HC Deb 10 March 1954 vol 524 cc2290-306

Order for Second Reading read.

6.9 p.m.

The Attorney-General (Sir Lionel Heald)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Bill has already been considered and approved in another place. It is of a somewhat technical nature. I am, therefore, most anxious not to delay the House unnecessarily in referring to its provisions. But I think that the right hon. and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) would probably agree that as it does involve, for limited purposes, a substantial alteration in the law and a certain amount of retrospective legislation, it would be desirable that the provisions and the necessity for them should be briefly explained. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has been kind enough to let me know that there are one or two matters upon which he would like to say a word or two. Therefore, I hope that the House will not mind if I occupy a few minutes in explaining the Bill.

The Bill arises out of the recommendations of a committee which has become known—not disrespectfully I hope; one might almost say "affectionately" in some respects—as the Nathan Committee, which was set up by the Prime Minister to report on the law and practice relating to charitable trusts. Its report was published on 16th December, 1952, and the Prime Minister made a statement and circulated certain information at the same time.

I can perhaps best summarise the matter by saying that the report dealt with a very broad field indeed. It made a number of important, interesting and in some respects revolutionary recommendations for changing the law in relation to charities. Some of them are undoubtedly controversial and are interesting and are the subject of a great deal of discussion and thought. I can tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that at the present time I am not in a position to make any statement about what the policy is likely to be in relation to them.

The Nathan Committee reported that urgent and somewhat drastic action was required in respect of one topic. The subject, dealt with in chapter 12 of the report, was that of what are called "imperfect trust instruments." I do not want to involve the House in a complicated consideration of rather abstruse legal matters, and I feel that I can explain the matter simply if I say that a charitable trust, if it is a good charitable trust, enjoys certain privileges which other trusts cannot have.

For example, charitable trusts are exempt from the rule against perpetuities. That is a very important and desirable privilege for them to have. However, it was found that certain cases arose where the trusts were not proper charitable trusts—to use an inaccurate phrase—and, therefore, when it was found that a trust offended against the perpetuities rule, the trust was bad. I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the matter in any more detail than that. It is sufficient to say that, in broad outline, the Bill gives effect to the proposals which were made by the Nathan Committee for remedying the situation.

With regard to the seriousness of the situation, there were two well known cases, called the Oxford Group case and the Ellis case, which disclosed that there was a serious amount of trouble. Although I am not very familiar with the details, I understand that the trouble was traced back to some precedent which had been carefully drafted many years ago, had found its way into the textbooks and had been used on a very large scale. Unfortunately, that was rather a trap.

The serious aspect of the matter was that a number of ecclesiastical trusts had used that form. The result was that there was believed to be—in fact, there was known with certainty to be—a large class, the only uncertain thing about which was the number of cases involved, in the case of which unless something was done, we should have trusts which were invalid. Worse than that, the very highly respectable people who had been the trustees of them might be said to have been acting improperly for years. There was also the very important consideration that, whereas the law provides for the exemption of true charities from tax, one would find that in those cases the exemption would no longer apply.

The Nathan Committee recommended that the date to be taken as the relevant date for the purpose of remedial legislation should be 31st December, 1950. They founded this recommendation on the assumption that it was the decision in the two cases which I mentioned that first drew public attention to the trouble. As the cases were decided some time in 1949, the Committee thought that a period of grace of 18 months would be enough to allow people to appreciate their position, and they accordingly recommended the end of December, 1950.

However, the Government have come to the conclusion that the line should be drawn on the date when they announced their decision to legislate. That is the date when the report of the Nathan Committee was published and the Prime Minister made his statement in the House. That was the first time at which people could really be said to have been specifically put on their guard about it.

I come to the next point of difference between the Bill and the suggestions of the Nathan Committee. The Nathan Committee proposed to make a distinction between what they called "older" and "younger" trusts. In the case of older trusts, they recommended that if the objects included any charitable objects at all, the trusts should be validated and the endowments thereafter applied exclusively to those objects which were good charitable objects. In that case, they were not going to preserve the right to object of anyone who was an interested legatee or otherwise had a claim.

Secondly, they recommended that if a trust had no charitable objects at all but those responsible had thought that there were charitable objects, provision should be made for validating the trust. In this case the Government have decided that that goes much too far and that it is not possible to go to that length in extending this very unusual legal umbrella.

