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Charities Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister. I have considered the matter extremely carefully, but the amendment does not pluck a new obligation out of a clear blue sky and simply fix it to corporate charities. It is a direct response to the fact that this scheme or regime of automatic transfer of legal title in assets of merging charities is a unique one. There are very few examples in English law where, by operation of law, land assets and all forms of assets are automatically transferred from one owner to another. It is in response to that radical provision that I have produced what seems to me a commonsense and fair protection. The Government put the requirement into the Bill   for producing a statement that appropriate arrangements had been made. If that statement is false, why should the company directors escape liability, given that the assets will have gone off? What conceivable solace is it to an innocent creditor of a charity to have to go and apply to the High Court for restoration of a company to the register of companies as a starter to trying to establish a claim—the assets having gone by automatic operation under the new regime to the new charity? I invite the Minister to think afresh about that matter. The answers that he has given, although they are technically impeccable, substantially do not address the occasional and rare evil that I address in the amendment, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.