Lord-in-Waiting
Lord-in-Waiting (feminine form: Baroness-in-Waiting ) is a British constitutional term that denotes a state and court office that can only be transferred to members of the House of Lords .
Two types of office
Lord-in Waiting describes two different functions:
As a politically designed office designed by the respective government: the specific political form is a state office. The Lords-in-Waiting are appointed by the government. A Lord in Waiting belongs to the government, has to be a member of the Houses of Lords and is the whip in the upper house of the ruling party. With a change of government he automatically loses his office (e.g. Hugh Percy, 10th Duke of Northumberland after the change of government from the Tories to Labor in 1945).
As a pure court office: The non-political lords in waiting, on the other hand, are not members of the respective government. They are appointed by the respective monarch. They can be appointed by him temporarily or permanently (then they are called Permanent Lord in Waiting ). They too must belong to the House of Lords, as a crossbencher , so that neither the ruling party nor the opposition party can exert political pressure on them. The non-political lords in waiting were mostly long-serving senior officials of the royal household before their appointment, who had developed a particularly close personal relationship with the head of state.
Duties of the Lords in Waiting
The political lords in Waiting are the mouthpieces of the respective government. If the prime minister does not do this himself in his weekly audiences, they explain the government's plans to the queen and accompany the monarchs at external state acts and receptions. They do not receive instructions from the Queen, but from the Prime Minister.
With the non-political lords in waiting it is the other way around: they do not report to the Prime Minister and do not belong to his government. As purely court officials, they advise the queen on all matters relating to the court. Occasionally they even represent the monarch when greeting foreign state guests, for example by receiving a state guest at the airport. So was z. B. President Barack Obama on his state visit from Ireland on May 24, 2011, greeted by the Lord in Waiting Viscount Brookeborough on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Daily Mail, May 25, 2011