Equality (Titles) Bill [HL]

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Friday 6th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 13 I will speak to Amendments 24, 51, 55 and 85.

Amendment 13 is fairly simple. It continues the principle of the eldest child succeeding that we have been discussing, but to give the Bill clarity it needs to be made clear that that will happen.

Amendment 24 is different. It covers the point that,

“where a hereditary peerage is without a male heir, that peerage should automatically pass to the incumbent’s oldest surviving daughter upon the incumbent’s death and should thereafter pass to the oldest surviving child regardless of gender”.

What happens in my own case, for instance? Should my son not have an heir, male or female, but my daughter dies before my son, the title should then go to my daughter’s children. If she does not die, and the provisions in the Bill were enacted, that is how it would go. That is complicated, but I think I have the gist of what I am trying to do with that. I am trying to make certain, were we to change the rules, that the eldest daughter will inherit instead of a son, even though the destination is different.

Amendment 51 is the same as Amendment 13, so I do not need to speak to that again. Amendment 55 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clancarty; I cannot speak to that. It was grouped with this; I might speak to it after he has spoken to it. Amendment 85 is in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, so I will leave him to deal with it before I come back.

[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.