§ The Lord Advocate (Mr. William Grant)I beg to move, in page 4, line 26, to leave out subsection (4) and to insert:
(4) In the application of this section to Scotland the following subsection shall be substituted for subsection (1) thereof:—(1) In this Act 'property' includes property of any description (whether heritable or movable, corporeal or incorporeal) which is presently enjoyable, but does not include a future interest, whether vested or contingent.When this subsection was considered in Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) made some slightly rude noises about it, and the first reason for the Amendment is to meet his criticism. He did not quite say that it was unintelligible, but he came very near to doing so. We have redrafted it to make it clear, we hope.There is a further point—I confess that it is my fault—in that we had a defect in it in as much as the prospective interests which were excluded from the term "property" were not widely enough defined, in as much as they did not exclude a vested interest which had not in 1924 the English term "fallen into possession." It is only to make sure that it is what has fallen into possession which comes within the definition that we have made the Amendment.
§ Mr. MitchisonI welcome the right hon. and learned Gentleman's correction of his own error, coupled as it is with the concession to the limitations of my own intelligence.
§ Amendment agreed to.