My Lords, it may seem somewhat of an anticlimax to come to these two amendments after visions of tsars and Alexander Nevsky crossing the ice, and so on. However, Amendment 15 is rather elegant, and I support it in principle. My friends at the Law Society would certainly find it an elegant solution. They say, under Clause 9(1), that the assignment of an unregistered right—very much as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, put it—
“need not follow the corresponding registered right (as is currently the case). The Bill should clarify whether the unregistered right is assigned to the same party, at registration of the assignment of the registered right. This will mean that under the new regime businesses can check whether an unregistered right has also been assigned to the same owner as the registered right, or whether they need to be aware of an unregistered right lying elsewhere”.
Amendment 15 achieves that aim. It is an extremely useful instrument, which would mean that there would be no doubt in future as to where the respective rights lie. It would be a source of some confusion if that was not known. This is a very interesting solution to something that will otherwise cause problems in future.