Page:Regency Act 1937 (UKPGA Edw8and1Geo6-1-16 qp).pdf/4

A.D. 1937.

is living, shall have the guardianship of His person;

(b) if the Sovereign, being married, is under the age of eighteen years or has been declared under this Act to be incapable for the time being of performing the royal functions, the wife or husband of the Sovereign, if of full age, shall have the guardianship of the person of the Sovereign;

(c) the Regent shall, save in the cases aforesaid, have the guardianship of the person of the Sovereign; and the property of the Sovereign, except any private property which in accordance with the terms of any trust affecting it is to be administered by some other person, shall be administered by the Regent.

Power to delegate royal functions to Counsellors of State. 6.—(1) In the event of illness not amounting to such infirmity of mind or body as is mentioned in section two of this Act, or of absence or intended absence from the United Kingdom, the Sovereign may, in order to prevent delay or difficulty in the despatch of public business, by Letters Patent under the Great Seal, delegate, for the period of that illness or absence, to Counsellors of State such of the royal functions as may be specified in the Letters Patent, and may in like manner revoke or vary any such delegation:

Provided that no power to dissolve Parliament otherwise than on the express istructions the Sovereign (which may be conveyed by telegraph), or to grant any rank, title or dignity of the peerage may be delegated.

(2) The Counsellors of State shall be the wife or husband of the Sovereign (if the Sovereign is married), and the four persons who, excluding any persons disqualified under this Act from becoming Regent, are next in the line of succession to the Crown, or if the number of such persons next in the line of succession is less than four, then all such persons.

(3) Any functions delegated under this section shall be exercised jointly by the Counsellors of State, or by such number of them as may be specified in the Letters Patent, and subject to such conditions, if any, as may be therein prescribed.

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