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Thank you. Sorry for throwing that at you, Laura.

Thank you.

That makes sense.

I note that a trust deed can, in fact, override section 26, but a court can then later review the reasonableness of that override. I suppose that it would tend to look into whether people are behaving unreasonably towards the beneficiary.

That makes sense. I think that that answer covered just about everything.

Section 49(3)(a) is about domicile. Professor Paisley from the University of Aberdeen has a few issues with it and told us that it would be harder to get information about who controls land and property if the trust were later to be treated as being resident overseas.

In its written submission to the committee, the Law Society of Scotland did not comment on the policy that underpins section 49. However, it did say that it thinks that the drafting of the domicile subsection is unclear in terms of its scope. The Law Society also said that the scope of the separate power of the protector to “determine” the trust’s “administrative centre” is unclear.

Do you agree with the academics’ interpretation of section 49 and do you have views on whether protectors should have the power to look at overseas domicile for trusts in order to challenge issues?

Following on the back of that, I will ask about the position on section 61—the alteration of trust purposes—when it comes to family trusts. Section 61 gives a power to the beneficiaries and others to apply to the court to alter the trust purposes of a family trust, and sets out the default position that the power cannot be used for 25 years.

You might have heard the previous panel speak somewhat about that. Given that the views on the 25-year restriction have been mixed, as I said, and that it is a default power only, are you satisfied that retaining the 25-year restriction in the bill is the right policy decision?

That is an interesting angle as well.

There is a differentiation in view, obviously.

Ah! I beg your pardon. I misread that—and I have already had the response from the Law Society.

What do you think, Laura?

Thank you very much for that. Ken Swinton, do you want to say anything?

That is perfectly understandable.