Fraud Bill [HL]

The Law Commission, in the report that noble Lords complimented at Second Reading, set out a number of paragraphs why it thought, and the Government agree, that it is desirable to have a specific offence of non-disclosure. The noble Lord is right that there are occasions when something that most of us naturally might think of as a non-disclosure is transformed by a fiction of the law into an implicit misrepresentation. But it is a fiction; it is not how people think about it. People will frequently say, ““I was not misled because I understand that he was implicitly making this representation to me. He just did not disclose something; he was dishonest in not disclosing it; and the purpose of that was to make a gain or to do something else””. One can think of many other examples where that would be the true basis on which a charge would be laid. There are many occasions in the law where there is a duty of disclosure: in contracts of insurance, under certain market customs or certain contractual arrangements. In those circumstances, people may well be under a duty to make a disclosure and fail to make it. That will have consequences in law. The noble Lord may imagine, for example, the ability to set aside contracts on the grounds of non-disclosure and that sort of thing. Furthermore, those may have given rise to an economic loss to the person to whom the disclosure was not made or a benefit to the person who failed to make the disclosure. The Government believe, as did the commission, that it was right, fairly and squarely, to identify that as a form of unlawful conduct. I hope that I have given some assistance regarding the understanding behind the clause. As I understood that the noble Lord’s amendment was probing in nature, I anticipate that he will withdraw it.