Child Trust Funds

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My noble friend does not have to impress on me the need for urgency. I have been working hard on this matter since it was first raised. The problem with the industry scheme is not that it is not endorsed by the Government but that it is inconsistent with the Mental Capacity Act, a piece of legislation passed by Parliament.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

This issue has been raised five times by my noble friend Lord Young and this is the second time that I have supported him. It is a travesty that those with learning difficulties who are over 18 cannot access their child trust funds. It should not be necessary for parents to apply for a Court of Protection order on behalf of their adult children. As my noble friend Lord Young pointed out, only a handful of parents have negotiated the Court of Protection route successfully. There are surely less demanding ways to protect their beneficiary children’s interests. Some financial institutions have released funds using a streamlined procedure. Hopefully, this will be refined in the consultation paper, but it is not currently endorsed by the Government. The issue currently affects 10,000 children with trust funds who cannot simply access their cash when they reach the age of 18 without a court order. Can the Minister advise the House as to whether the DWP working group has considered this issue?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, let me give a short answer to a long question. It is not a question of whether going to court should or should not be necessary: it is necessary because Parliament passed the Mental Capacity Act, which requires it. In 1995, the Law Commission recommended a small payments scheme. That was not taken up by Parliament, but I am now consulting on it, because it seems to me that that is the right way forward.

Child Trust Funds: People with a Learning Disability

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right: the focus should be on people applying before the young adult turns 18, at which point the legal position changes. We are engaging with industry providers to make sure that parents are aware of that change. We have put material on the GOV.UK pages, HMRC has also published material and my ministerial colleague Minister Chalk will host a round table on 15 July, bringing together relevant stakeholders to enable us to progress this work further.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

This is the fourth time that my noble friend Lord Young has asked this question. It is a travesty that children with learning difficulties who are over 18 cannot readily access their child trust fund. The Government need to grasp and solve this problem. I do not see why parents should need a Court of Protection order to access funds on their adult children’s behalf. There is now all the more reason for enacting legal changes to solve this problem, which faces 200,000 children with trust funds who cannot access their cash when they are 18 because of their disability. I do not see the DWP working group readily solving the legal problems here. The crucial need is to be able to access balances without requiring a Court of Protection order. This needs special legislation to achieve. Can the Minister update the House on what the group has achieved?

Child Trust Funds: Children with Learning Disabilities

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the position is this: in 1995, when the Law Commission reported on this, it recommended a small claims exception to the Mental Capacity Act. Parliament did not do that; it put in a Mental Capacity Act with no exceptions at all. That is the legislative background against which I now have to operate.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, increased legal requirements have made it ever more expensive to gain access to children’s trust funds. The Government justify the extra costs as providing the necessary protection needed for those who lack the mental capacity to act for themselves. More straightforward and less expensive access paths to child trust funds are needed. Does the Minister agree that a more robust approach is now justified in dealing with the Mental Capacity Act?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the short answer is yes. We have put in place mechanisms on fees to ensure that anybody applying to the Court of Protection, in respect of a child trust fund only, does not have to pay any fees. I know that the court is looking at the forms to make sure that they are suitably accessible, so that one can fill them in and make an application without having to pay a solicitor.

Crown Dependencies

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. Of course, we do our best to maintain the relationship between the Ministry of Justice and the Crown dependencies. I spoke to all the Chief Ministers on the day of the referendum and attended the APPG meeting. We are anxious to ensure that the relationship is secured for the future. Of course, the noble Lord is aware of the fisheries dispute with Guernsey. That is the subject of litigation, so I cannot comment further on it. As I said earlier in answers to questions, we are anxious that there should be an appropriate degree of autonomy, and that each of the Crown dependencies should be able to secure matters that are in their interests. Of course, how matters finally turn out following the conclusion of our negotiations is difficult to predict with exactitude.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, among the first batch of non-member territories expected to receive AIFM passporting towards the end of this year are Guernsey and, I believe, Jersey, as well as Hong Kong and the USA. Does the Minister feel that if that goes ahead it could be an extremely helpful precedent for this country when potentially negotiating passporting?

