Royal birth prompts calls for overhaul of aristocratic inheritance rules Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, confirmed earlier this month that the rules governing the succession to the throne are to be changed to allow girls equality with boys. The change was confirmed as it was announced that the Duchess is pregnant. It means that the child would automatically become third in line to the throne, ahead of Prince Harry - irrespective of gender. But while succession to the throne are governed by a series of laws from the 17th and 18th Century, inheritance to aristocratic titles is less clear. According to one woman affected, Lady Clare Kerr, aristocratic practice will soon be "two steps behind" the Royal family, because female heirs can at least inherit the throne if they do not have brothers. Lady Clare's father, the Tory politician Michael Ancram, is the 13th Marquess of Lothian, but neither she nor her younger sister will inherit the title which will eventually pass to an uncle. In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, Lady Clare, who is married to the Tory minister Nick Hurd, said it was now time to re-examine the practice. "There is certainly a conversation to be had with regard to moving even one step forward to where the Royal Family were before this recent change," she told the Independent on Sunday. In the absence of a son there should be no reason a daughter should not inherit - and once that has been established it is difficult to argue against girls inheriting if they are the firstborn. Among those being passed over under inheritance rules are the three daughters of the Duke of Rutland: Lady Violet Manners, 19, and her sisters Lady Alice and Lady Eliza. The heir to their family seat, Belvoir Castle, is their 13-year-old brother Charles, the Marquess of Granby. Peter Yorke, the social commentator and author of the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, said that the tradition of male primogeniture had developed to preserve aristocratic power and wealth by preventing estates being divided up but was now ripe for reform. "What mattered was that the estate goes to one person who will take care of it for the next generation," he said. In this sense primogeniture is more important than gender, it goes to one person rather than being divided up. The relative survival of the British aristocracy is down to them being cruel to younger sons, but also daughters. Daughters you married off, younger sons became soldiers of clergymen or whatever, they went off to safe bits of the establishment - it's absolutely ruthless. But now the daughters often go off to Harvard and places like that - there is no reason why a daughter who has done three years of law and then maybe gone off to PWC for example should not be able to run a great estate.