Trusts (Capital and Income) Bill [HL]

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Henley]

That the Committee do consider the Bill.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

This is a short but technical Bill to amend the law of England and Wales relating to capital and income in trust. Capital, for these purposes, is trust property that constitutes a pool or fund of assets, and is to be distinguished from the income earned on those assets. For those who remember their Bar or solicitor exams, the distinction has traditionally been illustrated by the homely metaphor of a tree and its fruit. The tree is the capital—for example, an office block or shares in a listed company—and the fruit is the income—for example, the rent received from renting out the offices or the dividend paid on the shares.

Before turning to the substance of the Bill, I would like to say that I am very pleased to be presenting it today, although with considerable trepidation. I know that it should be my noble friend Lord McNally, who is otherwise engaged in the Chamber; he is the Minister in the Ministry of Justice who is responsible for the Law Commission and he has been a great supporter of the Bill. He is disappointed not to be able to be here, but I can assure the Committee that he will be available at later stages of the Bill.

I also know that several noble Lords present today have had the advantage of attending a briefing on the Bill by Professor Elizabeth Cooke, who is the Law Commissioner responsible for the Bill, and Stephen Roberts, who is head of litigation and legal policy at the Charity Commission. I regret that I was unable to attend that session but have had the advantage of a private tutorial from Professor Cooke and Mr Roberts to prepare me for our debate today. Otherwise I would have had to rely on my lecture notes, if they still existed, from Bar exams some 35 years ago.

The Government are very grateful to the Law Commission and the Charity Commission for all the help they have given in the preparation of the Bill for introduction and their continuing support for the Bill as it goes through Parliament.

The Bill will implement, with minor modifications, the legislative reforms recommended by the Law Commission in its 2009 report Capital and Income in Trusts: Classification and Apportionment. These reforms owe their genesis to concerns expressed by various noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, during debates on the Bill that became the Trustee Act 2000. This led to the publication of a Law Commission consultation paper in 2004 and the Commission’s report in 2009. The Ministry of Justice then carried out a public consultation in 2010 on the draft Bill published by the Law Commission in its report and published a response in 2011 explaining how it intended to finalise the Bill. This extended process of detailed and responsive consultation has, I believe, created a measure with a large degree of consensus, which is suitable for this special Law Commission procedure in your Lordships’ House.

The overall aim of the Bill is to simplify three distinct but linked areas of trust law in England and Wales relating to capital and income. These areas are apportioning receipts between income and capital beneficiaries; classifying receipts by trustees as income or capital; and investing by charity trustees who, in deciding what investments to make, have to distinguish between investments that will produce income on the one hand and investments that will produce capital on the other.

I will start with the first point addressed in the Bill, the rules of apportionment in Clause 1. They deal with apportioning trust receipts between income and capital beneficiaries. For example, a trust—let us call it the AB trust—may be established by a person making a gift of investments on trust for person A for life, with remainder to person B. This means that the trustees will pay the income arising on the investments to A until A dies, and then transfer the investments to B. Because of the different entitlements to income and capital, the trustees must distinguish between investment receipts according to their legal classification as income receipts due to A, or capital receipts which must be held ultimately for B and can be invested to produce income for A during his or her life.

As noble Lords will remember, in the 19th century various cases came before the courts in which the judges had to decide how to split receipts in this way. Sensible though the decisions were in their time and circumstances, the application of some of them as general rules of trust practice is now problematic.

Clause 1 therefore disapplies for new trusts the first and second parts of the rule in Howe v Earl of Dartmouth, the rule in Re Earl of Chesterfield’s Trusts and the rule in Allhusen v Whittell. This means that in the absence of express provision in a new trust, these rules will not apply and the relevant receipt will belong in its entirety to the income or capital beneficiary, depending on its classification as one or the other. This will bring new trusts into line with modern trust drafting practice, which almost always excludes these rules in the document setting out the terms of the trust. This will simplify the administration of trusts without any loss in fairness. Clause 1 also disapplies for new trusts the statutory rule requiring the apportionment of income over time imposed by the Apportionment Act 1870.

