I was appointed a Privy Counsellor last July – a very curious honour. It goes back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I, who apparently wrote out the job description in her own hand having become impatient with the efforts of her courtiers.
The two major functions of a Privy Counsellor are to agree to a Royal Marriage (although how royal the marriage has to be I am not clear) and to agree to a new Monarch. Privy Councillors also attend regular meetings with the Monarch to agree Orders in Council.
Lesser privileges include being able to request refreshment from the Monarch when passing a royal residence while on a journey.
The other principal, and seen as the most practical, advantage of membership of the Privy Council is that members can be briefed ‘on Privy Council terms’, that is, receive secret information.
Which is why the Leaders of the top Opposition parties are part of it!
It’s a useful tool to enable co-operation in times of crisis, and for continuity of government.
What oversight do Privy Counsellors have of orders in council? What sort of power do you have to modify or reject them? Are you mere creatures of the government? How do you feel about being involved in passing legislation in a manner that circumvents Parliament?
Parliament retains the right to issue a protest against an Order-in-Council it dislikes, just as it has with all secondary legislation. No government would be able to ignore such a protest easily.
Baroness D’Souza,
Congratulations on your elevation to the Privy Council. Queen Elizabeth the First as you know was a quite religiously aware person. People seem to disagree on how reaponsible she was for charting a course between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism but it must have had something to do with her. The idea I believe has Biblical roots, Jesus (a Son of David) reliedon increasing levels of privy qualities in his administration the 72, the 12 and smaller groups such as the three. King David had increasingly more privy and smaller numbers of both warriors and courtiers.I think the West is more antisemitic in some ways today but many royal regimes in Europe drew on some traditons of ancient Israelite custom in the House of David. However fictional he may have been Lancelot also was a prince of the House of David on his mother’s side.
Um? The full PC meets to give the succession proclamation but the sovereign is sovereign by the law of succession not because the PC makes the proclamation.
jken146: The only active PCs for government business are government ministers so the whole process goes through on the nod.
OT, my Lords, but thank you so much for giving away our freedoms in this disgusting piece of legislation.
I don’t suppose that you would care to explain yourselves…?
DK
Croft, yes proclamation is what privy counsellors do as well as consenting to a Royal Marriage. The history buffs amongst you will no doubt be able to tell us if and when the Privy Council ever decided not to proclaim or to consent?
Privy Council is but another (albeit collective) name for ministers. Privy Council Orders can not deviate from government policy and ministers are subject to parliamentary accountability. In fact almost all the historic powers of the Privy Council have been taken over by Parliament and Privy Council business is more usually concerned with approving amendments to bye-laws and the statutes of chartered institutions.
So the positon is largely honorific but the oath of secrecy means that privy counsellors can also deal with highly confidential business.
I seem to remember the PC oath is interesting!
At the risk of getting a ‘C- must try harder’ from Lord Norton I don’t think there has ever been an official refusal for consent. On the succession position I believe the same to be true. The first council proclamation was after the death of Elizabeth because James was in Scotland and couldn’t proclaim himself as was traditional.
The details of each of the proclamations are on the excellent heraldic site. Plenty of time to be word perfect Lady D’Souza
🙂
What about the orders relating to the Chagos islanders? Where was the parliamentary accountability for those decisions?
Why allow the government to hold the power to make such orders without the consent of Parliament? Isn’t the whole idea of the Privy Council offensive to representation and to parliamentary (and by implication, popular) sovereignty/supremacy?
jken146 – I agree the case of the Chagos islanders was, and remains, a shocking one. AS I understand it there are still determined efforts to enable the Islanders to return.