Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I mean that's the Green Party

Swampy and the other people are currently occupying tunnels under a square in London to stop a passenger underpass being builit that links Euston Station to Euston Square Tube Station. It is literally just being opposed to building anything.

I also wonder how much this is behind higher costs for infrastructure in the UK that for every inch you want to build you have to fight off hundreds of local activists in the courts

But I've found HS2 and general infrastructure quite radicalising and now my support is entirely conditional on how many trees and historic forests will be destroyed. If we're not building through "ancient woodland", what's the point?

Careful with this one. The anti-HS2 brigade are very clever when it comes to spreading just enough disinformation about. I really do see a lot of the same tactics as the brexit campaign in use.
When they say "108 ancient woodlands are going to be destroyed!" it gives the idea of vast swathes of forest that have been around since the ice age being utterly razed...
But their definition of what constitutes one ancient woodland is a bit shit. If there's two trees in the middle of a field that are 100 years old they'll count that as one of their ancient woodlands.
Overall HS2 will lead to a net gain in woodland.

What particularly annoys me about these pro climate change protestors is they're falling for the nimbys line to get them against HS2 so utterly whilst the far far more destructive Lower Thames Tunnel is completely unknown.

[Sheilbh]

Careful with this one. The anti-HS2 brigade are very clever when it comes to spreading just enough disinformation about. I really do see a lot of the same tactics as the brexit campaign in use.
When they say "108 ancient woodlands are going to be destroyed!" it gives the idea of vast swathes of forest that have been around since the ice age being utterly razed...
But their definition of what constitutes one ancient woodland is a bit shit. If there's two trees in the middle of a field that are 100 years old they'll count that as one of their ancient woodlands.
Overall HS2 will lead to a net gain in woodland.

Yeah. To be clear I will only support infrastructure if it destroys ancient woodland

It's incredibly frustrating because with HS2 it's on a route already at capacity and for public transport

What particularly annoys me about these pro climate change protestors is they're falling for the nimbys line to get them against HS2 so utterly whilst the far far more destructive Lower Thames Tunnel is completely unknown.

There's been lots of local complaints about the Thames Tunnel over - of course - the destruction of ancient woodland But it's not gone national in the way HS2 has (probably because it mainly affects Essex).

The one that I find frustrating is the campaign against the sewer upgrade (which is part of the Thames Tunnel) project. It's not climate but the sewers are 150 years old and struggling at the minute but there's still lots of campaigners against building a n y t h i n g.

"Green" campaigners in this country will only be satisfied when they've stopped so much housing that we're all living in slums, with our cholera inducing sewers and over-crowded, expensive railways

[The Larch]

If it's any consolation for you, it's not as if the UK is unique on that. Large infrastructure projects always attract some level of controversy, and other high speed rail projects have been equally troubled in other parts of Europe. Two particular cases come to mind, the Turin - Lyon connection, which is highly controversial in Italy, and the Basque section of Spain's high speed railway construction frenzy of the last decades (commonly called the Basque Y, due to its shape).

[Gups]

Careful with this one. The anti-HS2 brigade are very clever when it comes to spreading just enough disinformation about. I really do see a lot of the same tactics as the brexit campaign in use.
When they say "108 ancient woodlands are going to be destroyed!" it gives the idea of vast swathes of forest that have been around since the ice age being utterly razed...
But their definition of what constitutes one ancient woodland is a bit shit. If there's two trees in the middle of a field that are 100 years old they'll count that as one of their ancient woodlands.
Overall HS2 will lead to a net gain in woodland.

What particularly annoys me about these pro climate change protestors is they're falling for the nimbys line to get them against HS2 so utterly whilst the far far more destructive Lower Thames Tunnel is completely unknown.

I'm not a fan of the anti-HS2 protesters or their methods either but as infrastructure planning is my job and I deal with both projects on a daily basis, I can't let this pass without comment.

Ancient woodland has a legal definition. It has to have been in place continously since 1600. There is no ancient woodland which would comprise two trees in the middle of a field.

