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The objections to opposing the Personal Bill now in question are as follows:-
14.
(i)
(ii)
The Personal Bill procedure is in its nature quasi- judicial. The Committee is constituted with a strong judicial flavour. The Committee which considered this Bill consisted of five persons, of whom four were lawyers the Lord Chairman of Committees (Lord Drogheda), Lord Hailsham, Lord Simonds and Lord Uthwatt. The fifth was Lord
Kershaw, a Labour Peer. This Committee, by reporting in favour of the Bill, must be taken to have been satisfied, amongst other things, that it was not contrary to the public interest and that it was not open to objection on the ground that the relief sought was not proper to be granted except by a general Act.
On the recommendation of that Committee, I formally
introduced the Bill and moved the Second Reading. If the Bill was open to objection on political or any other grounds by the Conservative Party or the Labour Party, that was an occasion on which something might have been said. In fact it passed unchallenged by any member of any Party.
(iii) Such being the procedure of the Lords on a Personal
Bill, the practice of the House of Commons in
treating a Personal Bill which has been unchallenged in the Lords as an unopposed Bill becomes intelligible. It would create a new precedent if the Commons were to oppose the Bill.
In deciding the attitude to be taken by the Government, it is, I think, relevant to consider the financial aspect vis-à-vis the Exchequer, which is incidental to the removal of restraints upon anticipation. This aspect of the matter has been raised recently in the public Press and will no doubt enter into the Second Reading Debate in the Commons.
15.
I have explained already that on removal of a restraint it is open to the married woman to raise a capital sum on her future income from the estate or to agree with the other beneficiaries under the settlement, who are of full age, for the disposition between her and them of the capital and income in any way they choose. Any such arrangement would result in a saving of income tax and surtax to the married woman and it might also reduce or altogether destroy the contingent interest of the Exchequer in estate duties leviable on the interest of the married woman at her death. Although this aspect of the matter is primarily one for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I question whether it raises a consideration which should influence the Government's policy either towards the Bill or towards final legislation to abolish restraints. The extent to which private individuals should be allowed to deal freely with their own property should, I feel, depend upon considera- tions of public policy rather than on fiscal considersations.
No one is bound so to arrange his affairs as to attract the maximum amount of tax; and in considering what arrangements an individual can properly be allowed to make in regard to his own property the advantage or disadvantage to the revenue of those arrangements should surely not be a
The
relevpate of 62 of 3 st not a governing consipagation of 366ned existence of a restraint on anticipation, wheen is esigned purely for the protection of a married woman, is fortuitous so
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