With regard to the younger trusts, the Nathan Committee recommended that nothing should be done unless, first of all, there was a primary object which was a good charitable object, and, secondly, the expenditure of the fund up till then had been devoted, or mainly devoted, to charitable objects. There, again, that recommendation has not been entirely adopted by the Government in this Bill.

In the first instance, as I say, we have definitely abandoned the proposal to validate older trusts which never had any charitable object at all. Secondly, we have decided not to place any restriction on the validation of the so-called younger trusts. In the case of those which have been validated, the conditions will be slightly different, as I shall show in a moment. In that case, the Bill applies to the trust and validates it whenever it came into operation, provided that it had some charitable object.

In dealing with adverse claims, that is to say, when someone comes in and wishes to challenge the validity of the trust on the ground that he or she would be the person otherwise entitled to the money, the Bill in substance preserves the distinction between the older and the younger trusts by making an absolute bar against a claim which accrued more than six years before the relevant date. Other claims are allowed, but they must be made within one year of the passing of the Bill.

There is also another difference in this respect from the Nathan recommendations in the effect of the Bill on the various trusts to which it applies. In every case, we propose to validate the trust, and not only the trust itself, but everything done under it up to the relevant date as if the trust had always had good charitable objects, and after the relevant date the trust will be treated as if all the non-charitable objects were omitted.

That, as I have mentioned, was what was recommended by the Nathan Committee for the older trusts, and that is the principle which we adopt. As regards trusts which had already been treated as invalid before the relevant date, for example, where there had been legal proceedings before that date, and where a declaration had been made that the trusts were invalid, or where trust properties had been handed over to third parties by the trustees, the Bill will not apply. There is also a saving provision for any decision given before its commencement that the trust was or was not to be treated as charitable for any statutory purpose.

Then there is a special rule with regard to taxation. Any tax which was paid on the basis that a trust was not charitable is not to be repaid, but where a trust is retrospectively made charitable then it is given retrospective protection as regards the tax. The principle there is really that the loss is to lie where it falls.

Perhaps I should just say a word with regard to the extent of the Bill when it becomes an Act. The Prime Minister's statement and the terms of reference of the committee were limited to England and Wales. The law in Scotland is different, and there is no question of including Scotland in any case. As regards Northern Ireland, the law there is the same, and, therefore, provision is made in the Bill for the Northern Ireland Parliament to have power to pass corresponding legislation if it thinks fit.

Finally, the Bill is to bind the Crown, and the appropriate consent will be signified in due course. With regard to that, and since one of the main objects of the Bill is to confirm the charitable intention of donors, I should perhaps say that the Crown in its capacity of donor naturally wishes to take advantage of the protection of the Bill, and therefore does not wish to press its normal claims to such things as bona vacantia or as a beneficiary under a resulting trust if the trusts are declared to be invalid.

Those are the main provisions, and perhaps I should just say a word or two about various points. If hon. Members have any points that they would like to raise, it would certainly be of assistance if they were indicated shortly. Of course, these points are probably almost entirely Committee points. In particular, I think I should mention the provision in Clause 4 (1) which reads: This Act shall not apply for the purpose of any legal proceedings begun before the sixteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-two. That provision is a little difficult and perhaps I should add this word of explanation. What is envisaged there is a case in which someone before 16th December, 1952, has raised in legal proceedings the question whether a particular trust is or is not a good charitable trust. If that has been done, then those proceedings are to be decided without any reference to the Measure. If there were a case where there had been some legal proceedings which did not raise the question of this Measure, then in that case the application of the Bill when it becomes an Act would not be prevented.

It is very difficult to imagine what the proceedings would be in relation to a trust of this kind which could not, or did not, raise the question, and I think we can take it that as soon as the question becomes open then, of course, the court which has to consider that question is bound to ignore the provisions of the Measure. I think it is true to say that if one could imagine legal proceedings which did not involve the question of good or bad charitable objects, then one would find something which was not covered by Clause 4 (1).

I do not know whether it would be possible to find such a case, but, from the drafting point of view, I think it right to say that it would not do to say that this shall not apply if any legal proceedings had been taken, because they might possibly be proceedings which indirectly affect the subject matter of the trust in some way, and that, of course, is not what is contemplated. Therefore, I do not think that the wording can really be put in any other way.

