My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Succession to the Crown Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
This is a relatively short Bill but I do not think that any of us are under any illusions as to how profound it is. Indeed, is a rare occasion to bring a Bill of such historical import to this Chamber, and I am sure we look forward to a full, learned and illuminating debate.
This is a Bill with a clear purpose; to bring gender equality to the rules of succession and to remove explicit pieces of religious discrimination from our statute book. In so doing, we will make the rules governing succession fit for the 21st century, and reaffirm and strengthen the place of the monarchy within our venerable constitutional settlement—a monarchy that has shown a remarkable ability to adapt over the centuries.
The Bill does three things. First, it ends the system of male preference primogeniture in the line of succession. Secondly, it removes the bar on a person who marries a Roman Catholic from succeeding to the Throne—a legal barrier that applies to Catholics and only Catholics and no other faith. Thirdly, it replaces the Royal Marriages Act 1772—an Act that requires any descendent of King George II to seek the reigning monarch's consent before marrying, without which their marriage is void. This clause has attracted some debate. It may help the House if I set out briefly why we have added this clause to the other principal planks of the Bill.
With King George II’s descendants now numbering in their hundreds, this law is clearly unworkable and so it is replaced with a provision that the monarch need only consent to the marriages of the first six individuals in the line of succession, without which they would lose their place. In this way, we retain the tradition of monarchical consent but, in limiting it to the people who could feasibly assume the Throne, it will be applied in a much more reasonable way.
These changes will be effected not just in the United Kingdom, but in each and every realm of the Commonwealth for which Her Majesty is head of state. This was the agreement made by the realm heads of government in Perth, Australia in 2011. That announcement let to a long consultation among the realms to agree a UK Bill that provides the framework for these important changes across the far corners of the Commonwealth.
Agreeing a Bill with such a global reach has indeed been a diplomatic feat and one which colleagues in New Zealand have led with vigour and dedication. It has also been some time in the making: it took more than a year of detailed discussions before we received the final written consent from each realm. At the beginning of this month, we saw the Canadian Succession to the Throne Bill have its Third Reading in the Canadian House of Commons, and that Bill is now being considered by the Senate. This demonstrates the careful choreography and consideration that has been required.
In many ways, this Bill is akin to an international treaty and it is incumbent on us to give this legislation detailed consideration of what I hope is a Bill with a clear purpose. This is not just to assure ourselves that the law is sound, but also to consider that these changes will be brought into effect in lands beyond our borders, lands that are tied together by a common history and monarch through the Commonwealth.
Some, such as Canada, will pass their own legislation to achieve these goals, while others, such as Belize and Papua New Guinea, have been clear that legislation is not required in their jurisdictions and the laws can apply directly. With this in mind, I make it clear that it would, in my opinion, be unwise to use this Bill as a vehicle for UK-specific changes that would be of little or no relevance to the realms.
For this reason, the Bill does not, for example, touch on the complex and often emotive issue of hereditary peerages. Moreover, there are some key differences between the law on hereditary peerages and the rules governing succession to the Crown. First, the Crown does not become extinct if there are only female heirs. Secondly, the succession of the elder daughter or her descendants is automatic in the rules governing succession to the Crown, as indeed we saw when Her Majesty succeeded her late father, King George VI. Changes to the law on succession to the Crown can be effected without any change to the legitimate expectations of those in the line of succession. Changes to the rules governing succession to hereditary titles would be far more complicated to implement fairly. For this reason, we do not believe that changes to the rules governing succession to the Crown should serve the purpose of addressing what is the quite separate issue of hereditary titles.
I want to pause on the issue of hereditary titles to assure the House that the removal of the male bias in the rules governing the succession to the Crown will not result in any other royal titles becoming detached from the Crown. We must also bear in mind that any significant change to the substance of the Bill would require further consultation with the realms before it could be agreed. But that should not, and indeed it must not, prevent us having a full debate and giving this important constitutional change the scrutiny it deserves and requires. I fully concur with noble Lords on the Constitution Committee of this House who in their report on this issue noted the need to provide the opportunity for full debate in Parliament. With this in mind, I was glad to note that Members in another place had more than sufficient time to consider the amendments that were selected for debate. A number of issues were raised by Members in another place, including by Mr Rees-Mogg, who instigated a most enthralling debate on the position of the established church and the potential for a Roman Catholic to succeed to the Throne.
I want to reiterate in this House the Government’s full support for the established church in England, with the Sovereign as its supreme governor. We consider the relationship between the church and the state in England to be an important part of our constitutional framework, which has evolved over the centuries, and we have no intention of changing the position. It is also worth pausing briefly to consider what the Church of England has said on this matter, which has been set out in a briefing issued to noble Lords by the church. It states that,
“the present prohibition on anyone remaining in the line of succession or succeeding to the Crown as a result of marrying a Roman Catholic is not necessary to support the requirement that the Sovereign join in communion with the Church of England”.
Indeed, this Bill does nothing to change the requirement that the Sovereign be in communion with the Church of England and maintain the established Protestant religion in the United Kingdom. In a speech in this place during the debate on the Queen’s speech on 14 May 2012, the then right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn said:
“The references in the humble Address to reform of the rules of royal succession are sensible and timely. I know I speak for all on these Benches when I say that we wish the Government well in their present consultations with the other Commonwealth realms. We look forward to and hope that it will then be possible for the necessary Bill to pass quickly through both Houses of Parliament”.—[Official Report, 14/5/12; col. 168.]
The Archbishop of Westminster has said that:
“I welcome the decision of Her Majesty’s Government to give heirs to the Throne the freedom to marry a Catholic”,
and:
“I fully recognise the importance of the position of the Established Church in protecting and fostering the role of faith in our society today”.
I am sure that this issue will be something that noble Lords will wish to discuss further in the course of our deliberations.
A further issue that was raised in another place was whether the children of a mixed marriage would be required by canon law to be brought up as Roman Catholics. I should like to be clear that Roman Catholic teaching requires the Catholic partner in a mixed marriage to do their best to have the children raised as Catholics, but if there is a “just and reasonable cause”, and it is certainly my view that the protection of the place of the Established Church would qualify as a reasonable cause, then the local bishop can grant permission for the marriage. I want to make it clear that this decision is made at the level of the local bishop, not the Vatican.
There was also discussion in another place as to why the Royal Marriages Act was replaced with a provision requiring monarchical consent to the marriage of the first six in line to the Throne. I should make it clear that the power of monarchical consent to marriage should be limited to avoid undue restrictions and penalties on people who are not in the immediate line of succession. However, there remains a public interest that consent be given for the marriage of someone who may well become our head of state. Consent of the monarch to the marriage of the first six in line to the Throne provides, in the Government’s view, a modernisation of the rule. Since the Royal Marriages Act was passed, the Crown has never passed to anyone more than five steps removed from the reigning sovereign at the time of their birth, the furthest removed being Queen Victoria. Given that, the Government believe that the consent for the first six in line provides sufficient proximity to the Throne.
The Bill protects the spiritual and temporal position of our monarchy while also removing two long-standing pieces of discrimination currently entrenched in law against women and Roman Catholics. Removing discrimination should never be described as an “unnecessary tinkering”, as some have described it. The Bill provides for equality between the sexes in the line of succession. Looking back to our great female monarchs, not least to our own sovereign, Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II, and the great service that they have all provided for our country, I hope that these are changes that we can all support. I commend the Bill to the House.
Noon