Bob Morris

After infantry National Service, Bob Morris studied History at Christ’s College, Cambridge, before becoming a Home Office career civil servant.

Over nearly 40 years, his work spanned the normal departmental duties of, for example, immigration, prisons, policing and public control and protection functions. He was also involved in legislation and state litigation, acting as private secretary to Home Secretaries and as a secretary to public inquiries - in Northern Ireland and on the UK prison services. One of his later Home Office posts had responsibility for the Home Secretary's then constitutional functions which included certain royal, ceremonial and ecclesiastical matters.

At the Constitution Unit, Bob has been involved with a variety of interests. Latterly he has tended to concentrate on ecclesiastical and royal issues, for example on the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, at the same time contributing to the study on Commons Public Bill Committees led by Meg Russell.

He is currently working with Professor Robert Hazell on a monarchy project focused on the condition of the European monarchies. The work has produced the Unit reports No 170 The Queen at 90: The Changing Role of the Monarchy, and Future Challenges, published 2016, plus No 180 Swearing in the New King: The Accession Declarations and Coronation Oaths, and No181 Inaugurating a New Reign: Planning the Accession and Coronation, the latter two both published May 2018. Following a March 2019 seminar, it is planned to publish an edited book on European monarchy - 'The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy' - in July 2020.