A question was raised in another place, and I think that several hon. Members might be interested in it. The suggestion was made that those under a disability should be given special treatment, and that in relation to their making a claim the time limit should be varied. We decided that there should be no change in the Bill in that respect, and if any hon. Members have any points with regard to that I have no doubt that they will develop them. Of course, anything they say will be carefully listened to, but I think I ought to say that the decision which was adopted in another place was very carefully considered.

It would probably be better if I did not try to anticipate any other points. I will endeavour to deal with any that are raised, but, of course, they are really Committee matters, and I hope that the House will not think it necessary to go into them in any detail.

In conclusion, I think the whole House would wish to join with me in expressing the gratitude of all concerned, both inside and outside this House, to the members of the Nathan Committee for the admirable work which they did in considering this difficult subject. We may not all agree with all their recommendations, but one thing on which I am sure we can all agree is that they have rendered a real public service in the production of that report.

6.30 p.m.

Sir Frank Soskice (Sheffield, Neepsend)

At the outset, may I cordially associate myself with the Attorney-General's concluding remarks. One has only to look at the report and to glance at its contents to realise that the members of the Nathan Committee have achieved a really monumental work. The subject is abstruse and abstract, and they have obviously devoted unstinting pains and labour in reaching their conclusions as to matters which have for some time agitated both branches of the legal profession.

I do not suppose that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would claim for his Measure that it will produce an ecstatic thrill of pleasure in the minds of millions of people. Nevertheless it is an extremely useful little Bill. As he says, it gives effect to the recommendations in Chapter 12 of the Nathan Committee Report, and, as Lord Nathan himself recognised when speaking on the Measure in another place, the drafting of the Bill carries out his purpose in a highly skilful manner, though not altogether in the same manner that he and the members of his Committee conceived.

I do not want to detain the House long, particularly after the full exposition to which we have just listened. I will just limit myself to asking one or two questions about the contents of the Bill which cause some doubt in the minds of those who are concerned with it. May I turn first to Clause 1 and put a question on the scope of the Measure. The Attorney-General did say something about it, but I am not quite sure that I followed part of what he said. Perhaps, if he makes some concluding remarks, he will be so good as to answer my question.

As the Ellis case shows, these charitable trusts can be invalid if, inadvertently, there are coupled with the words which set out the charitable purpose some words which could conceal or could embrace a non-charitable purpose. If one looks at the definition in Clause 1 (1), presumably that type of trust is included. The Ellis type of trust was one where there were clearly charitable purposes specified. Then words were added which were capable of embracing, besides charitable purposes, purposes which strictly as a matter of law, were non-charitable, and, as the Attorney-General said, clearly that type of trust would be within the scope of Clause 1.

I should like to know if the following would be included. Supposing some charitable purposes were specified and then some non-charitable purposes were specified as alternative purposes so that, under the terms of the Bill, one could use the whole fund upon one of the charitable purposes without using any of it on the non-charitable purposes. Would that be within the scope of the Clause? As I read the Clause it would, because it would be a provision which was so conceived that, "consistent with its terms, the property could be used exclusively for the charitable purposes." In other words it could be used for those purposes which were charitable, although the Clause contained some purposes which were not charitable at all. I see that the right hon. and learned Gentleman nods his head, so those are within the scope of the Bill.

I turn to Clause 4 with which the Attorney-General concluded his remarks. A case has been brought to my notice which, I gather, is giving some concern —and I think it is the case the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in mind. It is the case in which trustees under a settlement had, before 16th December, 1952, issued an originating summons in relation to the terms of the trust with which they were concerned. They were concerned to know—and I think that the Attorney-General has already answered this in the affirmative—whether, because they had issued that originating summons, the trust with which they are concerned is not validated by the Bill. I think I am right in saying that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that that was the intention. In other words, if an originating summons was issued, designed to construe the trust or something of that sort, and it had been issued before the crucial date, then nothing in this Bill would have the effect of validating the trust?

The Attorney-General

Yes.

Sir F. Soskice

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman says that, may I say that that is perhaps not quite fair. It is really a little hard on the trustees that it should depend upon the accident of whether before that date they had issued a summons as to whether the trust could be validated or not. Surely the Bill should validate the trust irrespective of that. I would like the Attorney-General to consider it between now and the Committee stage.

Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)

If I may develop that point further. Does it not follow from what the Attorney-General has said that if those in that position now withdraw the action before this Bill comes into effect, they will get the benefit of the Act?

