Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Earl of Caithness

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I support the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, on Amendment 2. A number of my amendments are grouped with his, including Amendments 9 and 17. To that, I would add Amendment 20, as it would sit logically with the others. The group also includes my Amendments 30, 33, 37, 41, 45, 58, 61, 65, 68 and 75. I would substitute Amendment 80 for Amendment 79, because Amendment 79 links with Amendment 1. My Amendments 83, 88 and 96 are also in the group.

The noble Earl is absolutely right in what he said, which comes back to the point that we discussed on the first amendment. The noble Earl is the Lord High Constable of Scotland, a title of the Crown, or state, to which he succeeded after his mother. However, it is nothing to do with the earldom of Erroll; it is a totally separate issue. In Scotland, we also have the Hereditary Bearer of the National Flag of Scotland, who is the Earl of Lauderdale, the Hereditary Royal Standard-Bearer for Scotland, who is our noble friend Lord Dundee, and the Hereditary Keeper of Holyrood Palace, who is the Duke of Hamilton. Those are fairly straightforward and should be dealt with in this amendment. Without being at all derogatory, we then get down to perhaps a slightly lesser level. What about the Keeper of the Ancient Staff of St Moluag? Should that be hereditary? This is the real problem with this issue and why it needs to be so clearly defined.

The noble Earl also talked about clan chiefships. This is a matter of debate: some Writers to the Signet, in some cases, have said that clan chiefship is a title and others have said that it is a right or a privilege. We could have a huge number of court cases trying to decide that. It is not our job in this House to leave legislation ambiguous; we need to be absolutely clear. The lawyers make enough money as it is and we do not want to give them any more.

I would resist the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, which is a good example of where the Bill is being extended to include armigers. Of course, the rules in Scotland are different from those in England, and this one solution to fit all systems comes apart. If my daughter marries a Mr Smith, she cannot then bear her coat of arms as a Sinclair unless she changes her name. In Scotland, if an heiress inherits, to assume the coat of arms she is required to change her name, otherwise she is conventionally dead within the family and the next heir then inherits. It is not fun to be conventionally dead, or indeed unconventionally dead. In contrast, a peerage or baronetcy is generally not legally connected to a name. There are lots of examples of a peerage or baronetcy granted to Mr X where the name changes with various inheritances. There are some Scottish peerages where there is an obligation to bear the original name of the arms, but those are a limited minority.

We have a different legal system in Scotland. When I saw this amendment, I spoke to the Lyon Clerk, who is the assistant to the Lord Lyon in Scotland. She threw up her arms in horror and said, “No. This is just unacceptable. There has been no discussion about it. The implications are enormous”. For that reason, I will resist this amendment.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Amendment 3 should be dealt with separately within the Bill because there are complications around it. My wife, Isabelle Astell, is English and is armigerous. She is the heir to the Astell place and to the Astell arms. As far as I know, she still bears her own arms and I hope she will pass them to one of our sons. It happens to be that way round but, given that she inherited them, they could presumably be passed to a daughter. This issue needs looking at and thinking about but the point is well taken. At a later stage of the Bill, perhaps something could be inserted to cover just arms, leaving it separate from peerages and baronetcies—things that have come from the Crown directly.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Earl of Caithness

Friday 10th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, in Committee we had a good discussion about this clause, as my noble friend Lord Astor has just said, and a sensible point was raised about detention overseas by what one might call rogue states. I do not think that it would be wise to name them, but there are certain countries in the world where one could find oneself in prison for more than a year without justification. From memory, it was my noble friend Lord Swinfen who raised this issue. My noble friend Lord Steel said that he would have a look at it. The point of the amendment is to try to cover that eventuality. Is this part of the Bill retrospective, or does it come into effect for the first time? In other words, if one served a prison sentence five years ago, say, and is still a Member of this House, is one excluded or will one still be allowed to sit here? I beg to move.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, the world is a complex place and rules very rarely work in it because there is always some exception. It is wise to have an avenue of appeal for special circumstances. It would probably never be exercised but it is wise to have it there as a fallback, just in case.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Earl of Caithness

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments on this. I had not really paid proper attention to this Bill in its previous three incarnations, mainly because I thought that we were going to see something through from the Government and that this was basically a side-show that would go away. Yet it does not seem to be doing that, which is worrying me. It is my experience of House of Lords reform that it flounders regularly. That is why 92 hereditary Peers were left here: to give an incentive for further reform. I am quite certain that if that incentive is removed, as is proposed under this Bill, we will eventually die out and end up with a wholly appointed House by default in a few years’ time, because further reform will flounder and they will just say that this is what we should have.

All we have done is to use a backdoor method of circumventing the possible will of another place, if it really wants to have an elected House. This is a hugely dangerous Bill; it is a clever way around ensuring that certain people manage to maintain their seats here. My purpose is to make sure that there is proper reform and that I am removed, but democratically. The whole point, and this is why I oppose this Motion, is that if we end up with an appointed House under this Bill, the appointments commission is absolutely key to the future composition of this House. That commission will probably end up with the great and good sitting on it, and they tend to put people on who are like themselves and who will tend to believe that the sometime excesses of the bureaucracy and the Executive just need a little tweaking to get them right.