The Lower Thames Tunnel will have a comparatively tiny impact on woodland, ancient or modern. It is vociferously opposed by both locals and the envrionmentalists but is less in the news because it has yet to be authorised (Highways England planned to make an application at the end of last year but withdrew).

[Gups]

Incidentally, HS2 is an utterly dysfuctional organisation. Opposition would be a lot less if they were even a little bit competent.

[Duque de Bragança]

If it's any consolation for you, it's not as if the UK is unique on that. Large infrastructure projects always attract some level of controversy, and other high speed rail projects have been equally troubled in other parts of Europe. Two particular cases come to mind, the Turin - Lyon connection, which is highly controversial in Italy, and the Basque section of Spain's high speed railway construction frenzy of the last decades (commonly called the Basque Y, due to its shape).

Spain's high speed railway construction frenzy stopped indeed at the Basque borders.  Despite being a wealthy region, the regional government tried to get the central government to pay as much as much as possible, plus the usual NIMBY-ism, instrumentalised, with the ETA being against it early in the project.
On the French side, it'ss postponed to 2030 at least, despite being an antiquated line with 65 kph cruise speeds for the TGV in the last segment.

The Turin-Lyon connection controversy even had an OMG radioactivity argument in it.

[The Larch]

If it's any consolation for you, it's not as if the UK is unique on that. Large infrastructure projects always attract some level of controversy, and other high speed rail projects have been equally troubled in other parts of Europe. Two particular cases come to mind, the Turin - Lyon connection, which is highly controversial in Italy, and the Basque section of Spain's high speed railway construction frenzy of the last decades (commonly called the Basque Y, due to its shape).

Spain's high speed railway construction frenzy stopped indeed at the Basque borders.  Despite being a wealthy region, the regional government tried to get the central government to pay as much as much as possible, plus the usual NIMBY-ism, instrumentalised, with the ETA being against it early in the project.
On the French side, it'ss postponed to 2030 at least, despite being an antiquated line with 65 kph cruise speeds for the TGV in the last segment.

The Turin-Lyon connection controversy even had an OMG radioactivity argument in it.

The Basque Y problem was not really about money, but local opposition. I mean, ETA, back when it was active, used to bomb the work sites with relative frequency. They even assassinated the owner of one of the construction companies doing the works.

The opposition to the Italian one is highly localized in a particular valley in the Alps, which is AFAIK completely up in arms against the project.

[Josquius]

Careful with this one. The anti-HS2 brigade are very clever when it comes to spreading just enough disinformation about. I really do see a lot of the same tactics as the brexit campaign in use.
When they say "108 ancient woodlands are going to be destroyed!" it gives the idea of vast swathes of forest that have been around since the ice age being utterly razed...
But their definition of what constitutes one ancient woodland is a bit shit. If there's two trees in the middle of a field that are 100 years old they'll count that as one of their ancient woodlands.
Overall HS2 will lead to a net gain in woodland.

What particularly annoys me about these pro climate change protestors is they're falling for the nimbys line to get them against HS2 so utterly whilst the far far more destructive Lower Thames Tunnel is completely unknown.

I'm not a fan of the anti-HS2 protesters or their methods either but as infrastructure planning is my job and I deal with both projects on a daily basis, I can't let this pass without comment.

Ancient woodland has a legal definition. It has to have been in place continously since 1600. There is no ancient woodland which would comprise two trees in the middle of a field.

How it has existed since 1600 is very vaguely defined however. Much of the country was woodland in maps from 1600. What has happened in the meantime can be poorly understood.
Two trees in the middle of a field was hyperbole I admit, but some of their examples are really awful, not too much better than that, and counting lost woodland in terms of number of woodlands...its just ridiculous.

The Lower Thames Tunnel will have a comparatively tiny impact on woodland, ancient or modern. It is vociferously opposed by both locals and the envrionmentalists but is less in the news because it has yet to be authorised (Highways England planned to make an application at the end of last year but withdrew).

