Clause 19 - Payments after death of child
Child Trust Funds Bill
10:30 am
Mr George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)
The clause deals with the extremely tragic circumstances in which a child dies before they have reached the age of 18. As I understand it, the child trust fund would usually pass to the child's parent or, if the child was married, to their spouse or their child if they had a child. That is because in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, children under the age of 18 cannot make a will and so normal intestacy rules apply. Curiously, in Scotland a child can make a will at the age of 12 or over.
My amendment is intended to prise out of the Government some answers. First, can any parent whose child dies receive this payment, whether or not they have managed to set up a child trust fund or to
apply for child benefit? It is possible to envisage situations in which a child who is sick at birth dies within the first few days or weeks. Obviously the parents do not get around to applying for child benefit because understandably they have other things on their mind. This sum of money will not make a huge amount of difference but there could be some fairly rough justice. Parents who have applied for child benefit and established a child trust fund a week or two after the child's birth will receive this money and those who have not and were not told that they needed to do so will not.
None of this will compensate such parents for the loss of the child, but we know as constituency MPs how people can become very focused and, frankly, obsessed with what they regard as small slights by the state in tragic situations. I would not want the Government to find themselves in a position where a parent can say, ''I have not received this money when I should have done and it shows that the Government do not care about the death of my child.'' I am trying to help the Government to ensure that they have considered all the permutations of the matter, and to ensure that parents who have not applied for the child benefit, but who would have done and would have been eligible, receive the child trust fund money.
I also have questions—not strictly related to my amendments—about children in care. Normally, I would imagine that a child in care would have no estate when he or she died. However, because of this proposal, many children who previously would have left nothing on their death, will leave something. What will happen in that situation? Does the fund revert to the parents, even if they had no part in the upbringing of the child? The child might be in care because the parents abused him or her, and in such a situation it would be extraordinary if they received a financial reward.
I do not wish to tread on the territory of my Liberal Democrat colleague, but his amendment No. 170 attempts to raise that question with regard to a child who is unlawfully killed. That raises the question of when a child could be lawfully killed, but I shall leave the hon. Gentleman to explain that to the Committee. However, the purpose of his amendment is clear: we need some discretion.
The matter is very current: I was on the GMTV sofa at 6.20 this morning discussing the Sally Clark case. There will, however, be cases in which a mother or father has killed their child. Is it right that in those circumstances the child trust fund should go to the parent? I am sure that that is the thinking behind amendment No. 170, and I support it.
I also support amendment No. 169, and will make a general observation on what I imagine is the purpose behind it. The matter that it addresses is one of great sensitivity, and one would assume that the Inland Revenue would tread carefully in dealing with grieving parents.