Clause 8 - Expenditure
Mental Capacity Bill
4:15 pm
Mr Tim Boswell (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Daventry, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 22, in
clause 8, page 4, line 36, at end insert
'and D shall keep appropriate records and receipts to validate any such claim to reimbursement'.
I am conscious of the hour, so I shall be brief. The amendment is part of a sequence of probing amendments designed to enable us to understand how such important clauses will work. There will be other opportunities to discuss powers of attorney and the implications and obligations at a later stage. The Minister will know—indeed, the chairman of the Court of Protection has already made it clear—that there are real worries that people already in fiduciary positions who undertake matters on behalf of other persons may abuse that trust and, sadly, do so from time to time. I appreciate from the explanatory notes and the text of the Bill that the clause is set in the context of necessary acts under clauses 5 and 7. It is not self-evidently about huge expenditure, although over time it could involve significant amounts.
The amendment would provide that some appropriate accounts should be kept. Clearly, if a situation arose in which a financial attorney needed to wash up, that would be a reasonable request to make. The financial attorney would say, ''If you can't provide the receipts, how can we pay you?'' Presumably, there might have to be litigation about such matters. As a matter of good practice if nothing else, some basis of receipts and accounting should be available to provide an audit trail for the expenditure, because by definition, the person involved lacks capacity and needs to be protected.