PROVISION FOR REGENT

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22004, 30 January 1937, Page 13

PROVISION FOR REGENT

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER WOULD ACT

PRINCESS ELIZABETH ELIGIBLE

AT EIGHTEEN

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION-COPYRIGHT.) (Received January 29, 7.5 p.m.)

LONDON, January 28,

The Regency Bill means that should Princess Elizabeth succeed to the Throne before she is 18 the Duke of Gloucester would be Regent. It had been previously suggested that the Regent should be Queen Elizabeth.

The Duke of Gloucester will also be Regent should King George become incapacitated; ' but Princess Elizabeth will become eligible as Regent on reaching the age of 21.

The bill does not provide for the appointment of a Regent during a minor illness of the Sovereign or his absence abroad. In either of these circumstances the King will appoint a Council of State which, in present circumstances, will consist of Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Glbucester, the Duke of Kent, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Connaught. The bill differs from the act passed on the accession of King George V., which provided for the King’s wife, Queen Mary, to be Regent. In substituting the Duke of Gloucester for Queen Elizabeth, clause six provides that the Sovereign, when out of the country, may convey instructions by telegraph, thus excluding the Empire telephone service. It is understood that the reason is that there must be a record of the instructions given.

Empire Not Included

“The Times” points out that the Regency Bill, in accordance with the Statute of Westminster, provides for a regency of the United Kingdom and the Crown Colonies alone, and not of the British Empire as did the act of 1910. It does not alter “the law touching the Throne or Royal style and titles.” Therefore, the established constitutional position does not require the simultaneous assent of all the selfgoverning Dominions. The natural procedure is for each of them to legislate for a Regent of their own territory, and it may be supposed that they will concur in so legislating that the powers of the Regency everywhere in the British Empire will, when required, be vested in the same person. His functions overseas would in any case practically *be limited to appointing a new Gover-nor-General.

TEXT OF BILL ISSUED

SCOPE OF LEGISLATION

(BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.)

RUGBY, January 28,

The text of the Regency Bill, the second reading of which will be moved by the Prime Minister (Mr Stanley Baldwin) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, has been issued.

The bill sets up machinery for the performance of Royal functions by a Regent in the name and on behalf of the sovereign in certain circumstances, and for the delegation of Royal functions to Counsellors of State in certain other circumstances. The bill proposes that in the event of a Regency being necessary, the Regent should be the person next in iine of succession to the Crown and not disqualified. A person shall be disqualified if he is not a Britisn subject of full age and resident in the United Kingdom, or is a person who would, under section 2 of the Act of Settlement, be incapable of inheriting possession of or enjoying the Crown. .Section 3 of the Act of Settlement shall apply in the case of a Regent as it applies in the case of a sovereign. , If any person who would at the commencement of the Regency have become Regent, but for the fact that he was not then of full age, becomes of full age during the Regency, he shall, if he is not otherwise disqualified, thereupon become Regent. There shall be a Regent (1) When the sovereign is under 18 at the time of his accession, and the Regent will perform all Royar functions until the sovereign attains the age of 18. (2) During any period when the sovereign has been declared to be suffering from an infirmity of mind or body which renders him wholly incapable of performing Royal functions. If during the Regency the Regent himself becomes wholly incapacitated by infirmity of mind or body, the person next in line of succession to the Throne who is not disqualified will become Regent.

Case of Infirmity

The terms of the bill dealing with the appointment of a Regent in the event of the sovereign’s infirmity provide: “If the following persons or any three or more of them, namely, the wife or husband of the sovereign, the person who, excluding any persons disqualified, is next in line of succession, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Master of the Rolls, declare in writing that they are satisfied on the evidence of physicians, or otherwise, that the sovereign is by reason of infirmity of mind or body wholly incapable for the time of performing Royal functions, then, until it is declared in a like manner that his Majesty has so far recovered his health as to warrant a resumption of Royal functions, those, functions shall be nerformed in the name and on behalf of the sovereign, by the Regent. A declaration under this section of the bill shall be made to the Privy Council and communicated to the governments of his Majesty’s Dominions and to the Government of India.” The bill further proposes that the sovereign or, during a Regency, the Regent, mav. in order to prevent delav or difficulty in the dispatch of nublic business, by letters patent delegate to the Counsellors of State such of the Royal functions as may be specified in the circumstances indicated, namely: (1) The illness of the sovereign or Regqpt. not amounting to such infirmity of mind or body as renders him whnllv inraoable of p“”forming Royal functions. and (2) the absence or in-i-mded absence of th* or Regent from the United Kingdom. 'Strh delegation of powers is to continue only for the period of illness or absence.