Lord Trefgarne
If a Bill were to come forward simply to deal with my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury—or to deal among other things with my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury—it would be a hybrid Bill. Does my noble friend recall the difficulties of getting hybrid—
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, perhaps it might help to bring the Committee to a degree of order if we allow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, to move his amendment before we get into detailed discussion. I do not think he has yet moved it.
The Earl of Caithness
I am speaking to it and have a lot more to say. I know it is Friday afternoon and my noble friend on the Front Bench wishes to go home, but I have been working on this Bill for a couple of weeks, and I am not going to miss my opportunity.
Amendment 1 and my subsequent amendments are about the definition of hereditary titles. The Bill is quite clear that baronetcies include Irish baronetcies, but Clause 1 relates to the peerages of England, Scotland, Great Britain or the United Kingdom only. In fact, this is already a hybrid Bill because it incorporates the baronetcies of Ireland but not the peerages of Ireland. That is the effect of Amendment 4. It is particularly relevant for my noble friend Lord Clancarty. He is the Earl of Clancarty as well Baron Kilconnel and Viscount Dunlo—but they are separate titles in the peerage of Ireland. So there is a complication in excluding Ireland.
Amendment 4 shows that Amendment 1 is very relevant, because you need to define a hereditary title. If you do not define it, you face a gamut of things. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has an amendment—I have similar amendments—that tries to include some hereditary titles from the Crown or state. That is a separate argument, and we will come to it.
The huge complication of the Bill as it stands is the definition of “hereditary title”. I wish to simplify that. I wish to include peerages, including Irish peerages, and baronetcies and leave it at that. I beg to move.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
I came into this debate believing that a vow of omerta would probably be the best approach, and I intend to stick to that. However, I wanted to upset the noble Earl on his happy day. I am afraid that as my noble friend Lord Dubs just said, he is confusing several things. The position that we have adopted is as stated by my noble friend Lord Dubs: in relation to the way in which titles are transferred we believe in equality and we will support that. We do not believe in the hereditary principle, therefore his continuous presence in this House is something we would oppose.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, it is valuable to treat this Committee stage as a discussion about titles and the question of discrimination. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, talked about stripping away all the carbuncles. I hesitate a little on that, partly because the British constitution consists of a great many carbuncles. The application of rational design to the British constitution would sweep us away in its turn, which we know the majority of Members of this House are very strongly opposed to.
I was here when the Government announced that the office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished. They thereupon discovered that the office of Lord Chancellor—a very ancient office—had a whole cast of obligations attached to it which was extraordinarily difficult to get rid of. That is why we still have, for different purposes, the office of Lord Chancellor combined with the Secretary of State for Justice.
The Government’s principle on this Bill is that we welcome the discussion of the elimination of discrimination as far as titles are concerned. My understanding on titles is that all honours stem from the Crown. I am therefore not entirely sure that titles are matters of property. One of the issues that we are debating in the Bill that stands behind this one in the queue is the question of whether the Duchy of Cornwall is a private property or a type of public property.
Baroness Deech
On a point of order: according to the Crown office—and it should know—it is written in Halsbury’s Laws of England, 5th edition, Volume 79, paragraph 808:
“A peerage is an incorporeal and impartible hereditament, inalienable …”
It is real property akin to land. Of course, even if the Royal Prerogative enters into this, I think it is a lawyer’s point that a parliament can change or nibble away at or remove parts of the Royal Prerogative, so I hope that will not stand in the way.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Baroness for that. I recognise her legal expertise in this area. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that I have not entirely followed the Spanish Government’s debates, and I am sure he could also inform us on the Dutch, Belgian, Italian and Swedish debates on what happens on titles. I can recall a most wonderful evening in Rome, talking to Italian liberals—a nearly endangered species—hosted by a wonderful woman called La Contesssa Machiavelli. This was not at all the content I had in my mind at all. If we are going to make comparisons on titles, there are a lot more: I am not sure whether Andorra—
Lord Trefgarne
My intervention is on the Spanish example. They are the only recent Government to have created a new hereditary peerage. It was a new hereditary marquisate conferred upon the coach of a football team.
