Constitution Committee
16 September 2026
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Committee House of Lords
00:00 - 01:22
Speaker 10
Welcome to this meeting of the House of Lords Constitution Committee. Today we are holding the third and fourth evidence sessions of the committee's inquiry into the UK's constitutional safeguards. Later on we'll be joined remotely by Lord Case, but before that we're delighted to be joined by Lord Young of Old Windsor, former Principal Private Secretary to the Monarch. Lord Young, you are most welcome to the committee and I look forward to hearing what you have to say. And can I remind all members to declare any interests relevant to this inquiry or today's meeting the first time they speak.
I have no relevant interests of my own to declare. So we're now in public session. Lord Young, you worked at the Palace for quite a long time, a major part of your career, which is one of the reasons why we've invited you here. How would you best describe the constitutional role of the Monarch in the present day governance of the UK and how relevant is it to the day-to-day practices of issues that come out that have constitutional significance?
01:22 - 03:52
Speaker 9
Well, thank you Chair and thank you for inviting me. I'm very pleased to be here, I'm delighted to know that this inquiry has been undertaken, particularly in these increasingly uncertain and troubling times. I suppose I don't know whether I should declare an interest in, as shown in my register of interests, occasionally paid consultant to the Royal Household, but otherwise no other relevant interests. I wonder if I might start by, in order to answer your question, by painting a bit of a narrative picture to help sort of distinguish the theory from the actuality, the practice. I was very privileged during my nearly 20 years working for the Royal Household for the late Queen to have been literally in the room really during the appointment of six Prime Ministers, seven if I stretch it to include the reappointment of Tony Blair in his final administration.
And it was remarkable from that very privileged first-hand experience to observe the what I'd say is the sort of core of that constitutional relationship, namely the weekly audience of the Prime Minister, primarily almost always at Buckingham Palace, occasionally during COVID we held it down at Windsor but primarily at Buckingham Palace, always during 20 years I was there, always on a Wednesday, Wednesday after PMQs, it worked very well for the PM of the day because not only were they on top of their brief but they were relieved to have got PMQs out of the way, usually at quarter past six.
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