Oral answer to question provided on Thursday, 30 October 2008 in the House of Lords, by Lord Bach (Labour).

Constitution: Monarchy

Answer: My Lords, I have to tell the noble Lord that I do not agree at all—not in any way. I remember that he was concerned, when we passed the Lisbon treaty Bill, that somehow the constitutional monarch’s role would be altered. He was told then, and I tell him now, that it would not be altered in any way.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Thursday, 30 October 2008 by Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UK Independence Party).

Question: My Lords, do the Government agree that, before we joined the European Union, the monarch acted on the advice of Ministers, which was purely the product of our former system of representative parliamentary democracy, in which Parliament was supreme under the Crown? Do the Government accept, now that a majority of our national law is made in Brussels—to the exclusion of this Parliament—that this is no longer so? Do the Government not agree that this is a huge change on which the British people should be consulted?

Secondary information