Reuters
 
London, Mar 28: Britain may end centuries of discrimination by reforming 300-year-old laws that ban the monarch from marrying a Catholic and give male heirs prior claim to the throne, the government said on Friday.

PM Gordon Brown has held talks with Queen Elizabeth, who had no brothers, on changing the 1701 law on succession that was drawn up at a time of widespread hostility to Roman Catholics.

The Act of Settlement bars members of the royal family from becoming king or queen if they are Catholic or marry a Catholic. It also gives male heirs precedence in the line of succession.

Brown said the reform of one of the central planks of British law is overdue but will be complicated by the need for the approval of all 53 Commonwealth countries.

"In the 21st century people do expect discrimination to be removed," he said. "There are clearly issues that have got to be dealt... across the whole of the Commonwealth."