Inheritance and Trustees’ Powers Bill [HL]

Lord Shaw of Northstead Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Shaw of Northstead (Con)]

My Lords, I am no lawyer and do not propose to go into the detail of the Bill. My sole objective is to show my welcome—and, I believe, everybody’s welcome—for its introduction.

The Bill introduces amendments to legislation some of which goes back as far as 1925. They seek to correct shortcomings in existing legislation that have appeared. I was prompted to take an interest in the Bill by my recollection of a family incident some years ago. Our solicitors suddenly produced a number of short documents for each of us, including uncles, aunts and the rest, to sign. My immediate response to all this was, “Why the devil should we sign them?”. So the solicitors came back to me and I was told that if certain highly unlikely but entirely possible happenings took place concerning intestacy—including sudden unexpected deaths and so on—the intentions of our wills or trusts would not fulfilled. Having been told that, I did not go into the matter any further—I just told everyone to sign as quickly as possible. Presumably all is well and, anyway, I do not think that there were any sudden deaths or whatever in the family.

In looking at the changes outlined in the Bill it is very important from our point of view that they have all been carefully and thoroughly considered and approved by the Law Commission, which has itself sought full public comment before arriving at its conclusions. In supporting the Bill, I express my thanks to the Law Commission for its work and its conclusions, and I hope that these will lead to a speedy, welcome and successful passage of the Bill.