The Earl of Caithness
My noble friend will remember that Mrs Thatcher, as Prime Minister, created two hereditary peerages: the late Lord Tonypandy and our late noble friend Viscount Whitelaw.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The Government are committed to equality of treatment before the law, and we have demonstrated this in the legislation that the Government have already taken through this House and the other place, including the Succession to the Crown Act, which removed the male bias with regard to the descent of the Crown and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. We are not, however, persuaded that this Bill provides the most appropriate mechanism to address inequalities within the hereditary title system. I suggest that, before any such system be introduced, we need an extensive consultation with affected parties. That said, it is clear that many noble Lords who have spoken today support the equalisation of inheritance in regard to hereditary titles, and these amendments have provoked a debate on that, which will no doubt continue.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who took part, and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, tried to ruin my day. However, I say to him that, by allowing the eldest child, female or not, to inherit an hereditary title, you are going to perpetuate hereditary titles that would have died out with a male-only rule. That is to me a consolation.
May I ask my noble friend Lord Wallace, referring to my Amendment 4—which I will come to move in due course because I am only speaking to it at the moment— whether the Bill is hybrid at present as it includes Irish baronetcies, but not Irish peerages? Do we have a hybrid Bill at the moment?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am informed that this is not a matter for the Government. It certainly seems that if the object is to extend equality, the provision should apply to all those peerages created by the current and all previous monarchs of England and the United Kingdom, and therefore include the peerage of Ireland.
Lord Trefgarne
I am bound to say that some of us in this House have a little experience—somewhat distant experience now, I must say—of hybrid Bills and what the implications are. It is a serious matter. I believe that there is a procedure for referring a Bill to a Select Committee to consider whether it is or is not hybrid and to decide how to proceed. There are people called examiners, I seem to recall. It is probably one of our distinguished clerks, I imagine, who sits on a committee to examine all these matters. I do not wish to suggest that we unduly delay this Bill by such a process, but others may take a different view.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I presume I am right in thinking that we are considering the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and not that in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I merely wish to say that we are in the process of discovering the sheer complexity of what we are discussing. The Government’s objective is to ensure equality before the law. Therefore, the provisions should appropriately be applied broadly but we are beginning to discover just how complex the slightly different laws of England and Scotland are on this matter. I recall that when I was nominated to this House, the Lord Lyon King of Arms wanted to make absolutely sure that my title did not entrench upon anything to do with the Wallaces in Scotland. It was a very interesting overlap. I shall google St Moluag this afternoon just to check exactly who he was. I intend to use it in the next pub quiz I take part in as a test question.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am conscious that, as a Private Member’s Bill, this should be kept simple and of defined extent. Much as I am tempted to go into the nature of arms and all the rules that apply, I have to admit that I know so little that I would not detain your Lordships long if I did. It would be wise to keep this out of a Private Member’s Bill, for the same reason that I am quite attracted by the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, should he choose to press it. It defines the Bill more closely and makes it clearer.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I have enormous sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the simplicity of what he proposes. However, we then need some way back for existing arrangements, such as that suggested by my noble friend Lord Jopling. The difficulty with my noble friend’s amendment is that it does not allow for anything to be done by families who want to change now and who are prepared not to wait until everybody is dead.
I would therefore move my Amendment 46, and consequential Amendments 69 and 70. They adopt the position which would arise from the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, plus that of my noble friend Lord Jopling: the succession to eldest child, irrespective of gender, would start when everyone now living was dead, but families would be allowed to gather together and say, “Actually, we would like this to happen now”, so that we get some sense of change.
My noble friend Lord Trefgarne is quite right that there are a lot of complications in the peerage; sadly, that is not the case with mine—there are no great estates to cause that. However, complications exist, and if we try to trample on those sorts of arrangements we shall only get trouble. We must therefore allow for some mechanism for those to expire over time, although, certainly in respect of my own peerage, I would like to see the change coming as soon as possible.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I reiterate the Government’s support for equality in its broadest sense, and therefore equality in titles of one sort or another is something which we support in principle. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, invited the Government to produce at speed a Bill on this issue. Since I have spent the past six weeks consulting on a Bill which the Government produced last summer, and which a number of outside organisations have said should have been subjected very carefully to pre-legislative scrutiny, et cetera, I would not recommend that the Government be in a hurry to produce a Bill on this complex area.
We have heard over the debates on the first few amendments just how complex this whole area is. If we wish to proceed, the way to do so, I would have thought, would be consultation followed by a committee or commission of some sort to make sure that we fully understand what one might be doing.
I have already referred to the previous Government’s attempt to abolish the Lord Chancellorship in one day, and the subsequent discovery that the antiquity of the Lord Chancellorship meant that it had accumulated a great many of the carbuncles to which the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred. Therefore, if we are to proceed further on this, we should take our time, look very carefully at the implications—the difference between the English, Scottish, Irish and other dimensions of this—and then perhaps consider further.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, if the Minister is proposing a Royal Commission on this matter, that is an admirable proposal and a number of us here would be happy to volunteer to be chairman.