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Trusts (Capital and Income) Bill [HL]

The Committee will be grateful to the noble Lord for that declaration of interest. I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on being the first speaker in this debate to mention Dickens, in this bicentenary of his death. I was wondering how long it would be before Jarndyce v Jarndyce appeared, and assure him that I was about to mention it. Although the noble Lord says that this has been only eight years in gestation, as my noble friend Lord Phillips put it, if we go back to a case that I was not familiar with but which is no doubt up on the wall in the noble Lord’s lavatory, Bouch v Sproule, that was some 125 years—so it has been going on for a considerable amount of time. I hope to deal with some of the points that have been raised, but give an assurance to the House that this is the beginning of proceedings. We have rather a good form of procedure before us for these Law Commission Bills, which will allow this Bill to be properly scrutinised later on in Committee. Another place will also scrutinise the Bill properly—as it always does—in due course. I am sure we do it slightly better, but another place will have its role to play. I can give that assurance to my noble friend Lord Higgins—this is not some odd procedure whereby the Bill comes only to this House. It will go to another place in due course. The first point that came up was raised by my noble friend Lord Phillips about Clause 3 and the discretion that is available to the trustees. What qualification was there for that discretion and might there be some alarm among trustees about whether they could be liable for how they exercise it? I say to my noble friend that the Bill has so far been very carefully constructed. It has been looked at by many people of much greater erudition than me and, possibly, of even greater erudition than my noble friend. They have taken these points into consideration but the great advantage of this procedure is that we can look again as the Bill goes through the House. It is certainly something to which my noble friend might want to come back in Committee when we get to that stage, at which point our mutual noble friend Lord McNally will be dealing with the Bill for the Government. It will be a matter for that Committee.