Royal Family: Civil List

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, when I found myself being volunteered to speak in this debate, I was not sure what direction the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was going to go in. To hear from the Labour Benches a call for the nationalisation of private landholdings, which is in effect what they are, cast me back to my youth and speeches of days gone by, but that is by the bye.

Many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, have been made in many forms in the media over the years. The Prince of Wales is accused of throwing his weight around by everyone he wins against but he is applauded by others. He is not the monarch yet but he is entitled to his opinion. Does he abuse his position? Do we abuse our positions? Those of us who sat through the last debate heard how non-elected people are almost perfect. We have great worth and value, et cetera—those of us who have come here via a hereditary route, albeit with chinks and having been rebranded occasionally, and those who have not. Not everyone agrees with the architects the Prince of Wales has annoyed, and wind power is ultimately cleaner than other forms of power. So let us just stand back a bit.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made an important point about justifying who is on that list and who is taking on those duties, but when it comes to cutting down on security for anyone undertaking a public duty who is potentially an incredibly soft target, not only endangering them but everyone around them, I would step very cautiously towards that. Maybe we should just send them out less. I wonder how many members of the Royal Family, especially its junior members, would be quite happy to be sent out less. But the idea that they should not travel securely and safely, particularly in these times, is something we should think long and hard about.

The change to the sovereign support grant—or the SSG, as it is called in the briefing I received—sounds sensible, bringing everything together in one coherent lump. As for making money from privately owned land, inherited from a line of succession, with the Crown getting most of the money back, who knows? We are treading on some very uncertain ground. But ultimately, if we do not use the Royal Family, what else do we use? Once again, going back to the previous debate—I wonder whether I am cheating by mentioning it—would an elected President be any cheaper to run? I suspect not. The French President still has a lot of cavalrymen wearing heavy armour parading round in front of him. The American Presidents have marines in full-dress uniforms marching around in front of them. Would that be any cheaper overall? I do not know but I suspect not. I doubt whether any regime is going to sell off Windsor Castle as a theme park or shopping mall. So if we are going to keep the institution, if we want to have a head of state who fulfils the functions both publicly and diplomatically, it is going to cost some money. We cannot get rid of the historical infrastructure, and if we have people travelling outside on public engagements, including anyone who has a connection with them, we are going to keep them safe. I would be very careful about saying we should do things on the cheap because I do not want to be the one who condemns a historic building or causes a major terrorist incident.