Its not something I know too much of tbh but from what I've read this comparatively small stretch of road will be just as bad as HS2 for the environment.

e.g.
https://citymonitor.ai/transport/remarkable-achievement-environmental-case-building-hs2-4887

As a result of years of design refinement, the whole HS2 route from London to Leeds and Manchester will impact on less than 0.01 per cent – that's less than one ten thousandth – of the UK's ancient woodland.

Compare that to the damage done by a short length of new motorway. According to the Woodland Trust's own figures, the proposed Lower Thames Crossing motorway will impact on about as much ancient woodland as HS2 (54 hectares versus 58 hectares), yet it is only 14 miles long, compared to HS2's 470 miles.

I'll quote from one of the normally rather hostile House of Lords committees scrutinising the project:

"All ancient woodland is irreplaceable, but the loss of less than one [hectare] out of about 11,000 in the [Chilterns] AONB is, we consider, a remarkable achievement."

[Sheilbh]

FFS - I can only assume Chris Grayling has been put in charge of our quarantine plans:

No 10 reveals that NO contracts have yet been agreed with hotels - even though mandatory quarantine comes in *a week today*.

"We're working closely with hotels close to ports and airports and will continue to undertake that work but as of now no contracts have been awarded."

Border control and quarantine are essential especially with the rising risk of lots of new variants and we are still pissing about

Edit: Also I see that the 7 day rolling average of new cases is back to where we were at the end of the November lockdown

Obviously hospitalisations and deaths will trail a little.

[Zanza]

Tony Connelly on further derogations for the NI Protocol. While Ireland and even the Commission want pragmatic solutions, the member states are so pissed off by Gove's letter that they want to define a strict negotiation mandate for the Commission.

"So, not for the first time, the irony is that the Brexit hardliners in London, who have so excoriated the Commission over Article 16, may find that it is a better friend that national capitals, who will call the shots on the Protocol"

https://mobile.twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1358818139023282181

[The Larch]

You know, the French have a tried and tested solution to end this kind of royal interference in government... 

Royals vetted more than 1,000 laws via Queen's consent
Exclusive: secretive procedure used to review laws ranging from Brexit trade deal to inheritance and land policy

More than 1,000 laws have been vetted by the Queen or Prince Charles through a secretive procedure before they were approved by the UK's elected members of parliament, the Guardian has established.

The huge number of laws subject to royal vetting cover matters ranging from justice, social security, pensions, race relations and food policy through to obscure rules on car parking charges and hovercraft.

They included draft laws that affected the Queen's personal property such as her private estates in Balmoral and Sandringham, and potentially anything deemed to affect her personally.

The Guardian has compiled a database of at least 1,062 parliamentary bills that have been subjected to Queen's consent, stretching from the beginning of Elizabeth II's reign through to the present day.

The database illustrates that the opaque procedure of Queen's consent has been exercised far more extensively than was previously believed.

Under the procedure, government ministers privately notify the Queen of clauses in draft parliamentary bills and ask for her consent to debate them.

As part of a series investigating the use of the consent procedure, the Guardian has published documents from the National Archives that reveal the Queen has on occasions used the procedure to privately lobby the government.

The investigation uncovered evidence suggesting that she used the procedure to persuade government ministers to change a 1970s transparency law in order to conceal her private wealth from the public.

The documents also show that on other occasions the monarch's advisers demanded exclusions from proposed laws relating to road safety and land policy that appeared to affect her estates, and pressed for government policy on historic sites to be altered.

The database of 1,062 laws relates to legislation that the Queen vetted under consent rules, and it is not known on which occasions she also lobbied for changes to draft legislation. The Guardian has uncovered evidence of lobbying for changes to at least four draft laws, but it is possible she interfered with many more.

When asked by the Guardian, the Queen's representatives refused to say how many times she had requested alterations to legislation since she came to the throne in 1952.

The royals describe the consent process as "a long-established convention that the Queen is asked by parliament to provide consent ... for the debating of bills which would affect the prerogative or interests of the crown".

The database compiled by the Guardian reveals the vast swathe of draft UK law that ministers have decided to send to the palace for consideration.