[Lord Faulks]

Passporting is extremely important. Negotiations about the UK’s future relationship with the EU have not started and we should not assume their outcome. However, we are acutely aware of how important passporting rights for financial services are everywhere.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Naturally, since I rose to speak to some amendments on the Marshalled List, those are the amendments I am speaking to. If I did not repeat on each occasion, “Those citizens living abroad in other EU countries”, then I am sorry but that is what I intended.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, this is clearly controversial territory and I look forward to hearing the Government’s rationale as to why the line has been drawn where it has. I have to say that I cannot see the argument for allowing British expats in EU countries to have the vote, but not all expats. There does not seem to be much difference between your career taking you to Berlin or to Singapore. Indeed, those who have gone to Singapore are often more likely to return to live in the UK in due course. Where to draw the line is a tricky question. The Scottish referendum was arguably wrong to exclude Scottish citizens who were at that time living in England. If we are to have expats, we should have them all, not just a particular category.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

If the European Union did not sign a treaty with us but put restrictions on trade, it would be very much the loser. We are trading with the European Union at the moment on the basis of a deficit of £70 billion a year. Why would Europe not want to trade with us? It traded with us before we joined, when 35% of our exports went to Europe. Why on earth would the European Union wish to stop trading with us? Of course it would not. That is nonsense and I wish people would stop talking about these 3,500,000 jobs which are going to be lost.

[Lord Flight]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I suggest to him that this lost confidence is in reality merely a scare campaign by the yes vote. There is no evidence that this country has lost confidence in looking after its own interests. It has emerged as the most successful economy of the past four or five years. It is no more than a scaremongering tactic; it is not true.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords—

[Lord Flight]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

Could we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford? I know that he has been trying to get up for some time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I come now to my second point, which relates to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. A citizen of this country is entitled to think that the politicians who he or she pays for will do an honest job in a case like this, by not merely providing an opportunity for a referendum to take place but providing what we can by way of elements to enable that individual elector to take a decision.

I want to re-emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Any Government who are half competent—or even a quarter competent—will, in circumstances like this, produce their own study of the cases for joining or leaving, along with the costs of leaving or not leaving and so forth. Any Government who were 10% competent would be going through those exercises and, as he said, given that those studies will have been undertaken, they must not be kept under lock and key in Whitehall. The public in a democracy have a right to know to what conclusions the Government have come in their own studies. They have a right to have disclosed to them material information of that kind, which may be available in Whitehall or elsewhere in the interstices of government. On those two counts, it is absolutely essential that we do what we can to ensure that such reports are identified, undertaken and, above all, made available to the British public.

[Lord Flight]

I wrote to the Treasury about the reduction in the guarantee to £75,000 to have the reason confirmed. I have had a letter back from the Treasury saying that it is doing its best to negotiate that it cannot go any lower than £75,000, so I wish it luck.

I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Higgins but, to be candid, for even wider reasons the exercise is unlikely to be of huge use. First, if you are to have papers about staying in, you have got to have papers about coming out. Secondly, and fundamentally, the issues that are so important are matters of judgment. We do not yet know what the agricultural arrangements may be or what trade agreements there may be with America and India, and so forth. You could take an educated guess but a factual paper must not have educated guesses in it. A whole lot of historic dead data about the EU one way or the other will, candidly, not excite anyone in the slightest, but it is not the job of the Government to publish opinions. It is the job of the campaigning entities to express those expectations and opinions.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The whole point is that the individual campaigns will not have access to the material which the Government will have produced. It is essential that the public have access to that; if they cannot have access to it through the campaigns, the campaigns themselves will not know what material the Government have on the subject.

[Lord Flight]

Most of the factual information is already there in various forms, so it would not have to be reprinted by a government department. The crucial point is that the campaigners will set out their expectations and judgment as to what will happen one way or the other. As the noble Lord pointed out, leadership in this situation one way or tother is likely to win the referendum campaign.

The proposals seemed to start by suggesting that there should be a whole set of papers on either the advantages of staying in or the problems and risks of staying out. If we ended up with a fair and balanced covering of both sides, I think it would be pretty much a waste of time.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, the key to producing reports is who writes them. The answer is that the Civil Service writes them. Two things are wrong with that. First, the Government at the moment look as if they are going to advocate that we should stay in and the civil servants, if they are doing their job, will slew the reports in such a way that they advocate that we should stay in—so they are going to be biased and of little value for that reason.

