My Lords, may I say how much I welcome this Bill on behalf of these Benches and on my own behalf? Our present law, whereby an elder daughter is displaced as heir to the Throne by the birth of her younger brother is an affront to women throughout this nation and the Commonwealth. Of itself, it damages the identification between the monarchy and the people, particularly women, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, movingly pointed out. I am delighted that we are to change it. It is also a great tribute to the Commonwealth as an institution that we are legislating for this change in a co-ordinated way in all 16 of Her Majesty’s realms.
Perhaps I may address for a moment the important constitutional point made by the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, who has explained why he believes that this Bill is a breach of Her Majesty’s coronation oath and therefore, for us, a breach of our oaths of allegiance. As I understand his argument, he believes that because the Declaration of Rights in 1688 obliges the monarch to reject Roman Catholicism, it follows that she would be in breach of her oath by assenting to this Bill. In my view, the noble Lord’s argument gives insufficient weight to the doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament and to the general rule that Parliament cannot bind its successors. The Declaration of Rights, made on the arrival of Prince William and Princess Mary in the kingdom, did not of itself have the force of law, as has been pointed out. It was enacted as an Act of Parliament as the Bill of Rights in 1689 and has been an important part of our constitutional settlement ever since. It is true that it was expressed as intended to remain the law of this realm for ever. However, the doctrine that Parliament cannot bind its successors was already well established by the late 17th century. In fact, the Bill of Rights has already been amended on a number of occasions. In the context of this Bill, the most notable amendment was made by the Act of Settlement 1700, just a decade or so after the Bill of Rights—