Succession to Peerages Bill [HL]

The Succession to Peerages Bill [HL] is a private member’s bill introduced by Lord Trefgarne (Conservative). The Bill received its first reading in the House of Lords on 2 June 2015 and is scheduled to receive its second reading on 11 September 2015. The Bill contains 5 clauses:

• Clause 1 provides that “[n]o one shall be unable to succeed to an hereditary peerage on the ground that she is a woman or that she or he is a person who claims through a woman” (clause 1(1)). This provision would be governed by the “universal rule of succession” laid out in clause 2.
• Clause 2 seeks to put in statute a “universal rule of succession” which, for the purpose of succession, would provide that any daughter and her issue (ie offspring) would be treated as they would be if the daughter had been male (clause 2 (2))—with the exception that males in order of birth and their offspring “shall be entitled to succeed before females in order of birth and their issue” within each group of siblings (clause 2 (3)).
• Clause 3 provides that any peerage which became extinct on or after 6 February 1952 would be vested in the person who would have succeeded to that peerage if the “universal rule of succession” had applied on, and after, 6 February 1952.
• Clause 4 provides that a peerage which is in abeyance (ie a state of suspension between co-heirs) on the date that the Bill were to become enacted would vest in the person in whom it would have vested on that date had the “universal rule of succession” governed succession on, and after, the date that the peerage last fell into abeyance.
• Clause 5 provides that the Bill, if enacted, would not affect any succession to a peerage which took place before its enactment.