Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Lyell Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment that my noble friend Lord Lang has explained so fully and convincingly, leaving very little further to be said. Today, we expect families to be of modest size and assume that the future will closely resemble the present. That is surely an arrogant and misconceived assumption. Historically, the monarch’s immediate family has often been extremely large in number, and the Bill ought to provide for a recurrence of a substantial number in their immediate family by extending to 12 the members of the Royal Family for whose marriages royal approval will be required.

How hard it is in any family to secure the triumph of good behaviour. It has been said of George III’s abundant offspring that that they inspired the nation about as much as a procession of Banquo’s descendants inspired Macbeth. The strength of the Crown in those days rested wholly on the character of King George III himself. We should also remember the fragility and impermanence of the world’s order. Reference was tellingly made by my noble friend Lord Lang to the position of Queen Victoria, who was fifth in line of succession at the time of her birth—a position that then oscillated considerably, as my noble friend amusingly told us. However, Queen Victoria very nearly did not inherit. A boy named Hook, out shooting sparrows, sent a shower of pellets through the window of the house in Sidmouth where the future Queen and Empress had been taken shortly after her birth. She narrowly escaped some of the pellets, tearing the sleeve of her nightgown. If the boy Hook had, by terrible mischance, removed Queen Victoria, that game of musical chairs over the succession that my noble friend described would have begun all over again.

I do not believe that six is enough. The number should be extended to 12, although, at the same time—turning to my noble friend Lord Northbrook’s amendment—a strong argument can be made for removing the need for approval altogether. The worldly Lord Melbourne put it in conversation with Queen Victoria. Referring to her disreputable uncles, he said that,

“though the Marriage Act may have been a very good thing in many ways, still it sent them, like so many wild beasts, into society, making love wherever they went and then saying they were very sorry, but they could not marry because their father would not give permission”.

Nevertheless, I do not favour the complete disappearance of the monarchical duty. Unsuitable marriages need to be prevented and 12 is the right number for the monarch’s approval.

[Lord Lyell]

My Lords, perhaps I may chuck a very small pebble into this debate. My noble friend Lord Lang gave the most marvellous dissertation, but I would advise your Lordships to take care to skip along to the Library to take a glance at either Burke’s or Debrett’s Peerage. Your Lordships should look, above all, at the consanguinity and the very long chance of the arm of the blood relationship. Your Lordships may not be aware that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was the ninth child of the Earl of Strathmore. The eighth child was the grandfather of the current Earl of Strathmore. In that bloodline, it shows that there is a very long list of candidates, which might even rival that of my noble friend Lord Lang. I do not think that six is enough and perhaps one day, my noble and learned friend will be able to explain to me what I seem to remember from my earlier studies of Scottish law, when women come into the law of succession, which may have been changed. Would my noble and learned friend, let alone my noble friend Lord Lang, please take note that six is not enough?

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Lang, who has proposed a perfectly sensible amendment. I am sure that my noble and learned friend will be able to accept it if for no other reason than that his right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister has indicated that the choice of six was purely arbitrary. My noble friend has made a strong and powerful case and what struck me most about his speech was the sheer serendipity of this matter. If this Bill had been in place—as someone in the other place pointed out during the somewhat truncated debate on the matter—the Kaiser would have ended up sharing the throne of the United Kingdom. These changes are unpredictable; the only difference I have with my noble friend Lord Lang is why he chose 12, not six.

I hope that my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness will not resort to the usual trick of saying, “Well, on the one hand, there is an amendment that says it should be fewer and on the other there is an amendment that says it should be more; I think it’s probably right that we got it somewhere in between”. I hope I have not taken his speech from him, because that would be a disgraceful response to what was a very well argued case, which demolished the basis on which the Government had reached their conclusion. If, however, my noble and learned friend finds that he cannot accept the number 12, it makes the case even stronger for having a special committee to look at these matters and consider them more carefully, so that we can get a number which actually makes sense.