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Item 3 is oral evidence on the Succession (Scotland) Bill. We will hear first from the Law Society of Scotland, and then from the Faculty of Advocates and from a panel of legal practitioners. It is my great pleasure to welcome John Kerrigan, representing the Law Society of Scotland.
Good morning.
Thank you for coming along and agreeing to be grilled. We have the interesting problem of trying, as laymen, to understand all the issues in the bill. We also have extensive notes and we need to work out which questions to ask of which panel, so if there is a degree of confusion, even in my hands at the very start, that may be something that we will need to sort out. I am therefore going to skip questions 1 and 2 and go straight to John Mason with what is listed as question 3.
I was not quite expecting that, convener, but that is fine.
As I understand it, it is possible that there could be two new pieces of legislation on succession. Furthermore, the provisions of the Succession (Scotland) Bill could also be amended by secondary legislation. Considering the impact on practitioners, I wonder whether you were reassured by the Government’s response to questions last week and by the officials’ explanation that it would use the amending power only for fine tuning, which would be well publicised in advance, so that it would not need to go back to primary legislation. Were you satisfied with that explanation?
Yes.
Thank you.
In oral evidence to the committee last week, the Government and the Scottish Law Commission defended the inclusion of guardianship within the scope of section 1 on various grounds. Does the Law Society want to comment on any aspect of that defence? For example, does the explanation that parental rights and responsibilities will cover most situations adequately take account of the increasing role of step-parents?
My answer to that question is yes. Our concern was about a situation in which, for example, a couple become divorced but neither person would object to the other, in the event of their death, being the guardian of a child involved in that relationship. I understand the Government’s position, in that section 1 says that the will can provide otherwise. There may be a question as to whether the legal profession gets up to speed on that quickly, but I take the point that if a guardianship provision were revoked by divorce, the surviving party could seek parental rights. There is a question of the time involved in that.
Another aspect of the Scottish Government’s defence of the current scope of section 1 related to the possibility of a person subsequently applying to court to be appointed guardian. Can you shed any light on the likely timescales and costs associated with doing that? We would not want the costs to prevent such an application where there was hardship involved.
The likely timescale depends on whether the application is defended. I had notice of this point and I spoke to one of the senior solicitors in our family law department. She indicated a timescale of three to four months for undefended applications. If it were a defended application, it could take a year and a half or longer. In any court action, costs depend on how long the action runs. There could be significant costs if it were defended.
Quite.
Could I be uncomfortably blunt—what is a significant cost in that context?
It depends on the client for whom one is acting. If the client cannot get legal aid and the bill comes to £6,000, as it could quite easily if it were a defended action, I would regard that as a significant cost.
Indeed—so would I.
Do you regard the situation as satisfactory, or is there something else that we should be doing?
The only way it could be changed would be to change section 1 to say that it would not apply to an appointment of the surviving spouse or civil partner as guardian.
Right.
Otherwise, the situation is as you have outlined.
It would need to be written either into law or into the will, I suppose.
In fairness, section 1 says that it is possible to contract out of its terms.
Thank you.
The Government’s bill and TrustBar appear to have a slight divergence over domicile in relation to section 1, which is on divorce, dissolution and annulment. The Government’s position is that it is the domicile at the point of death that applies, whereas TrustBar seems to be suggesting that it is the domicile at the point of the ending of the relationship in legal terms. What are the pros and cons of each?
I can understand TrustBar’s attitude. What would be the situation where a couple are domiciled in Scotland and become divorced in Scotland, and then one of them moves permanently to France and becomes domiciled in France and dies there? Arguably, section 1 would not apply if it is domicile at date of death that matters.
But if a person is domiciled, for the sake of argument, in France at the point of death, would it not be French civil law that would cover the estate that is derived,—
Yes—
—leaving aside issues around heritable property.
Yes, it would be the law of the place of domicile that would apply to moveable property. That at least is the Scots law interpretation of private international law.
Indeed. Therefore what the Government is proposing at least has the merit of synchronising the law that would apply at a single point in time. That might be said to be the advantage of the Government’s proposal.
I understand the Government’s argument. This is a law dealing with succession and succession arises from death. I can see the point of the Government’s argument, but I can also see the point of the TrustBar argument.
That is a very “on the one hand, on the other hand” answer, which I understand. Would you choose, please?
Would I choose? Frankly, I would choose domicile at the time of divorce.
If that were to be the case, what second-level effects might derive from it that would add or subtract complication?
10:15
I take your point entirely that, if somebody who had heritable property in Scotland went to France, the law that would govern the succession to their estate would be French law. However, the argument could be that the heritable property in Scotland could still pass by the will which, if the revocation takes place at death rather than at the time of divorce and the original Scotsman was then domiciled in France, would be unrevoked because he was not domiciled in Scotland at the time of death.
As a layperson, I want to be absolutely clear about what you are saying. Would that be the effect if we were to apply the domicile at divorce rather than the domicile at death?
No, it would be the effect if you were to apply the domicile at death.
So it is the more complicating one.
In my view, yes.
You appear before us on behalf of the Law Society. Are you speaking on behalf of the society, rather than in a personal capacity, when you say that?
It is a personal view, to be frank.
Thank you. That is helpful.
My question is on the society’s suggestion, which has also been made by TrustBar, that the scope of sections 3 and 4, on the rectification of wills, should be broadened to include wills drafted by the testator, such as handwritten wills or wills that are created using templates that are found online. Why does the society prefer that approach? Is there a danger that the broader the provisions are, the higher the risk will be that every disappointed beneficiary will seek to use the powers?
I understand that the Scottish Law Commission’s view was that the provisions should not apply to home-made wills. Its view was based not on that risk assessment but on the fact that, if someone makes their own will, the question arises what evidence we have or can have that it is not the will that they intended to draft and that they got it wrong.
If they have made a will online using a template, is the capacity for errors much greater?
Yes.
Does that not impact on the provisions in sections 3 and 4 on assessing what is a simple error? Does it not become difficult at that point?
It is a question of evidence. If we can rectify a will that a solicitor drafted because there was an error in the drafting, evidence would need to be produced that that was the case. I see no difference. It is an evidential point.
That is a fair point. Thank you.
Is it the process of review—a third party looking at the will and working with the person who is drawing up the will, regardless of whether they are doing it on their own account or with professional advice—that touches on the matter, or is it the fact that the third party is legally qualified and, therefore, might be expected to get the legal aspects of the will correct as distinct from the intention? Is that where the distinction lies?
