Sir John Hayes

I will try to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman because he is a new Member. We all learn something every day here, and when a Member has been here for 27 years, unless we are entirely stupid we learn a great deal, so I have picked up one or two things. The critical frailty in his argument is the difference between authority and influence. Of course it is true that the King grants Royal Assent to the Bills that we pass and so they become Acts, but the very business of him granting Royal Assent reinforces his authority, and the fact that he has a personal audience with the Prime Minister on a weekly basis, which is more than the hon. Gentleman ever will and more than I do, suggests that his influence over our affairs is considerably greater than that of most of the people elected here. It is quite wrong to suggest that the monarch does not exercise political influence and thereby political authority. I also spoke about continuity. The importance in our constitutional settlement of the continuation of the role of the House of Lords is that it provides a degree of continuity. Members have talked about what is time-honoured and cast that aside as though it does not matter. What is time-honoured counts because it has been honed by generations of people, not merely decided upon by one group of people at one point in time. I heard another speech which criticised birthright. If I stood here and said it was the birthright of every Briton that habeas corpus prevails, or if I said it was the birthright of every subject of this kingdom that they can speak and think and act freely, everyone would feel that it was entirely right and proper for me to make those pronouncements, yet birthright has been criticised in this Chamber as if it was nothing.