Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

12: Clause 3, page 1, line 12, leave out “6” and insert “12”

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, from the deep and turbulent waters of Clause 2, we move to the only slightly less troubled waters of Clause 3. This amendment, which stands in my name, also has the support of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, who is unavoidably prevented being here today, and of my noble friends Lord Lexden and Lord True.

This is a simple, modest and practical amendment, which seeks to increase from six to 12 the number of persons in line of succession to the Crown who would be required by the Bill to seek the consent of the monarch before marrying. The existence of that provision in the Bill is to my mind a tacit admission of the potential for turbulence created by Clause 2 and that part of Clause 3 which repeals the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Bill pitting, as it does, a relaxation over the entry of Catholics into the royal line against the absolute ban on their reaching the Throne. There is a real tension there, which the clause as it stands makes at least some effort to modify.

The 1772 Act had the draconian effect of voiding a marriage that lacked the monarch’s consent and it had become unworkable because of its extent, but it did have the virtue of certainty, which was needed then, as now. King George III’s seven sons between them entered into nine marriages—a case of nine brides for seven brothers. Three of them were in contravention of the recently enacted Royal Marriages Act and were therefore void, thus keeping the line of succession relatively tidy, if nothing else. I wish we could say the same for the new provision, but I fear that it could lead to great untidiness. The only argument that my noble and learned friend could offer in favour of exchanging the open-ended control of the 1772 Act for a list of just six, was that when Queen Victoria was born, she was fifth in line of succession and no sovereign had come to the Throne from further out than that. However, he chose a bad example and I would like to use that example to answer his case.

The remarkable thing about Queen Victoria’s circumstances was not that she started life so far out in the line but that she did not start much further out. After all, King George III had 12 surviving children, seven of them sons, so the succession must have looked pretty secure as they grew up. Of course, only six of them would have been in what one could call the “club of six” under the clause we are now considering. Indeed, half the King’s children would have been outside it, just as a third of Queen Victoria’s children would also have been outside it. I ask the House to consider how this club of six would have worked at that time.

In 1817, two years before Victoria was born, Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince of Wales and second in line to the Throne, died tragically in childbirth, along with her baby, who would have been third in line. King George’s sixth son, Prince Augustus Frederick, who would have left the club of six at her birth, would now have rejoined it. At the time, only three of the Prince’s brothers were married within the terms of the Act. They were all middle-aged and had no legitimate children. It suddenly became apparent that the succession was at risk. Within a year, three more of the brothers hurried into marriage, including Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, and his younger brother, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, who was then aged 50.

A year later, in 1819, Prince Edward’s daughter, Victoria, was born and at once become fifth in line to the throne. She would have been a member of the club of six, pushing her uncle, Prince Augustus Frederick, back out of the club. Eight months later, Prince Edward died suddenly; his daughter Victoria moved up to fourth in line and Prince Augustus Frederick would again have rejoined the club of six. Six days after that, King George III died, Princess Victoria moved up to third place and her youngest uncle, Prince Adolphus Frederick, who would have left the club of six at the age of 21, rejoined it at the age of 45. Eleven months later he was out of it again as his brother, Prince William, became father to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth. She took third position in line and his niece Victoria moved back down to fourth position. Less than three months after that, the infant Princess Elizabeth tragically died. Those below her, including Victoria, moved back up the line and Prince Adolphus Frederick—not to be confused with his brother Prince Augustus Frederick, still less with his other brother Prince Frederick Augustus—would have been back for the third time in today’s club of six. Fortunately for him, he had married in 1818 during one of his gaps in membership.

Within two years, Princess Victoria’s place in the succession had changed upwards and downwards four times. I recite all this simply to show that the line of succession to the Crown can easily involve an almost random element. The unexpected often happens, as my noble friend Lady Thatcher almost said. The highly improbable can quickly become the near certain. It also shows that the succession can move in both directions, up as well as down, and between late middle-age and infancy. Queen Victoria was 18 when she came to the throne, her predecessor was 64 and her successor was 59. Her circumstances were unlike any other before or afterwards but they demonstrate the unpredictability of the line of succession and therefore the need to provide for that when we legislate on the matter. We cannot predict what future circumstances will be, so we should leave a margin for error.

