I will speak about new clause 1, as you rightly say, Mr Deputy Speaker, though these remarks are of relevance.
The suggestion is that we have a regent: a piece of ingenious constitutional gibberish that is part of the past rather than the future. We should be legislating for the future. Let us look at what we have got. I am still baffled—I cannot get these things across to the Table
Office—as to how these outrageous decisions we are taking are consistent with the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention on human rights. Article 9 of the convention states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
That is enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998—not 1598 or 1298. It goes on:
“Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
What has this got to do with a democratic society? This is about an autocratic society and a monarchy that have contributed nothing to our progress over the years. Rather, they have been an obstacle to democratic reform for centuries.
6 pm
How can the Government claim that the Bill is consistent with the Human Rights Act? The rationale is there for a legal challenge. I am sure one will be made before long. There is no statutory law of male preference primogeniture for royal succession; it is common law construct that has become codified by practice over the centuries. The heirs of Sophia of Hanover currently have the sole right, enshrined in law under the Act of Settlement, to succeed to the English Crown, with all that that implies in terms of rights and entitlements of the English monarch as de facto Head of State.
I want to clear up one point. There is a belief that the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) is 246th in line to the throne, and according to Wikipedia, the authority for that claim is the blog of “Mr Paul Flynn”. I advise anyone who wishes to repeat that claim to treat it with some caution, because I know the process by which the number was arrived at, and no other authority makes the claim.
The Bill seeks to extend by law the rights in the Act of Settlement to all heirs of Sophia of Hanover, not just to the boys and men who would succeed under common law principles. By so doing, however, it seeks to create binding rights in law in favour of a very small group of additional potential future beneficiaries among the female heirs of Sophia of Hanover on the basis of birth alone.