The reforms effected by Clause 1 will mean that complex and time-consuming calculations, generally affecting relatively small sums of money, will be avoided.

The changes in Clause 1 are restricted to new trusts so that there is no interference with the intention of settlors, who may have wished the existing law to apply.

Clause 2 amends the law relating to the classification for trust law purposes of specified tax-exempt distributions by companies on demerger for all trusts. This is relevant because trustees holding shares in a company which demerges may receive a dividend in the form of a distribution of shares which represent an equivalent stake of ownership in the demerged company. The clause provides that, unless the trust specifies to the contrary, all the distributions falling within Clause 2 will be treated by the trustees for the purposes of the trust as capital. At present, rather confusingly, this is only the case on indirect demergers.

The distributions to which Clause 2 applies are those that are tax-exempt under Sections 1076, 1077 and 1078 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 and, in the future, those that are tax-exempt and are specified by an order made by statutory instrument by the Lord Chancellor. No such order is envisaged at present.

In practical terms, Clause 2 will move the classification of dividends received by trustee shareholders on direct demergers from income to capital, and will secure that classification for dividends on indirect demergers, which currently rests on a decision of the High Court. As a result of the Bill, all distributions received by trustees on tax-exempt corporate demergers will be classified as capital for trust law purposes. This will remove not only the potential injustice to capital beneficiaries of seeing significant proportions of the capital holding of the trust assets converted to income by reasons beyond the control of the trustees, but also the pressure on trustees to sell investments in companies proposing demerger purely to avoid the outcome of the present inconsistent classification.

Demergers may be structured by companies in a variety of ways. In some cases of demerger, where Clause 2 applies to classify the distribution as capital, the company may have held off paying the usual dividends pending the demerger. The income beneficiary may then be unfairly disadvantaged because dividends that would have been income in the normal course of events have not been paid and the receipt on the demerger is classified as wholly capital. To prevent Clause 2 perpetuating this problem, Clause 3 gives the trustees power to compensate the income beneficiary from the trust capital. We do not expect that this power will be exercised often but we believe it is necessary in the interests of fairness.

That brings us to Clause 4, which relates to investment by charities with a permanent endowment on a total return basis. Before describing the working of the clause, I will briefly explain the meaning of these two concepts.

First, there is permanent endowment. A charity has a permanent endowment if its constitution places restrictions on the expenditure of property held for the purposes of the charity. Typically, a permanent endowment will be a capital sum donated for charitable purposes on terms that the income it generates may be used for those purposes, but the capital itself must remain untouched to create more income for the future.

Secondly, there is total return basis. Total return investment involves the charity trustees selecting investments on the basis of risk and return, and then spending an appropriate proportion of the total return, irrespective of the form individual returns take, as capital or income. As a result, the trustees are not constrained in their investment choices by the need to generate income returns and can select appropriate investments in the same way as the trustees of charities that do not have permanent endowment.

It may be helpful to illustrate this by way of an example. Let us assume that there is a charity set up to help homeless people, with a permanent endowment of £100,000. At present, the trustees must decide how much expenditure they think is appropriate and then set up an investment strategy to try to achieve it. For example, they might invest in a portfolio of fixed-income investments and shares that they anticipate will produce £2,000 a year. Whatever income that portfolio actually produces is expendable on the charity’s objects; the capital cannot be spent. That is the case even if the portfolio performs below expectations or some returns unexpectedly take the form of capital. In those circumstances, trustees today either face an income shortfall which could jeopardise their planned operations or have to undertake a process to enable them to spend some of their permanent endowment.

