Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the sentiments of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. We will come to the main discussion on this a little later. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for enabling us again to discuss gender equality in the peerage, and I congratulate the noble Lord on pushing the Bill further forward.

On these particular amendments I will be brief. I am not sure that at this stage we should be overtightening the Bill and prescribing so precisely what it contains in the title. In the way that it stands at present it contains peerages and baronetcies. In the next group we will be discussing other Crown offices and rights, so I do not think that we should yet be jumping to any conclusions about what necessarily will be covered in toto in the Bill.

It is probably no surprise to the House that I support Amendment 4. Irish peerages are an identifiable group under the current jurisdiction of the Crown and stem from a time before the current United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which of course excludes the Republic of Ireland. “Great Britain” therefore is a term which has a certain ambiguity attached to it. My own peerage, the Earldom of Clancarty, is Irish, though I sit in this House by virtue of a viscountcy which is an English title. It would be wise to include the reference to Ireland, just as England and Scotland have already been included.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, first, I apologise: I have actually got 16 people for lunch and am meant to be chairing a meeting down in Committee Room G, so I will be jumping in and out a bit.

Even if the Bill does not become law, people will look at it should they wish to produce an equality Bill on titles, so I want to point out some things which need to be considered when rewriting it. The easiest point at which to do this is probably on this amendment. I have some amendments in the second group but I think they are all generically the same—about how you define the titles, how you define a registered title and what gets caught up in that.

I have added my name to several amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, because they are alternatives. With my amendment I have tried—particularly in Amendment 2 and some of the other consequential ones—to define the words “hereditary title” as being,

“hereditary peerage, baronetcy, or other heritable office of the Crown or State”.

That means that all the things we want to include are included in the words “hereditary title”, which means that you do not then need to amend the Long Title or so much of the Bill—you just need to take out the words “hereditary peerage or” and put in the words “hereditary title”.

The current definition of hereditary title, which comes right at the beginning of Clause 1, is too wide. It can catch up certain things that are not titles conferred by Her Majesty the Queen. All sorts of things could be caught up, for instance Scottish clan chiefships, which can devolve separately and differently, and which are regulated by the Court of the Lord Lyon. Therefore I thought it much easier to keep those out of it. In fact, many of the amendments in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, also intend to do the same thing. I thought that an easier way was to define it right at the beginning, so that the term “hereditary title” is restricted in its definition and does not inadvertently catch up all sorts of other honorifics, honorary titles and other things which may be hereditary, such as the hereditary keeper of the something or other, or the hereditary groom of the something or other, and so on. Those can all go on doing what they do, the major titles will be dealt with in the Bill, and then we can put in the equality provisions, to which I have other amendments and for which I will join other noble Lords.

That is why I prefer my Amendment 2, which is the main one, and the other bits, which basically bring it back to hereditary titles. That means that we can leave the term “hereditary title” in the long title of the Bill without having to change it, because it is dealt with immediately later on. I apologise again because I will have to pop in and out, and I will speak as briefly as possible.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure that I am capable of following all the subtleties of those contributions. I am not sure where the argument about the Labour Party comes from. As far as I am concerned, it is very simple, although I cannot speak officially for the Labour Party. We are, simply, opposed to discrimination on the grounds of gender, as the noble Baroness said a few minutes ago. That is all there is to it; surely that proposition is so simple. Of course the Bill will get blocked in the Commons. If any noble Lords have nothing to do on a Friday afternoon at 2.30 pm when the Commons is sitting, you will see the government Whip with a list of all the Bills, and he shouts “Object” to all of them. Last Friday he even objected to the Bill to give a pardon to Alan Turing. I thought that that was absolutely shameful. This House totally agreed that that Bill should go forward. That happened for reasons that the Government do not have to explain. The procedure in the Commons is absolutely lacking in total transparency. I will not digress too much on this, but it is quite wrong that an anonymous person—it happens that one can see that it is a government Whip—objects to all of those Bills. To object to the Alan Turing Bill was a really shabby thing and the Government should be ashamed of that.

To return to this Bill, the proposition is very simple. I do not speak for the Labour Party, but we are opposed to discrimination on the grounds of gender. I do not have any particular views on the rights of the aristocracy in any other respect, but the proposition is absolutely simple. If the Bill were to go through quickly, the Government might object, but it would send a signal in the hope that before too long, the Government will themselves take the matter in hand and do something about it.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[The Earl of Erroll]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 3, after first “peerage” insert “or baronetcy, or other heritable office of the Crown or State,”

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, that set the cat among the pigeons because I thought it would be best if we took away all these bits of the Bill that were trying to constructively limit the scope of the legislation—“peerage”, “baronetcy” and great offices of state—and work out which was the best way of doing that. In his amendments, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, proposed one method of doing so. After talking to other people, I thought that there was another, neater method of doing so. If you combined my Amendment 2 with Amendment 6, it would produce a definition of how we want the Bill to be limited as regards hereditary title. The rest of the Bill would then read logically and would achieve the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in trying to produce a gender-neutral succession. This is not a destructive proposal but is just a matter of definition. I had rather thought that we might withdraw all the amendments around this subject, go away, think about them and agree on the best way of defining it, and make the Bill consistent in such a way that anyone could pick it up and understand what on earth we were talking about and what it meant. I would suggest, if the Bill were ever rewritten, that this might be a slightly less cumbersome way of achieving the objective than having to insert “or baronetcy” and so on throughout the Bill. That is why I favoured my amendment over the other.

