Research Briefing
Fostering – long-term, emergency, temporary and private placements; and care orders
This note provides information on the different types of fostering arrangements available, and the arrangements for taking a child into care.
-
-
Research Briefing
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill: Lords amendments
The Commons is due to consider Lords Amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill on Tuesday 17 April 2012. This note draws attention to the principal changes, additions and deletions that were made in the Lords.
-
Research Briefing
Debt management businesses
The purpose of this note is to provide an overview of the background too, and the main features of, the revised OFT guidance.
-
Research Briefing
The Draft Defamation Bill
On the 15th of March 2011, the Government published the Draft Defamation Bill and a consultation paper (which included questions on a number of issues which were not included in the Bill itself). The consultation will remain open until 10 June 2011 and a Government response is promised by autumn 2011. The draft Bill was the Government's response to a number of complaints that had been raised around the defamation laws in England and Wales. The consultation paper noted that "there has been mounting concern over the past few years that our defamation laws are not striking the right balance, but rather having a chilling effect on freedom of speech". It also acknowledged worries that the threat of libel proceedings might be used to frustrate robust scientific and academic debate or to impede responsible investigative journalism.
-
Research Briefing
Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill : Committee Stage Report
This is a report on the House of Commons Committee Stage of the Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill (the Bill). It complements Research Paper 11/07 prepared for the Commons Second Reading. The Bill is a Private Member's Bill. It was presented to Parliament by Greg Knight, through the ballot procedure, on 30 June 2010 as Bill 8 of 2010-11 and had its second reading on 21 January 2011. The Bill had a single sitting in a Public Bill Committee on 16 February 2011. No amendments had been tabled and there was no disagreement to any of the clauses. The Bill was reported without amendment. The Bill would, in certain circumstances, protect the inheritance rights of the descendants of people who have forfeited their inheritance by killing the deceased; or who have decided not to accept their own inheritance. Broadly, it would implement, with modifications, a number of the recommendations of the Law Commission in its 2005 report, The Forfeiture Rule and the Law of Succession. The Bill would extend to England and Wales.
-
Research Briefing
Legal aid: the quashing of the 2010 contracts for family and social welfare work
In 2010, the Legal Services Commission held a tendering exercise for new contracts for crime and civil legal aid work. This resulted in a significant drop in the number of firms awarded contracts for family and social welfare work. A judicial review brought by the Law Society led to those contracts being quashed.
-
Research Briefing
Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill
The Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill is a Private Member’s Bill introduced by Greg Knight under the ballot procedure. The Ministry of Justice has indicated to Greg Knight that it will support the Bill and has assisted with drafting the Bill and the Explanatory Notes. The Bill would protect the inheritance rights of the descendants of people who have: • forfeited their inheritance by killing the deceased; or • decided not to accept their own inheritance. It would give general effect to the recommendations of the Law Commission in its 2005 report, The Forfeiture Rule and the Law of Succession, which were accepted by the Labour Government in 2006. Similar provisions to those contained in the Bill were included in the Draft Civil Law Reform Bill which the Labour Government published in December 2009. The Coalition Government is not proceeding with that draft Bill.
-
-
Research Briefing
Roads: pedestrian accidents on the pavement
This note describes the duty of the local highway authority to maintain the highway (including, in the definition of that term, pavements) and those defences that an authority can use if a pedestrian is injured on the pavement.
-
Research Briefing
Inheritance tax and probate
In 2003 the Government introduced a new Direct Payment scheme, to deal with a problem created by the interaction between the conditions placed on an estate before a grant of probate is issued, and the requirements to pay inheritance tax on that estate. This note describes the introduction of the new scheme.
-
Research Briefing
Providing identification when instructing a solicitor
Providing identification when instructing a solicitor. By CATHERINE FAIRBAIRN. SN/HA/3086.
-
-
-
-
Research Briefing
Children, Schools and Families Bill: Committee Stage ReportBill No 8 of 2009-10
This is an account of the House of Commons Committee Stage of the Children, Schools and Families Bill. The Bill contained a clause on the charitable status of academies, but the Government decided it could achieve its objectives by non-legislative means, and at the end of the Committee Stage the clause was removed. No other changes were made to the Bill in Committee. There were many amendments proposed by the opposition parties but none was successful.
Total results (page 15 of 17)