Under total return investment, the charity trustees do not have to anticipate expenditure when making investments. Instead, like trustees who do not hold permanent endowment, they can invest in a portfolio which balances risk and return, ignoring the form of returns. The trustees are then able to allocate a fair proportion of the eventual total return to expenditure, whether the investment receipts in question would be classified for trust law purposes as capital or income.

Total return investment is not a new concept. Charity trustees can already apply to the Charity Commission for authority to adopt it and a small number have done so. Clause 4 provides a new framework for obtaining that authorisation. Instead of making an application, charity trustees with a permanent endowment will be able to opt in to this type of investment on the terms prescribed by regulations to be made by the Charity Commission by resolution, if the trustees consider it is in the best interests of the charity to do so. This new administrative approach will reduce the costs of embarking on total return investment for both charities and the Charity Commission.

The change will enable charity trustees responsible for a permanent endowment to bring themselves broadly into the same position in relation to investment decisions as charity trustees without a permanent endowment. This will allow them to invest in the same way as other trustees in accordance with their duties under the Trustee Act 2000 and the trust instrument.

The detailed terms on which total return investment can be pursued will be determined by the regulations to be made by the Charity Commission. The regulations will be finalised only after the Charity Commission has carried out a consultation, which it intends to do after the Bill has been enacted.

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[Lord Henley]

The Committee will be grateful to the noble Lord for that declaration of interest.

I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on being the first speaker in this debate to mention Dickens, in this bicentenary of his death. I was wondering how long it would be before Jarndyce v Jarndyce appeared, and assure him that I was about to mention it. Although the noble Lord says that this has been only eight years in gestation, as my noble friend Lord Phillips put it, if we go back to a case that I was not familiar with but which is no doubt up on the wall in the noble Lord’s lavatory, Bouch v Sproule, that was some 125 years—so it has been going on for a considerable amount of time.

I hope to deal with some of the points that have been raised, but give an assurance to the House that this is the beginning of proceedings. We have rather a good form of procedure before us for these Law Commission Bills, which will allow this Bill to be properly scrutinised later on in Committee. Another place will also scrutinise the Bill properly—as it always does—in due course. I am sure we do it slightly better, but another place will have its role to play. I can give that assurance to my noble friend Lord Higgins—this is not some odd procedure whereby the Bill comes only to this House. It will go to another place in due course.

The first point that came up was raised by my noble friend Lord Phillips about Clause 3 and the discretion that is available to the trustees. What qualification was there for that discretion and might there be some alarm among trustees about whether they could be liable for how they exercise it?

I say to my noble friend that the Bill has so far been very carefully constructed. It has been looked at by many people of much greater erudition than me and, possibly, of even greater erudition than my noble friend. They have taken these points into consideration but the great advantage of this procedure is that we can look again as the Bill goes through the House. It is certainly something to which my noble friend might want to come back in Committee when we get to that stage, at which point our mutual noble friend Lord McNally will be dealing with the Bill for the Government. It will be a matter for that Committee.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Can I take it that the Minister will be happy for consultation with his officials to take place on this matter?

[Lord Henley]

Obviously, we are always more than happy for there to be consultation before, during and whenever to deal with these matters. They ought to be looked at and that is how we get the right result in the end on all Bills. It is something that we would more than encourage. I am sure the noble Lord will be in touch with the officials, and that he has already spoken to them, the Charity Commission and the Law Commission at some stage.

I move on to my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s concerns about whether the regulations in Clause 4, particularly the total return investment regulations in new Section 104B, will be too restrictive. Again, this is a matter that we will need to look at in some detail. However, it is a matter that the Charity Commission should be able to get right following consultation. I am certainly confident that it will strive to ensure that the regulations achieve just the right level of trusting the trustees to get things right and protecting charity funds. It is a matter that I hope the House will look at in detail.

