The Hereditary Titles (Female Succession) bill

[Ind_Duke]

Anybody have an idea of whether this bill would pass both the houses? Is it going to be absolute primogeniture or male-preference primogeniture?

http://royalcentral.co.uk/state/new-law-calling-for-women-to-inherit-hereditary-titles-passes-first-stage-in-parliament-117026

[Richard R]

Quick answer to your first question is, yes, it will have to pass through both Houses of Parliament before receiving Royal Assent: https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/commons/coms-commons-first-reading/

The Bill has passed its first reading in the Commons which means, you'll see from the above link, it will now be printed. At that point the printed Bill may contain the answer to your second question.

[davidga...@gmail.com]

Few years ago there was some debate of retroactive female succession of titles. What happened to that?

[colinp]

The Succession to Peerages Bill introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Trefgarne on 27 June 2017 (within the current session) has not progressed past the First Reading stage.

[dpth...@gmail.com]

In my view, there is absolutely no fair way to make changes with retroactive application.

For example, recently the 5th Earl Balfour has made a self-righteous stink about the fact that his daughters cannot inherit his titles. Of all people, he is the worst person to be making this argument, because if you make the changes retroactive far enough, he himself would never have been Earl. He descends from a younger brother of the 2nd Earl, but the 2nd Earl has lots of female-line descendants living now. So, if you apply it retroactively, how can any particular effective date be chosen which would be fair to all families?

The only fair thing to do is to make any changes apply only to persons not born when the act takes effect.

[ThomasFoolery]

American television channel C-SPAN archives everything it airs. This House of Lords debate on the subject is from 1992. I didn’t watch all of it, but it may be of interest.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?36663-1/heredity-titles-debate

[Ind_Duke]

I think the law will not be applied retrospectively because it would change the entire line of succession. As you pointed out, in most of the cases there will be senior heirs in the female line who are very distant cousins of the present peer. But even if the law is amended only from the present, there are two ways of doing it.

1)  Following the royal succession precedent. Only the babies born after a certain date will have the right to succession based on the new rules. This seems to be the most pragmatic way. 

2)  All successions from a particular date will follow the absolute primogeniture rule. This would lead to elder sisters pushing back younger brothers in the line of succession as long as their father is alive. This was the case in the Spanish peerage case. Many younger brothers who had been their father's heirs apparent for decades could not inherit the titles because after the law, their elder sisters became the new heirs apparent. This implementation would lead to a lot of confusion and could wreak havoc on the families involved. 

Also, there is the question of the extinct peerages. Most extinct peerages would have heirs in the female line. Would those titles be renewed if petitioned by the present heirs? This would lead to atleast more than 50 additional peers. How would this be viewed by the general public?

[www.maltagenealogy.com]

Also, there is the question of the extinct peerages. Most extinct peerages would have heirs in the female line. Would those titles be renewed if petitioned by the present heirs? This would lead to atleast more than 50 additional peers. How would this be viewed by the general public?

I think on the matter of extinct peerages where a eldest daughter is present, could make such a claim, otherwise the title is extinct in full. Will get messy if eldest daughter are decease and left descendants and younger daughters make a claim. It needs to be clear about how it can be claimed.

[malcolm davies]

It is important to realise that the bill being read for a first time means nothing,as no vote is taken.All it means is that there may be a second reading if there is time available.In the 18 months since the first reading,there has been no time to debate the bill by moving for a second reading.The bill will lapse if a second reading does not occur before the end of the current parliament.This has happened to similar bills twice before:

http://royalcentral.co.uk/state/bill-to-allow-women-to-succeed-to-titles-given-second-chance-in-parliament-49715

The bill treads on dangerous ground by amending remainders to peerages where there are persons who have not succeeded to the peerage who are in remainder to it.Any such bill would mean that any peerage could be abolished by act of parliament.

There is a group called Daughter's rights who have lodged a claim with the European Court of Human Rights:

http://daughtersrights.co.uk/

Note that the site has not been updated since the claim was lodged.One obvious problem is that if Brexit takes place without a deal,the UK won't be subject to the jurisdiction of the ECHR.

It is not clear from the website what the ECHR group are claiming is a non discriminatory remainder.Is it male preference primogeniture or primogeniture by age?It should be noted that the claimants do not represent,for the most part,persons who are heirs to the line of the peerage.And as dpth points out,the present Earl of Balfour would not hold his title if the remainder included females whether or not male preference primogeniture applied or not.

The idea behind the descent of titles is that the original peer's merit was such that his descendants should continue to be honoured.Its difficult to see why descendants who do not bear the same name as the grantee should have that privilege,and of course,in the case of Balfour,Nelson and the extinct earldom of Kitchener,none of the subsequent holders of the title were descended from the grantee.

L E G Pine wrote a critical article about this in his book which should be read if you have access to a copy.

The final argument is that it is noteworthy that the claims are based on discrimination only-not that the claimants are otherwise worthy of being peers.There are examples in the peerage of titles becoming extinct and being recreated for the descendant of the family in the female line who had inherited the estates-examples being Anglesey M,Bradford E,Leicester E & Powis E.

On Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 2:06:07 AM UTC+11, Ind_Duke wrote:

[Henry W]

I doubt there will be sufficient parliamentary times as Parliament will be busy with the B-word and its implementation for many years ahead.  Even if some slither of time were allocated to allow it in principle to get through all its readings, it would always be vulnerable to being talked out.

Allowing revival of now extinct titles would be either chaotic, or would possibly a require a need to inspect the circumstances of every extinct title to be sure that relevant circumstances were dealt with. Situations where senior titles went extinct, but older junior titles passed to a collateral line would be particularly difficult. Whilst I can see public opinion accepting a gender blind future inheritance of peerage, I am not sure they would understand why there was a need to bring peerages back from the dead.

Also, if the government had wanted to send a signal about this, it could have done so when the Dukedom of Sussex was created and allowed it to pass to the heir general via absolute primogeniture, instead it continues with the heirs male.

[Henry W]

The UK remains bound by the ECHR after Brexit - it is a different organisation from the EU and has 19 member states who are not EU members. It is important to remember that the European Court of Human Rights can only make advisory, non-binding opinions, so a "positive" ruling for the plantiffs in this case would not be mean that the rules would automatically change.

[colinp]

Yes, the ECHR is run by the Council of Europe not by the EU

[Dapifer de Truchsess]

While it would not automatically change, they would still be obliged to act upon it or face possible monetary sanctions. 

[Hovite]

On Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 9:50:41 PM UTC, malcolm davies wrote:

It is not clear from the website what the ECHR group are claiming is a non discriminatory remainder.

Surely a non discriminatory remainder would mean that everyone in the world succeeds to every title. The whole point of a peerage is that it discriminates.

[www.maltagenealogy.com]

I like how the Spanish peerage simply made the rule for all titles from this day forward.., eldest child succeeds unless during a lifetime, the title holder transfers the title to one of his children.

[John Horton]

… and if there are no children?

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[Ind_Duke]

If there are no children, then the next eldest sibling will succeed.

[ThomasFoolery]

Odd that they changed Spanish titles of nobility, but not the Crown. Perhaps the change is more complicated constitutionally?

[marquess]

Not much point in changing the succession to the crown at the moment, as the King has two daughters.

[www.maltagenealogy.com]

then to the next eldest sibling or cousin of the title in question. Or it becomes Abyence or dormant.

[ThomasFoolery]

You could argue his having only daughters heightens the need to change succession (assuming that’s what they wanted to do). The Queen’s 46, so probably pushing things now, but the birth of a Prince wasn’t crazy of an idea all that long ago.