Chamber and committees

I just want to follow this up slightly. In a previous life, I worked with a trust that was trying to buy property from another trust; however, the view of the other trust was that it always had to get best value—the highest price—because it was scared. Would the sort of clause that we have been talking about help in such situations—not only with investments but with selling off heritable property—by making it clear that it was not necessary to get the best price if the money was being passed to another charity? If not, would there be a way around that? I ask the question, because quite a number of trusts keep saying that they have to get best value almost as an excuse not to sell to another trust.

Just to follow that up further—perhaps your colleagues could answer—would having a will be one way to exclude it? Could you write it directly into the will that you want to exclude legal rights, or does that go too far?

Do either of the other witnesses have a view on that change in law?

I am grateful for that response. If you send supplementary information to the committee and could include an idea that you have for a definition, or could point us towards a definition, that would be helpful. If we are looking at amendments and such things in stages, we are probably not the best people to draft definitions.

I want to follow up one of Professor Paisley’s opening remarks in which he said that he felt that succession could go further in the bill. Would you expand on those comments, Professor Paisley, so that we do not miss that point?

For those of us who are less aware of legal rights, which category of individual do you want to remove from them?

I direct my next question initially to Ms Evans. In your response to the committee’s consultation, you said that you did not think that the standard of care that is applicable to supervisors and protectors was clear in the bill. Can you expand slightly on that? Do the other witnesses agree with Ms Evans?

Is there agreement on that point?

To play devil’s advocate for a moment, Professor Paisley, that is a very subjective test. Your morality might not be my morality. You are better at dealing with this than I am, but, in regard to drafting legislation, we need to have some kind of principle and clarity around that. We might or might not want to exclude that individual, but how would we make that decision in law?

I will move us on to chapter 6 of the bill, which makes clear that private purpose trusts are permitted in Scots law and sets out certain requirements as to how those trusts should be run. In policy terms, are the requirements in chapter 6 stringent enough to guard against the possible abuse of those trusts?