Power of Attorney

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, the Office of the Public Guardian has changed its processes so that it writes to donors at their home address to inform them that an LPA is being applied for, but in the consultation on modernising the LPA do the Government anticipate that they will need to bring forward new legislation to strengthen the powers of the Office of the Public Guardian to strike out people who hold an LPA who abuse those powers, as outlined in the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer?

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, new legislation will be required. To put matters into perspective, in 2021 there were more than 5 million LPAs on the OPG register, and only nine have been removed from the register because of concerns about fraud by false representation during their creation.