowed to express that view in the Lobby. Others, such as myself, think that the venture was ill judged, ill thought out and has failed. I should be allowed to express that view, on behalf of the people who elected me. A vote could then take place. If we are to discuss parliamentary democracy – as distinct from this debate between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, which may have been fun for them but was not for me – we ought to discuss that matter.

  For our children, we describe ourselves as a democracy. I always attend state occasions and, in this House, we talk about a parliamentary democracy. When the Queen makes a speech, she does not mention either word – she says that we are a constitutional monarchy. There is all the difference in the world between a democracy, a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy … When we meet, I have to tell a lie to sit in this House – I must say: ‘I swear by almighty God that I will bear faithful and true allegiance.’

  I do not believe that – I am a republican. Every minister must swear an oath of alle
giance. The Privy Counsellors’ oath is even worse. They must say that they will defend the monarch from ‘foreign prelates, potentates and powers’. When they go as Commissioners to Brussels, Privy Counsellors take another oath, and say that they will take no notice of any nation that might put pressure upon them. These may not seem to be significant questions, but they become so when a war occurs and we are not consulted.

  I wish to refer to the growth in patronage. All Prime Ministers appoint all the bishops; why cannot the Church of England have the confidence to choose its own leaders? Why cannot we select or vet judges in the way that the Senate does in the United States? The Prime Minister has just appointed a new Commissioner to Brussels who, I understand, is not even the choice of the Conservative Party. He has used his patronage to appoint a Conservative representing a different view, but that is the practice. All ministers are appointed and dismissed by the Prime Minister.

  If the Labour evidence given to the royal commission on the reform of the House of Lords is to be believed, all the House of Lords is to be appointed. Some wonder whether it is not the intention to appoint the whole House of Commons, but we have not reached that stage yet. It is certainly true that the use of party patronage in choosing a First Minister in Wales or a mayor in London, or disposing of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West [Dennis Canavan], shows a desire to control everything.

  Everyone with power wants to do that, so we must ask not why they do it, but why we accept it. The House has the capacity to do something about it. I introduced the Crown Prerogatives (Parliamentary Control) Bill.

  The Crown Prerogatives (Parliamentary Control) Bill was supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Linlithgow, for Preston [Audrey Wise] and for Nottingham, South [Alan Simpson]; by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway [Robert Marshall-Andrews]; by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland [Derek Foster]; by the hon. Members for Lewes [Norman Baker], for North Antrim [Revd Ian Paisley], for Aldridge-Brownhills [Richard Shepherd] and for Billericay [Teresa Gorman]; and by the right hon. Members for Haltemprice and Howden [David Davis] and for Caernarfon [Dafydd Wigley]. That is broad support. Even the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon [John Major] signed an early-day motion calling for the Commissioners to be approved by the House of Commons.