I think that that is where the distinction lies. There was a recent case in England—Marley v Rawlings—in which Lord Justice Neuberger introduced a caveat into the application of the English version of the rule. He said that, if the lawyer gets a legal term wrong, that is not a simple mistake that can be rectified. In a subsequent case, the lawyer had used the word “issue”. The evidence was that the deceased testator wanted to include stepchildren in the bequest, but the way in which the lawyer had drafted it using the word “issue” meant that they were not included. However, they were not given relief in that case.
The point is that, if someone who is legally qualified and in good standing with the profession has put into the will a term that has legal force in other contexts, a much higher certainty about intention will be placed on that than if I disappeared into a cupboard and wrote something down in half an hour.
Yes, that would appear to be a caveat that Lord Neuberger introduced in relation to Marley v Rawlings.
Would it apply equally in Scotland?
Yes. To return to the previous point, it is fair to say that there would likely be more cases of people turning up and saying, “That’s not what my uncle intended.” Lawyers practising in this field often have people turning up saying, “We want to challenge this will, because it’s not what he intended.” At present, the law has a degree of certainty in the sense that the courts interpret what is on paper.
Why were you so certain that an English case would apply in Scotland?
I gave that case as an example, but in Marley v Rawlings reference was made to the Scottish case of Hudson v St John in 1977. That case was inconclusive, I believe, but nevertheless reference was made to a Scottish case.
That is helpful. Thank you.
I want to ask about the time limit for rectification. Some of our evidence suggested that people were concerned that the date of confirmation might take a long time to come, and that it might be better to have a time limit that ran from the date of death. Different times were suggested. Could you give us a view on that?
In some cases, it can take several years to obtain confirmation. I think that, if someone has difficulty with a will and wants to see it rectified, they should not be allowed to wait until six years has passed. I know that that is an extreme case, but I agree with some of the concerns that have been expressed about time limits.
It may be a purely personal view, but can you suggest a sensible time limit? Later witnesses will probably have a view, but I would like to know what yours is.
My personal view is that it should be one year from the date of death.
One of the other things that came up in evidence last week was the Scottish Government’s confirmation that revocation does not include a reduction of a will in court. Does the Law Society have any concerns about that?
Our concerns related to a drafting tweak, if I may call it that, in section 5. Section 5(1)(b) applies where
“the subsequent will, or part of it, is revoked.”
We felt that it was necessary to add three words so that it read, “is revoked by the testator”. A will can be revoked, as you have indicated, by a court, but it can also be revoked by the application of an old legal presumption called the conditio si testator, which I think is still out for consultation in the second consultation document.
I am grateful for that suggested tweak.
I want to ask about sections 9 and 10 and the time of death. In written evidence, the Law Society and TrustBar take issue with section 10(4), which prevents section 10 from applying when the testator is one of the people who die simultaneously or in an uncertain order. Can you describe the nature of your concerns in that regard, perhaps with the help of an example that could occur in practice?
If section 10(4) were to apply, there could be a situation in which intestacy arises. Scottish courts and Scottish lawyers have always sought to interpret a document so as to avoid intestacy, and we think that section 10(4) could have that result in certain cases. We are not sure that section 10(4) really adds anything to sections 9 and 10.
Would you agree with TrustBar’s point that when the bill refers to situations where people
“die simultaneously or where the order of death is uncertain”,
the use of the word “uncertain” is likely to lead not just to uncertainty but to unnecessary litigation?
I understand TrustBar’s point, yes. I think that it cited a case in which the word “uncertain” appeared to lead to litigation.
Right. Thank you.
I am going to go all vice-presidential here. Is it not certain that in some circumstances there is uncertainty, whereas in other circumstances you are uncertain as to whether you should be uncertain? In other words, there are sets of circumstances in which it is clear that you cannot resolve the answer to the substantive question. The fact of the uncertainty is itself clear, whereas in other circumstances, that might not be so clear.
Let me give you an example to illustrate the point. There is a shipwreck and two people are adrift in a boat for three or four weeks. There may be some evidence that one of them has written something that suggests that they survived the other. In that case, you are uncertain as to whether there is uncertainty, whereas if there is no evidence, you are clear that there is uncertainty.
Is it fair to say that there is a distinction to be made, so that you can have an argument about whether, in law, there is uncertainty—which means that the rules about uncertainty should apply—or there can be a debate about whether uncertainty should apply?
I think that in the example that you gave, if you find both people dead in the boat with no writing—
You know uncertainty exists.
You know uncertainty exists. If you find writing in the boat, there may still be uncertainty about who wrote it.
Yes, but the uncertainty is now a practical uncertainty rather than a legal uncertainty. That is the point that I am trying to establish. All I am saying is that the use of the word “uncertain” does not necessarily create legal difficulties, because you can define the circumstances in which you are certain that there is uncertainty in law.
I think that I would say yes to that.
That is grand.
We will move on to the law of forfeiture, which takes us back to Stewart Stevenson.
This is about being dead and undead simultaneously, which is exactly the same kind of thing. Essentially, the Scottish Law Commission has changed its position on the law of forfeiture. In 1990, the commission thought that the law should be placed in statute, and now it thinks that it is sufficient to simply abolish the Parricide Act 1594 and rely on common law. Are you content that that is sufficient?
The Parricide Act 1594 has had its day, to be frank. First, it applies only to the killing of a grandparent or a parent, so it is not like the common law—mainly English common law—of escheat and attainder, where someone is not supposed to benefit from their evil act. That could mean killing somebody else—not a grandparent or a parent—who had left you something.
There has been considerable doubt in Scotland as to whether the 1594 act applies only to heritage. It also has an unfair aspect to it because—if we apply the old Norman concept of attainder—if I killed my father, I would be deemed under the act to have predeceased him. Any benefit that he had left in his will to John Kerrigan, whom failing, to his issue, would be attainted and my issue would not be entitled to succeed, even though they were wholly innocent. That has to go. The proposals on forfeiture in the bill are good.
10:30
In essence, giving the courts total discretion makes more sense, because they can cover particular eventualities that have not yet been foreseen.
Yes.
One situation that comes to mind in the current environment is that of someone who assists a person to travel to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to die as a result of that person’s choice and who is subsequently determined to have acted illegally. It seems reasonable that they should not necessarily be disbarred from total inheritance.
That would be my personal view.
Does the view change over time? You have gone back to 1594, but if we go back to the Old Testament, the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons and on the next generation, which was the accepted practice then.
