COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 29 July 1954)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, the next Amendment, to Clause 2 of the Bill, arises in this way. Subsection (1) defines the dispositions to which the Act is to apply, and subsection (2), as it left your Lordships' House, defined the classes of disposition to which it was not to apply. That was a provision which gave us the greatest difficulty and there was a good deal of criticism of the way in which it was drawn. I invited the noble Lords who criticised to assist by suggesting some alternative, but nobody was able to suggest one. In another place an Amendment has been made which I think helps to define more clearly the dispositions to which the Act is not to apply. Your Lordships will see the suggested words in the Commons Amend- 329 ment. The clause will now provide that the Act does not apply to dispositions, if before the sixteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two, property comprised in, or representing that comprised in, the disposition in question or another disposition made for the objects declared by the same imperfect trust provision, or income arising from any such property, has been paid or conveyed to, or applied for the benefit of, the persons entitled by reason of the invalidity of the disposition in question or of such other disposition as aforesaid, as the case may be. At any rate that has the advantage of clearly defining the sort of disposition to which the Act is not to apply. Previously the definition has been in more vague words. It was not to apply to a disposition which had been treated as invalid. Now the actual disposition of the property is made the test. That is more favourable to the charity and less favourable to the persons taking the view that the trust was invalid. The Amendment commended itself to another place and I hope it commends itself to your Lordships. I beg to move that this House do now agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.