I understand my noble friend’s concerns about English cathedrals and that he raised the matter at the Peers’ briefing in March. As a result of ongoing discussions at official level between the Ministry of Justice, the Law Commission, the Charity Commission and the Church Commissioners, they are all looking at the issue. In essence, the Association of English Cathedrals, which represents all the corporate bodies of our 42 cathedrals, has asked that Clause 4 be extended to include the cathedrals in its scope. The association considers that this would benefit the 20 or so cathedrals that have permanent endowment. That would put those English cathedrals on the same footing as the Welsh cathedrals. However, unlike cathedrals in Wales, cathedrals in England are not subject to the general regulation of the Charity Commission. The Government will consider the request from the Association of English Cathedrals carefully, but at present no final decision has been taken.

I cannot remember whether it was on this issue or another that my noble friend speculated as to whether the word “Resist” appeared in my briefing. I can assure him that it does not, although it might appear later as we discuss these matters further. However, this is not really a matter for the Government to resist; it is a matter for all of us to make sure that we get right. Again, I stress that this is not a government Bill; it is a Law Commission Bill, which we are ensuring gets on to the statute book.

My noble friend also asked about social impact and mixed-motive investment. The Government acknowledge that social or mixed-purpose investment is a highly important issue and are grateful to the noble Lord for drawing attention to it, both today and as part of the work of his ongoing review of charity law. The Government’s ambition is that social investment should become a major source of finance for the social sector. To this end, the Cabinet Office’s social investment team is working with other government departments to make this vision a reality. Social or mixed-purpose investment did not, however, form any part of the Law Commission’s work on capital and income in trusts and therefore has not been included in the Bill, by the Law Commission in its report or by the Ministry of Justice in its consultation. Therefore, at this stage we would not want to see anything further added.

I have already dealt with the question from my noble friend Lord Higgins as to whether the Bill will go to the Commons. I can give that assurance. My noble friend also asked whether it will apply only to new trusts, which I think was a question also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I can give an assurance that the reform is prospective only. We believe that retrospective interference with existing trusts could frustrate the intention of the person who created the trust, contrary to the general principles of trust law. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, reminded us, in any drafting of trusts that he has been doing over the last however many years, he has been excluding the rules in Howe v Earl of Dartmouth and others, just as, I imagine, most practitioners have been doing.

My noble friend Lord Higgins also asked about the letter and whether there was going to be any effect on small and medium-sized businesses. We believe that it is unlikely to have a major effect on small and medium-sized enterprises. However, the impact assessment published by the Ministry of Justice states:

“While a reduction in the complexity of the current legal rules may lead to a very marginal reduction in trust related business for small legal firms and trust service suppliers, this is expected to be more than offset by reduced costs for trusts. Small legal firms and trust service suppliers may also benefit from additional business if there is an increase in the number of charities operating total return investment … We do not consider that the Bill is likely to have a disproportionate impact on the operations and performance of small businesses compared to others”.

[Lord Higgins]

I am still slightly puzzled about this. It says that the Bill is expected to be beneficial to small firms and micro-businesses. Does it mean small legal firms? The idea of a small legal micro-business strikes me as a little unlikely, so I do not understand how it affects small businesses and micro-businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I had better look at the letter more carefully myself in due course and write to my noble friend to deal with that point.

My noble friend Lord Wakeham talked about the possibility of delays of the sort one finds in law, which no doubt provided the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, with his opportunity to bring in Jarndyce v Jarndyce. I hope that there will not be undue delay in dealing with this, but I can certainly give him an assurance that there will not be the gap that he was talking about. We will continue with the old system until we have the new system.

Lastly, I will correct a point that I made earlier, when I said that this was a Law Commission Bill. I must make it clear that it is actually a government Bill. However, the Government recognise that it is uncontroversial and that it has been put forward by the Law Commission; it can therefore continue through Parliament under this special procedure, which I think is appropriate for Bills of this sort.

I hope that I have dealt with most of the points. I will look carefully at what I have said in due course and if necessary write to noble Lords to deal with any points that I have missed. I commend the Bill to the Committee.

Motion agreed.