| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.5 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) is charming and puts her points forcefully and with good nature, if not always with good humour. She said that there is a streak of intolerance running through the debate--I believe that because many of those who have spoken in favour of the Bill have displayed marked intolerance towards those of us who take a contrary view. I have to tell the hon. Lady that we are much more in touch with the feelings of the people in this country. We may not be represented in large numbers in the House tonight, but we represent the vast majority of the British people.
It is curious that even the changed, emasculated--I will not call it "reformed"--other place has spoken for the nation. It was led by Baroness Young, whom the hon. Lady unwisely disparaged. The noble Lady has shown enormous courage in the stand that she has taken, and their Lordships have followed her lead and spoken for the people.
The Daily Record may not be the hon. Lady's everyday reading, and I suspect that it is not the everyday reading of those hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies and who have gone off to the Scottish Parliament. The Daily Record is not a Tory newspaper. There is not a Tory newspaper in Scotland. [Hon. Members: "There are no Tories in Scotland."] They are coming back, and they will be coming back in droves now. If the hon. Lady and her colleagues had read the Daily Record over the past couple of weeks, they would have seen that every day it reported the hostility in Scotland towards the Government's proposal to repeal section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.
Cardinal Winning, who has nailed his colours firmly to the mast, has garnered enormous support and respect in Scotland. An overwhelming majority of people in Scotland are in touch with our view and wholly out of sympathy with the views expressed by Labour Members.
Ms King:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his graciousness in giving way. If his opinions represent the views of the general public, can he explain why a Harris poll showed that 74 per cent. of the general public backed an equal age of consent?
Mr. Howarth:
I have not seen that poll. I saw a poll a couple of years ago which showed that 53 per cent. supported the view that I take. However, it is the latest poll in Scotland that is interesting because it reflects people's concern, as do hon. Members' mailbags. That is not to say that we are intolerant of people who have a different life style. I do not want to know what people do in their own home, behind closed doors, provided that it does not involve young people, and I do not want to read about it in the newspapers either.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ann Keen), who is no longer in her place--[Interruption.] What did the Whip say from a sedentary position?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order.
Mr. Howarth:
I do not know what the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) said. He was pretty vocal in the previous debate on this matter.
When the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth made her impassioned speech, she displayed the patronising attitude that those of us who take a contrary view are less intellectually capable than she is and that we care less about other people than she does. That is entirely wrong.
The man who has been charged with the bombing of the Admiral Duncan public house in Soho is a constituent of mine. I resent bitterly, and my constituents will also resent bitterly, the implication of the hon. Lady's remarks that those of us who take a contrary view to hers may somehow, by our language and our actions, be encouraging that young man to do what he is alleged to have done.
That is unacceptable. I resent it, and, on behalf of my constituents, I say that the hon. Lady ought to have the courtesy to acknowledge that when we speak about these issues, we do not give, and do not intend to give, encouragement to people to resort to the bomb or other acts of violence to promote their ends.
Mr. Bercow:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is both capable and caring, but does he agree that even if we are able confidently and accurately to identify majority opinion as being in support of the status quo, that does not of itself absolve us of the responsibility to study the legislation, to form our own view of it and to speak and vote accordingly?
Mr. Howarth:
Of course. I shall come to my hon. Friend's views in a moment. I know that his views on the importance of saving the pound are in no way influenced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the British people, in opinion poll after opinion poll, support it. He is a man of principle and he speaks from principle.
Hon. Members in all parts of the House acknowledge not only that my hon. Friend is extremely able, but that he is a man of principle. However, if he has had a change of heart, I hope that he will respect the fact that some of us have not, and that we are unpersuaded. Despite my hon. Friend's powers of persuasion, I am unpersuaded by the arguments that he advanced today, although I agree with him in his references to Europe in this debate. He and I are entirely agreed on that issue.
My hon. Friend and I may not agree in our attitude to the Bill, but we are agreed on an important aspect of it--its origin. If its origin lay solely in the Government's desire to introduce the measure, we could argue it between us and have a good debate. My hon. Friend said that he did not give a tinker's cuss for what other European countries do, for the European convention on human rights or for the European Commission of Human Rights. He and I are entirely agreed on that.
Labour Members should beware of the way in which, week in, week out, the House is ceding its powers to authorities beyond these islands. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward) can feign boredom and ennui, which is a French word meaning the same thing. She is a charming hon. Member and she will understand this even if the rest of the House will not: I am not flying wholly solo as we speak, but that is between us.
Mr. Howarth:
You might rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I went down that road.
As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), who is no longer present, when the United Kingdom signed up to the European convention on human rights, it did so only when it was absolutely certain and Ministers had agreed among themselves that the United Kingdom could not possibly be in infringement of the convention as drafted.
At that time buggery was a criminal offence, full stop. How can it be right that we were not infringing the convention then, but are doing so 50 years later? There is an answer to that question: the convention was drawn up in the aftermath of the second world war when the nations of Europe were concerned with ensuring that the atrocities that had been committed, principally by Nazi Germany, were not repeated. They were establishing a framework within which guidelines could be applied to the democratic countries and the emerging democratic Germany to ensure that a code of practice provided some bulwark--however realistic that prospect ever was--against the repetition of the atrocities of the 1940s.
Today we are experiencing a relentless intrusion on the rights of the elected United Kingdom Parliament to determine the composition of Her Majesty's armed forces. At least the Government have in this instance introduced a Bill and we are debating the age of consent, but we were unable to intervene in any way on the lifting of the ban on homosexuals serving in the armed forces as no Bill was introduced.
Mr. Tom Levitt (High Peak):
Next Thursday.
Mr. Howarth:
The hon. Gentleman intervenes from a sedentary position, but has clearly not read his pager. The Armed Forces Discipline Bill has nothing to do with homosexuals serving in the armed forces and everything to do with the system of courts martial and other procedures related to military discipline. However, I would not expect him to know anything about defence. [Interruption.] I am sorry; if I was a bit harsh, I apologise.
The European Court of Human Rights is interfering in sexuality not only in respect of the armed forces. We read in the newspapers today that, apparently, the Government are to introduce proposals requiring employers not to discriminate between heterosexual married couples and homosexuals living together in respect of benefits in kind, which in the vernacular are called perks. According to the Daily Mail, which is a very good authority on these matters:
Ms Ward:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth:
In a moment. The decision on the armed forces was taken by judges from well-known liberal- minded countries such as Lithuania, Cyprus and Austria, whose involvement is ironic, is it not? What right have
"It means that a gay couple will in future get the same perks as the spouses of married staff or cohabiting heterosexuals."
I find that extremely worrying. The proposal is being introduced at the behest of the European Court of Human Rights.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |