Sibling Couples

Debate between Lord Lexden and Lord Bates

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to extend fiscal and legal protection to close family members, particularly siblings, who live together long-term in jointly owned property.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, as the nature of relationships between married couples and those in civil partnerships is different from that of cohabiting siblings, the same legal and fiscal protections do not extend to the latter. The Government do not therefore intend to make changes at this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Why do the Government refuse to accept that those who live together permanently in platonic relationships, such as sibling couples, are no less deserving and in need of fiscal and legal safeguards than those who marry or become civil partners? Is it just or right that, among other hardships, many platonic family couples should have to endure the terrible anxiety created by the potential loss of the much loved and jointly owned family home because inheritance tax has to be paid when the first member of the couple dies and cannot be deferred until the death of the second? Did the Conservative manifesto not promise to take the family home out of tax?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend makes a persuasive case. I appreciate the meeting we had in December, to which he also brought Catherine Utley. It persuaded me that this needed to be looked at again, and I therefore went to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and asked him to do so. He looked at it again, and pointed out in his letter to my noble friend on 6 February, along with the Answer I gave to my noble friend’s Question, that if siblings order their affairs such that they jointly hold the asset, the charge would effectively become liable only on properties exceeding £650,000 in value. If they had difficulty in making that payment, inheritance tax could be made payable over 10 years. That was set against the fact that the average property price in the UK is £225,000. Those were the arguments put forward for retaining the position.