The other point is that the EU is very bad at creating jobs. At the moment, it is looking at astronomically high levels of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. There is one exception to that, which is creating jobs for civil servants. This makes the Civil Service even more biased than it might have been otherwise.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I regret that I was not in your Lordships’ House for the Second Reading; I had business abroad at the time. But I very much support the Bill and indeed feel that, 40 years after we were last given an opportunity to vote on whether we wanted to be in or out of the European Union, it is probably time that we had another chance to vote.

The problem is that we all want—and I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench is as keen as anybody—to see a level playing field when it comes to the whole business of how this referendum is held. The problem is that there can never be an entirely level playing field for the simple reason that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has the choice as to the date on which the referendum is held. That therefore means that—whatever happens otherwise—the playing field is always slanted slightly in the direction of those who feel we should stay. That is assuming my right honourable friend the Prime Minister actually leads the campaign to stay in the EU—I am not sure that is a complete given. He is clearly finding negotiations with the EU difficult. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, is leaving us because he referred to the wafer-thin concessions that we were likely to get from the EU with our negotiations. If the opinion polls indicate that a serious majority in the country want to pull out then the Prime Minister may conceivably change his mind as to which side he backs, but at the moment I think it is pretty safe to assume that he will be keen to campaign that we should stay in the EU, and he has the choice over which day it will all happen.

The amendments I have tabled are all to do with the timing of the regulations that are to be brought forth. On Second Reading my noble friend the Minister made the point that this whole question was covered by Clause 6(6) of the Bill. For the sake of clarification I will read it out:

“Any regulations under subsection (2) must be made not less than four months before the date of the referendum”.

Unfortunately that is not the whole story because Clause 6 deals with the whole question of Section 125 and the business of purdah, so under the Bill it would be incumbent on the Government to bring forth the regulations four months before, but it is not incumbent on the Government to ensure that the regulations asking the question happen immediately afterwards and that the whole thing is a continuum.

The Minister in the other place made it quite clear that it was the Government’s intention that things should start 16 weeks before with the regulations being drawn up, then statutory instruments going through both Houses and then the whole business of the referendum would go smoothly through to referendum day at the end of the 16 weeks. However, as the Bill is written that does not have to happen. It would be quite possible for the Government, at a given date, to draw up the regulations covering purdah and then leave it until a later date before holding the referendum with 28 days’ notice. The Government have given undertakings that that will not happen so in many ways they should completely approve of my amendment, which ensures that that is what is going to happen.

Fortunately the Electoral Commission had a look at these amendments before they came before your Lordships’ House today, and supports this amendment, saying:

“Our experience of administering and regulating referendums in the UK since 2004 has shown that campaigners and electoral administrators need time to prepare themselves properly to follow the detailed rules which Parliament has specified”.

The Electoral Commission recognises that people need time and do not want to be bounced into a referendum with 28 days’ notice. Therefore my amendment is very much in support of what the Government are already undertaking to do, and has been approved by the Electoral Commission. In those circumstances I cannot see why the Government would not accept these amendments and therefore I beg to move.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, may I briefly speak to Amendment 1? It seems to be extremely straightforward. For a fair referendum, we want an entirely clean situation where adequate notice is given and where there is no possible scope for the public sector, the Government, the EU or any public body to spend money influencing the course of the campaign. As has just been stated, the Electoral Commission supported this amendment. It is in line with what the Government have said they are seeking to do. I find it quite irritating that there is such complexity surrounding what is really a pretty straightforward point but I very much hope that the Government will accept the amendment in the spirit in which it is offered.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 2, which has been somewhat incongruously grouped with Amendment 1. However, I do not mind that because I am speaking to this amendment somewhat tongue in cheek, not in the expectation that the Government will accept it but to make a point about the fairness of this referendum and the need for the outcome to be accepted for a generation to come.

