CLAUSE 1.—(Insurance of owners of coal mines against liability to their workmen.) (Hansard, 20 April 1934)

§ Mr. GODFREY NICHOLSON

I beg to move, in page 3, line 9, to leave out Sub-section (3), and to insert: (3) The trustees under any compensation trust shall be deemed to be trustees not only for the owner of the coal mine and his legal personal representative, if any, but also for the workmen, and the due administration of the trust shall be enforceable accordingly, and the provisions contained in a compensation trust in accordance with the Schedule to this Act shall be valid, notwithstanding any rule against perpetuities. The Sub-section as printed in the Bill is too wide. The first part of the proposed Amendment is drafted with a view to making sure that the compensation trusts really are trusts in the legal sense of the word and not merely what by lawyers are called "revocable mandates" to pay the owners' debts. It also makes clear that the workmen are beneficiaries 1273 under the trust, and that they have certain rights in this connection. The rest of the Amendment merely lays it down that the trusts are valid notwithstanding any rule against perpetuities.