Succession to the Crown Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly welcome every aspect of the Bill. My peerages currently descend on the same pattern as the monarchy. My grandmother, who held the titles, was a campaigner for gender equality, as was my mother, who held the titles after her, and, indeed, my father, so it is not surprising that I think that it is wonderful to have lived the past 60 years in a period of such change and progress. We clearly have some way to go yet and I do not think we have yet realised what the full consequences of gender equality will be, but we have made great progress. It is wonderful to be standing here at last contemplating the change to the succession of the Crown, which means that our head of state will now enjoy the same gender equality that the rest of us expect in the course of our ordinary lives.

It is important to focus also on the tidying up that follows this crucial change. Generally, it is never good enough to think that we have got 80% of the way on gender equality and we should be satisfied with that. The Church of England will be aware of how difficult it is to tidy up some of the difficult corners of this matter. None the less, we must do it because until the symbolism of male dominance is gone we will not have granted gender equality.

Several of my noble friends have touched on the subject of the hereditary peerage. I have a Bill on this subject sitting in the Printed Papers Office. It will not be debated in this Session but I hope that we will get around to it in the next. This is a difficult area, as several noble Lords have mentioned, not least because one is dealing with a succession of expectations. This Bill is well timed for the monarchy because we know exactly what the expectations are, but you cannot spread that over 1,000 plus hereditary peerages, let alone the baronetage, which probably ought to be wound up in it too. There are also in many cases, but, sadly, not mine, substantial properties tied up with titles. One does not want to do something which means that those diverge any more than we want the hereditary titles to diverge from the monarchy.

I suspected that we would reform this House a couple of years after 1999. I have been proved very wrong on that and perhaps the present system will see me out, but eventually we will get around to it. Even if hereditary Peers have no place in this House as of right, it is still a considerable thing to be called “Lord” or “Sir” because so many people now have these titles through their own virtue. For that matter, I imagine that it is a great thing to be called a duke, too. It is useful. It opens doors. On one occasion my wife rang The Ivy to see whether there was a table. She used her maiden name of Rubinstein and they said no, so she got her assistant to ring up five minutes later and ask whether Lord Lucas might have a table. The answer was yes, so titles, even those which are unearned, are not without consequence in this world. They are part of the historical pattern of the nation. As someone who enjoys having a title but also appreciates that in others, I think it is a nice part of the fabric of the nation which should not be largely restricted to men. This is a reform which we should seek to make. The imperfection in the Bill, in that it does not deal with the royal hereditary titles, gives me hope that the Government may find the motivation to support my Bill, or something like it, in the next Session.