Clause 61.—(GIFTS IN CONSIDERATION OF MARRIAGE.) (Hansard, 23 May 1963)

§ Mr. Mitchison
We are supposing that this transfers to this particular sphere what I might call the Sultan of Foa principle, or the Courtauld principle, which we considered in connection with an earlier Clause. This may have nothing whatever to do with the Sultan of Foa Case, or the Courtauld case. May we be informed?

§ Mr. Barber
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) is quite right. This Clause contains a Stamp Duty provision corresponding to the Estate Duty provision in Clause 50. It provides, except in so far as goods would qualify under Clause 50, for gifts made in consideration of a marriage qualifying for the relief from Stamp Duty.
Perhaps I may say that I overheard the hon. and learned Gentleman saying a moment ago, very quietly, to his hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), "Come on, Douglas, it is your turn." The last time I heard a whisper from him to his hon. Friend, I think that I heard him say of myself, when I was dealing with a previous Clause "I think that he has missed a line out of his brief".

§ Mr. Graham Page
I do not like to intervene in this back-chat across the Floor of the Committee. But I do not feel at all happy about what has been said by my hon. Friend. I return to what I said on a previous occasion in connection with the Stamp Duty liability. It seems to me that it is making a marriage settlement subject to conveyance duty rather than a voluntary settlement by gift. If it is going to do this to a settlement by the parties to a 765 marriage, I think that it is grossly unfair. It is certainly altering the law with regard to gifts and making marriage no longer a good consideration.
Any settlement of a marriage will be a conveyance and liable to conveyance duty. If that is so, I feel that it ought to be stated far more clearly, rather than hidden in the rather unintelligible language of Clause 61. It was only in a few words that my hon. Friend put this to the Committee, but it is a major change in the law.

§ Mr. Barber
Perhaps I may elaborate what I said a few moments ago.
Under Section 74 of the Finance (1909–1910) Act, 1910, voluntary dispositions inter vivos that is gifts—including the conveyance of property to the trustees of a settlement—are charged to ad valorem duty on their market value at the normal rate of 2 per cent., which has now been reduced to 1 per cent. There is, however, an exception for gifts made in consideration of marriage. The decision in the Courtauld case could therefore be invoked for the avoidance of Stamp Duty as well as Estate Duty on property given away on the occasion of a marriage to persons not within the marriage consideration—using the phrase in the way I did when we considered Clause 50.
All that this Clause does, in the same way as with Clause 50, is to put the matter broadly in the position in which it was assumed to be by everybody before that case was decided by the House of Lords. If the Committee comes to the conclusion as with Clause 50 that this is, in the circumstances, a reasonable thing to do, as the same considerations apply with regard to the Stamp Duty exemption, I hope that the Committee will take the same view here.

§ Mr. Houghton
For the last hour I have been absolutely mesmerised by this Clause. I knew that it fell to me, as a matter of duty, to make any suitable comments about it from this side of the Committee, or to ask any reasonable question about it. I came to the conclusion that I understood it completely. I thought that it was perfectly proper, as a link with Clause 45, and I think that when a Member on these benches in charge of 766 a Clause chooses, in his judgment, to remain silent, it ill becomes one of his colleagues to get up and say something. However, since the ball has started rolling, I cannot sit in my place and let it be thought that my silence is some form of Front Bench delinquency.
I think it perfectly right that a transfer not in consideration of marriage within the law of Estate Duty should have a beneficial rate of Stamp Duty, which is what the Clause is about. Not only did I think that I understood the Clause, but I was attracted by it, because it is one of the four shortest Clauses in the Bill, which is another especial merit. As I see the Chief Secretary in his place, I might perhaps say that he seems to have had a much easier time on the Bill than I have.