Duchy of Cornwall Bill [HL]

Lord Wakeham Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord on his persistence. He has obviously done a lot of work and, as he said, this is the fourth time he has produced a Bill, although I think it is only the second time that any of them have been debated. That, in itself, constitutes the greatest measure of congratulations that I could give him on this Bill.

The Bill raises many important issues and, as the noble Lord realises, introduces changes that would dramatically alter the role of the Prince of Wales and the Duchy of Cornwall. At this stage, I certainly do not want to debate the substance of his Bill. I oppose quite a lot of it but I agree that some of the issues in it could well be, and probably will be, considered in the years to come.

What interests me is why the noble Lord thinks that a Private Member’s Bill is the way to deal with these issues, although in his closing remarks he rather implied that he did not think it was. In the interchange with his noble friend, they seemed not to be talking about the same thing—one was talking about assets and the other about income—and that indicates that this is a very much more difficult subject than can, in my view, be dealt with in a Private Member’s Bill.

I confess that I have some form on this matter. In the early 1980s I was one of the people involved in trying to negotiate a Bill which became the Duchy of Cornwall Management Act. Its purpose was to modernise the financial arrangements of the Duchy of Cornwall and how it made investments. The existing arrangements were very restrictive and came under a Duchy of Cornwall Act passed in the middle of the 19th century, which I am told was considerably influenced by Prince Albert. I suspect that Prince Albert and the noble Lord might have had quite a lot in common on some of the Duchy’s financial arrangements. As I am totally opposed to what the noble Lord is doing, I am trying to be as nice as I can be to him in my remarks. It is interesting to note that in the course of that research it was made quite clear to us that the Duchy of Cornwall was always far better run when there was a Prince of Wales of the right age to take a proper interest in the estate, and for hundreds of years that has been the position.

Faced with having to decide how to deal with the Duchy of Cornwall’s finances, we felt that the first thing we should do was consult. I spoke to the then Labour Chief Whip, the great Michael Cocks, who told me that he wanted a meeting with Prince Charles’s private secretary, Edward Adeane. We arranged a meeting, at which I provided the drinks and the charming Edward Adeane produced a paper. Michael read it very carefully and then looked up and said, “Who wrote this unstructured drivel?”. Actually, the word he used was rather stronger than that but I was advised that parliamentarily I should not say it. The Labour Chief Whip was not opposed to what we were trying to do, and in fact he eventually agreed to it. He was trying to say that it was not possible for one party to change the rules that govern our monarchy and the Duchy and so on. In our society, it could be done only through all-party agreement. He told me in no uncertain terms that the Bill we wanted to bring in did not stand a chance unless I had got the Opposition to agree that it was a sensible thing to do. We worked at it and did our best. It was not difficult to reach a compromise, as the Labour Chief Whip was not really opposed to what we were trying to do, and we got the Bill through the House of Commons in spite of the republican remarks of the great Willie Hamilton, whom some people will remember.

The lesson is quite clear: if you want to make changes to our monarchy and the way that the Duchy of Cornwall is run, it has to be done with all-party support. That means consultation with all the parties before bringing in a Bill, as well as consultation with the Commonwealth, the Churches and many others. I am not unsympathetic to some of the things that the noble Lord wants and I suspect that they will happen in the next 20 or so years, but my view is that it is not sustainable to bring about those changes through a Private Member’s Bill.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Wakeham Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I am a great admirer of our hereditaries. Man for man, pace my noble friend Lady Mar, they are at least a match for those like me who have been appointed here. They are a match in their commitment, their contributions to the House, their expertise and, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, pointed out at Second Reading, their independence of mind and spirit.

Like many others here, I would welcome wider improvements in our appointments system, with a larger role not least for the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, and his excellent Lords Appointments Commission. In the meantime, I strongly support this Bill, which would go some considerable distance to enhancing the reputation and image of this House.

Therefore, far from supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, I see positive merit in this reform being achieved by way of a Private Member’s Bill rather than by government. It demonstrates our own desire and commitment to achieving reforms for ourselves. Consistently with that goes the report of my noble friend Lord Burns, which again is our own attempt to modernise and reform this House. I cannot resist harking back to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, in closing the Second Reading debate. He asked why hereditaries should,

“have an assisted places scheme to get into the House of Lords?”—[Official Report, 8/9/17; col. 2186.]

