PART DISPOSALS (Hansard, 23 June 1976)

§ Mr. Denzil Davies
I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 3, line 42 leave out "reserved" and insert "payable".
The amendment substitutes the expression rent payable under a lease 1758 for the present phrase rent reserved under a lease". The phrase in the Bill as it stands is not a term of art in Scots law. The hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) criticised us in Committee for disregarding Scots law and we are changing the term in the Bill to ensure that it applies to both Scots and English law.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
We are all grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) for putting us right on so many occasions on the differences between Scots and English law. I am sure that the Minister, coming as he does from a particular Principality, will be grateful that he was corrected, because neither he nor I was aware that the 1759 term "reserved under a lease" was not used or understood in Scotland. We welcome the amendment.

§ Mr. Russell Fairgrieve (Aberdeenshire, West)
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) and his hon. and un-learned Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West accept the amendment.

§ Mr. Cope
I did not have the benefit of serving on the Committee and I am not a Scot or a lawyer, but to me the word "payable" should be "receivable." The rent will be receivable and not payable. Would it not make more sense to use the word "receivable"?

§ Mr. Denzil Davies
The words "reserved under a lease" mean something to an English lawyer but the words "payable under a lease" mean something to both Scots and English lawyers.

§ Mr. Cope
The individual concerned, the owner of the interest, will not pay the rent but will receive it. If the clause is to mean anything to ordinary people, to accountants like myself, it should refer to rent received and not rent payable.

§ Mr. Davies
I hope that the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) will not think that I am being offensive, but the phrase has been drafted by lawyers for lawyers. Accountants were not taken into consideration.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
I think that I can go so far as to say that it would be comprehensible to surveyors.

§ Mr. Denzil Davies
I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 4, line 15, leave out from 'place' to end of line 16 and insert 'subject to subsection (2A) below, at the time at which the sum in question is received. (2A) In any case where—

(a) there is a part disposal of an interest in land falling within subsection (2) above, and

(b) before the sum in question is received but after the right to receive it has accrued, there is a disposal, other than a deemed disposal, of that interest or of an interest of which it is a part for the purposes of Part I of Schedule 2 to this Act,

the part disposal shall be deemed for the 1760 purposes of this Act to take place immediately before the disposal referred to in paragraph (b) above.'.

Mr Deputy Speaker
With this amendment we may discuss Government Amendment No. 98.

§ Mr. Davies
As the Bill stands, a sum which falls within the scope of subsection (2)—for example, on the receipt of planning permission—is taxable when the right to receive it accrues. That avoids some difficulties. However, in the "clause stand part" debate in Committee the provision was criticised as potentially harsh. The amendment alters the chargeable date to the time when the sum is received, and so meets the criticism made in Committee.

§ Mr. Sainsbury
As on many other occasions, we are indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) for alerting the Committee to the point to which the Government are responding. We are also grateful to the Minister for moving the amendment.