Chamber and committees

Can I just clarify a point in that respect? What if, say, one person from a couple goes into a care home for a long period of time? What happens in practice at the moment? In such cases, is any thought given to putting something in writing? If someone has been in a care home for three or four years but the other person is living at home, how do you deal with that in practice so that people do not lose out?

Picking up on that final point, we raised that with the Scottish Law Commission when we took evidence a couple of weeks ago. Its representatives were slightly sceptical of that concept, but it might be worth looking at again.

I will move on to section 67 of the bill. The Faculty of Advocates and others have said that they think that the power in that section to give directions to the court needs to be much wider than the one that currently appears in the bill. Would the other witnesses like to comment on that assessment? I will then ask Laura Dunlop to defend that position at the end.

Excellent—we almost have consensus.

I want to follow up on Mr Lamb’s point about the comparative costs between a sheriff court and the Court of Session. We have taken evidence that there is not much difference between them. Is that your experience, too?

I do not think that that has been raised before, so that is helpful. We can pursue that.

Do others have a view on that issue?

In that case, where would you see the expenses coming from?

We will move on to sections 7 and 12 of the bill. Under section 12, a trustee does not get to participate in trust decisions when they are incapable, while under section 7, trustees can also remove a fellow trustee from their role on the basis that that trustee is incapable. Is the balance about right in that respect? Are you happy that the definitions are up to date enough? If we could do things differently, how would we?

I will move on to the bill’s interaction with charity law. You will be aware that the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Bill is also going through Parliament. Under section 8 of that bill, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator would have an administrative power to appoint on its own initiative interim trustees to a charitable trust. How would that work with the court’s power to appoint trustees under chapter 1 of the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Bill? Is there an interaction?

To follow that up, should there be some explanation in the trusts bill that refers to the charities bill, so that that interaction is understood, or would simply an explanatory note suffice?

If I may, I will pursue that further. Is your concern—had I been convicted in a foreign jurisdiction, for example—that that jurisdiction did not complete trials properly? I am just a wee bit confused. Presumably, if I were convicted in X country, that would be on public record in my country. You do not think that that is enough.