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I want to ask about primary legislation. As the minister will be aware, the recent programme for government committed to introducing a bill on judicial factors, which would be based on a Scottish Law Commission report. Given that part of the committee’s remit is to look at certain bills that are based on reports from the SLC, can you give the committee an indication of current thinking on timescales for the bill and whether it meets the criteria for an SLC bill?

Coming back to the points that your officials have made, minister, do you think that this has been a missed opportunity? Some people have been in touch with the committee to say that there could have been a wholesale codification of trust law. Given that we have not had major legislation in this area for a long time and that the bill has come to the Parliament through the SLC process, I imagine that it is unlikely that the Parliament will legislate on trusts on this scale for years. Have we missed the opportunity to do that codification exercise?

Does the Government does not have any strong views beyond what the SLC has stated?

Okay.

I have a question on charitable trusts. Some of the legal stakeholders, including the Law Society, have expressed surprise that chapter 5 of the bill, which concerns how long trusts will last in practice, does not apply to charitable trusts. Having heard the comments on this topic, do you think that there is a case for reconsidering the exclusion of charitable trusts from the scope of chapter 5?

That would be helpful. It feeds into a wider issue—one which will potentially be referenced in other questions—about how people navigate the legislation, bearing in mind that a lot of the individuals who interact with it are not going to be legal professionals. Many people put themselves forward for smaller charitable trusts to try and do something good for society, and having clear advice and guidance for them on how legislation affects them would be useful.

You say that you do not expect an increase in litigation. However, the bill creates a lot of new opportunities for the courts to get involved in trusts, so it is hard to see how there would not be an increase in cases. What is your analysis based on?

I will leave it for now, convener.

So you do not think that the benefits would outweigh the negatives.

I am interested in the point that Michael Paparakis made about there being relatively few cases at the moment. Clearly, the bill envisages a greater role for courts in the administration of trusts. There will be several new opportunities to involve the court in trust matters. Does that give a greater reason to expand the options for people?

On the point about some of the evidence that we have heard about court costs, there is certainly a public perception—including on the part of many people involved with trusts—that the sheriff court could be a more expensive route. If the bill goes ahead, what do you plan to do to publicise information on the likely costs of going to the sheriff court?

Briefly, convener. I had planned to ask about the codification of trust law later, but would you rather that I asked about that now?