CLAUSE 2.—(Liability of donor and donee of power of attorney for acts and defaults of donee.) (Hansard, 11 October 1939)

§ Mr. Spens
We have been told that this Measure will give protection to those who give power of attorney under it. I suggest that a number of cases will arise where the result will be that, having done his best under the law existing in the first six weeks of war to protect himself, a trustee will still remain liable for any mistake that his attorney may make. It is not a matter to be dealt with lightly, and I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will be able to give us some further satisfaction.

§ The Solicitor-General (Sir Terence O'Connor)
It is a little difficult to deal with this matter, when there is not an Amendment before the Committee from my hon. and learned Friend.

§ Mr. Spens
My hon. and learned Friend must not say that. I had not the slightest idea that we were to be asked to pass the Bill through its remaining stages immediately after the Second Reading. We only received the Bill this morning by the first post, and we have not had a chance of considering whether it is in order or not.

§ The Solicitor-General
I beg my hon. and learned Friend's pardon. I thought it was well known that an attempt would be made by the Government to take all 374 the stages of the Bill to-day. Surely, the point raised by my hon. and learned Friend was met in the answer given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. Even at worst, it only means executing a fresh power of attorney and that procedure, as the Attorney-General assured my hon. and learned Friend, will be simplified in every possible way. It is a matter of practical administration which my Noble Friend the Lord Chancellor has had in mind, and the question of offering the greatest possible facilities, by convenient means wherever people may be, to make fresh powers of attorney, is under consideration. I need not elaborate the difficulties of making legislation of this kind retrospective. If you acted retrospectively in this regard it might have repercussions which would be most unfortunate. I hope my hon. and learned Friend will feel satisfied with that assurance, and will realise that we shall make as easy as possible the making of fresh powers of attorney in different parts of the world.

§ Mr. Mander
I should like to ask the Solicitor-General, in connection with this Bill and in view of what has just happened, whether he will be good enough to say what is the reason for this extraordinary celerity of proceeding? We received the Bill only this morning. It is a highly complicated legal document, and one would have thought that it would be only proper to allow hon. Members a day in which to study the conditions of the Bill, particularly those hon. Members who are familiar with these technical legal subjects. There must be some reason for this urgency, but it is most difficult to understand. It would be much more helpful to the proper consideration of Parliamentary matters if the Government and the Law Officers could arrange on any other occasion when Measures of this kind come forward that there is an interval of a day between the Second Reading and the 375 Committee stage, unless the circumstances of urgency are exceptional.

§ The Solicitor-General
I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member, and if there had been any suggestion in any quarter either that there was anything contentious in the Bill or that there was any substantial desire not to complete it to-day, the Government would never have attempted to take it now. It is being taken at this moment, to the embarrassment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and myself, because it was understood that it would meet the convenience of all parties that this business should be disposed of and the remaining and much more interesting matter should be proceeded with at once. I can assure the hon. Member that it is a Bill which follows fairly closely the lines of similar legislation passed in the last war, but it provides for various improvements on that legislation. It has been the subject of consideration by a committee, including the representatives of some of the biggest trustees in London, and not until my hon. and learned Friend suggested it did I think there was anything contentious in the Bill. It passed all its stages in another place without any comment by the Noble and learned Lords there. In these circumstances I think the Government might reasonably expect that it would be treated here as completely non-contentious.

§ Mr. Spens
I am afraid that I am responsible for this Debate. Everything that my hon. and learned Friend says is perfectly right, but this is a Bill which deals with a branch of the law in which I practise every day, and my first opportunity of reading it was this morning at 11 o'clock. On reading it I looked to see what change in the law it was making. I looked at the existing Trustee Act, and I noticed that Clause 2 of this Bill reverses the liability under the existing Trustee Act. I entirely agree with the Bill, and I think it is perfectly right, but the fact is that there has been this interval of six weeks during which people will have executed powers of attorney under the existing Trustee Act, and they will be put under a different liability from that which we thought it right they 376 should be under when they go on war service.

§ The Solicitor-General
My hon. and learned Friend has just said something that I cannot allow to pass. The fact that this Bill would be taken was announced last week during business. It obtained a Second Reading in another place on 3rd October and passed through all its stages shortly afterwards. If my hon. and learned Friend is in the habit of practising from day to day in this type of legal business, I can only express surprise that he did not look at the Bill.

§ Mr. Spens
I looked at it the moment the print came into my hands, when I received it from the Vote Office; but I had not the slightest idea that we were going to pass it through all its stages at once. Whatever facilities the Government give in this Bill for people who have gone abroad to cancel existing powers of attorney and execute new ones, there will be some people who will not be able to take advantage of those facilities. I hope, therefore, that it will be brought to the notice of people who are serving in His Majesty's Forces that the powers of attorney that they executed prior to this Act becoming law will not protect them agains the default of those whom they have authorised to act for them, unless they have cancelled that power of attorney and have given fresh power of attorney. Unless this important fact is brought to the notice of those serving in His Majesty's Forces in different parts of the world, difficulties will arise. The trouble is that since the last war Parliament has passed the Act of 1925, which lays it down in so many words that if a person does make use of the power of attorney, the court has to hold him liable for the action of his attorney. I am afraid that there may be hard cases, and I want to try and protect individuals as much as I possibly can.