Succession to the Crown Bill
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The Succession to the Crown Bill was a British Private Member's Bill aimed at reforming the manner of succession to the British Monarchy published in the House of Lords by Labour peer Lord Dubs on December 9, 2004, and withdrawn by him on January 14, 2005, after the Government said that it would block the Bill.
It would have involved three major measures: firstly, the change of the form of primogeniture used from male-preferring ("feudal") to fully equal ("absolute") primogeniture — that is, that males and females would inherit equally; secondly, that the Acts of Union 1707, both in Scotland and in England, as well as other relevant legislation, be altered to remove the clauses forbidding the monarch or heirs from marrying any Catholic; and, thirdly, the revocation of the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which requires descendants of King George II (other than descendants of princesses who married foreigners) to obtain the Sovereign's consent to marry. However, the provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701, barring the monarch from being Catholic, would have still remained in force.
The most immediate effect of the Bill passing and becoming law would have been the moving of Princess Anne from her current position of ninth on the British Line of Succession to fourth, displacing Prince Andrew, Duke of York. It was unclear as to how the Bill would have affected the lines of succession to the other 15 Commonwealth Realms' Thrones.
The Bill drew on the recommendations of the Fabian Society's Commission on the Future of the Monarchy, which reported in 2003. Lord Dubs is a member of the Fabian Society's Executive Committee.
