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Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

I accept that point absolutely and completely. The effect of the law does not produce the outcome that the intestate person in most cases would have wished anyway, and my Bill seeks to correct that anomaly. There are a number of ways in which the state can and should seek to dissuade teenage pregnancies, but using the law of intestacy should not be one of them. I am not convinced that after a night out at a disco or bar, just before the moment of unprotected sex—perhaps in the back of a car—two young teenagers are going to feel in any way dissuaded from having sexual relations, and possibly thereby conceiving a child, by the expectation that they may die before reaching 18 or marrying, and thereby disinherit an unborn child that they might or might not be about to create. I absolutely agree with the comments made by the Chair of the Justice Committee. We hope that most children are brought up in a loving relationship. Let us think of the poor child, who has an unmarried mother who is killed before she reaches the age of 18. What does the state say to the child? ““Because of these circumstances, you will not be helped; you will not be able to inherit money that you would have inherited from your grandparents if your mother had reached the age of 18.”” Clause 3, therefore, inserts new subsections (4B), (4C) and (4D) into section 47 of the 1925 Act. I remind the House that that Act lists what happens on intestacy. The subsections inserted by the clause deal with the situation of the young child of an intestate who dies under the age of 18 without having married or formed a civil partnership. As C is a minor at the date of Y's death in the example, his or her interest in Y's estate will be held in the statutory trusts imposed by the 1925 Act. On commencement, clause 4(4) provides that only deaths occurring after the commencement of the Bill will be covered by it. Knowing, in this cost-conscious age in which we live, my hon. Friends' concern about the financial implications, I draw their attention to the fact that the implementation of the Bill is not expected to impose any additional burden or to increase any other public expenditure.