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UK Gov advised against Queen opening Assembly because it would be ‘wholly subordinate’ to Westminster

20 Jul 2021 1 minute read
Queen Elizabeth II. Picture by UK Home Office (CC BY 2.0)

The UK Government originally advised against the Queen attending the opening of the Welsh Assembly if the people of Wales voted for it because it would be “wholly subordinate” to Westminster.

A Home Office official said that as the Assembly would not be able to make laws at the start it would have no direct relationship with the Monarch.

A newly published letter from a civil servant to the Welsh Office on 19 June 1997 says: “Although it is intended that The Queen or Her representative should formally open the Scottish Parliament, we do not think that the same treatment would be appropriate for the Welsh Assembly, which has no primary legislative functions.”

The letter added that the Queen’s attendance hadn’t been discussed “presumably because it was assumed that as a body wholly subordinate to the Westminster Parliament no question of direct relations with the sovereign would arise”.

The Queen, Prince Phillip and Prince Charles did eventually attend the official opening on 27 May 1999.

Since then she has also opened the new Senedd building in 2006 and the fifth Senedd in 2016.


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Quornby
Quornby
2 years ago

I recall two things from the opening….. The Queen looking bemused and uncomfortable and Dafydd El bowing and scraping and embarrassing us.

Alan Reilly
Alan Reilly
2 years ago

What a shame it would have been if that parasite hadn’t attended 🙄

Martin
Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan Reilly

You mean Daf El

Padi Phillips
Padi Phillips
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin

Who else?

Chris
Chris
2 years ago

Just spangly pantomime one way or the other. if the English queen wants to come visit, fine. If she doesn’t, just as fine. Seems like a nice old lady, but not really relevant to 21st century Cymru.
The memo doesn’t surprise me

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris

Yes the memo would have been just more Englishplaining why Wales can’t do this or that.

Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards
2 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Owen

Well we can’t do “this or that” can we? Police, courts, criminal and family law, Navy, currency, Central Bank, proper diplomacy? My wife (politically experienced, from the Great State of North Carolina, colony which got Indy in about 170 years, Wales still waiting since 1282) remembers the Queen and family in the Bay. Looking uncomfortable and warning Wales that running a country is not easy. I want Indy but most of us in Wales have not got beyond a state of dependency, expecting London to keep us comfortable and no real powers beyond gestures (now known as virtue-signalling). Disruption must… Read more »

j humphrys
j humphrys
2 years ago

Sure does. Perhaps Covid has done so?

Mark
Mark
2 years ago

about time this archaic nonsense was consigned to the history books, abolish the monarchy,

j humphrys
j humphrys
2 years ago
Reply to  Mark

We can’t. It’s not ours.

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