Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Erroll and Lord Gardiner of Kimble

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, as a precaution, I thought it might be helpful to refer to the Companion, which indicates that at about 3 pm, it would be customary on a Friday for the House to resume. I just give that forward notice.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, since there is nobody else wishing to speak, I might as well speak to my Amendment 85, which is grouped with this lot. It seeks to leave out lines 13 and 14 on page 4. These say:

“Future holders of a hereditary peerage or hereditary title may not apply for a special remainder under this section”.

I wondered why we were blocking change for the future; is this just to be a one-off change and then it does not change again? Given the complexity of it all, I can see some families taking a while to get their heads around the whole thing and finding it difficult to work out. It may be that the incumbents are very old or do not want to talk about it, so I could not quite see why it had to be a one generation hit only. I may be reading the whole thing wrongly, but it struck me as I was reading it through. I will probably be told that it does not apply to any section that is useful, but I do not know. That is why I put down Amendment 85: to tease out why we are limiting it to the current generation.