To my noble and learned friend, who attempts to justify six with the repeated argument that Princess Victoria was fifth in line at her birth, I point out that, in the terms of Clause 3, it is not her birth that is relevant or requires the sovereign’s consent but her marriage. By the time she married and would therefore have become subject to this clause, Victoria was already Queen herself. I venture to suggest that that indicates a bit of a design fault in the clause which might merit some attention.

The choice of Queen Victoria as a case to strengthen the Government’s case is, to say the least, unfortunate. Her example is, at best, irrelevant and it demolishes any rationale the Government have for confining the number in this clause to 6. As for the other explanation, that the choice of six was, as the Deputy Prime Minister admitted, arbitrary and pragmatic, that is not an argument but an apology. At Second Reading, I suggested that we should not think of the line of succession as a straight line of descent but rather in family groupings, and that is particularly so as life expectancy lengthens. All six places covered by this clause could be within the family of one son or daughter of the sovereign, which leaves other sons or daughters exposed in the event of a tragedy befalling the family of the heir apparent. The search for heirs might then need to move outwards, possibly encountering families who, for religious or other reasons, had to be leapfrogged to find heirs that fitted. A club of 12 would be more likely to avoid that. One could argue for more but I accept that 12 should be enough to put matters beyond a reasonable doubt, which six does not.

With or without my amendment, where there is a specified limit there will always be the possibility of those in the line of succession going on and off the nominated list like poor Prince Adolphus Frederick and not forgetting Prince Augustus Frederick. However, this amendment would move such comings and goings further away from the immediate line of succession and offer a better chance that the monarch’s immediate family would all be on the list, at least until they had passed the normal marrying age. I chose to table this amendment as it covered the one area of the Bill that could be improved quite easily and with little controversy. It does not frustrate the Bill’s purpose but is simply an amendment of detail. This detail does not, I gather, feature in the Perth agreement: perhaps my noble and learned friend can enlighten us on that. It could probably be quickly accepted by the Commonwealth realms without demur and it would show that this revising Chamber had done its job and not simply been a rubber stamp to a measure agreed over our heads.

It is an important change which addresses the danger of unintended consequences. As it stands, the list of six acknowledges a problem. I believe I have demonstrated that a list of six could be woefully inadequate. The amendment offers greater stability and less uncertainty in a matter where certainty is vital. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

We have not had the representations that one would expect to receive. I suspect that under the present law there are people who, understandably, do not know that, as a descendant of King George II, they are expected to get consent from the sovereign if they wish to marry. Indeed, we seek in this Bill to address the issue of those who have, as it were, unwittingly married.

The other important point perhaps addresses the point made by my noble friend about the European Convention on Human Rights. There are two issues here. First, the European Court of Human Rights has generally been very reluctant to engage in issues which go to the heart of a nation’s constitution and who should be their head of state. Secondly, unlike the 1772 Act, which made a marriage void if the consent of the Sovereign was not forthcoming, this does nothing so significant. It simply removes the person from the line of succession and the marriage will still be valid. It means only that the person who had not received consent would not take their place in the line of succession.

My noble friend Lord Lang asked where the number six arose from. Ahead of the Perth agreement my right honourable friend the Prime Minister wrote to each realm Government proposing changes to the law of succession principally with regard to the removal of male bias and the bar on the heir marrying a Catholic. At that point the realm Governments were also made aware of the issues surrounding the Royal Marriages Act and the view of this Government that it was outdated. Subsequent discussions with the realm Governments were led by New Zealand which concluded that it was in the public interest and reasonable and proportionate for those who are genuinely close to the Throne to seek consent to marry. To avoid the same problems presented by the Royal Marriages Act in attaching a monarchical consent requirement to the descendants of a specific monarch—at Second Reading I think that someone suggested that we could make it the descendants of George VI rather than George II; that was thought to store up problems for the future—the number six was proposed and agreed. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister then wrote to each of the realm Prime Ministers to confirm their consent to this provision.