Sir F. Soskice

Taking the point at first blush, I should have thought that that is not altogether clear. The relevant words are that the Act shall not apply for the purpose of any legal proceedings begun before the crucial date. One view of the wording is that if proceedings have been started—even though withdrawn—the Act shall not apply to the trust to which the proceedings relate.

The Attorney-General

I would not like there to be any misunderstanding about this. I have not considered the point, but I think my hon. Friend will bear in mind this possibility. Supposing there were infants who might be affected, it would not be proper to withdraw the proceedings. At least, my hon. Friends who have knowledge of Chancery matters so hold.

Sir F. Soskice

What clearly emerges from the hon. Member's question is that the matter obviously requires—and I am quite sure the Attorney-General will give it—further consideration in due course.

With great deference to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I would have suggested as a matter of pure drafting that perhaps the intention he has indicated is not carried out by the terms of the Bill. 1 say that because the provisions of Clause 1 are imperative. They provide—whether or not proceedings are begun to establish it—that the trusts which are within the scope of Clause 1 are validated to the extent indicated by Clause 1; and 1 cannot see anything which, consistently with the wording of Clause 1, would make the validation of the trust depend on whether or not proceedings had been begun before the crucial date, I wondered if the proceedings referred to in Clause 4, subsection (1), were proceedings begun by a party claiming to have some adverse right—and only those proceedings. I will not pursue that, otherwise one is plunging further into the depths of abstraction.

I wonder whether, in the form he has given to Clause 3, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not being perhaps rather over-generous to persons having adverse claims? The Ellis case and the Oxford Group case surely disclosed that the real need for this particular Measure is to validate trusts which—at any rate so far as the great bulk of them are concerned—were inadvertently so drafted as to be invalid because they include some non-charitable purpose. In the great majority of cases I should have thought that those trusts were originally designed under the then existing law to be charitable trusts.

I should have thought that it could be said with some force that one should not be over-tender to persons who seek to raise adverse claims which, so far as they are concerned, will merely be windfalls which they did not expect and have no moral right to expect. I would ask the Attorney-General to give some thought to that particular part of the Bill when considering it further.

The Attorney-General has said that he is not able to state what is the policy of the Government with regard to other matters dealt with by the Nathan Committee. But the Nathan Committee, as he said, has covered a very large area of ground in relation to the law affecting trusts. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to tell us that the Government are not turning their back upon those other proposals but are still actively considering them. I think I am right in saying that the Lord Chancellor said in another place that there would be a White Paper showing the Government's intentions in regard to the report, and I hope the Attorney-General can assure the House that the Government are giving consideration to the many other proposals.

One proposal which intrigues me personally is the question: What is the meaning of a charity in law? Learned judges have from time to time pointed out the difficulty of formulating any clear concept of what is a charitable trust in law, and it would be a great help to those who are concerned with them if some definition, possibly like the Macnaghten definition, could officially be put forward in the terms of some statutory enactment as a guide which will be followed by those who find themselves in this maze.

I notice that paragraph 126 of the Nathan Report says: Broadly speaking, the witnesses who were lawyers were against, and those not lawyers began by being in favour of, a new definition. That suggests to me what I rather suspected, that I am not a lawyer, because I should like to see a new definition if it were possible, although I can understand the difficulty of combining more precision with the necessary elasticity which would be required to be present in any definition that is adopted.

The Nathan Committee called attention to the rules relating to the cy pres doctrine and suggested that they should be recast. I do not want to go into details of that, but I hope the Attorney-General can give consideration to them. Another interesting proposal was that the local authorities should have power to make proposals regarding trusts affecting their areas. Again, I do not want to go further into detail about that, but the Attorney-General will no doubt consider the various proposals made in that connection by Lord Nathan and the other members of his Committee.

I think that concludes the observations I should like to offer on behalf of the Opposition on this Measure. We on this side of the House certainly welcome it. It does correct very effectively, subject to the possible criticisms that I ventured to offer, what is undoubtedly an anomaly. It is a legal accident that these trusts are not valid though for years they have been thought to be valid. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out, they find their origin in an unfortunate precedent which has been followed over the years. Personally speaking, I welcome very much this Bill, and I hope the House will agree to give it a Second Reading.

6.43 p.m.

