Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Luce Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fellowes]

My Lords, in the light of the reassuring words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford, I wish to speak only for a moment on the subject of this amendment. I find very little fault with it. The fault that I do find is not in the amendment but in the effect it may have in reopening debate on others of the Queen’s realms. That may possibly give rise to other amendments that we would find less welcome. I have sympathy with the amendment and the motives behind it but I must say that I am not able to support it in this instance.

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will have concluded that raising the legislation with the other realms would create considerable complications. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, aright, he was making it plain that the purpose of this amendment was to try to remove any misunderstandings that may still exist about the position of the Roman Catholic Church in connection with the children in line of succession arising from a mixed marriage.

In the debates that we have had over past few weeks, not least on Report, there has been considerable clarification. The Minister has said a lot more since the Second Reading and above all the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford has set out very clearly what he perceives to be the position of the Roman Catholic Church. The only thing that is missing is a clear endorsement of its position, as expressed by the right reverend Prelate, by representatives of the Archbishop of Westminster, or by the Archbishop himself. Given the remarkable progress that has been made in relations between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church it would be helpful to have that endorsement. I hope that the Minister can help us in that regard.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, like several noble Lords who have just spoken, I take the view that this would insert into the Bill an unnecessary recital with no legal force. It would have the complication, as has been mentioned, of making it more complex and difficult to obtain agreement among all the 16 realms that need to agree to the proposals.

The intention of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is to seek further reassurance that despite the removal of the ban on Catholic marriages, no Catholic could ever succeed to the throne. He and others have made this point with some force throughout our debates. However, I wonder, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, whether we are not pushing too hard on this point. Obviously the case has been made in an attempt to ensure that the Anglican supremacy is preserved. However, all that it serves to do is push our attention further toward the fact that the removal of the ban on Catholic marriages—obviously a welcome measure in itself—exposes the religious discriminations that remain. That is, no one who is a Catholic or who is not in communion with the Church of England can succeed to the throne.

It has been said that we are where we are, and I have some sympathy with that. However, we as a Parliament will need to return to some of these points in the not too distant future.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I support the objective of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, although I have reservations about its wording. I should say hastily that I am speaking for myself and not as a former member of the Royal Household. The House may have noticed that earlier there was a small cluster of former members of the Royal Household, but we have now widened the gaps between each other.

My view is based on the limited scope of this Bill and the assumption that we are not talking about the establishment of the church or about changing the position of the monarch being the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and thus the requirement that the Supreme Governor should join in communion with the Church of England. That, to my mind, is not the issue, rather it is much more limited to the proposal in the Bill. At Second Reading, I asked the Minister whether we could seek greater clarity on the requirement that those in the line of succession must be brought up within the Anglican faith. All I am seeking to do is to minimise misunderstandings that otherwise could arise from the passing of this Bill in connection with Clause 2.

There is a disparity between what the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said, and what the Archbishop of Westminster said at the time of the Perth agreement in October 2011. Archbishop Rowan Williams said that,

“there needs to be a clear understanding that the heir is brought up in”,

the Church of England environment. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster said:

“I fully recognise the importance of the position of the established church … in protecting and fostering the role of faith in our society today”.

That is a helpful message, but the two are not clearly in line, and in my view there is something of a lack of clarity in this. Of course, this is something that may never happen in our lifetime, but nevertheless it could happen. It is in order to minimise the risk of misunderstanding that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is moving the amendment.

In my Second Reading speech I suggested that the Minister should agree to have some further discussions with the Roman Catholic leadership in this country to see whether we cannot get a clearer understanding, and I would be grateful if, when he comes to respond to the debate, he would let us know if he has anything to report at this stage.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I apologise for being unable to be here earlier, as I had a long-standing engagement, and also for not being able to participate in the earlier stages of this Bill. I am afraid that unusually, because I have the highest regard for my noble friend, I do not feel able to support this amendment at all.

I have some history on this matter. I believe that the provisions contained in the 18th century legislation with quite vile language about Roman Catholics should be removed from the statute book. As Secretary of State, I think I described it as the constitution’s grubby little secret. When I first came to this House, I was unwise enough to bring forward a Private Member’s Bill to deal with this issue. I was ambushed at the very first stage by my late and much missed friend, Lord St. John of Fawsley, who by use of procedure, prevented me from even being able to speak to my Bill or to introduce it again for a year. As a result, I realised that this was a much more complex issue which required considerable discussion and was not suitable for Private Members’ Bills.

It is therefore a great disappointment that this legislation has been rushed through the House of Commons as it has, without proper debate, on a timetable which we normally reserve for Bills concerned with terrorism or some immediate national interest. For the life of me, I do not see why these matters have been dealt with so quickly. In opposing this amendment, for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Deben spelled out so clearly—I will not repeat the arguments—I would like to say as a member of the Church of Scotland, although I worship in the Episcopal Church of Scotland, so I am a kind of hybrid, I find it extraordinary that the opportunity was not taken in this legislation to remove the prohibition on the monarch themselves being a Catholic.

I have a specific question for the Minister to deal with, on which my noble friend Lord Deben touched. As I understand it, the role of the monarch as head of the Church of England is not a canonical role, and therefore there is no reason, as my noble friend said, why the monarch has to be a member of the Church of England. There may be other issues that arise from that, and I appreciate that the example of James VII or James II—depending on your perspective—may not have been an entirely happy one. However, it did not end in tears because he was a Catholic and head of the Church of England; some other issues resulted in it ending in tears.

