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

I shall be brief because I sense that the House now wants to hear from the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). I thank my ally, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), and I am grateful for his support and the work that his Committee has undertaken. I am also grateful to him for agreeing to be a co-sponsor of the Bill. On the point that is still exercising him a little, I understand that the court does have power to appoint two trustees to take over an estate where they are concerned about a killer benefiting and where a minority interest arises. I hope that provision is sufficient. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) for reciprocating today the support that I recently gave to him for his private Member's Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) made a comprehensive and wide-ranging speech and I am grateful for his support, coming as it does from a former practising solicitor. The lesson that every member of the public should draw from the remarks of the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, and from all the cases associated with this area of law, is that it pays to make a well-drafted will. However, the Bill seeks to prevent injustice occurring where a well-drafted will is not in place. I thank the Minister, I am delighted to have the Government's support and I endorse all his remarks. I shall not detain the House any longer except to say that what I seek to do is introduce a deemed, predeceased rule which means that a person who has killed the deceased person, a person who disclaims the inheritance and a person who dies a single parent under the age of 18 are all deemed to have died immediately before the deceased. The Bill will make the law fairer by removing technicalities that run contrary to the general policy of the law of succession. This is a complex area of law; I do not expect any publicity from the media about this Second Reading debate, but that does not matter to me. What matters is that the proposal is just, modest and, above all, fair. I commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).