My amendment would change the date from 2017 to 2019. I have put this down to make a broader political point: that there is, in my view, a fundamental contradiction in the Government’s renegotiation strategy. They say that they want a fundamental change in the relationship with the European Union and, at the same time, they have chosen to impose a unilateral timetable for this renegotiation by saying that they need to have the referendum by the end of 2017. In practice it should be said—I think that the Government would sort of accept this—that the real deadline is the end of 2016. No one really thinks that you can muddle up a British referendum with the French presidential and German Bundestag elections, which will be dominating Europe in 2017. The Government have in practice set themselves a very tight deadline for their renegotiation. The truth is that they cannot achieve within that timescale some of the objectives which they have apparently set themselves.

First, there is no prospect of comprehensive treaty change by the time of the referendum. Secondly, even on matters such as benefits for Polish workers in Britain, while it may be possible to achieve some kind of political consensus among the member states about what changes are necessary, there is very little prospect that such changes in European legislation, even if agreed in principle by the Council of Ministers, could have gone through the complex legislative procedures of the European Union, given the role of the European Parliament and the Council in co-decision, by the time of our referendum. I am sure that the former Members of the European Parliament who are in this House will agree with that. We are dealing with a situation where the Government will have to be content with agreements in principle and, possibly, devices such as the protocols which were granted to Denmark and Ireland, which were basically promissory notes of future changes in EU treaties when such treaty changes come to be made.

I would like to see honesty from the Government about this situation because if we are to win this referendum we do not want to create a situation where lots of people who campaigned against British membership immediately turn round and say, “We was robbed”, which is what happened in 1975. I think there is some risk of this so the Government have to be franker than they have been so far about their renegotiation strategy and what they can achieve within the timescale they have imposed. Let us remember, this is a unilateral British timescale; the European Union is not causing the problems. It is a unilateral timescale that we have laid down.

--- Later in debate ---

In the spirit of Committee, these are clearly probing amendments. I am asking the Government, if there is any possible doubt, to consult further in Wales between now and Report, and do anything necessary at that point. I will not trespass unduly on noble Lords’ patience, but I also press for a government assurance that all the official documents published by the Government in Wales in the context of this referendum will be in both languages, as has by now become the norm with regard to practice in these matters in Wales.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendments 3 and 4, proposed by my noble friend Lord Hamilton. The unspoken point here is that some people believe that whatever proposition comes first on a referendum has a marginal advantage because people react to the first thing that they read. I personally rather doubt that that is the case. But there is an argument that, if you have a referendum, you do not have one to say that you want no change—you have a referendum to consider whether you want change or not. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that the change proposition should come first. But there will no doubt be an ongoing tug of war on this issue, due to the view that whichever proposition comes first has some advantage. I would like to see evidence as to whether that is the case.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, I defer to my noble friend Lord Wigley in his knowledge of the Welsh language and look forward to learning further from the Front Bench with respect to the validity of the Welsh question. I had the misfortune to attend a traditional Welsh grammar school, where I was able to give up Welsh for Greek at a tender age, but I look forward to the further debate on this—and I look forward to appearing on the same platform with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, as we did in 1975. Indeed, the first time we met, when we got on famously, was when as a young industrialist he came to see me; I had been in the Foreign Office, working on a European desk, and he came to—wait for it—seek my advice on the European Union. We have not looked back since.

On the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, in the earlier part of this evening’s debate we decided that the rules should be set by the Electoral Commission. At this point, surely the presumption on a matter of this sort should be—this is the very purpose of the Electoral Commission—that we defer to it in respect of such rules and, if we do not follow those rules, we have a very good reason for so doing. With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, and the presumption that I made, I have not heard from him a weighty case against the change and for the reversal he now proposes.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, on his most thoughtful speech. When I was the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs, he and his wife were the most agreeable constituents and I wish him every success in the demanding and difficult area that he is taking up. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, on their excellent maiden speeches.

I wish to say a few things on the Scottish issue, the West Lothian question, the Human Rights Act and devolution. I very much agreed with the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Lord Lawson of Blaby and Lord Gordon of Strathblane.

On the Scottish issue, “Gang warily” is my starting advice. There is the danger of repeating the unhappy history of Irish nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, even though Ireland and Scotland have very different histories. Scotland does not have Ireland’s historic justification of having been oppressed by England as a colony; rather, Scotland was an equal partner with England in the history of the British Empire. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, pointed out, we are not going to be able to deal with the situation correctly unless there is some revival in British nationalism. There might also be something to learn from the rise and decline of Quebec nationalism.

