Chamber and committees

Right. Are you going to meet Unison and the other unions?

Good morning, everyone. I will ask about sections 25 and 26.

Section 25 requires trustees to tell a beneficiary that they are a beneficiary and to give them all the trustees’ names and correspondence details. That is mandatory for certain types of beneficiary. For potential beneficiaries, trustees have some discretion in what information is provided under section 25.

Section 26 is about what information must be made available to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries, but a trust deed can override that section, although a court can later review the reasonableness of that override.

There is quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing there, to make a point on what I have said. Various respondents to the committee’s call for views have said that the trustees’ duty to provide information to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries under sections 25 and 26 is too onerous—they have to take into account too many elements. Do you have concerns about that? If you do, how would you amend the sections to address them?

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?