My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 7. I do not think I need comment on any of the other amendments in this group. I tabled this probing amendment to ask why this particular piece of text is here:
“This Act does not apply to Her Majesty acting in her private capacity.”
That is quite unusual in Bills. Usually at the end there is a clause that says something along the lines that Her Majesty and, often, the Duke of Cornwall have given
their consent to that piece of legislation. Sometimes when I ask the Minister what relevance the Bill has to the Duke of Cornwall they cannot answer; no one seems able to because it is nicely confidential.
Obviously I can see why Her Majesty acting as the Crown is included in this Bill because effectively the Crown is the Government. However, why is the Duke of Cornwall not included in the Bill in his private capacity? He usually appears alongside Her Majesty. The Duchy of Cornwall has said it is in the private sector, which means, whatever we are going to call it, that it is a private sector organisation that presumably will have to comply with every other part of the Bill.
It is interesting to see where the sovereign grant for transport comes in. I happened to get a Written Answer today. I asked who funded the return charter flight of the Duke of Sussex from the United States for the jubilee. According to media reports, it was the most expensive charter plane that you could possibly get, and it seemed to me that, as in so many of these matters, they could actually have gone on the scheduled service. The answer I had was that it was not funded by the sovereign grant because that
“only covers expenses incurred by other Members of the Royal Family when they undertake official duties on behalf of Her Majesty”,
and clearly that was not the case. When it comes to the sovereign grant and the award of contracts for helicopters or planes across the world that the Royal Family—or even occasionally members of the Government—might take, presumably that will be subject to competitive tendering because they are acting in their public capacity.
It would be good to hear from the Minister what correspondence, if any, took place before Clause 1(9) came into the Bill. Are the Government quite happy with it? I look forward to hearing his answer.