I know a lot of Scots living in England, and I think the Scottish diaspora, which is essentially very strongly against Scottish independence and critical of the SNP, needs to be organised and to create a political organisation to make its voice heard and to ensure that, in the event of any further vote, Scots working in England would have the vote in Scotland.

The biggest single problem is that the opposition in Scotland is divided, as other noble Lords have pointed out. There really needs to be a common unionist ticket for those opposed to the SNP to vote for. Although it sounds a feasible solution to give Scotland fiscal independence, to my mind it is not so easy in practice, as other noble Lords have pointed out. Scotland would need to contribute to areas such as defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and overseas aid, and it may be more difficult than it appears to delineate the ownership, let alone the size, of oil reserves and revenues. It is clear, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, pointed out most eloquently, that the Scottish economy would suffer badly from fiscal devolution, and not just by the ending of the Barnett formula subsidy. Many Scottish businesses may well look to migrate to England, where the tax regime may be more generous. Politically—perhaps the most important aspect of the lot—unless there is a single effective Unionist opposition, there is the danger of one-party national socialist government, which would be very difficult to shift.

On the West Lothian question, in practice delineation here is as difficult as ever. Much apparently English legislation—for example, Finance Bills—would have some knock-on impact for Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson of Blaby, made the point that the whole issue might better be dealt with through relative representation at Westminster, with parts of the UK that were substantially devolved being, in a sense, underrepresented rather than overrepresented here.

Given the experience of the last 15 years, I strongly support the abolition of the Human Rights Act and its replacement with a new Bill of Rights. The long and ridiculous battle to deport Abu Qatada more than illustrated the need in that regard. He was held by the courts to be a danger to the public, but more than 10 years after proceedings began the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights ruled that he could not be deported, on an argument that had been previously dismissed by the House of Lords. Human rights laws, and particularly the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, have prevented the removal of many illegal immigrants and foreign criminals from the United Kingdom. I was particularly pleased that my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern clearly set out the fundamental point that the Strasbourg court is superior to the British courts and can overrule them.

It is important to note that a potential withdrawal would not jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland. A new Bill of Rights incorporating all the original articles of the European convention and other British rights such as trial by jury would be consistent with the Good Friday agreement and would allow Parliament, not Strasbourg, to decide where the balance between rights lies.

With regard to devolved affairs, I support what I would call the Boris Johnson agenda, and would add only that municipalities should be allowed to raise funds for infrastructure investment projects via their own bond issues, as is the case today in the USA and was the case in the UK until the Attlee Government abolished the power. The one problem I perceive is where local government is not doing what it ought to be doing, such as childcare services in Birmingham. I think that there need to be some reserve central government powers to address that sort of situation.

I would normally have spoken in the economic debate, but I do not have a great deal to add to what the Government are already doing most successfully, other than to make sure that they sustain the wonderful entrepreneurial revolution going on in the UK and prevent small businesses being burdened with further UK or EU regulation. Potentially, the greatest risk is that of getting bogged down and mishandling the Scottish issue. It seems to me somewhat ironic that, while the eurozone is calling for coming together fiscally and certainly needs to have transfer payments to avoid the uncompetitive problems of southern Europe, in the case of Scotland we are potentially heading in the opposite direction, with fiscal powers being devolved and transfer payments coming to an end. The threat of that to the Scottish economy is really quite serious—I would not say a Greece, but certainly of southern European proportions. Getting Scotland right is going to be the single most important issue for the British economy.

