HC Deb 22 July 1959 vol 609 cc1460-1

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 10, at end insert: (a) an adopted person shall be treated as the child of the person or persons by whom he was adopted and not as the child of any other person; and, subject thereto,—

The Solicitor-General (Sir Harry Hylton-Foster)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The only point here is that adoption is designed to over-ride every other relationship. The appropriate paragraph (c) of subsection (2) is made subject to paragraph (b), and if the other paragraph is not made so subject it might found an argument which might operate in a way that the House would not desire. That is the object of the Amendment.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 23, leave out "infants" and insert "children."

The Solicitor-General

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The Fatal Accidents Act and the Bill at present do not apply to Scotland. Further Amendments will bring in the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, and that does apply to Scotland. An infant in this country is someone under 21. An infant in Scotland, apparently, is a baby in arms. Hence the Amendment.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 12, at end insert: (5) In paragraph 1 of the Second Schedule to the Carriage by Air Act, 1932 (which specifies the persons for whose benefit actions in respect of a passenger's death may be brought under that Act the following shall be substituted for the words from 'In this paragraph' to the end of the paragraph:— (2) For the purposes of this paragraph the following shall be taken to be the members of the passenger's family, that is to say the passenger's wife or husband, parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren and any person who is, or is the issue of, a brother, sister, uncle or aunt of the passenger. (3) Subsection (2) of section one of the Fatal Accidents Act, 1959, shall apply in deducing any relationship for the purposes of this paragraph as it applies in deducing any relationship for the purposes of the Fatal Accidents Acts, 1846 to 1959, but as if it extended to the whole of the United Kingdom; and the definition of 'adopted' in subsection (3) of that section shall apply accordingly'.

The Solicitor-General

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The trouble is that the Fatal Accidents Act does not apply to accidents occurring in the course of carriage by air. We start the requisite progress here by substituting in the appropriate provisions of the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, a new class of dependants, because it is desired to get the class of dependants under the Fatal Accidents Act and the class of dependants under the Carriage by Air Act, 1932, the same—as, indeed, they ought to be. That will be the effect of inserting the new paragraphs in the Carriage by Air Act, 1932.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.