Schedule 3
Finance Bill
10:30 am
Philip Hammond (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 26, in schedule 3, page 121, line 36, after ‘possession’, insert
‘, including a defeasible life interest,’.
I am pleased to hear that you had a good weekend, Sir Nicholas, although I learnt from my television screen on Sunday afternoon that it seemed to be more rainy in the north-west than the weather that we were enjoying in southern England. It might not have been so in Macclesfield, but it certainly was in Wigan.
The Committee will be pleased to know that the debate will be short, unless the Minister has something startling to say. The amendment is a simple probing amendment, and I make no claim to authorship. It would clarify a small technical point to which an outside professional body has drawn attention and make it clear that an interest in possession otherwise than for a fixed term could include a defeasible life interest. I have no great axe to grind one way or the other on whether a defeasible life interest is included in the Bill, but I understand from outside professional bodies that its drafting leaves them in some doubt whether a defeasible life interest is included or excluded. We therefore considered that it would be helpful to have definitive clarification from the Minister. I do not in all honesty believe that the Bill needs to be amended if the right hon. Lady can simply clarify the point for the benefit of the professionals who are interested.