The Deputy Prime Minister has brought forward this legislation on the basis of extending equality, although it is rather ironic that we should be talking about equality in the context of the monarchy. It seems to me quite extraordinary that we have not been able to take that further step and remove the prohibition on the monarch being a Catholic. In the 18th century, there were very good reasons for having this language; it was about the security of the nation. Indeed, the very Act of Union itself occurred as a deal; the Scots were bailed out from the huge losses which had been created by the Darien scheme, and in return the Protestant succession was secured. That was what it was about. Therefore, to leave on our statute book words which cause great offence to many Catholics and non-Catholics in our country is shocking and it is sad that the Bill does not deal with it.

In support of his amendment, my noble friend Lord Cormack has suggested that some deal would be done with the Vatican. Of course, we have to have regard to our constitutional history but, as my noble friend Lord Deben pointed out, the independence of the monarchy is fundamental to our constitution. Although the Vatican is no longer a foreign power which will encourage the French or anyone else to usurp the Throne—those days are long since past—it would be totally inappropriate to have an amendment of this kind. However, I agree with my noble friend in so far as moving this amendment highlights the anomalous position of this legislation.

I should just make it clear that I would not want to see the Church of England cease to be the established church. My goodness me, secularism is rampant in our country at the moment; this is not the moment for something of that kind and I would not support it. The heir to the Throne has talked about being “Defender of Faiths”, and it is a mistake for the Church of England to appear to take a position that has the unfortunate effect of making people believe that it cannot continue to be an established church while removing that discriminatory language from our statute and constitution.

Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Luce]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former Lord Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household and I welcome this Bill. I find it difficult to be quite as gloomy as some of the remarks we have heard so far from noble Lords because essentially, as the Minister said, the heart of this Bill is to remove discrimination against females and against Roman Catholics. This issue has been debated, as we know, over many decades. For the past three or four decades, we have been debating this and support for this removal of discrimination, particularly against females, has been widespread in Parliament and in the community. It seems that successive Governments have waited for an event to happen in order to feel the need to introduce measures of this kind, but I welcome them all the same.

The strengths of the monarchy, as we know, include not only the service that the monarch gives to the community, which is its most important strength, but the ability of the monarchy to adapt to new circumstances. This Bill is an indication of just that. Whether we have had enough time to debate these issues is a matter for discussion but I am glad that the Government are dealing with this in a typically British, pragmatic fashion. The Bill is limited in scope, principally because, as we have already heard, 16 realms had to be consulted and had to pass similar measures through their legislative assemblies. That also means that it does not tamper, I am glad to say, with the whole question of the establishment of the Church of England, nor with the question of succession for, for example, hereditary Peers. The commitment goes back to October 2011 and that agreement in Perth. Once all the Parliaments have implemented that, it will be retrospective to that date.

There is one aspect of the Bill that I would like to pursue, partly along the lines of the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lang. It relates to Clause 2, under which marriage to a Roman Catholic will no longer result in a member of the Royal Family losing his or her place in the line of succession. If we look back over the centuries, as we have discussed, discrimination and prejudice against Roman Catholics has a very long history. Looking at the Act of Settlement 1700, the threat to the Throne from Louis XIV of France and the strains in those days with Rome, I find it difficult to envisage today President Hollande posing a similar threat to our Throne. We live in a different age of greater tolerance between the faiths.

Clause 2 does not affect the establishment of the Church of England and the requirement of the monarch as its Supreme Governor to,

“join in communion with the Church of England”,

but, as the noble Lord, Lord Lang, pointed out, for children to retain their place in the line of succession, they must be brought up within the Anglican faith. This has to be reconciled with Canon 1125, where the obligation on the parents is that,

“the catholic party is to declare that he or she is prepared to remove dangers of defecting from the faith, and is to make a sincere promise to do all in his or her power in order that all the children be baptised and brought up in the catholic Church”.

Some have used the term “best endeavours” to describe that canon, in that parents should use their best endeavours. I want to pose a question about whether we have sufficient assurance, as it were, that misunderstandings may not arise following the marriage of a member of the Royal Family to a Roman Catholic regarding the position of their children.

We have a precedent to go on: their Royal Highnesses Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, who are of a mixed faith marriage but whose children are both brought up in the Anglican faith. We hear that there is more flexibility in the Roman Catholic Church on these issues. If we go back to the Perth agreement in October 2011, it was the former most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who said that there needs to be “a clear understanding” that the heir is brought up in the Church of England environment. Alongside that, the Archbishop of Westminster, Archbishop Nichols, as I think the Minister said, welcomed the proposals and recognised the importance of the role of the Established Church.

Clearly, if the parents are presented with a mixed marriage and are deciding about their children, they will be well aware that a Roman Catholic upbringing for their child would remove their right to be monarch. However, I ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they would consider exploring with the Roman Catholic Church, but perhaps particularly with the Archbishop of Westminster, whether it will clarify further its attitude to this in order to minimise the risk of misunderstanding. I have in mind here a statement along the lines of a reference to the importance of the role of the established church; acknowledging the special circumstances that might arise for the children of a mixed-faith marriage involving the line of succession; referring to the precedent of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent; and accepting that the children of such an interfaith marriage would be likely to be brought up in the Anglican faith. I would like see a clearer statement from the Roman Catholic Church in order to minimise misunderstanding, and I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance that this matter could be explored over the next few weeks.