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Thank you very much.

I told you that I was playing devil’s advocate. As you know from previous encounters, I always do. You paint the scenario of one solicitor not being enough for Edinburgh Women’s Aid. Is there the opportunity between the 34 organisations that you represent to have a pool of people so that there is choice for women who may not want to go to one particular solicitor for whatever reason?

I am playing devil’s advocate here and I am thinking of a particular case that I was involved in many, many years ago where an individual thought that a solicitor was being thrust upon them. If a solicitor is associated with a particular charity, how do you deal with situations where some women may not want to use that solicitor? How do you get around that? Does that go back to the 50 calls to get a solicitor or what can we do to build up that trust?

It was not at all long-winded. You are right to highlight that what may work in some of the larger cities may not work elsewhere.

I am interested in what you have to say about access to telephone advice. Having experienced cases where some people who I have been dealing with have found it very difficult to access a solicitor at all, having that telephone line as a last resort is probably a good approach. Do you have any examples from anywhere in the country where solicitors have provided telephone services for some of your clients as a last resort?

My question is on a separate matter.

I have two brief points. I want to go back to Ms Horwitz’s comment on shopping around effectively. We have all had experiences of finding it difficult to find a tariff for certain things, but there are also situations where monopolies exist because of specialism. From a consumer point of view, what does that monopoly situation do to folks who seek advice in specialist areas?

I think that that was a missed opportunity. It is grand to ask about the complaints process, but there is often a feeling of distrust in certain organisations as well. It would be interesting to see whether we could access any data on that particular subject. Thank you very much.

I have no relevant interests, convener.

I will give an example that goes back a number of years so that we do not identify anyone. False disposition of land does not happen regularly but, when it does, folks are pushed to certain specialists who, basically, can charge what they like, because they are the specialists. Could those monopoly situations be ironed out to a degree with the proposed legislation?

I would like to follow up on some of the comments that Dr Scott has just made, in particular the statement that people on the ground are following up 40 or 50 solicitors. Obviously there will be some advantage to charities to be able to directly employ legal professionals. Dr Scott, do you think that there may be difficulties from certain quarters if charities are using the same solicitors again and again? How do we get over that in order to build trust between the solicitors who are employed by charities and the women you represent?