I apologise that I was unable to respond to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne at Second Reading when he asked whether consent had ever actually been refused under the 1772 Act. So far as the Government are aware, there has been no instance when the sovereign’s consent to a royal marriage has been refused. My noble friend Lord Northbrook asked in relation to Amendment 14 whether the common law still applies to monarchical consent in cases such as the remarriage of a dowager queen. There is a good argument that the 1772 Act replaced all common law provisions on royal consent to marriages, but it also could be argued that because the 1772 Act applies to the descendants of George II, the common law requirement might conceivably still apply to members of the Royal Family who are not descendants of George II, for example in the remarriage of a dowager queen or a prince consort. But these instances would not affect the line of succession and it is important to recognise that what we are doing here relates only to that. The Bill is concerned with people who may become the sovereign, not with members of the wider Royal Family. It has a specific purpose.

As I say, no number will be perfect, but if one considers that, in the 240 years since the 1772 Act went on to the statute book, the furthest away in line from the Throne at the time when consent for marriage was sought was three; we are allowing for three more. I believe that the figure is a rational one and I would invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, I know that my noble and learned friend has a job to do, and that is to get this Bill through intact. I have no doubt that those are the orders he has been given and that the word “Resist” is printed on every page of his brief. The fact remains, however, that he must have heard the almost unanimous voices in this Chamber expressing their support for an expansion of the number from six. My noble friend Lord Northbrook offered an alternative of either four or zero. I would live with zero, but only if the provisions that still require the sovereign to be a member of the Church of England were withdrawn. That would remove the tension that this Bill otherwise builds into the royal succession; that is, between those who are allowed to marry Catholics and those who cannot inherit the Throne unless they are members of the Church of England.

My noble friends Lord Lexden, Lord Lyell, Lord Forsyth and Lord True gave some fine additional historical examples of the sort of problem that can arise in these circumstances. My noble friend Lord Lexden mentioned in particular the history of the gun pellets through the window at Sidmouth and that house in the rainstorm during which Prince Edward contracted an illness from which he died a week later, thus precipitating Princess Victoria up the line. There was another incident, I believe, when a pony and trap bearing the princess panicked and sped off, and she very nearly died. In answer to the question put by my noble friend Lord Lexden, if she had died, my belief is that Prince Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, would have inherited the Throne. He subsequently went on to become the King of Hanover where male primogeniture still predominated, when King George IV, I suppose it would have been, could not have inherited that Throne when it became vacant.

My noble and learned friend said some very kind things about what I have proposed and the arguments I advanced, but then proceeded to reject them without going further than talking about “arbitrary” and “pragmatic”. If I heard him correctly, he said that none of the historical characters I mentioned had reached the Throne. Queen Victoria reached the Throne, and he has not risen to that point.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords—

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

Perhaps I may finish my argument before he denounces or deals with it. Queen Victoria would then have had to give consent to herself before she could have married Prince Albert. My noble and learned friend will argue, “Ah, but she would have been guided by Ministers”. Lord Melbourne was a pussycat who doted on Queen Victoria and he would not have said no. He had enough problems already with Lady Caroline Lamb. I shall give way to my noble and learned friend.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I apologise if my noble friend misunderstood me; I said that no one whom he mentioned, who had gone into the list of six, come out of the list and then gone back into it, had actually gone on to inherit the Throne. That was my point. Of course, Queen Victoria as Princess Victoria inherited the Throne, but I think that the idea of the sovereign giving consent to him or herself is one that has possibly arisen on other cases too. I cannot immediately think of what they were, but that is not even an anomaly; one cannot give consent to oneself.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

If I burned the night oil I might be able to find an example. What my noble friend says simply underlines the fact that he did not answer the point about Queen Victoria having to give consent to her own marriage. That must be a fault in the Bill, and I ask him to consider it further before we reach Report.

My noble and learned friend concluded by saying that no number is perfect. I agree, but six is demonstrably imperfect. So much of this Bill has been shown to be ill considered and imperfect, creating anomalies and potential for long-term difficulties of a very considerable nature. When we legislate in a Bill of this kind, we are legislating not just for decades, but for centuries, and so many points have been made today that require further thought. I will withdraw the amendment, but I will consider whether I should bring it forward again on Report. I hope that my noble and learned friend will give very serious thought to what most people in this House—and, I believe, in the other place as well—consider to be an ongoing problem. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.