Do views on the matter change? As Stewart Stevenson said, the Law Commission had one view in 1990 but it has a different view today.
Everyone is entitled to change their view. To be frank, I am glad that we do not apply the lex talionis as required by the Old Testament: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
I am making the point that the view seems to vary.
Again I am expressing a personal view, but I think that the Scottish Law Commission said clearly that the Parricide Act 1594 should go and that the courts should be given discretion to give 100 per cent relief from the effect of the Forfeiture Act 1982. The commission also said clearly that, when someone is guilty of murder or culpable homicide—that is manslaughter in England—and they are not given relief, they should be treated as if they had predeceased the person who was murdered or died. That is entirely correct.
One example is the case of the petitioner Hunter, who was a husband who murdered his wife. Her will provided in his favour, whom failing other beneficiaries. The court’s view—it disagreed with the view that the Scottish Law Commission expressed in 1990—was that the husband could not be treated as having predeceased his wife. That meant that the beneficiaries, who were totally innocent and would have taken the inheritance had that rule applied, as is proposed in the bill, were excluded completely.
An example to the opposite effect in England is the case of Dr Crippen. He was convicted of murdering his wife and condemned to hang. He had inherited his wife’s estate and, just before he was hanged, he made a will to leave his estate to his mistress. Dr Crippen’s relatives successfully challenged that will on the basis of the old medieval rules of escheat and attainder. In contrast, in the case of the petitioner Hunter, the family members, who were innocent, were excluded from succession.
We will move on to protection of trustees.
Section 18 of the bill refers to
“protection for trustees and executors in certain circumstances”,
and introduces the idea of making
“such enquiries as any reasonable and prudent trustee would have made in the circumstances of the case”.
It has been suggested that that might mean a requirement to advertise if there is uncertainty as to who the beneficiaries might be. Is that the case? If it is, will that have an impact on the efficient and timely administration of estates?
I do not think that it is the case. The Scottish Law Commission did not think that that was the case in 1990. If it became a requirement to advertise, that would interfere with the timely administration of estates.
Is section 18 a change from the present practice?
Yes.
You see it as a change.
Yes.
Is there more encouragement to advertise?
No. Solicitors would advertise for a will, for example, if a client came to them and said, “My uncle has died and I know he made a will because he told me and showed me a copy of it, but we haven’t been able to find it and we don’t know who holds it.” In those circumstances, a solicitor would advertise for somebody holding a will for—say—the late John Kerrigan of such and such an address. I do not recall seeing an advert that said, for example, “We hold a will granted by the late John Kerrigan.”
If a will was quite vague and referred just to children and stepchildren or something like that—if there was a vague suggestion that beneficiaries were out there—would an advertisement be placed?
Yes, although that would be a one-off situation. Most solicitors would deal with that by instructing genealogists.
So you do not see any particular problem of section 18 delaying things.
I would not like it to become standard practice for a solicitor to have to advertise that they held a will by a particular deceased, because they would have to await responses to that advert.
That is agreed. I just wonder how the courts might interpret section 18. I take your point that you would not want advertising to become standard practice, but might some of your fellow professionals take an extra-defensive position by advertising?
They might—every solicitor will follow their gut instinct in a particular case. If you are suggesting that it might be negligent of an executor not to advertise, there could be limited cases where an executor was advised to advertise, but that would not apply across the board.
The last questions relate to whether the recommendations have been adequately implemented. In 2009, the SLC made several recommendations relating to private international law. Recommendation 50 was that the Scottish courts should have jurisdiction when the deceased died domiciled in Scotland and when he or she owned land and buildings in Scotland. Recommendation 45 was that the capacity to make or revoke a will should be determined by the law of the testator’s domicile at the time of making or revoking the will. Recommendation 50 is only partially implemented by the bill and recommendation 45 is still being consulted on.
Is it desirable that reforms to a complex subject such as private international law should be split over two pieces of legislation? How do you see the balance of all this?
It is clear that there will be two pieces of legislation. If those matters are dealt with in the second consultation, which was published in June, or as a result of further deliberations, there will be two, separate succession acts for Scotland.
It is clear that that is not as good as having one bill.
No.
Does that put you in any particular difficulty in practice, if we bear it in mind that most of Scots law is pretty dispersed?
My personal preference would be to have a consolidating act, which would incorporate the provisions of both acts into one, so that there was one source.
If we did that, would we include other extant materials or would it just be a matter of running the two acts together? How much statute law on succession is there that would need to be included in a consolidating bill along with the two bills that we are discussing?
The Succession (Scotland) Act 1964 would in large measure be replaced by the second bill, which will deal with the more controversial aspects of succession. The 1964 act mostly deals with intestate succession, and the second consultation paper is largely concerned with protection from disinheritance and intestate succession. The 1964 act is likely to be largely replaced by whatever second bill is promulgated by the Scottish Government.
That suggests that, if there were to be a consolidating bill, it should be—to invent a term—a complete consolidation, so that we would get absolutely everything into one statute.
That would be preferable.
That is all for the moment. Thank you very much, Mr Kerrigan.
I will briefly suspend the meeting while the witnesses change over.
10:39 Meeting suspended.
I welcome our witnesses from the Faculty of Advocates: Laura Dunlop QC and Wojciech Jajdelski—I think that I have pronounced that right. Thank you very much for coming along. I will open the questions; I think that you have seen the format before.
The Faculty of Advocates provided a written submission, for which we are very grateful, that indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the bill as currently drafted. On the other hand, TrustBar, a group of advocates practising in the area of disputes relating to succession and inheritance, made a number of detailed points relating to the bill’s policy content and drafting. Does the Faculty of Advocates want to comment on any aspect of what TrustBar said?
I am happy to comment on specific aspects of TrustBar’s response if they arise in further questioning. At this stage, as a general comment, I should explain that I am the convener of the faculty’s law reform committee and I co-ordinate which consultations we respond to and which ones we do not respond to. With the assistance of the other members of the law reform committee, I select a committee to prepare a consultation response.
The practising membership of the faculty is over 450. In recent years a number of special interest groups have been established in the faculty. In this case, the group’s raison d’être is to look at matters of trust and succession. People who are interested and have expertise in those areas tend to form the membership of such groups. They take an independent look at a reform proposal such as the proposal in the bill.
