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Prince Andrew and Prince Harry are to be further sidelined from the royal institution, with King Charles effectively removing them from the roster of royals called on to stand in for him or sign documents on the Crown’s behalf if he is sick or unavailable.
The significant change to the role of so-called “counsellors of state” emerged after seemingly innocuous questions were asked in Britain’s fusty upper chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords.
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Aristocrat Viscount Stansgate, one of 92 peers to have inherited a seat in Parliament under archaic laws that successive governments have failed to reform, rose to his feet earlier this week, the Daily Mail reported, and asked: “Are the Government happy to continue with a situation where the counsels of state and regency powers may be exercised by the Duke of York or the Duke of Sussex, one of whom has left public life and the other of whom has left the country? Is it not time for the government to approach the king to see whether a sensible amendment can be made to this act?”
The London Times observed that Lord Addington, a Liberal Democrat peer, also weighed in on the matter, asking the government if they would “at least consider that the person they go to in the first consideration will be somebody who actually undertakes royal duties, or at least some part of them, at present.”
Instead of swatting the question aside with a formulaic dismissal, the leader of the House of Lords, Lord True, responded that in 1937 George VI had, shortly after his own accession, indicated the need to do whatever was necessary to, “secure the exercise of the Royal Authority.”
“In that spirit, the government will always consider what arrangements are needed to ensure resilience in our constitutional arrangements, and in the past we have seen that the point of accession has proved a useful opportunity to consider the arrangements in place,” he said.
As the constitutional expert and filmmaker Robert Hardman wrote in the Daily Mail: “In other words, watch this space.”
Hardman says the plan to overhaul the role will not involve any measures to specifically disqualify Andrew and Harry—under current arrangements, counsellors of state are the first four adults in the line of succession (William, Harry, Andrew and Princess Beatrice) plus Camilla—but will instead expand the pool to include other working royals, such as Anne and Edward.
Intriguingly, Hardman quotes sources as saying this work of “tidying up” the constitutional arrangements to obviate the need to call on Harry or Andrew was initiated by the queen.
Hardman quotes a source as saying: “The queen could see the need for some reforms, while not wishing to exclude the Dukes of Sussex or York…the king is simply following through with that.”
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph last week, Prince Andrew is now effectively a “recluse” following his disastrous Newsnight interview in November 2019 and subsequent expulsion from the royal family.
