Papers reveal move to amend Act of Settlement

RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED papers show that the late Donald Dewar consulted Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street about proposed reform, or even the scrapping, of the 1701 Act of Settlement, writes Brian Morton. 

Scotland’s initial First Minister after devolution, who died in 2000, backed calls to repeal a bill which for more than 300 years had prevented Catholics ascending the throne or the reigning monarch marrying a Catholic.

But he was concerned that any precipitate change in the rules of succession could embarrass the Labour Government in London, which was trying to negotiate the peace process in Northern Ireland.

In 1999, during a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition in the Scottish Executive, Mr Dewar wrote to the Queen and to Tony Blair about the matter.

In 2013 the law was amended to allow members of the Royal Family to marry a Catholic without losing their place in the line of succession.