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Queen's consent
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

David Pegg and Rob Evans
Mon 8 Feb 2021 10.00 EST
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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.

Prince Philip behind the wheel in 2018
Prince Philip behind the wheel in 2018. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
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.

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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.”

The Houses of Parliament
The Houses of Parliament: the Queen’s consent to legislation is not a purely formal process. Photograph: Alamy
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.”

English Heritage’s Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire
English Heritage’s Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire. Photograph: Paweł Toczyński/Getty Images
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