Some of the bills the Queen reviewed before they were passed by parliament relate to wealth or taxation. One of the richest families in Britain, with the monarch's property investments exempt from inheritance tax and collections of fine art and jewellery built up over centuries, the Windsors are notoriously guarded about their finances.

Members of the Windsor family can have their will sealed from the public, unlike any other family in Britain, ensuring an unmatched level of secrecy around their private wealth. No confirmed figure of the Windsor family's wealth exists, though estimates have placed it at hundreds of millions of pounds.

In 2014, for example, the Queen and the heir to the throne screened the inheritance and trustees' powers bill. Two years earlier she vetted the trusts (capital and income) bill. Trusts are legal arrangements often used by wealthy families to protect their assets from both tax and public scrutiny.

She has also screened bills covering whole swathes of government policymaking. At least 11 bills governing the railways have been vetted by the Queen, sometimes relating to the land owned by the royal estates.

In 2013 the Queen gave her consent to the parliamentary bill to build the High Speed 2 rail line between London and Birmingham. Transport ministers had notified the palace that the bill affected the "interests of the crown" as the department needed to acquire 21 plots of land owned by the crown estate during the construction of the line.

At least 10 bills relating to housing policy have been subject to Queen's consent, as have five relating to laws on pensions, seven relating to the NHS and at least two concerning animal welfare. The government gave the Queen an exemption in a 2006 act to prevent the mistreatment of animals, stopping inspectors from entering her private estates.

Some of the bills subjected to Queen's consent are remarkably obscure and ostensibly have little relevance to the monarchy, raising questions about why the Windsors were asked to vet the bills. They include a 1963 bill relating to the British Museum, a 1986 bill on salmon, and the 2019 parking (code of practice) bill to regulate the behaviour of private car-clamping firms.

Dr Adam Tucker, a specialist in constitutional law at Liverpool University, said the breadth of laws made to undergo the Queen's consent procedure was startling.

"A lot of these bills are not distinctively about the crown, or mainly about the crown, or obviously about the crown in any way," he said. "And yet they obviously still have some content which drags them into the process.

"Seeing the sheer range, in this relentless list form, really drives home the sheer breadth of things that the procedure captures."

In other instances, a connection to the crown's financial interests is plain, such as a 1988 bill affecting the duchy of Lancaster, the private estate that gives the Queen a multimillion-pound income.

Buckingham Palace confirmed that the mechanism encompassed draft laws that affect the Queen's private interests, such as her private estates, as well as anything that affects the Queen personally, whether as an individual or as a land owner or employer.

A spokesperson for the Queen said: "Whether Queen's consent is required is decided by parliament, independently from the royal household, in matters that would affect crown interests, including personal property and personal interests of the monarch.

"If consent is required, draft legislation is, by convention, put to the sovereign to grant solely on advice of ministers and as a matter of public record."

She added: "Queen's consent is a parliamentary process, with the role of sovereign purely formal. Consent is always granted by the monarch where requested by government. Any assertion that the sovereign has blocked legislation is simply incorrect."

The Cabinet Office said: "Queen's consent is a longstanding convention and a requirement of the parliamentary process. Consent is routinely sought by the government and agreed by the monarch as a matter of course."

A little-questioned rule
Many of the laws appear to relate to matters of the royal prerogative, the powers of state that are formally vested in the monarch but are exercised by the government.

The fact that the consent procedure takes place is briefly noted in the parliamentary record. In the Commons, a minister nods when asked by the Speaker, while in the Lords a minister will read a rote passage of text.

Politicians infrequently question the procedure. One of the rare occasions was in 2015 when the Labour peer Lord Berkeley asked why the Queen's consent was required for the enterprise bill after the rote passage had been read out.

Lord Taylor, the then government chief whip in the Lords, replied that it was "a courtesy which Her Majesty extends to the house before we consider the third reading of a bill. It is not normal to discuss in detail what the interests are."

