During the last two years, Alistair Lexden has campaigned in the Lords to end the gross unfairness with which cohabiting sibling couples are treated by the legal and tax systems. He has spoken about these grave issues on a number of occasions, most recently in a Lords debate on 5 November last year (see below).
A Private Member’s Bill is a widely used way of keeping a much needed reform on the Parliamentary agenda. It was by such means that he brought this subject to the attention of members in the last Parliament.
On 14 January, he introduced a new Bill which would tackle the worst injustice that cohabiting sibling couples face: the potential loss of the shared home when one of them dies because Inheritance Tax has to be paid by the survivor. The Bill (attached) would put sibling couples on the same basis as those who are married or civil partners by exempting transfers of property between them from Inheritance Tax.
