My Lords, I should explain that this amendment was tabled before we had a chance to peruse a draft of the scheme rules, but there are some issues still worth pursuing. It is a probing amendment and is, I hope, precisely focused for the benefit of my noble friend. Clause 4(3)(a) states that the scheme may make payments “subject to conditions”, and paragraph (b) gives,
“the scheme administrator power to decide when to impose conditions or what conditions to impose”.
To the extent that these conditions are to be covered in the scheme rules and that those scheme rules are to be subject to some parliamentary process, we are perhaps more relaxed about the position. However, paragraph (b) appears to give a wide discretion to the administrator, which is likely to be an arm of the insurance industry. The draft scheme rules throw some light on this by identifying that the conditions that might be imposed include requiring that a trust be established and that a deputy or guardian be appointed. The draft rules also authorise the meeting of costs to this end by the administrator. The thrust of this seems
to be a concern in situations relating to the capacity or legal competency of the claimant or a dependant. However, there is nothing that requires the imposition of conditions to be for the benefit of the applicant or dependants rather than that of the levy payers.
A key point in the draft rules is that conditions can be imposed to ensure that that payment is used for the benefit of the applicant. That requirement does not appear in primary legislation. There would be merit in it doing so to tie down this potentially wide discretion. I await the Minister’s response on that. We might return to this quite narrow point on Report to embed the concept that is in the draft rules, which we have now seen, into primary legislation. I beg to move.