Queen lobbied for changes to three more laws, documents reveal
Road safety, heritage and private land leasing were all subject of pressure from palace, records show

When Prince Philip was spotted driving without a seatbelt on a Norfolk road in 2019, less than 48 hours after being involved in a nearby car crash, police issued "suitable words of advice".

The then 97-year-old consort could perhaps have been forgiven for assuming road safety law should not apply when he was driving in Sandringham, which is owned by his wife.

That was precisely the legal position the Queen's advisers took 50 years ago when they told the government the monarch did not much like the idea that the nation's traffic rules should apply to her private estates.

Details of this and other examples of secret lobbying by Buckingham Palace are contained in documents unearthed by the Guardian in the National Archives. They reveal how the monarch has used an arcane parliamentary process known as Queen's consent to secretly press ministers to amend legislation.

On Monday the Guardian revealed that the Queen's representatives lobbied Edward Heath's government to alter a proposed transparency law, enabling her to hide her private wealth from the public.

Now the Guardian can reveal three new instances – including the 1968 transport bill – that appear to show the Queen taking advantage of her advanced sight of proposed legislation to quietly press ministers to make alterations to benefit the crown or her private interests, or to reflect her opinions.

The documents are historical and also written in the officious language of mandarins and royal courtiers. But they undermine the long-held assumption that the Queen does not meddle in the affairs of parliament.

They also appear at odds with Buckingham Palace's insistence that the Queen always grants her consent to bills at the government's request as part of a "purely formal" parliamentary convention.

Dr Adam Tucker, a senior lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Liverpool, said he was "shocked" after reviewing the documents, which the Guardian has published.

He said they undermined the claim that Queen's consent was a mere formality. "The whole tone of all this documentation is that this is completely normal. Everyone involved is treating it as a genuine dialogue about policy, and an opportunity for legislation to be changed.

"If it was a purely formal process, which it's supposed to be, then no documentation like this would exist at all. There would be no substantive conversations about changing legislation."

Dr Thomas Adams, who teaches constitutional law at Oxford University and who also examined the documents, observed: "The very possibility of Queen's consent not being given at the appropriate stage in the process of the bill becoming law is clearly being used to influence the overall shape of that legislation."

Buckingham Palace declined to say how often the monarch had sought to use the consent mechanism to influence proposed legislation during her reign. Nor was it willing to answer any questions about the three newly discovered cases that show her advisers lobbying to change specific bills.

Case 1: national monuments
In one of the newly discovered cases, dating from 1982, a formal request for consent for a government bill relating to the preservation of national monuments prompted a palace response heavily hinting that alterations should be made to the draft law first.

Margaret Thatcher's government had written to the palace outlining its plans to reorganise the upkeep of Britain's national monuments. It included a proposal to create an organisation that would preserve ancient monuments and historic buildings in England – in essence a forerunner to English Heritage.

On 17 November 1982, a Whitehall official explained to Philip Moore, the Queen's private secretary, that this new organisation could potentially subsume an existing royal commission.

Six days later, Moore protested "most strongly at not being consulted at an earlier stage in accordance with the rules which are clearly laid down", complaining that the bill had already been introduced in the House of Lords.

He wrote that the Queen had no objection to some proposals in the bill. However, he said, "Her Majesty inclines to the view that it would not be sensible for the functions of the royal commission to be taken over by the new commission. It would not therefore seem a very good idea to include in the bill a power, by statutory instrument, enabling the functions of the royal commission to be taken over by the new commission at some stage in the future."

He added: "I am glad to have your assurance that the Queen will be fully consulted before any decision is taken on this."

Despite a formal request for Queen's consent for the new law, Moore's letter detailing the Queen's preferred policy approach contains no mention of her consent. By not giving her consent, the Queen's response, in effect, denied parliament the ability to debate the law at that point.

A concerned civil servant wrote: "The secretary of state should see straight away the attached response which [the department] have received from Buckingham Palace to their formal approach to Queen's consent ... Clearly this view must affect the way in which we go forward."

The Queen ultimately consented to the bill six months later. However, the royal commission would survive for another 17 years. It was merged with English Heritage in 1999.