Mr. John Morrison (Salisbury)

As a mere layman, it would be impertinent of me to add anything to the remarks made by the Attorney-General and by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice). The Bill has been welcomed in this House and in another place, and perhaps it is appropriate for me, as Charity Commissioner, to say a few words. The imperfect trust which this Bill aims to clearing up does not come under the Charity Commission, and, therefore, the Charity Commissioners as such have no duty or wish to give formal or informal advice.

I know that the Charity Commissioners welcome this Bill, and if any additional duties fall to their lot in consequence, they accept and welcome them. I would only add a word of congratulation to those which have already been offered by my right hon. and learned Friend and by the right hon. and learned Gentleman to those who worked on the Nathan Committee for what they achieved, and in particular for Chapter 12 of the Report which they issued, and which is the basis for this Bill. There they ask for legislation to deal with their recommendations at as early a date as possible.

6.45 p.m.

Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas (Leicester, North-East)

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice) and I certainly welcome the Bill, and for my part I do so no less because it does not go so far as the Nathan Committee recommendations. As my right hon. and learned Friend and the Attorney-General have indicated, anyone who reads the report of that Committee must feel great admiration and gratitude for that monumental work. When it comes to dealing with the recommendations in Chapter 12, however, they seem to go rather further than was necessary for the purpose, and I feel that the Government have been extremely fortunate in having a Chancery Lord Chancellor to deal with this very difficult problem. The matter is dealt with in such a way that it must command the support of anyone who gives consideration at all to this problem.

If I judge aright some of the observations of my right hon. and learned Friend, I approach this subject from a diametrically opposite view to his, though both of us reach the same common sense conclusion. I do not support the view that because there is a charity we should, therefore, exert ourselves in order to validate any mishap that has occurred. After all, a charity in our law has a very privileged position, for very sound historical reasons, but since a charity obtained this privileged position, economic and social conditions have changed and we are in a different world from the world in which the law on charity grew up and conferred this privilege.

We must bear in mind the whole time that when one is pressing the law out of its normal course in order to assist a charity, one is doing it at the expense of somebody else's right, and I feel most firmly and strongly that we should see as far as we possibly can that the law applies indiscriminately and equally to everybody irrespective of what he or she is. I should particularly like to emphasise that and to express my gratitude for the very clear and strong statements which are contained in paragraphs 534 and 535 of the Report. There is not the time now to read them, much as I should like to do so.

The Nathan Committee, in Chapter 12, appeared to be very much impressed by two considerations. The first was by the representations made by a succession of Attorney-Generals on the difficulties arising out of the Oxford Group and Ellis cases. Those representations, were, of course, very rightly made, but I think it is necessary to bear in mind that when the Attorney-General acts in this capacity he does so in order to put forward considerations that affect the charities because, of course, the Attorney-General has a particular responsibility for charities.

Speaking for myself I think that the Nathan Committee emphasised the effect of tile Oxford Group and Ellis cases rather overmuch. All the Committee did was to apply to a particular set of circumstances some perfectly well-established principles of the law of charity. These were cases which were in quite a different category from the cases which so often come as a great shock to practitioners. They were not in the category of the Knightsbridge case under the Rent Acts.

They merely applied to the facts of their particular cases a perfectly well-established principle of the law applicable to charities—that where a disposition is made and it can be applied to a charitable object or to an independent and separate non-charitable object, then as it can all be applied to a non-charitable object it is not a charitable disposition. That is sheer commonsense and a perfectly well-established principle. It is different from the cases of ancillary non-charity dispositions, as they are called, where the object is merely to promote the main charitable purpose and, they therefore, can themselves be considered as charitable.

I think that the Committee was perhaps a little overmuch impressed by the two considerations to which I have referred, but it came down firmly in favour of the general principle that concession should be made to charity only if that conclusion were forced upon it. I will not go into detailed considerations of the differences between the recommendations of the Nathan Report and those of the Bill. The Attorney-General drew the distinction very clearly and succinctly in performing the difficult task before him. The Bill makes much more limited provisions than the provisions contained in the Nathan Report, and I welcome that.

I want to see whether I understand what is the scope of the Bill. As I understand it, the wording of Clause 1 (1) has this effect: it applies to trusts which could be used, first, exclusively for charitable purposes but, secondly, in addition, could be used for non-charitable purposes, but, third, could not be used exclusively for non-charitable purposes. That is the effect of Clause 1 (1), as I read it.