The faculty’s position is that when we prepare a response on behalf of the whole faculty we try to have that exercise carried out by members with experience in the relevant area of law. Sometimes that is easier than other times. In this instance we responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation—I think it was last autumn—which covers most of the material that is in the current bill. The committee that prepared that response, which was a group of five people, had expertise in the area.
Once we have done something like that we try to be consistent in what we say about proposals. I suppose that that is reflected in the evidence that we submitted. It is obviously entirely a matter for TrustBar if it wants to come along and raise different points.
If the faculty takes a position on an issue that we would regard as legal policy and the Government decides not to go with the faculty’s view, we would probably regard that as a spent argument and we would move on, whereas TrustBar, for example, might want to make such a policy point again; it might want to try before this committee to make a policy point that appears to have been rejected by the Government.
Thank you very much. That is a helpful clarification of how the process works.
One issue that we touched on with the previous witness was the fact that we have two bills on succession. One, theoretically, deals with less controversial measures and the other one, which will come later, will deal with more substantive things. Are you comfortable with that situation? Is it just the way it is, or is it not ideal?
10:45
To a degree we are in uncharted waters. Yesterday I tried to think of other areas of Scots law in which this kind of law reform has taken place—where there was a small act first and a bigger act coming. It is quite difficult to think of a direct parallel. I can think of areas of law reform in which one major measure has gone forward and a smaller act has come afterward that tidied up some practical questions, but it is difficult to think of a time when that has occurred the other way around.
On the other hand, I understand the thinking behind trying to extract the uncontroversial parts of the succession proposals and put them in a short, technical bill. I understand what I think is the reason for that. I accept that it has generated rather a mixed bag of proposals that have in common only the perception that they are less controversial.
Would it have been better to have put those proposals into the main consultation paper? As you probably know, the main consultation paper already has 71 questions, so it is very large and it is taking a lot of work. By choosing this kind of linear progression, we are giving up the idea of parallel working. The short bill is going forward at the same time as people are making up their minds on the longer consultation paper.
I am a former law commissioner, so I am aware of all the reasons why the procedure under which the committee is considering the bill was introduced in the first place. It is a good idea. It may be that the first bill that this committee considered under the process—the Legal Writings (Counterparts and Delivery) (Scotland) Act 2015—will turn out to have been a more suitable measure for the use of the process because it was a discrete piece of reform, whereas this bill is not. The committee will obviously form its own view of that issue at the end of the process. It is very difficult to say that the way that the legislation is being considered is clearly wrong.
Thank you for those helpful comments.
I would link to that issue section 25 of the bill, on ancillary provision, which gives the Scottish ministers quite wide powers to amend by regulation. It has been suggested that, in this case, primary legislation should be used again should there be any amendments. Does the Faculty of Advocates have a view on that?
The faculty as a whole has not taken a position on that issue and would rest with the assurances given that section 25 would not be used to effect substantive change.
That takes us to Stewart Stevenson’s question.
I return to the issue of domicile. In our previous evidence session we heard the arguments on both sides for whether the domicile at the point of the ending of the relationship in law or the domicile at the point of decease should carry greater weight. The bill goes for the latter. How does the Faculty of Advocates see the balance of argument on that issue? Does it think that the Government has come up with a better answer?
To reiterate the point that I made already about an attempt to be consistent, we certainly did not flag that up as a concern when we responded last year, but, in view of the fact that it obviously is of concern to others, we have revisited it to a degree.
The first point is that it is a default rule for people whose relationship has ended without their taking any action to change a will that makes provision for their ex, to put it colloquially. The solution that is in the bill of using the law of the domicile at the date of death means that at death there is a deemed predecease, so that the divorced partner is treated as already having died.
In preparation for today, I tried to think of circumstances in which that approach could produce an undesirable outcome. As far as I can calculate, the possibility of an undesirable outcome is very small. We would be talking, for example, about somebody who divorced in country X, checked that under the law of country X the provision in favour of their former spouse or partner would survive and on that basis did not make any new testamentary provision. If that person then moved to Scotland and became domiciled here, our different law—the fact that we had chosen to use the law of the testator’s domicile at decease—would effect a change that they did not want.
I find that quite an implausible example. Somebody who has checked what the law is in country X is quite likely to be attentive enough when they move to Scotland to make a different testamentary provision here to protect their former partner. The class of person who wants to benefit their former partner notwithstanding a divorce or termination of a civil partnership is, I suspect, pretty small.
Can I challenge that slightly, if I may?
Yes.
You appear to be invoking the law of assumption. Is it not the case that only a minority of people write wills in any event, and that most people’s disposal of their assets at death is therefore based on people having a broad assumption that the right people will get the inheritance rather than their doing what you have described, which involves taking a systematic and rational approach to such matters?
It is a question that is bedevilled by a lot of assumptions. There is a major assumption underlying the whole issue, which is that the majority of people would not want their ex-spouse or ex-partner to continue to benefit by means of a testamentary provision that they have forgotten about or not done anything about. If that is the general assumption, the bill is taking quite a sound route.
The downside that I thought I could see is that, if the bill made it a question dependent on the law of the domicile at the time of the divorce or the ending of a civil partnership, we would introduce into the administration of the executry a question of what we still call “foreign law”. It would stimulate a factual inquiry as to what the testator’s domicile had been at the time of the divorce or the ending of the civil partnership, which would be the first question. The second question would be what the law of that place is regarding the effect of divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership on testamentary provision. The downside that I see of going with that alternative is that the bill would generate a degree of uncertainty.
So the executors would have to establish what may have happened—I use the word “may” deliberately—in another legal jurisdiction. Not all legal jurisdictions are as accessible as others, and some will be difficult to deal with.
Yes, that is possible, and there will have been a passage of time.
The provision in the bill basically plays to the common assumption that people will have that they have cut all ties with the person with whom they had previously had the relationship. Anyone who thinks that it should be otherwise has a way of making a testament that takes account of that, which the bill would not discount.
Yes, I agree with that. The debate—it is not an argument as such—is between whether we fix it according to the law of the place where the person was domiciled when the relationship ended, or whether we just settle on the time of death, so that if the person is domiciled here we treat the former partner as if they have predeceased the person.
The bottom line is that, when somebody dies in Scotland, the law of Scotland cannot be removed from working through the consequences of their death in testamentary terms. To have some of that process happening somewhere else merely complicates matters.
One could suggest that that is a greater complication, yes.
Right—thank you.
Thank you—that takes us to Richard Baker’s questions on rectification.
