I am pleased to open the preliminary stage debate on the Hutchesons’ Hospital Transfer and Dissolution (Scotland) Bill.
I thank my colleagues Stewart Stevenson—the deputy convener—Ruth Maguire and Maurice Corry for their work in getting the bill to this stage. I also thank the clerks and the Scottish Parliament information centre for their guidance and attention to detail throughout the process.
The bill was introduced on 25 June 2018 and is being promoted by the patrons of the Royal Incorporation of Hutchesons’ Hospital in the City of Glasgow. This is the fourth private bill to be introduced in the current session; the previous three all received royal assent. By now, we are all becoming more familiar with this specific, but necessary and important, aspect of the Parliament’s work. That is, in part, thanks to the most recent private bill to be discussed in the chamber—the Pow of Inchaffray Drainage Commission (Scotland) Bill, which gained a fair amount of attention from its observers during its passage.
So far, the work of our private bill committee has been far more straightforward, partly because no objections were lodged to the Hutchesons’ Hospital Transfer and Dissolution (Scotland) Bill. As with all private bills, at the primary stage, the role of the committee has been to consider the purpose of the bill, its general principles and whether it should proceed as a private bill. If Parliament agrees, the bill will move to the consideration stage.
The Royal Incorporation of Hutchesons’ Hospital in the City of Glasgow is a charity and is the legacy of the Hutcheson brothers, George and Thomas. The name Hutcheson remains well known—thanks, in part, to the grammar school of that name in Glasgow.
It all began in December 1639. In his will, George Hutcheson of Lambhill established the Hutchesons’ hospital charity when he left land and funding to build a hospital. In the 1600s, hospitals were places to shelter and support those in need.
Important milestones in the charity’s history appear in 1821, when the charity became the Royal Incorporation of Hutchesons’ Hospital in the City of Glasgow under a royal charter, and in 1872, when it was incorporated in its current form by the Hutchesons’ Hospital Act 1872.
The purposes of the bill that we have in front of us today are to transfer the property, rights, interests and liabilities of the royal incorporation to a successor Scottish charitable incorporated organisation—or SCIO; to dissolve the incorporation; and to repeal the Hutchesons’ Hospital Act 1872.
I feel that, before I move on to the committee’s consideration of the bill, members might benefit from some background to the incorporation. The preamble to the 1872 act provides considerable detail on how the charity developed—15 pages of pre-1872 history in all, most of which members will get from Stewart Stevenson’s speech this afternoon. Several sections cite provisions from George Hutcheson’s will, in the original Scots. We had the benefit of a comprehensive promoter’s memorandum, as one of the accompanying documents to the bill, which set out the history of the charity for us.
As I mentioned, it was George Hutcheson who donated the land in Glasgow and the funds to build a hospital on it. He also provided funds for clothes, food and lodging for, at that time,
“eleven aged and decrepit men”.
The support was for men who had been merchants, craftsmen or tradesmen who had fallen on hard times. George’s brother, Thomas, also made bequests to the charity. He provided funding for educating orphans who were the sons of burgesses of Glasgow and he established the school that became Hutchesons’ grammar school. A burgess was an inhabitant of the city who owned land, paid tax and was able to trade or practice a craft.
The original Hutchesons’ hospital building was completed in 1650 at the Trongate in Glasgow, and it was demolished in 1795. A new hospital building, which included Hutchesons’ school, was completed in 1805 on Ingram Street in Glasgow, and in 1810 the school moved into its own premises and then into a purpose-built building in 1841. The old hospital building can still be seen on Ingram Street today.
Over the years, other bequests were made to the charity and eligibility was expanded. For example, from 1781 poor women also qualified if they were residents of Glasgow and if their husbands or fathers were burgesses. Since 1885 the incorporation’s distributions for educational purposes have been paid to, and administered separately by, the governors of Hutchesons’ Educational Trust. The 1872 act still regulates the management of the charity and its revenues today, which brings us back to the objectives and purposes of the bill.
The bill’s promoter, the patrons—or trustees—of the charity, have decided that change is needed to allow more modern governance of the incorporation’s assets and to enable the charity to function more efficiently and effectively. They believe that a private bill is the best route to achieving that.
We heard from the promoter at our committee meeting on 7 November 2018, when we asked what the 1872 act prevented the charity from doing today. Mr Donald Reid of Mitchells Roberton, the firm of solicitors that supports the charity in its role as “chamberlains” to Hutchesons’ hospital, explained:
“Our hands are not tied behind our backs at the moment; it is just that moving is like being in a spacesuit rather than in athletic gear. However, what needs to be done gets done.”—[Official Report, Hutchesons’ Hospital Transfer and Dissolution (Scotland) Bill Committee, 7 November 2018; c 5.]
The patrons have already set up the new SCIO, ready for the transfer. The SCIO is a modern, flexible form of organisation for charities that is provided for by the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
The committee considered the purpose of the bill and the arguments presented in favour of enabling an updated governance structure and more modern financial management of the charity. We also considered the potential impact of the changes on the nature of the charity, its work and its beneficiaries, and whether a private bill was necessary to achieve the charity’s aims.
Our report sets out our considerations, and my committee colleagues will provide some more detail on them later in the debate. The committee supports the general principles of the bill. Overall, we believe that it will help to ensure that the charity can modernise, streamline, improve its governance, remain effective and continue to provide support to its beneficiaries.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Hutchesons’ Hospital Transfer and Dissolution (Scotland) Bill and that the bill should proceed as a private bill.
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