In other words, the scope of the Bill is limited to cases, if I may use much less satisfactory wording than that which has been skilfully placed in the Bill, where the primary object is charitable but there are non-charitable independent secondary objects. That is another way of expressing what is covered by the Bill but it is much less skilful than the way used in the Bill. Would the Attorney-General confirm that that interpretation is correct?

I would also briefly mention Clause 4 (1), which has already caused a good deal of trouble. It appears that if proceedings had in fact been started but were abandoned the Bill would apply to the particular trust which was the subject of those proceedings. It is unsatisfactory to leave this matter to inference, and I therefore suggest to the Attorney-General that we should give consideration to the lacuna in the provisions of the Bill.

Secondly, my right hon. and learned Friend referred to cases where a construction summons is taken out in the Chancery Division by trustees, and he says that it is hard that the trust should be penalised in those circumstances. I recognise that there are objections to conceding his point because summonses are often taken out by trustees in the Chancery Division in order to have a matter of construction decided, perhaps at the request of a party which has an adverse interest. That is quite a common method. Or, it might be, as has been pointed out, that infants are involved. I therefore fully recognise the difficulty of making the test of the application of the Bill depend on whether the trustee is the person taking the summons out or commencing the proceedings.

I come to the third point. Let me take the case where, although the trustee has taken out the summons and proceedings have been commenced, nobody is pressing for the proceedings to be carried to a conclusion. If, in those circumstances, the proceedings are not carried to a conclusion, I doubt whether, on the Bill as it stands, they are taken out of the benefits which are conferred by other Clauses of the Bill and that might result in a satisfactory although unstable condition from the point of view of the trustees.

Finally, we may have the position where there are trustees who take out a summons and parties with adverse interests are involved but the parties with adverse interests are in a position to say that they do not want to press their claim. In that case would it not be possible to make it perfectly clear that in those circumstances the trust should be validated?

Obviously Clause 4 (1) gives rise to a good many difficulties and there are matters which should be dealt with in Committee. I mention them now to the right hon. and learned Gentleman because I hope it will give him an opportunity of considering the points.

6.57 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke (Darwen)

This is a very curious Bill and, were it not for the fact that the House is anxious to get on to other business, I should have liked to make some criticism of the principle underlying it. It is entirely retro- spective in operation and deals with an artificial slice in the long history of charities which is bound in the beginning by this shock of the decided cases—a shock which I do not believe is as great as has been suggested—and, in the end, by the coming into force of the Bill. I therefore regard it as curious in point of time, but I do not want to develop that theme. I also think it is too wide in point of space.

As I understand it, Clause 1 (1) includes in this imperfect trust provision any instrument where any of the objects are charitable, even if the predominance of the object is not charitable. It might even cover a general power of appointment. It would certainly cover the situation in which somebody left his residue in trust for various objects, none of which was charitable, but at the end there was one charitable object. It is impossible to say that in such a case the general intention was charitable and that charity must get it all if the other objects fail, for one reason or another—for example, uncertainty or because they involve perpetuity.

I prefer the recommendation on page 126 of the Nathan Report, that in all cases the primary object—not merely one object—of the trust should have been charitable. If the space of the Bill were confined in that sense, a great many of the objections which otherwise will, I think, be forthcoming would be met. I shall not detain the House further.

6.59 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I do not know whether the Attorney-General hopes to get the Bill by seven o'clock, but he has only one minute left in which to reply to some pertinent questions put by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice). I welcome the Bill. I have had some slight experience as secretary of a small charitable trust, and my father has for many years been secretary and is now chairman of a much larger charitable trust and, as a person interested in charitable trusts, I want to urge that the Bill should not be the only part of the Nathan Committee Report to be put into effect.

I know that there are some parts of the Report on which there is bound to be a considerable divergence of opinion, but there are other parts which I think it is necessary to put into effect within a reasonable time. If the Government feel that the full provisions of the Report are too controversial to be included in a major Bill, I should have thought that they could at least bring forward a Bill of miscellaneous provisions dealing with charitable matters wider than this Bill.

I am not quarrelling in the least with the Bill, because we are told that it is urgently necessary that it should be put into effect, but I hope that the Government will not take it that the welcome given to the Bill is in any sense—

It being Seven o'Clock, and there being Private Business set down by The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking Private Business), further Proceeding stood postponed.