Earlier, I asked John Kerrigan about the Law Society’s suggestion that the scope of sections 3 and 4 of the bill, on rectification of wills, should be broadened to include wills that have been drafted by the testators themselves, such as handwritten wills or wills created using templates found online. TrustBar made that suggestion as well. I would like your opinion on that proposal.
I have looked into the matter. First, the Faculty of Advocates, in our response a year ago, supported that narrow provision—if I can style it as such—and I would seek to be consistent in that respect.
In 1990, as Mr Kerrigan suggested, the Scottish Law Commission articulated concern about the fact that people may have made statements to relatives but not been totally frank or may have changed their mind. The time at which they make their testamentary provision is the time at which the intention matters.
The Scottish Law Commission was persuaded to restrict its recommendation to the narrow type of measure because of the difficulties of comparing what is in the will with what is supposedly other evidence about a different intention.
There is an interesting interplay in any such law between rectification and interpretation. It is sometimes said that, if there is a wide door for rectification, there is only a narrow door for interpretation. There being a narrow door for rectification, it may be that the courts would take a more generous approach to interpretation.
I accept that this is speculation, but, if somebody has made a mess of a will that they have made themselves, the courts might be prepared to be more generous in interpretation if it was reasonably clear what the testator was trying to do.
I do not want to advance a position any different from the Law Commission’s recommendation that the provision on rectification should be confined to quite a narrow scenario. I note that it appears to be the position that a fairly narrow rectification provision operates in England as well.
So, like the Law Society, you do not see the danger that the broader the provisions are, the higher the risk that every disappointed beneficiary would seek to use the powers.
It is speculation, but I would agree that it is a danger. It is very hard to limit the use that would be made of a wide provision, and the Faculty of Advocates, in its response last year, also made the point that it would be difficult to be selective about the intentions being reflected.
For example, if the testator’s intentions had been to be highly tax efficient and it turned out that the will that had been made was not as tax efficient as it might be, would that be a good enough reason to open up the will? On that basis, the Faculty of Advocates supported the more narrow form of provision that we now have.
Thank you. That takes us to John Scott’s questions.
I want to turn now to sections 9 and 10 about the time of death. In their written evidence, the Law Society and TrustBar take issue with section 10(4), which prevents section 10 from applying when the testator is one of the people who die simultaneously or in an uncertain order. Is there any comment you wish to make?
I notice that the Law Society response said that it was slightly difficult to discern the thinking behind section 10(4) and I agree with that. What I am going to say about what may be the intention is speculation.
I wonder whether the inclusion of section 10(4) is just to reflect the policy that underlies section 9. I tried to think of an example, and I came up with this one. Let us suppose that I make a testamentary disposal of my jewellery, such as it is, and say that I am leaving it to my two cousins. If I die, and my cousins later die simultaneously, according to the first limb of section 10 the jewellery would be split between their estates. If we all perish in whatever the calamity is, the jewellery does not go anywhere near my cousins and their heirs, family or testamentary provision—they are effectively disregarded. That did not strike me as a bad result.
I see.
I emphasise that that is my speculation as to what the thinking may be. I am not convinced that I am right.
In various places, sections 9 to 11 refer to people dying
“simultaneously or in circumstances in which the order of death is uncertain”.
TrustBar makes the point that the word “uncertain” is likely to lead to unnecessary litigation. Do you share that view?
11:00
I had a look at the case to which TrustBar refers—I think that it is the Lamb case. The first-instance judge in that case found it difficult, but my view, on looking at the appeal decision, is that Lord Wheatley sorted it out. He said—as was alluded to earlier when Mr Kerrigan gave evidence—that, in round 1, we decide whether there is evidence to show on the balance of probabilities who died first. If there is not, we move to whatever the statutory rules are for the situation in which it is uncertain. The use of the word is not in itself problematic.
I see.
That takes us on to questions from Mr Stevenson on forfeiture.
It is interesting that the legislation.gov.uk website says that the Parricide Act 1594 has no legal effect. Therefore, its repeal will presumably not cause any concern. The section of the bill that deals with the matter—section 17—describes what should happen and leaves quite a lot of common law in place. Is that a reasonable outcome? Basically, the courts will be able to consider the individual cases—which will be very few in number, after all—and come to conclusions on the facts of a case. Is that the right place to be?
I looked up the Parricide Act 1594 yesterday in Westlaw, a legal research resource that almost all of us use. According to that website, the act is in force and has been since 8 June 1594. One thing about it that is particularly striking is that legislation clearly used to include some adjectives of outrage, which is a practice that has fallen into desuetude—perhaps fortunately.
I do not see a difficulty with the line that is being taken. If you repeal the Parricide Act 1594, you leave the position that the circumstances in which forfeiture will ensue are left to be dealt with by the common law. That is consistent and allows the courts to develop the law case by case. It is not a big area of law.
Perhaps, in a perfect world, if you were trying to produce a complete statutory code for succession, you would include in it a chapter dealing with such situations, but my sense of the succession law reform is that there has to be at least a degree of triage so that, if something causes not much practical difficulty, arises quite rarely and can be left to be dealt with by the common law, it does not need to form part of the legislative reform. In itself, articulating principles on the number of issues that would need to be considered would be quite time consuming and might be disproportionate to the benefit.
In this case, we are using the legal mechanism of saying that the person who committed the crime that led to the death is deemed to have died before the person who physically died. Under the law of domicile, in relation to relationships that have legally ended, we also use the mechanism of deciding that the partner who is no longer a partner legally died before the person. However, in one case, we are legislating and, in the other, we are leaving it to common law. Why the difference?
I suppose that it is because the range of factual circumstances in which one person may have some kind of connection to the death of another is potentially very broad.
Okay. That is fine.
I cannot help but reflect that that is an interesting basis on which to legislate. If I took that idea to the absolute limit, we would be saying that all the standard cases are the ones that we should legislate for, and that anything that is difficult should be left to the common law on the grounds that it is far better to let the courts sort out the detail than for us to worry about it.
Only if the case is heard by Lord Wheatley.
With respect, that is not fair.
The broader point is that it is not consistent, but I believe that it was Churchill who said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
Let us move swiftly on to the last question that I asked Mr Kerrigan. I hope that you are familiar enough with it to go through all the words. You will perhaps be aware that recommendation 50 from the Scottish Law Commission’s 2009 report has not been completely implemented and that recommendation 45 is still being consulted on, and that the net result is that we will have a complicated subject of private international law across at least two pieces of legislation, some of it incomplete. Do you have any comment on how that should be addressed?