Tucker said: "This looks like an example of consent being withheld based on an objection to the content of the legislation. Withholding is when you're asked for something and you don't give it."

Case 2: road safety
The second case relates to the attempt by Harold Wilson's government in 1968 to pass legislation updating road safety law. The files suggest that the Queen's advisers attempted to use the consent procedure to try to extract a commitment from the government that the new law would not apply to her private estates.

The then transport secretary, Richard Marsh, had written to the Queen requesting her consent for amendments to a new transport bill. The amendments would rationalise traffic law so that all roads to which the public had access, including those on crown land, would be governed by the same rules.

The Queen's then private solicitor, Matthew Farrer, telephoned civil servants. "He explained that the reason why we had not yet heard from the palace (an interim letter is apparently on its way) is that he is not entirely happy about the clause as it is drafted," a civil servant noted.

Farrer was "bothered" about roads on the Queen's private estates such as Sandringham, "which he certainly would not wish to see any traffic law applied to". "He is concerned solely with the crown private estates," the official added.

Ultimately the Queen granted her consent to the bill – but only on the condition that a key clause did not apply to her private estates and that "objections which ... have been raised by the crown estate and the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are satisfactorily resolved".

A handwritten note on a Whitehall document noted: "The upshot of all this was that we inserted two small changes in subsections 1 and 2 of the new clause."

Case 3: land leasing
The third case relates to a 1975 Labour government bill concerning the leasing of private land for development. Under the proposals, those intending to lease land for development would do so through local authorities in an attempt to secure reasonable rates.

However, lawyers representing the royal family's estates – including Farrer – attended a meeting with civil servants at which they outlined how an aspect of the bill "was causing them grave concern".

They warned the civil servants that "unless a modification were made to the terms of the bill", they would escalate their complaints to a senior minister. "It's very clear that there was pressure being put on the government to modify the terms of the bill," said Tucker. The Queen gave her consent to the bill.


When Prince Philip was spotted driving without a seatbelt on a Norfolk road in 2019, less than 48 hours after being involved in a nearby car crash, police issued "suitable words of advice".

The then 97-year-old consort could perhaps have been forgiven for assuming road safety law should not apply when he was driving in Sandringham, which is owned by his wife.

That was precisely the legal position the Queen's advisers took 50 years ago when they told the government the monarch did not much like the idea that the nation's traffic rules should apply to her private estates.

Details of this and other examples of secret lobbying by Buckingham Palace are contained in documents unearthed by the Guardian in the National Archives. They reveal how the monarch has used an arcane parliamentary process known as Queen's consent to secretly press ministers to amend legislation.

On Monday the Guardian revealed that the Queen's representatives lobbied Edward Heath's government to alter a proposed transparency law, enabling her to hide her private wealth from the public.

Now the Guardian can reveal three new instances – including the 1968 transport bill – that appear to show the Queen taking advantage of her advanced sight of proposed legislation to quietly press ministers to make alterations to benefit the crown or her private interests, or to reflect her opinions.

The documents are historical and also written in the officious language of mandarins and royal courtiers. But they undermine the long-held assumption that the Queen does not meddle in the affairs of parliament.

They also appear at odds with Buckingham Palace's insistence that the Queen always grants her consent to bills at the government's request as part of a "purely formal" parliamentary convention.

Dr Adam Tucker, a senior lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Liverpool, said he was "shocked" after reviewing the documents, which the Guardian has published.

He said they undermined the claim that Queen's consent was a mere formality. "The whole tone of all this documentation is that this is completely normal. Everyone involved is treating it as a genuine dialogue about policy, and an opportunity for legislation to be changed.

"If it was a purely formal process, which it's supposed to be, then no documentation like this would exist at all. There would be no substantive conversations about changing legislation."

Dr Thomas Adams, who teaches constitutional law at Oxford University and who also examined the documents, observed: "The very possibility of Queen's consent not being given at the appropriate stage in the process of the bill becoming law is clearly being used to influence the overall shape of that legislation."

