Seòmar agus comataidhean

My colleague Lorna Slater will come in. Lorna, do you want to ask your main questions, in addition to any supplementary questions that you may have?

Thank you very much for a very interesting set of comments and points of view. There is a lot for us to go away and think about. Thank you very much for your contributions.

Welcome to our second panel, with whom we will continue our scrutiny of the Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill.

I am pleased to welcome Dr Alisdair MacPherson, senior lecturer in commercial law, Law Society of Scotland; Dr Hamish Patrick, partner and head of financial sector, Shepherd and Wedderburn; Usman Tariq KC, advocate, Faculty of Advocates; and Professor Burcu Yüksel Ripley, personal chair, school of law, University of Aberdeen. I note that Dr Patrick and Professor Yüksel Ripley are also part of the Scottish Parliament’s academic fellowship scheme.

I will open up the questions. I do not know how much of the session with the previous panel you listened to. In essence, we alighted upon the question of whether the bill covers the full scope of what is required in order to capture digital assets and their transactions. Although the bill captures the scope of the law in relation to digital assets, the principal question is whether it fully captures all forms of digital assets. Critically, when we consider the law in Liechtenstein, we see that it much more explicitly defines trusted technology systems and tokens. It seems to be more explicitly oriented towards capturing blockchain, as opposed to the more catch-all approach that this bill seems to take.

Do witnesses have reflections on whether this bill captures the issues accurately? Are there unintended consequences from the bill being tightly drawn, and are there any gaps?

Who wants to offer a view to open up the evidence session?

I do not intend to necessarily bring absolutely everybody in, but would anybody else like to come in?

If no other members want to ask about immutability, I will hand over to Michelle Thomson, the deputy convener.

I have a supplementary question. Dr Patrick, a little while ago, you made what I think was a throwaway comment, but I just need to ask about it. You said that this would be the first time in any jurisdiction that “rivalrousness” would have been defined. Could we have some clarity on that? Is it used elsewhere in law, and, critically, is “immutability”—

Colleagues will delve into some of the details in greater depth but, having looked at the definition in the bill and at your report, two questions occur to me. In essence, the definition in the bill requires the asset to be “rivalrous”. I wonder whether potential issues exist there, in relation to the exclusivity that that might or might not confer, because not all digital assets are rivalrous—although some things might have restricted access, they might not necessarily be exclusive or unique.

Likewise, might we inadvertently capture digital objects even if we do not seek to do so? For example, although some objects might confer exclusive or rivalrous control, they are not non-fungible tokens—which I believe is the terminology used for financial exchange—but only a matter of information technology security passcodes and so on. Does an issue exist with regard to the inadvertent capture of other aspects that we are not seeking to capture in the legislation?

I think so. [Laughter.] I might need to go away and consider that.

Lord Hodge, do you have anything to add?

Good morning, and welcome to the 33rd meeting in 2025 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. We have received apologies from Sarah Boyack, Willie Coffey and Stephen Kerr.

We have two matters to consider in our public deliberations this morning. The first is consideration of subordinate legislation. The instrument, which is subject to the negative procedure, amends the financial thresholds for when Scottish procurement regulations apply to the award of contracts. The Scottish ministers update the thresholds every two years to reflect currency fluctuations.

No motion to annul the instrument has been lodged. I invite the committee to note the instrument. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

We move to the opening session of our stage 1 consideration of the Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill. I am delighted that we have with us Lord Patrick Hodge, deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; and Professor David Fox, professor of common law at the University of Edinburgh. Both were members of the expert reference group on this area that the Scottish Government convened.

Neither witness has asked to make an opening statement, so I will open up the discussion. At the outset, I would like to say that, with the exception of Murdo Fraser, none of the committee members is a lawyer, so please bear with us if the questions that we ask are basic.

Having looked at the bill and read the expert reference group’s report to the Government, I ask both the witnesses whether you are content that the legislation meets the requirements and suggestions that you made in your report. Lord Hodge, I invite you to answer that question first.