The only comment that I can offer is that, again, there is a choice. Do you include specific PIL provision within individual sections dealing with a certain scenario, do you add at the end a subsection saying what the PIL position is to be, or do you have a chunk of your legislation that deals with private international law in a oner, as it were? There are advantages and disadvantages of each approach. I can understand why some provision for private international law is being made along the way in individual subject matter-specific sections.
Would you agree with Mr Kerrigan’s position that, once Parliament gets round to consolidating the two statutes that we are currently working on, that should be a complete consolidation of previous statutes, to the point where—at least in theory—we have everything in one document?
I do agree with that, with perhaps the small caveat that there is a painting-the-Forth-bridge dimension to the law. One can never be totally satisfied that one has everything, and there are likely still to be measures in other statutes that bear on succession. However, I can see the need for a consolidating act at the end of the process.
If colleagues have no more comments, we shall conclude this part of the meeting. I thank the witnesses for their helpful evidence.
11:07 Meeting suspended.
It is my pleasure to welcome Eilidh Scobbie, private client partner at Burnett & Reid LLP, and Alan Barr, partner at Brodies LLP.
From a practitioner’s perspective, what are your key areas of concern about the bill? Has anything been left out that you think should be in it?
Obvious things have been left out, or at least deferred, notably bonds of caution, which were in the original consultation on this potential legislation and in relation to which a fair amount of possible reform is part of the subject of the second consultation. Other aspects of private international law could also have been in the bill, as was discussed in your previous evidence session.
As has been implied, we are left with a relatively random selection of relatively small points. I endorse what was said earlier about very much wanting some form of consolidation of the two new pieces of legislation that are likely to be passed in successive years. I find it very strange that, particularly after two Law Commission reports, we have moved from talk about legislation but nothing happening in the period since the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964 to having two bills.
I very much agree with Alan Barr. We have been having a little problem in Aberdeen, where, some 50 years after the 1964 act, the sheriff has suddenly started taking a different interpretation of the people who can be appointed executors. Although it would be justifiable to do so, nobody has had the guts to go and debate the matter with him, and it would be nice if it was set out somewhere in the forthcoming legislation who could be appointed executor and in what order. Currently, if there is no will, it is primarily those who have a beneficial interest, but it would be nice to have that set out as a priority.
I am well aware of that point and, indeed, have had personal correspondence about it; I think that I have suggested to members of the faculty in Aberdeen that they write to the Government about that. Although the matter is not appropriate for this bill, it could surely be included in the second one if it is brought to the Government’s attention.
Do the witnesses think that it would have been preferable to have delayed this bill and included its proposals in the bill that will be introduced in due course?
I do, but the danger in doing so is that the second bill will, I imagine, concentrate on stuff like protection from disinheritance and the intestacy rule, which means that things that are in essence technical, rather than policy issues, and which frankly do not commonly arise, would not get the kind of attention that they will get as a result of being in a separate bill. That would be a loss. For that reason alone, it is good to have this consideration, but in terms of sheer efficiency and what we end up with, we would be better with a consolidated bill.
We can still get there if we take the results of this consideration and slot them wholesale into a second bill. That said, I am well aware that I am assuming that we could just slot the provisions neatly into another bill; I can well believe that parliamentary draftsmen would tear their hair out at that and say, “It’s not as bloody easy as you think.” However, I hope that new legislation might translate into a new bill fairly readily.
Another point that has been raised is that section 25 gives the Scottish ministers quite wide powers to amend and so on. However, the Government has said that it would use the powers only for “fine-tuning”. Do you find that satisfactory?
I prefer things of substance to be done by primary legislation to ensure that they get this kind of attention. If one accepts what is said about fine tuning, and if that provides a more efficient parliamentary process and more likelihood of getting things changed that need to be changed, that is acceptable. However, things of substance should come before the whole Parliament rather than just ministers.
That brings us to John Scott, who has a question on section 1 on the effect of divorce.
Indeed, although the question is about guardianship thereafter. Do provisions in a will appointing a spouse as a guardian of a child fall within the scope of section 1? Should that be the case and are you in favour of such a move?
11:15
A spouse who is also the parent of the child in question would continue as guardian, so the issue relates to situations in which a more or less formal step-parent is appointed as guardian. As was mentioned to the committee last week, the danger is that such an appointment could fall if the legislation were enacted.
Again, we are making an assumption about what people would like to happen. There is a decent case to be made that someone who has been in a quasi-parental relationship with a child, regardless of the break-up of their own relationship, might be happy for that parental relationship to continue. It is, as it were, a question of one assumption over the other. There is scope for the divorcing parent to do something about this, but they have to remember to do so; otherwise this provision will take the step-parent guardian out of the picture. I endorse earlier comments about the timescale and costs of applying for guardianship, if that is what is required. That is very unlikely to cost less than thousands of pounds, which, I think, would be wasteful, if it could be avoided.
Thank you.
What is your view on my earlier question about the Law Society’s suggestion that the scope of sections 3 and 4, on the rectification of wills, be broadened to include wills drafted by the testator, such as handwritten wills or wills made using templates that are found online?
I have seen a case in which a husband paid for a will on the internet and then, because he was a bit of a cheapskate, used the same will for his wife. He changed the first line and got her name right, but then immediately appointed her as her own beneficiary. To me, that is a classic case of where this sort of remedy could be useful, because one is able to see what happened—although spending another £15 would probably have resolved the problem.
We could permit wills that are created other than by a lawyer to be changed through this route, but that does not mean that they would be changed, and, again, it would be up to the court to decide. In my experience, costs are a real deterrent for someone who has to litigate to change a will, unless the family is largely in agreement that the change is correct. Of course, you cannot get proper agreement if one of the affected beneficiaries is under age or incapax for some other reason. In that respect, I think that it would be useful to widen the scope.
Are you saying that because of the impediments that exist in practice, which mean that the provision is unlikely to lead to an explosion of beneficiaries challenging wills? Are there already enough impediments to prevent people from making spurious claims?
That would be my thinking in relation to an average estate. The risk would be different for a megamillionaire.
So the process exists to safeguard the integrity of the intention.
Yes.
I would make two points about that. First, the provision would provide a remedy that currently exists in a different form. If there is a serious allegation or evidence that a will has not been prepared in accordance with instructions, it is possible to sue the person who prepared it—albeit with some difficulty. It is an expansion of a litigation in England—White v Jones—that spread to Scotland. Because that remedy is already in place, the new provision would be an alternative, particularly if everyone agreed that the intention of the will had not been fully carried forward. In a sense, it would replace one fairly unlikely litigation process with a different and again—one would hope—fairly unlikely litigation process.