Now that Amendment 1 has failed we should either withdraw Amendment 2 and go away to discuss it, or press it because it would at least be an improvement on the generic term, “hereditary titles”, which can encompass all the other sorts of things that we do not want to be caught in the Bill. After considerable debate in the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs, for instance, there was general consensus that it would be better to keep that issue separate and not in the Bill. At the moment, you can leave a chiefship to a daughter, and you can change the destination if you need to if a person is unsuitable or by certain applications and approvals. That should be dealt with completely separately to the Bill. We wanted to ensure that that sort of thing was not caught up in it inadvertently, which is why I tabled this other version of what is effectively Amendment 1 to discuss which version was better.

I am obviously very much in favour of Amendment 4 because there is no logic in separating out Ireland from this provision. We were all the same at one time. Amendment 6 is consequential on Amendment 2. If it goes through, we need Amendment 6 because it would rewrite the first clause and achieve a definition in the Bill. The rest of my amendments, in their various groupings, are all around this subject and logically follow from the combination of Amendments 2 and 6. I beg to move.

Amendment 3 (to Amendment 2)

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I support the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, on Amendment 2. A number of my amendments are grouped with his, including Amendments 9 and 17. To that, I would add Amendment 20, as it would sit logically with the others. The group also includes my Amendments 30, 33, 37, 41, 45, 58, 61, 65, 68 and 75. I would substitute Amendment 80 for Amendment 79, because Amendment 79 links with Amendment 1. My Amendments 83, 88 and 96 are also in the group.

The noble Earl is absolutely right in what he said, which comes back to the point that we discussed on the first amendment. The noble Earl is the Lord High Constable of Scotland, a title of the Crown, or state, to which he succeeded after his mother. However, it is nothing to do with the earldom of Erroll; it is a totally separate issue. In Scotland, we also have the Hereditary Bearer of the National Flag of Scotland, who is the Earl of Lauderdale, the Hereditary Royal Standard-Bearer for Scotland, who is our noble friend Lord Dundee, and the Hereditary Keeper of Holyrood Palace, who is the Duke of Hamilton. Those are fairly straightforward and should be dealt with in this amendment. Without being at all derogatory, we then get down to perhaps a slightly lesser level. What about the Keeper of the Ancient Staff of St Moluag? Should that be hereditary? This is the real problem with this issue and why it needs to be so clearly defined.

The noble Earl also talked about clan chiefships. This is a matter of debate: some Writers to the Signet, in some cases, have said that clan chiefship is a title and others have said that it is a right or a privilege. We could have a huge number of court cases trying to decide that. It is not our job in this House to leave legislation ambiguous; we need to be absolutely clear. The lawyers make enough money as it is and we do not want to give them any more.

I would resist the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, which is a good example of where the Bill is being extended to include armigers. Of course, the rules in Scotland are different from those in England, and this one solution to fit all systems comes apart. If my daughter marries a Mr Smith, she cannot then bear her coat of arms as a Sinclair unless she changes her name. In Scotland, if an heiress inherits, to assume the coat of arms she is required to change her name, otherwise she is conventionally dead within the family and the next heir then inherits. It is not fun to be conventionally dead, or indeed unconventionally dead. In contrast, a peerage or baronetcy is generally not legally connected to a name. There are lots of examples of a peerage or baronetcy granted to Mr X where the name changes with various inheritances. There are some Scottish peerages where there is an obligation to bear the original name of the arms, but those are a limited minority.

We have a different legal system in Scotland. When I saw this amendment, I spoke to the Lyon Clerk, who is the assistant to the Lord Lyon in Scotland. She threw up her arms in horror and said, “No. This is just unacceptable. There has been no discussion about it. The implications are enormous”. For that reason, I will resist this amendment.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Amendment 3 should be dealt with separately within the Bill because there are complications around it. My wife, Isabelle Astell, is English and is armigerous. She is the heir to the Astell place and to the Astell arms. As far as I know, she still bears her own arms and I hope she will pass them to one of our sons. It happens to be that way round but, given that she inherited them, they could presumably be passed to a daughter. This issue needs looking at and thinking about but the point is well taken. At a later stage of the Bill, perhaps something could be inserted to cover just arms, leaving it separate from peerages and baronetcies—things that have come from the Crown directly.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I presume I am right in thinking that we are considering the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and not that in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[The Earl of Erroll]

6: Clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out “(“hereditary peerage”) or hereditary title” and insert “(“hereditary title”)”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, this amendment is consequential on Amendment 2, which will make no sense without it. The rest of the amendments in the group —I have not worked out which ones they are and I am sorry for that; there are quite a lot of them—relate to wherever the Bill states,

“hereditary peerage or hereditary title”.

