Last year, however, the British government agreed with 15 other commonwealth countries that males should no longer be given priority and changed the rules of succession so that the first-born child of either gender could one day take the throne.

FORBES: Kate Middleton Is Pregnant: Will She Give Birth To The Next Queen Of England?

Although foreign banks must also hold big slugs of bonds, they had more lenient priority-lending rules until now.

ECONOMIST: Foreign banks in India

They called on the MoD to make the development of rules of engagement for cyber-operations an urgent priority.

BBC: UK 'complacent' over military cyber-attack risk, MPs warn