In the world in which we live, wills off the internet are very common. I would not know—and I would not know from the legislation—whether such a will had been prepared by the testator directly or at the testator’s direction. In other words, if the website in question is an interactive one and a person fills in some of the bits—indeed, it does not matter whether some of that is done by a human being or by software—what comes back is not only what the person in question has typed in. Is that their will or has it been put together on someone else’s instructions? I do not know the answer. That area should perhaps be covered one way or the other, either by exclusion or by inclusion. It should be made clear which applies.
Should that be set out in the legislation instead of being left to the courts to interpret?
I think that it has to be; otherwise the courts will have to decide whether such a will has been professionally or personally prepared. I genuinely do not know the answer to that. However, the question could be answered by saying what the position is one way or the other.
We certainly would not want to end up in court in order to find out.
That would be a bit of a waste.
Is court not the only way of deciding whether such a will has been professionally prepared?
If you took this opportunity to include rules on wills that had been expressly prepared over the internet, you would not need to look at how that had been done. You would still have complainants arguing about what the man in question wanted, but that is a different problem. This move would bring wills automatically into the category of cases that could be reviewed.
Thank you.
I took a false step earlier—I think that Stewart Stevenson would like to go back to section 1.
Indeed, convener. I want to exercise my privilege.
At what age can someone make a decision as a beneficiary?
Happily—for the lawyers who have to deal with such matters—a person can do so at 18. In theory, they could do so at 16, but that would be vulnerable to the challenge that they had been taken advantage of.
I do not want to make a meal of the issue. I just happen to know that my mother was an executor at the age of three.
Wasn’t she lucky? She must have been precocious and reading and writing by then.
I think that she probably was—but let us not go there, because I cannot know. I merely know that her father acted in her stead.
I want to explore the much more substantial issue of domicile, which is covered in section 1(1)(d). Is the arrangement that relates to the domicile at the time of death preferable to that relating to the domicile when a relationship legally ends? Certainly what has emerged, particularly from the Faculty of Advocates, would lead us to the conclusion that what the bill says is preferable.
I think that what you must go for here is certainty one way or the other—this is not a case of things being 100 per cent one way and zero per cent the other way. I am slightly more—only slightly more—in favour of the domicile being that at the time of the divorce, because you are likely to know the domicile at that time. All that Scots law can direct then is what happens at that time. If you take the domicile on the date of death, you might be moving into the realms of private international law. That said, you might be getting into the realms of private international law with one of those dates anyway. I do not think that it makes very much difference—in that way, the issue is certain.
If you went for the domicile at the date of annulment, what you would be saying is that a will would come to an end if there were a divorce or annulment under Scots law. If the person was domiciled elsewhere on the date of death, people would look to Scots law either at that time or possibly on the date of death. As a result, you would still have that confusion about which one governed at that particular time.
Please forgive me, but can you tell me whether there are jurisdictions where unilateral divorce is possible or where, in the case of a person who has died, there might be uncertainty about when, how and where the divorce took place? In other words, is there any jurisdiction where a person could die without knowing that a divorce had taken place?
It could happen in Scotland, if you had disappeared.
Yes, it could happen.
Indeed. So determining the law that applies at the point of death gives a degree of absolute certainty.
Yes.
It is more certain than divorce, that is for sure.
Indeed—if not necessarily more inevitable in this modern world.
Forgive me for interrupting, but on this particular issue, how clear and certain is the concept of domicile?
Not very, I am afraid to say. It is scattered throughout our law for various purposes, and it is by no means 100 per cent certain. In the tax world, they are looking at trying to tie it down. Although there is an element of statutory definition of domicile in some aspects of UK tax, it is, even in the tax world, overlain by the common law of where somebody is domiciled. It is not certain, and it is very hard to make it so. In order to change that, you would have to move to a different kind of test, such as length of time of residence. Residence itself is a bit more certain, whereas domicile is pretty uncertain.
On that basis, might it not be more sensible to use domicile at the time of death, as it might be slightly more certain—not least because it would be later—than domicile at the time of an annulment, which, given some people’s lifestyles in the modern world, might be very uncertain?
Given that the ball stops moving at the time of death, you will able to take that snapshot, as it were. The reason why in most cases the issue is likely to have arisen at the time of divorce is that that would affect the question of where the divorce itself is likely to have taken place—standing those situations that I would describe as informal divorces. You are likely to have to address that issue or similar ones if there is an international dimension to when the divorce took place.
Thank you.
Can I come in on one aspect of domicile?
Of course.
When you get confirmation, which is the lead from the executors to get access to the deceased’s money, you make an averment of domicile, without doing very much to substantiate it. In practice, if you have residence in Scotland, nobody queries it. That might be an issue here—debate and discuss.
Indeed. I return to the issue of rectification and the time within which that might occur. There has been some discussion in our evidence as to whether that should be from when confirmation is granted or from the date of death and, if it is to be from the date of death, whether the period might be longer or shorter. Do you as practitioners have a view on where that might sensibly lie?
I very much favour the retention of the period from the date of confirmation, because until confirmation is granted, the will is not a public record document. Most solicitors handling an estate where there is contention will not release the will until they have to—in other words, at the point of confirmation. To give a time limit within which the will must be rectified means that those who are executors have control on the timing of getting confirmation and therefore would delay that if it was in their personal interests. In any case, it is very easy to make it more than six months.
Thank you. You have given us a very practical reason for finding a way forward. I am very grateful.
It has been done as a kind of dual system. If there is confirmation, it is six months from that date; otherwise, the period runs from the time of death. There is then the follow-up that you can go outwith those six months on cause shown and for good reason. The kind of deliberate delay that Eilidh Scobbie is talking about would be a good reason to go outwith that period if that became relevant.
Is it fair to say that the courts in general have discretion to deal with time limits on cause shown? No?
No, unless something specific comes up. One is often told that they do not have discretion and that is the end of it.
Is that something that in general we should change by statute? After all, this is an extension that we have got here.
I think that you are working towards it.
That is a very big question.
I know that it is a big question, but you are here and I have asked it. Is it worth considering?
I would say so.
I am sorry—you do not have to give me an answer beyond saying that it is worth considering. Thank you.
I went well off-piste there. I now turn to John Scott for question 14. Is that right? Is that where we have got to?
