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Honours System (Reform)

A lot of ground has been covered, so I shall be brief. The Committee's report was published in 2004—two years ago. We said:"““There was little if any evidence of the sort of serious corruption which at one time affected the system””." Of course, nowadays it is impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading some lurid allegation about the honours system—honours for sale, and so forth. Let me say at the outset that I believe that the state should honour citizens who merit that. We set out in our report six principles for an effective honours system. The first of them is excellence;"““It should reward outstanding and exceptional service or achievement, at all levels””." Who would disagree with that? The second principle is integrity;"““it should not be, or be seen to be, corrupt””." We all agree with that. The third is transparency;"““it should be as open as possible, consistent with the need for confidentiality as to individual decisions””." The next principle is dignity;"““awards should be widely accepted as worthy””." The fifth principle is clarity;"““it should be easy for the public to understand why awards are made””." Finally, there should be fairness;"““it should not favour, or appear to favour, any one group””." We formulated those principles after taking evidence from a number of eminent people, and after acquiring a huge amount of written evidence, which is published in a separate volume. We got a lot of coverage. I truly believed that, with a Labour Government with a radical agenda, the honours system might be radically changed. Alas, that was not to be the case. Many of our report's recommendations were rejected. We called for the ending of honours going to people just for holding a particular post—for example, to senior civil servants such as permanent secretaries. That was rejected. We called for the end of the Order of the British Empire. That was rejected. We have heard about the conversion of the former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, but there were also other people who felt the same way about the idea that we should still award people with the Order of the British Empire in this day and age, when that empire no longer exists apart from half a dozen or a dozen islands scattered around the world. It was simply felt that that was something that should be changed. Benjamin Zephaniah is one of a number of people who refused an award. He declined to become an Officer of the Order of the British Empire; he stated—I wish I could say this in rap, but I cannot, and Members would laugh at me if I tried—that he believed it stood for colonial brutality and slavery. That is Benjamin Zephaniah's view. We felt that this could be updated. We felt that the initials could be kept; that is minimum change, which is the kind of change the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) likes. We felt we could keep the initials and just substitute ““excellence”” for ““empire””. We also recommended the phasing out of name-changing titles—the dames and the knights. The Government rejected that. It was rejected as too radical. I believe—I have always believed—that we in Britain live in a very hierarchical society. When I intervened earlier on my Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), I do not know if I said something that I did not mean to say, so let me say what I wanted to say again; I said that it is inconceivable that a teacher—not a head teacher, but a teacher—should be made a Dame of the British Empire. I just do not think that that would happen.