Where it does, I have taken out “hereditary peerage”, so that from then on the Bill will always read just “hereditary title”. It would then be consistent with Amendment 2 throughout. That makes it much simpler than changing it throughout. I recommend that we accept this amendment in order that Amendment 2 is logical. My challenge is trying to work out all the other ones which are the same. If you see something with my name on it saying “remove ‘hereditary peerage or’” it is in order to ensure that the Bill just refers to “hereditary title”. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 7 and 8 by reason of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I am afraid that this amendment seems to suffer from some of the difficulties that we have been discussing; namely, the possibility that there is a hybrid element within it. There seem to be a number of possible areas of hybridity in this Bill, which makes the whole Bill very difficult to proceed with. The proper way to proceed with a Bill that might or might not be hybrid is for it to be referred to the Examiners. I hope that if the Bill proceeds further after today, that will happen—it will have to happen; it will not be up to me alone, of course.

Has the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, considered this question? It is an important one, which will have to be raised time and again if it cannot be clarified.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Is that the question of hybridity? I do not think I am qualified to speak on hybridity, which I seem to remember is the question of whether a Public Bill affects the rights of a subset of people differently from the general class of people. I do not think my amendment does that because I have spoken just in terms of general classes: hereditary peerage, baronetcy and officers of the Crown and state. Those are generic classes, with no special definitions, unlike the House of Lords Bill, which discriminated in favour of only English hereditary great offices of state and not Scottish ones.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I will not extend this discussion too long but the problem is if you have a category that you describe as “hereditary titles” but some hereditary titles are not included, by definition you have a hybrid Bill.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, I think the answer is that this is about English. For the purposes of the Bill, one might restrict the term “hereditary titles”; for instance, a description of “the incumbent” does not mean to say the incumbent of every parish or the incumbent of everything. Some of these are generic words in English. The wording “hereditary titles” is used merely within the Bill: a restricted class of hereditary titles is used in the Bill and called “hereditary titles”. That does not mean we are trying to affect the terminology of hereditary titles for the English language as a whole outside.

I have to admit that I had hoped the first amendment would not have been negatived and therefore we would have taken all these away and sat down and got them logical as a whole in the Bill, with the help of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. However, that has not happened. Perhaps we can just clean it up on Report if necessary, but certainly Amendment 6 is needed in order to make sense of Amendment 2, so I suggest that we accept that one and if we then miss some of the other ones later, to make it logical we bring it back on Report and do a massive amount of tidying-up.

Certainly, Amendments 6, 28, 31—off the top of my head—35, 39 and 43 are all the same. You can work through them: they are the amendments in my name only. I had added my name to the alternative amendment in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, because I wanted to show that I also supported those and that it was a question of which of them we should tidy up. However, now that that has been negated, I think that we have to drive forwards with mine for the moment and tidy it up on Report.

Amendment 6 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My understanding is that it has already been debated, but I may be wrong about that.

[The Earl of Erroll]

Perhaps I might help on this. As a result of my two amendments being agreed, Amendment 9, which I do not think was entirely expected, may make the provision gibberish. I feel that part of what we might have to do on Report is tidy up, because we have several competing amendments all trying to cover the same subject. It may be wise if we tidy up on Report.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Perhaps I may take the noble Earl’s implied advice and suggest that, if that be the case, the amendment be not moved at this stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, as a precaution, I thought it might be helpful to refer to the Companion, which indicates that at about 3 pm, it would be customary on a Friday for the House to resume. I just give that forward notice.

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, since there is nobody else wishing to speak, I might as well speak to my Amendment 85, which is grouped with this lot. It seeks to leave out lines 13 and 14 on page 4. These say:

“Future holders of a hereditary peerage or hereditary title may not apply for a special remainder under this section”.

I wondered why we were blocking change for the future; is this just to be a one-off change and then it does not change again? Given the complexity of it all, I can see some families taking a while to get their heads around the whole thing and finding it difficult to work out. It may be that the incumbents are very old or do not want to talk about it, so I could not quite see why it had to be a one generation hit only. I may be reading the whole thing wrongly, but it struck me as I was reading it through. I will probably be told that it does not apply to any section that is useful, but I do not know. That is why I put down Amendment 85: to tease out why we are limiting it to the current generation.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention. As my noble friend Lord Jopling mentioned a little while ago, all of this started last year when we changed the law with regard to the succession to the Crown. I remember saying at the end of the proceedings on that Bill that the Government had started the hare running as far as the hereditary peerage was concerned. I subsequently learned that a group of young ladies desirous of inheriting titles had formed themselves into a group called the Hares and had lunches every week. With a bit of luck, they will invite me to one of them shortly.

Be that as it may, this is a hugely complicated matter; surely the debates this afternoon have shown that, if nothing else. This amendment is par excellence a huge example of the complications to which I have referred.