That is very dangerous because we will see the mavericks disappear from this House steadily over the years, as they die out. We will probably no longer see another Michael Onslow—the late Earl Onslow— or people like that whom we need in this House, or somewhere in Parliament, in order to point out the errors of our ways from time to time when we all pat ourselves on the back for being wise and having great wisdom. The commission is key to it and I am not happy with the idea of an independent Appointments Commission as it is currently constituted, because you will not end up with something that our grandchildren like. This almost needs to be tackled very much upfront so that we can shape the future composition of the Lords, if we are to go down this route, in a way that is sensible and gives us back some independence. By the way, can I recommend the Cross Benches? It is wonderful sitting here because you can look both sides beadily in the eye without having to turn around and not address the House.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I arrived here this morning expecting to debate Amendment 1 first. I then find that my noble friend Lord Steel has used another device. Your Lordships will recall that in Committee on an earlier form of the Bill he introduced an amendment at the last minute, which he called a device. This time, he has introduced a Motion. He did not have the courtesy to tell me about it, yet he knew I had amendments down on the Order Paper. If he had discussed it with me, it would at least have been a courtesy. We would have disagreed but I would have been able to prepare for today in a different manner than I have.

I say seriously to the House that to accept this Motion is a very bad precedent for this House to do on a Private Member’s Bill. The only time that a Private Member’s Bill should have a Motion of this type is when it is unanimous and this is clearly not unanimous. All I am doing is repeating what I said in an earlier debate in your Lordships’ House. It is not the first time I have said this. If your Lordships refer to Hansard on 21 January this year, I said exactly the same thing to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, when he introduced his navigation aids Bill. The noble Lord did not produce a Motion but said, when reading out his speech on Second Reading, “I’m going to delete these clauses”. I think that he was going to delete seven out of the eight clauses. He also did not have the courtesy to talk to me about it first, although my name was on the speakers list. What I said to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I also say to my noble friend Lord Steel:

“I fear that this is an abuse of the House. Perhaps he should do the right thing, withdraw this Bill and bring forward”—

this was to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley—

“for Second Reading a Bill that he actually intends to pursue through the House”.—[Official Report, 21/1/11; col. 617.]

I then went on about the amendments but the principle is exactly the same. If my noble friend Lord Steel does not now want an appointments commission—I will come onto that in a minute—he can quite easily withdraw this Bill. If he had come to me and asked, “Will you give me a very quick Second Reading on a revised Bill without the appointments commission?”, we could have looked at that and then we would not have had this Motion. This is a very bad precedent on a Private Member’s Bill.

There is another difficulty which my noble friend Lord Trefgarne raised: that I have consequential amendments, as does the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which start in Part 1 and have consequences in the rest of the Bill. Those consequential amendments have now become pre-sequential amendments. That is not going to lead to a sensible debate; that will make it extremely difficult.

I then come to the real reason why the noble Lord is moving this Motion. It is not for the convenience of your Lordships but to remove the egg on the face of Mr Clegg. Those are not my words; those are the words which my noble friend Lord Steel used on 4 June, which your Lordships can find on the Guardian blog website. My noble friend said:

“There is a growing body of opinion within my party that we have to save Clegg from having egg on his face and this scheme”—

that is, the scheme relating to reform of the House of Lords—

“is not fit to fly”.

My noble friend wants to remove the statutory appointments commission. However, the extraordinary thing is that on 24 March 2010 my same noble friend moved an amendment to the Motion at Second Reading of a Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, with the words,

“but this House regrets the omission from Part 5 of the Bill of a statutory Appointments Commission”.

I know my noble friend has changed his mind as to whether this House should be elected. He started off, when he was leader of the Liberal Party, wanting an elected House. He then decided that an elected House would not work so he now wants to retain the House in its present form. My noble friend wanted an appointments commission. He regretted that with a Motion; he now does not want an appointments commission. I am concerned about the reputation of my noble friend, who is a great friend of mine. He keeps changing his mind. I remember that when the potential president John Kerry stood for election, he was known as “flip-flop Kerry”. I should hate a similar title to be given to my noble friend. For that reason, I will oppose the Motion.

House of Lords Reform Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Earl of Caithness

Friday 21st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll]

Everyone would retain their title, because it is an honour given to them. The change of name affects the place—this House—and I think that it would be much clearer if we started just being a senate.

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I listened particularly carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, since your former Permanent Secretary is always somebody you listen to with great care, although one might not always agree with a former Permanent Secretary, or even from time to time with a Permanent Secretary. I tabled this amendment because I wanted to look at the situation that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, mentioned when he intervened. He agreed with me that the name needs to change, but do not let us do it now—let us wait for the government Bill. That is my argument about the Steel Bill—let us wait for the government Bill. It is in a Joint Committee.

My noble friend Lord Steel is a very crafty politician, much craftier than me. He has been down the other end and learnt in the real mill of politics. One is just a humble hereditary Peer. But I would use exactly the same argument that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, has used against me against his whole Bill. Let us wait for the government Bill. But what happens if we do not get a government Bill? We have taken long enough to get to this stage of reform of the House of Lords. What happens if the hereditary Peers die out and this has not been faced? I wonder how the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, sees that one being tackled.

As for my noble friend Lord Jenkin, he is entitled to his opinion. I do not comment on the amendments that he put forward on other Bills, and if he believes what he believes that is fine by me. The amendment is trying to resolve what undoubtedly many in the House see as a potential problem in future. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, that the House should be called a senate and that the sooner that it is fully reformed into an elected Chamber, the better. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.