[3] Under the Act of Settlement 1701, the throne of the Kingdom of England was settled on the Electress Sophia of Hanover and the "heirs of her body", this phrase being understood under English common law to imply male-preference primogeniture,[4] meaning that brothers would precede sisters in the line of succession irrespective of order of birth.

[5] Article 2 of Acts of Union 1801 again maintained that the succession rules in place in the new United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland should be "continued limited and settled in the same manner".

First, they wish to end the system of male preference primogeniture under which a younger son can displace an elder daughter in the line of succession.

There are no other restrictions in the rules about the religion of the spouse of a person in the line of succession and the Prime Ministers felt that this unique barrier could no longer be justified.

The Prime Ministers have agreed that they will each work within their respective administrations to bring forward the necessary measures to enable all the realms to give effect to these changes simultaneously.

[8][9]In a letter to the other realms' heads of government, prior to the Perth Agreement, British Prime Minister David Cameron had additionally proposed to limit the requirement to obtain the monarch's permission to marry to the first six people in line to the throne.

[10] On 4 December 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced: [T]he Government has received final consent from all the Commonwealth realms to press ahead with a landmark bill to end the centuries-old discrimination against women in line to the British throne at the soonest possible opportunity.

This confirmation means that the Government will seek to introduce the Succession to the Crown Bill in the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity allowed by the parliamentary timetable.

The British government announced that the Act's provisions were not intended to come into force before the appropriate domestic arrangements were in place in the other Commonwealth realms.

[14] Monarch: Charles III Males born after 28 October 2011 no longer precede their elder sisters in the line of succession.

However, due to the provisions of the Act, she has retained her place in the succession ahead of her younger brother Prince Louis of Wales, who was born on 23 April 2018.

[28] Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con) also confirmed "the Act of Settlement deems somebody who has been a Catholic for a minute to be 'dead' in terms of the succession, and it passes over them 'as if they were dead'.

[26] None of the provisions of the act altering the law, including those which will or may affect any direct or collateral line of succession to the British throne, were to come into force until a day appointed for it by a commencement order made by the Lord President of the Council.

The Succession to the Crown Act 2015, passed by the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, is expressed to be for changing "the law relating to the effect of gender and marriage on royal succession, consistently with changes made to that law in the United Kingdom, so that the Sovereign of Australia is the same person as the Sovereign of the United Kingdom".

[36] A report on the rules of royal succession was prepared by the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee of the House of Commons, chaired by Graham Allen, and was published in December 2011.

The report welcomed the proposals, but drew attention to "connected issues that may be raised when the proposals are debated, depending on the scope of the bill, especially the future role of the Crown in the Church of England, and the continued ineligibility of women to succeed to the majority of hereditary peerages, which remains a matter of public interest for as long as it has an impact on gender balance in the House of Lords".

[37] On 9 September 2012, the British government published a response to the report, reiterating that it intended to implement the Perth Agreement but had no plans to change the laws of succession to peerages or the established status of the Church of England.