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The Government today faced calls to reform the inheritance tax law to exempt cohabiting siblings.

Peers raised the issue at question time following the news last week that unmarried sisters Joyce Burden, 90, and Sybil Burden, 82, who have lived together all their lives in Marlborough, had failed in their challenge to British law at the European Court of Human Rights.

The sisters argued they had been discriminated against, as couples who were married or in civil partnerships would not have to pay the tax.

Crossbencher Baroness Deech, a former law tutor and principal of St Anne's College, Oxford, said: "Will the Government now consider doing justice to elderly sisters who live together and to children who care for elderly parents in the same house, by allowing through legislation for the inheritance tax to be deferred until the death of the second relative."

Labour's Baroness Hollis of Heigham, a former minister, said elderly siblings and cohabiting couples should be made exempt, but death duties should be rolled over "so they are not necessarily paid until the second death, thus allowing the elderly sister, for example, to remain in that home until death."

Lord Davies of Oldham, for the Government, said the Inland Revenue was "not in the business of dispossessing people of their homes" and ensured that inheritance tax payments were staggered over a period of time.

He told peers: "The line has to be drawn somewhere and at the present time the line is drawn in terms of spouses and civil partnerships.

"Wherever the line is drawn there will be difficulties and there will be costs to the exchequer if the exemption is extended and it should be recognised that only four per cent of estates pay inheritance tax."

8:08am Thursday 8th May 2008

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