Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Lucas

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I do not want to delay the Bill because it is going in the right direction, but it raises a huge point. If I had been present at Second Reading, I would have raised the question of hybridity. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Lucas wants to comment on that.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very much in the hands of the House when it comes to whether it wishes to accept amendments or not. I am content with the current scope of the Bill, so far as it goes, but I shall not stand in the way of the House if it wishes to change that. I certainly agree with the intent of my noble friend’s Amendment 4. I think that the Bill should cover Ireland. However, as to whether it should be restricted to peerages or baronetcies, I tend to come at this from the point of view of gender equality, and therefore do not particularly wish to preserve little islands of male supremacy in whatever strange form they may exist. There was certainly a dispute going back in my family as to whether or not they were the hereditary sword bearers in front of the Queen. They lost that argument, but I am aware that these offices exist. As an aside, I am also rather intrigued by the history of the title of my noble friend Lord Caithness. If we could make this measure retrospective, we might have a number of Lord Caithnesses and perhaps they could duel to the death to decide who should succeed. However, other than that, I am content with the Bill as it stands, except that I think Amendment 4 looks quite nice.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness D'Souza)]

Does the noble Earl wish to withdraw the amendment?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, that is exactly the point. I declared at the beginning that I am no expert on this. The advice that I have been given is from an eminent writer to Her Majesty’s Signet in Scotland, and he advised me that it needs to be put into a Bill of this nature.

Amendment 34 of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is identical to the amendment in my name and that of the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, who sadly cannot be here because of the weather conditions in Aberdeenshire; it has exactly the same effect. Both these amendments are consequential on the amendment we are discussing. It would only serve to confuse the Bill if both amendments were automatically passed. Therefore, when the time comes, I hope that we will accept Amendment 34 of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and I will try to remember not to move my Amendment 71.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I have enormous sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the simplicity of what he proposes. However, we then need some way back for existing arrangements, such as that suggested by my noble friend Lord Jopling. The difficulty with my noble friend’s amendment is that it does not allow for anything to be done by families who want to change now and who are prepared not to wait until everybody is dead.

I would therefore move my Amendment 46, and consequential Amendments 69 and 70. They adopt the position which would arise from the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, plus that of my noble friend Lord Jopling: the succession to eldest child, irrespective of gender, would start when everyone now living was dead, but families would be allowed to gather together and say, “Actually, we would like this to happen now”, so that we get some sense of change.

My noble friend Lord Trefgarne is quite right that there are a lot of complications in the peerage; sadly, that is not the case with mine—there are no great estates to cause that. However, complications exist, and if we try to trample on those sorts of arrangements we shall only get trouble. We must therefore allow for some mechanism for those to expire over time, although, certainly in respect of my own peerage, I would like to see the change coming as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, this sub-paragraph relates to age discrimination and states that a female heir succeeding to the hereditary peerage—or hereditary title, as it is called now—

“has attained the age of 21 years”.

That is discriminatory and I ask my noble friend why. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

I was going to seek some technical help from the Front Bench on this but clearly my noble friend is unbriefed. This is terrible. My understanding—if I remember correctly—is that Lord Ferrers became an Earl at the age of 14 but that he was not able to succeed to the title properly until he was 21. Is that right? Is one allowed to be—

[The Earl of Caithness]

I succeeded at the age of 16 and was fully entitled to do so but I could not sit in the House of Lords. I took my seat when I was 21, so I have been here for 44 years and my age is still below the average for the House. No other job in the world could ever put one in that position. I think that that is why my noble friend is wrong. The minority in England is 18; in Scotland it is 16. Shall we just drop the “21”?