Guardianship (Missing Persons) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-04-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have made space for this Bill by withdrawing the previous one. The penny dropped for me about the difficulties of a missing person’s property effectively being left ownerless when I heard the father of a woman who was missing explain the problems. He has heard me say this before, but he is a solicitor and must know how to handle bureaucracy, so this is a real problem. Peter Lawrence—that solicitor and father—is listening to today’s debates and he represents not only himself and his daughter Claudia, because the focus of the Bill is the missing person, but also the families of the many adults reported missing. There are more than 80,000 of them a year in Britain, of whom about 1,500 are missing for more than one year It is normal at the end of the passage of a Bill to thank those involved. I hope I am not tempting fate, but in the hope that we may find ourselves without further substantive debate I want to thank now all the families and others who have recounted their experiences, which cannot have been easy. I thank the charity Missing People, current and previous staff of which have campaigned on this issue since, I think, 2008. I declare an interest as a member of the charity’s policy and research advisory group. I thank the Minister and his predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and the MoJ officials who have understood the need for legislation, even if they could not do more than keep it warm for a couple of years—I particularly thank Paul Hughes there. I thank Clifford Chance, the pro bono solicitors to the charity Missing People, particularly Patricia Barratt, who drafted the Bill that I have just withdrawn, the effect of which would have been essentially the same as that of this Bill. I also thank Kevin Hollinrake, who took the Bill through the Commons I know that there are noble Lords who had hoped to speak today to support the Bill, but the timing has been a little awkward. In particular, I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and my noble friend Lady Kramer, whose Presumption of Death Act 2013 dealt with another not unrelated provision The words of people affected by the problems that the Bill seeks to address are more effective than mine: "When your loved one is missing you fall into a hole. There isn’t an official category for ‘missing’. Organisations don’t know what to do or how to deal with your situation" The creation of the new status of guardian of the property and affairs of a missing person is to fill a gap in the law of England and Wales. The guardian will be in a position not unlike a donee of a power of attorney, and the Bill draws on some of the provisions of the Mental Capacity Act. A person is missing for the purposes of the Bill if his or her whereabouts are unknown for more than 90 days—fewer in the case of urgency—or, much more unusually, if he cannot make or communicate decisions, for instance if he is held hostage or kidnapped The court will determine whether the applicant for an order of appointment has a sufficient interest to make the application, though certain people, including close family, have an automatic right to apply and interested persons must be notified so they can join in the application. The guardian may be the person applying; it could be an individual, a corporation or a professional person; and the guardian may be remunerated and be repaid expenses. Whoever the guardian is, there must be no conflict of interest. The appointment may be for up to four years, which is expendable, but terminates when the person returns or is declared dead. As one would expect, there are provisions for the guardian to be held to account and supervised, in this case by the Office of the Public Guardian and ultimately by the court What can a guardian do? Everything that the missing person has the right and power to do in relation to his property or financial affairs, subject to any limitations in the court order. He cannot make a will for the missing person or act as trustee. Again, as you would expect, it is a fiduciary position. Crucially, the appointment of the guardian must be, as I have said, in the best interests of the missing person. Clause 18 sets out how that is to be determined These interests will often coincide with the interests of families and, naturally, it is the experiences of that situation which are related by families. Very often, their experiences are ones which one might not have begun to imagine before beginning to think seriously about the situation. For example, a missing person’s salary is not coming in, but mortgage payments and other standing orders and direct debits go out of that person’s bank account. The bank will not make transfers between accounts to keep up the mortgage when the usual account, the usual source of the payments, is depleted. You are not entitled to sell the family home, but you may be threatened with foreclosure. Rent, if the property is rented, goes into a black hole And how do you deal with benefits? A mother maintains her son’s house out of her money to prevent it becoming derelict and says: "I used to put the heating on in the winter, but I can’t afford to do that anymore" A sister says: "We were stuck. We couldn’t use any of", my brother’s, "money to pay his bills and at the same time we could not cancel his bills" All the people whose experiences have been related to me by the organisation Missing People have said that guardianship would be an enormous help and would mean that the person’s affairs could be dealt with. Financial institutions can take instructions only from the signatory to a bank account, and so on. Many will not give families information, because of "data protection"—I put that in quotes, because that is how it is put. Some simply do not know what to do; some will not even take phone calls; some will not take phone calls but are rather quick on the draw when the money in the account runs out. One person said: "one day I received a telephone call from the bank to say his account was overdrawn and what did I plan to do about it. I was so angry. I had contacted them so many times to try and sort the situation out but they wouldn’t engage with me" The Council of Mortgage Lenders and—from memory, so I hope I am not wrong in this—the British Bankers’ Association support the legislation, as it will provide clarity and protection for businesses and institutions which hold the assets of a missing person. The Association of British Insurers has also said that its members would welcome guidance because of data protection issues The Government consulted in 2014 on proposals for creating this new legal status. According to the MoJ, the response was "overwhelmingly positive" to the principle and to the proposals for implementation. Because the Government had not found an opportunity to introduce legislation, I introduced a Private Member’s Bill at the start of this Session. We now have this Bill, which has come through the Commons, piloted by Kevin Hollinrake, and I am delighted that a slot has been found as we come towards the end of the Session. The Bill reflects the proposals in the consultation to which I have referred Once you see the practical impact of the current legal position, you begin to understand the emotional effect. "I went overnight", a wife explains, "from being a couple and having two wages to … becoming a single mum who could only work part time, with a mortgage and bills to pay. … my husband was missing, and that in itself was traumatic enough, but there was still the everyday living to do as well" We legislators can at least help with the everyday living. I beg to move.