GORDON Brown is to include plans to repeal the Act of Settlement in Labour’s election manifesto to prevent the Scottish National party from using the issue as a vote-winner in an independence referendum.

Ministers have informed the Royal Family that plans to abolish the act are under “active consideration” and are likely to be announced within the next 18 months. The matter has also been raised directly with the Prince of Wales.

Under the Act, passed in 1701, no Catholic may inherit the Crown and any member of the Royal Family who marries a Catholic is barred from succession unless his or her spouse agrees to renounce the Church of Rome.

The legislation has been described as “offensive” by the Catholic church in Scotland and is regarded as a breach of the Human Rights Act.

Pressure to scrap the act has been resisted by Labour because of the impact that such a constitutional change would have on the Church of England as the nation’s established church.

However, Brown is prepared to waive concerns to stop Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, from using the issue to attract Catholic voters to his separatists mcause.

Salmond has promised to introduce legislation into the Scottish parliament that would pave the way for a referendum on independence some time in 2010.

“He only has to promise to remove the anti-Catholic discrimination embedded in the Act of Settlement to win over a large section of the community, which — especially in the west of Scotland — have so far been most resistant to Scottish independence,” said a senior government source.

However last night Salmond welcomed the move, claiming that repeal of the act was “long overdue”.

“The Act of Settlement is an 18th-century anachronism that has no place in a modern 21st-century constitution,” he said. “The SNP first raised the issue over a decade ago, and the Scottish parliament united in 1999 to call for this long overdue reform. I hope that the prime minister follows through at last and consigns it to the dustbin of history.”

The legislation has been described as offensive by Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Catholic church in Scotland, who has repeatedly called for its repeal.

In 2006, he declared: “Our constitution contains legislation which describes my faith as “the popish religion” \ defines me and my co-religionists as “papists”. That this arcanely offensive language enjoys legal sanction is outrageous.”

In 2001 Tony Blair, now a Roman Catholic, promised to re-examine the legislation.

Lance Price, a former Downing Street spin doctor, claimed in his diaries that Blair did not know that the legislation barred members of the Royal family from marrying Catholics.

Earlier this year, a proposal to scrap the Act of Settlement drawn up by Chris Bryant, deputy leader of the house, went to Downing Street, with widespread support from reformers who insist the 1701 Act of Settlement, passed after the Glorious Revolution, is outdated.

The Catholic church in Scotland welcomed Labour’s plans, stating: “We understand that politicians from various parties recognise it has become increasingly difficult to justify the continued existence of laws preventing Catholics succeeding to the throne.”

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