INTESTATES' ESTATES BILL (Hansard, 21 October 1952)

§ LORD MANCROFT

My Lords, before I ask your Lordships to give this Bill a Third Reading there are two short points which I should like to make. First, I have been asked by one or two Scottish Peers how this Bill will affect Scotland. Of course, the answer is that the Bill does not apply to Scotland at all, because the law of intestacy in Scotland is quite different from that in England. I am also given to understand that there is little or no chance of any Government-sponsored Bill for Scotland finding its way on to the Statute Book in the near future, so if Scottish Peers want this Bill to be paralleled in Scotland I am afraid that it will once again have to be by a Private Member's Bill.

The other point is this. Government Departments who wish to shelve awkward problems are often accused of getting out of their difficulties by appointing a Committee—in fact, Committees have become seriously out of favour and the subject of frequent music-hall jokes. I think that when a Committee does a good job of work the fact should be recorded. The Committee which studied this subject was appointed by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt. It reported, under the Chairmanship of Lord Morton of Henryton, and only just over a year after that Report was made its results are embodied in a Bill which we hope in a few days' time will become an Act of Parliament. I myself take no credit at all for that: the credit is to be shared between Lord Jowitt, Lord Morton of Henryton and, indeed, the Lord Chancellor. But I think it is worth recording, as a fact, that Committees do not always pigeon-hole their Reports, and do not always act with intolerable slowness. With those few words, and adding my thanks to the Lord Chancellor for having put the draftsmen's services at my disposal, for which I am extraordinarily grateful, I beg to move that this Bill be given a Third Reading.