Royal succession rules may be reformed
Buckingham Palace and PM in talks to give women equal rights to throne
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Independent Minds
Royal daughters could be given an equal claim to the throne and the ban on heirs marrying Roman Catholics may be scrapped under plans discussed by Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.
The issue is due to be raised in the House of Commons today during a debate on legislation, introduced by Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, to end the "uniquely discriminatory" rules laid down by the 1701 Act of Settlement. Dr Harris has cross-party support, but is unlikely to win the backing of ministers at this stage. The Government has said changes would be a "complex undertaking".
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown is said to believe that agreement should be reached between Commonwealth countries before he gives the bill his formal support, and he said he would raise the issue at November's Commonwealth Heads of Government conference. Mr Brown was reported to have called the 1701 Act "an anomaly that has no place in the 21st century". There would be no change, however, to the requirement that the monarch be a Protestant.
Dr Harris' Royal Marriages and Succession to the Crown (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill is co-sponsored by Catholic parliamentarians including Tory MP Edward Leigh, Labour's Andrew Mackinlay and John Grogan, and Liberal Democrat John Pugh.
Dr Harris said: "This Bill will remove the uniquely discriminatory rule which currently exists – that an individual in the line of succession to the throne can have a civil partnership with a Catholic, can marry a Muslim or atheist, but cannot marry a Catholic.
"It will also end the outdated rule which allows a woman in the line of succession to the throne to be automatically superseded by a younger male sibling. If our current monarch had a younger brother, we would never have had a Queen Elizabeth II."
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "The Government has always stood firmly against discrimination in all its forms, including against Roman Catholics, and we will continue to do so.
"To bring about changes to the law on succession would be a complex undertaking involving amendment or repeal of a number of items of related legislation, as well as requiring the consent of legislatures of member nations of the Commonwealth.
"We are examining this complex area although there are no immediate plans to legislate."
The Act of Settlement, laying down that heirs would lose their right to the throne if they married a Catholic or a convert, was passed to ensure that the Catholic Stuart dynasty could not return to the throne following the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Last year Autumn Kelly renounced her Catholic faith in order to marry the Princess Royal's son, Peter Phillips, without damaging his position as 11th in line to the throne.
The Act also put into law the principle of primogeniture – the precedence of male heirs over female. If changes to that practice were made retrospectivly, Princess Anne, currently 10th in line to the throne, would leapfrog her two younger brothers, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex and their children to become fourth in line, behind Prince Harry.
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Comments
Voting for parliment, the house of lords & a president is the only way forward for a "modern, forward thinking" country.......assuming we think we are one?
They do so much for us. And so cheap!
I think we should have LOTS of queens and nobles and rich people owning all the land.
Attend to the many issues affecting to the man on the street at this time and set a date for the next General Election. I would be more worried about your position than the Monarchy because you are a complete loser who has seriously damaged this country along with President Blair. When are the true British going to stand up to the current dire situation we are in instead of lying back accepting everything thrown at us ??
Aggrieved. Herts
Perhaps they would be better off spending their time cleaning up their own act and that of the HOL - which seems to be a hot bed of corrupt labour sponsored rubbish
Leave the royals alone and discriminate against the vile miasma that hangs over parliament aka
Brown and his government. If Dr Harris wants to find something to justify his existence and pay packet why not bring Bliar to court at the Hague for his lies that led our country into a Yankee war for petrol in Iraq and revenge in Afghanistan???
After 300 years we're hardly chomping at the bit, but while you're on with it Gordon, could you ask if we can have our cathedrals back as well? It looks like the Church of England won't be needing them anyway!
Monarchs are living shrines, an inspiration, to the extreme right, the sooner we abolish the Monarchy, be they Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist or Shintoist, the better!
As for monarchy: most of you are ardent opponents of Nu-Labour, as you often call it, and its ways. So consider the consequences: in a republic you would have exactly the same kind of person you loathe as your head of state! Is that a better alternative? And as for the price, an election every 4 or 5 years is far more costly than a coronation every 40 or 50 years. So which is the cheapest form of government? For a (modern) monarch, you will get a professional, who has prepared for the job for years, whose accession will cost a fragment of what presidential elections cost over a lifetime, and in a modern monarchy the head of state has no political power anyway. Would you rather have a 'Tony I' or 'Gordon I' or 'Jacqui I' or 'Jack I' as head of state? Someone like Dubya (incompetent) or Putin (power-crazed) or Chirac (corrupt)? The worst thing that can be said about the British monarchy is that they feed the tabloids and scandal mongering magazines!