Buckingham Palace declined to say how often the monarch had sought to use the consent mechanism to influence proposed legislation during her reign. Nor was it willing to answer any questions about the three newly discovered cases that show her advisers lobbying to change specific bills.

Case 1: national monuments

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Read more
In one of the newly discovered cases, dating from 1982, a formal request for consent for a government bill relating to the preservation of national monuments prompted a palace response heavily hinting that alterations should be made to the draft law first.

Margaret Thatcher's government had written to the palace outlining its plans to reorganise the upkeep of Britain's national monuments. It included a proposal to create an organisation that would preserve ancient monuments and historic buildings in England – in essence a forerunner to English Heritage.

On 17 November 1982, a Whitehall official explained to Philip Moore, the Queen's private secretary, that this new organisation could potentially subsume an existing royal commission.

Six days later, Moore protested "most strongly at not being consulted at an earlier stage in accordance with the rules which are clearly laid down", complaining that the bill had already been introduced in the House of Lords.

He wrote that the Queen had no objection to some proposals in the bill. However, he said, "Her Majesty inclines to the view that it would not be sensible for the functions of the royal commission to be taken over by the new commission. It would not therefore seem a very good idea to include in the bill a power, by statutory instrument, enabling the functions of the royal commission to be taken over by the new commission at some stage in the future."

He added: "I am glad to have your assurance that the Queen will be fully consulted before any decision is taken on this."

Despite a formal request for Queen's consent for the new law, Moore's letter detailing the Queen's preferred policy approach contains no mention of her consent. By not giving her consent, the Queen's response, in effect, denied parliament the ability to debate the law at that point.

A concerned civil servant wrote: "The secretary of state should see straight away the attached response which [the department] have received from Buckingham Palace to their formal approach to Queen's consent ... Clearly this view must affect the way in which we go forward."

The Queen ultimately consented to the bill six months later. However, the royal commission would survive for another 17 years. It was merged with English Heritage in 1999.

Tucker said: "This looks like an example of consent being withheld based on an objection to the content of the legislation. Withholding is when you're asked for something and you don't give it."

Case 2: road safety
The second case relates to the attempt by Harold Wilson's government in 1968 to pass legislation updating road safety law. The files suggest that the Queen's advisers attempted to use the consent procedure to try to extract a commitment from the government that the new law would not apply to her private estates.

The then transport secretary, Richard Marsh, had written to the Queen requesting her consent for amendments to a new transport bill. The amendments would rationalise traffic law so that all roads to which the public had access, including those on crown land, would be governed by the same rules.

The Queen's then private solicitor, Matthew Farrer, telephoned civil servants. "He explained that the reason why we had not yet heard from the palace (an interim letter is apparently on its way) is that he is not entirely happy about the clause as it is drafted," a civil servant noted.

Farrer was "bothered" about roads on the Queen's private estates such as Sandringham, "which he certainly would not wish to see any traffic law applied to". "He is concerned solely with the crown private estates," the official added.

Ultimately the Queen granted her consent to the bill – but only on the condition that a key clause did not apply to her private estates and that "objections which ... have been raised by the crown estate and the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are satisfactorily resolved".

A handwritten note on a Whitehall document noted: "The upshot of all this was that we inserted two small changes in subsections 1 and 2 of the new clause."

Case 3: land leasing
The third case relates to a 1975 Labour government bill concerning the leasing of private land for development. Under the proposals, those intending to lease land for development would do so through local authorities in an attempt to secure reasonable rates.

However, lawyers representing the royal family's estates – including Farrer – attended a meeting with civil servants at which they outlined how an aspect of the bill "was causing them grave concern".

They warned the civil servants that "unless a modification were made to the terms of the bill", they would escalate their complaints to a senior minister. "It's very clear that there was pressure being put on the government to modify the terms of the bill," said Tucker. The Queen gave her consent to the bill.

Buckingham Palace said: "Queen's consent is a parliamentary process, with the role of sovereign purely formal. Consent is always granted by the monarch where requested by government. Any assertion that the sovereign has blocked legislation is simply incorrect.