Yes, convener. In their written evidence, the Law Society and TrustBar take issue with section 10(4), which prevents section 10 from applying when the testator is one of the people who die simultaneously or in an uncertain order. Do you wish to make any comment on that?
I am pleased to say that, when the bill was published and I saw that provision, I thought, “How often does such a situation arise?”—and I can tell you that fortunately it occurs very seldom. I can think of one occasion in my 25 years of practice on which, under the predecessor law, I have had to consider that issue. The occasion actually related much more to the point raised in evidence regarding uncertainty about what had happened and what had to be done to produce evidence for a more likely order of deaths.
11:30Such a situation does not happen very often, and what we want from the bill is certainty on the very few occasions when it does. To be somewhat blunt, I think that it almost does not matter what that certainty is as long as it is there. Such a provision is a blunt instrument at best, because one is making assumptions as to what somebody might have wanted in circumstances that they would not, even in their worst dreams, have contemplated. Certainty is really all that is wanted.
I think that the Law Society made its comment about section 10(4), which excludes the operation of section 10 in certain circumstances and thus throws one back to section 9, on the following basis: given that there is no particular reason for that particular certainty to be preferable to any other certainty, it would not matter whether section 10 was excluded if the testator was one of the people who died.
In light of your comments, what do you make of TrustBar’s point that the word “uncertain” is likely to lead to unnecessary litigation? I am presuming that you do not necessarily agree.
I do not think that I would agree with that comment. As has been well set out in the bill, there is a two-stage process. First, there is the question whether the matter is uncertain at all, and the rules kick in only after that hurdle has been got over. I think that “uncertain” is certain enough, in the Rumsfeldian or any other sense.
Clearly Lord Wheatley wins the day. That is good—thank you.
That takes us to forfeiture, and questions from Stewart Stevenson.
I want to give the witnesses the opportunity to agree that allowing the courts to have full discretion is the best outcome in the very small number of cases in which the forfeiture provision will apply where someone has, by a criminal act, caused the death of the person from whom they would have otherwise have inherited.
That is a fair approach—I have no problem with it. It leaves the court to exercise its discretion with regard to the myriad facts that will come before it.
I entirely endorse that view. The situation is very rare, and rarer still—although such circumstances will exist—is an act that the criminal law quite rightly recognises as criminal but in which it will be entirely reasonable for the full effects of forfeiture not to take effect. This is an area in which one cannot anticipate all the circumstances that might arise and try to legislate for them. Indeed, it would be ambitious in the extreme to try to do so.
Thank you. That brings us to the protection of trustees and executors, and questions from John Mason.
As the convener has said, section 18 refers to the protection of trustees and executors. Specifically, we have been pointed towards the provision that trustees are
“not personally liable”
if
“the distribution takes place—
(i) in good faith and after such enquiries as any reasonable and prudent trustee would have made in the circumstances of the case”.
Is that wording reasonable? Are you happy with it? In particular, does it suggest that more advertising might have to take place than has been the case in the past?
I very much hope not. In theory, the provision envisages that every estate might have in it unknown beneficiaries who come out of the woodwork afterwards, and that trustees could find themselves liable unless they have advertised in relation to every estate. I think that that is—and I hope that it will remain—a nonsense; it is simply last-century or previous-century stuff.
Nowadays, if there is reason to suspect that there is an unknown sibling who had existed at one time but who has disappeared, trustees or executors will at that stage make “reasonable and prudent” inquiries through professional genealogists and the internet. That is where you go looking in circumstances where it is reasonable to do so. In the vast majority of circumstances, it is not reasonable to do so and if, on the one occasion when people came out of the woodwork, trustees were to find themselves liable simply because they had not advertised in the other 100 situations where the matter had arisen, that would be entirely unreasonable.
I think that the wording is fine. I hope that people do not say, “We have to be just and reasonable now,” and think that being just and reasonable should involve expensive and unnecessary effort in a very large number of cases for the sake of the very few cases where it might be relevant.
Is that very different from where we are already, or does it just put into words what has already been happening in practice?
It gives a degree more certain protection if what I have just said represents “reasonable and prudent” trustee inquiries. I think that it does.
I agree. I have never advertised for beneficiaries. Between the private detective and the local tick man, you can do amazing things in Scotland. Of course, with people who have gone abroad—or people who have come from abroad, which is even more interesting—you get into a different ball game. I am thinking, for example, of the Polish people who have settled in Scotland recently or, indeed, settled here after the second world war.
It is very helpful that have that evidence on record, and it is very good to hear about how you actually operate. It is hugely useful, because it is relevant—it is what practitioners do.
Finally, on private international law, which you will have heard me ask your colleagues about earlier—and I am grateful to you for being in the room to hear the question—bits and pieces of it have been adopted, while some bits have not. Do you have any thoughts on how we, as a Parliament, should handle all that?
Private international law is difficult. In fact, it is one of the most difficult areas to deal with, because often you are not just going back to another system but going back and forth between another system and the Scottish system. All we can do is try to make our law as clear as possible so that when someone from another system looks at situations in relation to either Scottish heritage or Scottish-domiciled death—which brings us back to what we were saying earlier about domicile—they find that Scots law is clear on the matter. We should be legislating for that and its effects as much as we possibly can to ensure that other systems know what our system is and, indeed, that we know what it is when we need to apply it in situations with a foreign involvement.
I am all for trying to include private international law in the legislation. Instead of a bits-and-pieces approach, I would, as has been mentioned in at least one of the SLC reports, try to include a section on private international law covering as many rules as are up for consideration. I do not think that there is sufficient time to create such an option, even with the second consultation that is currently going on. It might be—dare I say it—another project that needs to be considered. However, we should get in what we can and legislate on it where we possibly can.
Thank you. That brings us to the end of our questions. Do you wish to add anything?
I simply reiterate that, after what has been a very long lead-in, it is a very good thing that succession is being considered by the Parliament. There are things that need to be changed and tidied up, and there is no doubt that the major substantive things require serious consideration.
As we have said, it would be better if these pieces of legislation were to be consolidated into a single succession act. If the Parliament could see its way through to that—in other words, of combining what is happening now with what is likely to happen, presumably in the next session—that would be good.
Indeed. I thank Ms Scobbie and Mr Barr very much for coming along, and I also thank our previous witnesses. If any of them would like to add anything, we would be very happy to receive written submissions on any issue at all. That would be greatly appreciated.
With that, I suspend the meeting.
11:40 Meeting suspended.