It was reported by Tom Newton Dunn of The Times that the Government is at last seriously studying the option of abolishing male primogeniture in favor of equal primogeniture for hereditary peerages and baronetcies.
Boris Johnson has directed a team of female aides to draw up ways to make parliament more welcoming to women. The plans are intended to form part of a bill of reforms.
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A senior No 10 source said that male primogeniture was “a nonsense”. Scrapping it was “being looked at”, along with “three or four other things”.
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The proposal has rising support among peers, such as Viscount Torrington, co-chairman of the Hereditary Peerage Association. Lord Torrington told Times Radio: “A survey of our members found the majority in favour. Those who were not didn’t want their surname to go but that is solvable”.
I'm surprised that those who "didn't want their surname to go" are unaware that common law has no prohibition against children receiving the surname of their mother.
From the head of the campaign against male-only inheritance:
After seven miscarriages and two rounds of IVF Charlotte Carew Pole was “absolutely thrilled” when she gave birth to her daughter, Jemima. Yet the penny soon dropped that, for some, Jemima was not good enough.
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“There was a general expectation that I must keep pumping them out until a boy arrived. And all because I married a man who will inherit a title.”
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“Synergy Bank did some research last year. They found men were 50 per cent more likely to inherit a small family business than a woman.
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Her progress with the campaign was slow to begin with. Carew Pole started by writing to every hereditary peer and baronet with only daughters — or no children at all — some 1,500 out of the national total of 2,500 men with hereditary titles.
She received only 12 responses. “A few were kind enough to ring me up to tell me I was bonkers,” she recalls.
“One baronet told me he’d rather his title died out than go to his daughter.”
