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The bill had done well to reach committee stage in the Lords last
session before it ran out of steam and the forces of time conspired
against its further progress.
Fortunately, however, The Courtier has discovered
this is by no means the end of the line for the fight to change the
law to allow women to inherit peerages and that the final session
of this parliament will see the return of a bill to allow daughters
to inherit titles.
Lord Trefgarne, one of the 92 hereditary peers remaining in the
House of Lords, is set to introduce a similar bill to Lord Lucas’s
Equality bill in the House of Lords early next session, which
begins next month. A copy of the provisional clauses of the bill
which Lord Trefgarne is looking to propose were published online
earlier this week and whilst it may not be how the bill will appear
before the Lords in the coming weeks, it certainly gives a clear
idea of his intentions with this bill.
Titled the ‘Succession to peerages bill 2014’, the bill –
five sections long – contains provisions to allow
women to succeed to peerages under the system of male preference
primogeniture (whereby females may inherit providing they have no
brothers) and provides a different method of doing this to the bill
by Lord Lucas.
The provision of the bill is definitely an improvement on the
current system. Currently, in the case of most peerage, women may
not succeed to the title at all and not only does this present
gender equality issues, it can mean many historic peerages simply
die out even when a perfectly legitimate and suitable heir to the
title is living.
If a peer has no sons but has daughters, then the bill says that
the eldest may succeed to the title as though she were male and in
accordance with the letters patent granting the title. It also
introduces a new concept of primogeniture (ranking by age) amongst
women in the peerage whereas before if daughters were at all
allowed to succeed, they all had an equal claim, regardless of
seniority of birth which quite often resorted in peerages going
into abeyance due to more than one claimant.
Whether the bill will progress through parliament in its
current form is unlikely given the intention of the bill is to
bring equality between men and women in the peerage – it’s more
than likely that the provisions of the bill will undergo some
change to bring about equal rather than male preference succession
during its journey through parliament.
Unlike Lord Lucas’s bill, Lord Trefgarne’s bill also deals with the
issue of extinct peerages. Under the provisions of the bill, any
peerage which is extinct during Her present Majesty’s reign can be
reclaimed under the male preference system to work out the new
title holder.
Additionally, it declares that any peerage in abeyance (when
there’s more than one claimant) shall be vested in the person who
would succeed under what Lord Trefgarne is calling the ‘Universal
rule of succession’.
The bill could also affect some peerages held by members of the
Royal Family. The provisions of the bill as it stands would
mean that Princess Beatrice would inherit her father’s title of
Duke of York after his death when otherwise the title would become
extinct and be available for reissue by the Monarch.
No date has been set for the bill’s first reading as of yet.
The Courtier will be following the progress of this bill
at its various stages and will report back on important
developments.
photo credit: UK Parliament via photopin
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