Seòmar agus comataidhean

Under item 3, we are considering one instrument, on which no points have been raised.

Is the committee content with the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

In 2020, the Scottish Government was considering referring a specific project on succession law to the SLC, but there is no mention of any project on the substantive rules of succession law in the commission’s “Eleventh Programme of Law Reform”. How do you see the future of succession law reform in Scotland? The committee has heard evidence that there needs to be a great deal of change in that respect.

As there are no further questions, I thank the minister and her officials for their evidence this morning. The committee might follow up by letter with any additional questions stemming from today’s meeting.

That concludes the public part of the meeting.

I mentioned an individual who gave evidence to the committee. In the trust that they were involved in, there were two trustees, but that went down to one. That created a different dynamic in the discussion that we had in that evidence session.

I also note the points that Jeremy Balfour has raised. Those are legitimate issues of concern. We all want to ensure that the legislation is good and robust, that trusts will be managed appropriately and that beneficiaries will have access to required funds. Obviously, bills have to get paid, and if there ends up being only one trustee and they lose capacity, there is a concern about what will happen and who will pay the bills.

Mhairi Maguire of Enable Trustee Service and Madelaine Sproule of the Church of Scotland Trust said that, although they did not work with family trusts, they thought that 25 years could be too long for certain groups of beneficiaries. Could the 25-year period be amended or could a further subsection be added setting out a timescale that was more relevant to different types of beneficiaries?

Under agenda item 2, we will take evidence on the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill from Siobhian Brown, the Minister for Victims and Community Safety. Welcome, minister.

The minister is accompanied by four Scottish Government officials: Michael Paparakis, policy manager, private law unit; and Jamie Bowman, Jane Duncan and John Thomson, legal directorate. I welcome all of you to the committee and remind all attendees not to worry about turning on their microphones during the session, as they are controlled by broadcasting.

I invite?the minister to make some opening remarks.

We move on to sections 25 and 26, which concern the trustees’ duties to provide information. Some concern has been expressed to the committee about the trustees’ duties to provide information to potential beneficiaries under those two sections. Specifically, the concern is that the exact scope of the duties is uncertain but they are potentially too onerous.

We heard from Gillespie Macandrew, which presented different information to the committee from what its written submission said. In the committee, the firm said that the current provisions were better than being too prescriptive. However, the Law Society considered that there were problems with the existing provisions. Alan Barr, on behalf of the Law Society, said quite a number of things about potential beneficiaries.

Having heard the views expressed by stakeholders, do you share any of their concerns about the current drafting? If so, how would the Scottish Government change sections 25 and 26 of the bill to address them?

Okay. Thank you, minister.