"Whether Queen's consent is required is decided by parliament, independently from the royal household, in matters that would affect crown interests, including personal property and personal interests of the monarch.

"If consent is required, draft legislation is, by convention, put to the sovereign to grant solely on advice of ministers and as a matter of public record."

The Cabinet Office said: "Queen's consent is a longstanding convention and a requirement of the parliamentary process. Consent is routinely sought by the government and agreed by the monarch as a matter of course."

[Sheilbh]

Agreed.

I mean it's good that the Guardian's investigating when this has actually happened in the National Archives. But the reporting is slightly weird because it's not something that was secret - it's on the Cabinet Office guide for legislation, there's a (publicly available) 30 page Cabinet Page guide to it, it's in Erskine May and there was a Parliamentary committee investigation into it about 5 years ago.

And it's not too surprising that it affects lots of legislation because it applies to bills that affect Royal prerogatives (also the CofE) or the interests (hereditary revenues, personal property or other personal interests of the Queen or the Crown or the Prince of Wales. That's an incredibly broad list when you consider that they're huge land-owners. My understanding is that on the prerogatives (but possibly not the CofE) the Queen is required to follow the preference of the government, but on the rest her personal solicitors (or Prince Charles's) are basically - to nick David Allen Green's phrase - upstream of legislation.

[Agelastus]

I mean it's good that the Guardian's investigating when this has actually happened in the National Archives. But the reporting is slightly weird because it's not something that was secret - it's on the Cabinet Office guide for legislation, there's a (publicly available) 30 page Cabinet Page guide to it, it's in Erskine May and there was a Parliamentary committee investigation into it about 5 years ago.

I'm actually surprised it's only a 1062 parliamentary bills over 68 years, given, as you note, the broad scope of what falls under the requirement. (And do they mean just bills by this or statutory instruments as well? And bills passed or just introduced? Because the former number is a lot smaller than the latter number - 4200 approx passed compared to 13200 proposed from 1950-2019.)

It also was not something I was unaware of either. As you note it is not a secret.

-----------------------------------

I also hadn't realised the average number of Acts passed per parliamentary session had declined so much either - to quote " From 1900 to 1939, an average of 112 Acts were passed each Parliamentary session. This declined to 78 Acts each session in the 1950s and 1960s, with each subsequent decade to 2010 experiencing a slight fall compared to the previous. In the 1970s, 73 Acts were passed each session on average, falling to 62 in the 1980s, 54 in the 1990s, 47 in the 2000s. The current decade which is coming to an end has bucked this trend with an average of 52 Acts each year."

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7438/

[Syt]

it's not something that was secret

Something not being a secret doesn't mean it's widely known.

[Sheilbh]

And the reverence the NHS is held in here, I would not be overly surprised if it was sacrilege to ever suggest budgets were wasted - which in turn would meant they probably are. I am not saying whatever the last reforms were helped with any of that, or with anything in general, just wondering.

E.g. Free-market think tank publishes a report on the NHS in covid such as this section:


Labour's Deputy Leader:

Angela Rayner
@AngelaRayner
1h
I have written to @MattHancock demanding that he repay the donations he has received from the Chair of the IEA following their report disgracefully attacking the NHS and NHS staff saying that there is "no reason to be grateful" for the NHS and NHS staff don't deserve our thanks.
<She posts her letter>
It is deeply concerning that the Health Secretary has such a close relationship with - and is bankrolled by - an organisation that wants to dismantle and privatise our NHS and says that the idea that the NHS has done an amazing job during the Covid crisis is a "false narrative".
If @MattHancock is grateful to our NHS and the NHS heroes who have sacrificed so much during this crisis he must demonstrate this by condemning this disgraceful report, distancing himself from the IEA and paying back the donations he has received from the IEA Chair Neil Receord.

Edit: Also for Tamas and Tyr - people protesting the removal of *SIX* trees (and they're pretty crummy trees too) to be replaced by 25 council homes
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/activists-occupy-second-london-tunnel-in-protest-at-tree-felling-plans?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1612866130