There has been much criticism throughout these debates of hereditaries being, virtually without exception, male and white. As the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, put it at Second Reading, the existing system is, “gender and racially biased”. Surely altogether more fundamentally objectionable even than those criticisms is the fact that this system favours a very tiny, and—I suppose I had better put this in quotes—“well born” number within a wider population of millions. A number of those millions may have even more to contribute to our House than the hereditaries—the few future hereditaries who, if the Bill passes, will not join us. In short, why should they have assisted places? Should we not modernise and reform?

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall say just a few words at this stage. First, I must declare an interest: I was chairman of a royal commission some years ago that produced a number of proposals for reform of the House of Lords, and I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that it did not include by-elections for Peers. I am sympathetic to what he wants to do; my concern is about the timing. Since that report, we have had a Bill from the Labour Government, from Jack Straw, which failed to get through. We had a Bill from the coalition parties which failed to get through. Some of us felt that there was very little likelihood of any Government bringing forward another Bill to reform the House of Lords.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Wakeham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wakeham (Con)]

My Lords, I think this is the 43rd Queen’s Speech debate that I have attended but it is the first time the Whip has got up just before I rise to my feet, to remind us that I have only five minutes. As I intend to speak about just five words in the Queen’s Speech, I will try my best to manage that. The five words, of course, are,

“the primacy of the … Commons”.

I think we all agree with that in theory but I want to examine it a bit further to see whether in practice we do.

We had some very vigorous debates on primary legislation in the previous Session and there were some constructive changes to some of the Bills. In the end the Government got their business. It showed, in my view, two very important principles. First, a Government with a majority in the Commons are entitled to get their business. Secondly, an Opposition who accept that principle have considerable rights to express their view forcefully in the House of Lords and perhaps at considerable length. That is what happened, and both of those things are a great credit to the House in the way that it conducted its legislation.

One piece of advice that I might just give, as somebody who has been Leader of both Houses, is that the amendments your Lordships make where the Commons is singing on an uncertain note are usually very much more valuable than just banging back political points from House to House. I remember, when I was responsible for the business in the House of Commons, dreading the number of amendments that the House of Lords could make and wondering how I would ever get the business back to where we wanted it, because I had great difficulty getting the original thing through the House of Lords. That is a piece of general advice to everybody, which I think is right.

On secondary legislation, it is hard to say that the House of Lords recognises the primacy of the Commons. Most of the time, yes, but from time to time—say over boundary reviews or tax credits—it takes a different view. There are other shortcomings—for example, the House of Lords has much less influence over secondary legislation than it ought to have considering the wealth of experience and expertise that there is here.

There have been three Select Committee reports by your Lordships, which contained a lot of wise and sensible suggestions but, in my view, underestimated one important factor: these matters have already been considered by the Commons. So of course there is an element of the Executive versus Parliament, but there is also an important issue of the Lords versus the Commons, and the primacy of the elected House.

The present system, which challenges the primacy of the Commons, ought not to be tolerated for much longer but nor should the lack of constructive influence of your Lordships on these matters. The question is what should be done. This is not a problem that has just arisen: I and some colleagues made some proposals in a royal commission report some 15 years ago as to what should be done. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde has recently made some proposals, and his option 3 is very similar to my proposal of some years ago.

It was nearly 50 years ago that my noble friend Lord Carrington was Leader of the Opposition and the House of Lords rejected an order relating to Rhodesian sanctions tabled by a Labour Government. His argument was clear: if the Government had considered the advice of the House of Lords and tabled a similar Motion, it would not be the duty of the House of Lords to oppose it a second time. I am not sure that any of these proposals are the best way forward.

Some say these matters are covered by conventions, but some, including at least some on the Opposition Front Bench, do not believe these conventions exist and have publicly said so. Conventions, if they exist, are essentially matters for the Opposition: rules and laws are for the House or Government, but conventions are for the Opposition. If the present convention exists—which I doubt, from what has been said—in my view it is bust because the Government and the Opposition do not agree about it.

Can we work out a way forward? I believe we can, but it has to be a convention that any Government of whatever political persuasion will accept. In my view, that would be the best way to proceed, but it depends on whether the Opposition can or want to help the House find a way. It will surprise no one that I think the essential first step is discussions through the usual channels to see whether progress can be made. But I am quite clear that if a workable convention cannot be found, then the Government must act. A Government with a majority in the Commons cannot be expected to govern if the Opposition have a veto on secondary legislation.