Succession to the Crown Bill

Debate between Lord Lexden and Lord Mancroft

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment and will add a small footnote to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has just said. I understand that an amendment would be needed to the Duchy’s founding charter, drawn up in 1337, to enable a female heir to inherit. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, stressed, this is a Bill that provides for gender equality. If that principle is to be fully and completely embodied in it, action must surely be taken to revise the founding charter of the Duchy of Cornwall so that a female heir to the Crown can succeed to it.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, so wisely pointed out, there is a further practical consideration. If the Duchy is not held by an individual but placed in abeyance and administered by its council, there is a real risk that its affairs will not be administered with efficiency and skill. There is a strong view held by many that the absence of a Duke of Cornwall between 1936 and 1958 led to a serious decline in the running of its estates and other properties, a decline from which the present Duke, now the Prince of Wales, successfully rescued it. For these reasons, I support this amendment.

[Lord Mancroft]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend’s very important amendment. I was going to make the point that I have heard repeated again and again—which my noble friend Lord Lexden has made very strongly for me—that not only does the Duke of Cornwall need a Duchy but the Duchy needs a Duke. Estates, businesses, or whatever you may choose to call them in the modern day and age, that are run by councils, groups of trustees or boards of directors are all very well but in the case particularly of a large agricultural estate such as the Duchy or Cornwall—and there is none larger or better run—the present Duchy of Cornwall runs so well because the Duke of Cornwall has taken such an interest in it, and if there were not a Duke, regardless of that Duke’s sex, I think that would not happen. My noble friend Lord Lexden’s point is absolutely valid.

Another point that has been made, which I will repeat, is that the splitting apart of ancient titles is unsatisfactory and untidy. In dealing with important constitutional matters, although these are technicalities and perhaps of interest only to historians, politicians and noble Lords who can be bothered to spend their Thursday afternoons in your Lordships’ House, they are important matters and need to be done tidily. I do not think they are done tidily in the Bill.

Lastly, when my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace responds, will he assure the House that the Duke of Cornwall—the Prince of Wales—was consulted over this and that he is comfortable with the way in which the Bill is going forward? I do not wish my noble and learned friend the Minister to breach any confidences or step outside the correct procedures but it would give comfort to the House to know that the Government had consulted His Royal Highness and that the Duchy and the council and the Duke of Cornwall himself were comfortable with the way in which this is proceeding.