Insurance: Payment Protection Insurance

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I would take the name of the company and report it to the Ministry of Justice. Cold-calling in person is banned; high-pressure telephone calling is banned; and unsolicited text messaging is banned. I am sure that noble Lords to whom this has happened for the first time have already realised that this is an industry where a lot of consumers’ money is at stake because of the success in making the banks take responsibility for this mis-selling. As the noble Baroness said, there is something like £8 billion or £9 billion that could be returned to consumers and, to put it no higher, there are some very dodgy practices at work with people trying to get their hands on that money. I can assure noble Lords that the Ministry of Justice will accept its responsibility in this area. We are talking to the Financial Ombudsman Service as well and we shall pursue this matter in the best interests of consumers.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, would it not be appropriate for the head of the Financial Services Authority to warn consumers on this front? The whole point of having a financial regulator is to protect the public and, in the past, the head of the FSA regularly gave warnings to the public.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the responsibility for this is with the Financial Ombudsman Service. The financial ombudsman has identified this and put out warnings. Both the Financial Ombudsman Service and the MoJ on their websites give clear directions to consumers about how they can make claims in this area without using these companies and at no cost to themselves.

Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

Lord Flight Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, I support the Bill. I am not a lawyer, but I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Marks, on very clear legal presentations. It came across to me as fascinating, obscure territory where quite a big issue of justice is at stake. In many ways, I am quite surprised that it has not been addressed previously. I cannot help commenting that I felt that the territory, if they had appreciated it, might have been a subject for Gilbert and Sullivan to produce a successor to “Iolanthe”. I well remember:

“He shall prick that annual blister, marriage with deceased wife's sister”.

This is a blister to be pricked, and I very much hope that this House will support it.

When I saw that the Bill was coming up, I thought that there was no one better than the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to present it, although I confess that I was a little disappointed, where I imagined that it was his fertile brain that had discovered these strange anomalies, that it was the recommendation also of the Law Commission in 2005. The Bill was of course presented so fully in the other place by the Members of Parliament for East Yorkshire and Berwick-upon-Tweed. I am delighted to see my old colleague the right honourable Greg Knight here in the Chamber to listen to Second Reading in the Lords.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, the Bill is all about the law of unintended consequences and the interaction of common law and intestacy law. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, pointed out, there are key reforms which the Bill seeks to bring about.

I was surprised to learn from reading the debate on the Bill in the other place that as many as 200 cases per annum have been affected by the law as it has stood. I can only hope that these are about people disclaiming their inheritance rather than being involved in killings. Perhaps I should say that I have no interest to declare: sadly, both my parents are dead of natural causes.

As pointed out, the issue at the bottom of the Bill is very clear: innocent children should not be unjustly disinherited; the sins of the parents should not be visited on the children. The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Marks, presented the case far better than I could, and I see little point in repeating it. Indeed, the case was very fully presented in the other place. However, some points relating to it occurred to me which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, may see as worthy of comment.

First, if this Bill were enacted, would it work legally? Are there any quirks that have not been thought about or is it as straightforward as it appears? Secondly, I hope that the number of cases of children murdering their parents remains few and that there is no trend towards an increase. Cases of mercy killing seem to be the key territory, and these are likely to rise until the laws relating to this matter are changed. Will the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, confirm that, as I understand it, the Bill would allow a mercy killer to inherit directly at the court’s discretion and covers that individual as well as their children? Thirdly, I was quite interested to know what the code Napoleon provides in this territory, as there seems to be some possibility that this country might in future be invited to change its laws and adopt that code. I understood entirely the point on children with deceased minors, but I could not quite understand the applicability of civil partnerships as opposed to marriage, which did not seem to be likely to be relevant to the situation.

I congratulate the drafters of the Bill on the very simple legal device of deeming killers or disclaimers of intestate situations to have died before the intestate party, albeit that, in reality, they are still alive. Again, does this simple device actually work? Is it potentially open to challenge? I also assume that the Bill is so drafted that this issue can be applied only in this narrow circumstance of succession cases. I would be interested to know if the number of those dying intestate generally is stable, rising or falling. My observation is that in the society in which we live there is less enthusiasm and activity of people to produce wills in comparison with the past 300 years.

Finally, I wonder if there are any other quirks in succession law that need addressing. This case obviously prompts that question. I trust that we will be hearing in due course that the provisions have the support of the Government, whereas I understand that they are in effect an alternative to a rather more complicated Bill that the Government decided to withdraw for lack of time .

This is an obscure issue. There is an obvious case of justice and it is a positive thing that both Houses of Parliament of this nation have made the time to put right an injustice. That is, ultimately, what we are all here for.