Arbitration (Scotland) Bill
The next item of business is a debate on motion S3M-5176, in the name of Jim Mather, on the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons, and I ask those who are excited at getting finished so early to restrain their excitement and leave the chamber quietly, if they are going to do so.
I am delighted to open this stage 3 debate on the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill, and I should first of all like to pay tribute to the work of the members, substitute members and clerks of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, which considered the bill most diligently at stages 1 and 2.
It was entirely appropriate that the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee should consider the bill, because arbitration is mainly, though not exclusively, used as a method of dispute resolution outwith the civil courts between private commercial parties. It can be used in commercial disputes, large and small. It is a bespoke method of dispute resolution that can, where appropriate, be tailored to suit the circumstances of the dispute and the needs of the parties, unlike the public civil courts.
In its stage 1 report, the committee identified 11 areas in which it asked the Government to reconsider its approach to the bill, mainly as a result of comments that it had received from stakeholders. Recognising the compelling arguments behind the bill's aim of consolidating and modernising Scottish arbitration law, the stage 1 report also considered that changes were needed in those areas.
In response to the committee, I held two consultation sessions with various stakeholders to discuss the points at issue, which were held on 6 and 18 August. Previously, on 30 April, I held a session with 30 stakeholders to discuss the possible economic benefits of the bill. Following those discussions, draft Government amendments were circulated to the relevant stakeholders for comment.
To keep the committee fully apprised of how the Government intended to address the concerns that were expressed at stage 1, I wrote to the convener with an indication of the Government's thinking on amending the bill in the light of the conversations that had taken place and the comments that had been made. The finalised Government amendments were lodged in time for the committee to see them in advance of its last meeting before stage 2. The valuable input that we had from all parties during those meetings over the summer, as well as the compromise amendments that the Government offered, were a major factor in the acceptance of the Government's amendments at stage 2.
I hope that members throughout the chamber will agree that the inclusive approach that has been adopted to the bill, including stakeholder involvement, consensus building, keeping lines of communication open and sharing amendments, reflects well the ways in which the Parliament can take a lead role in helping to shape a bill that is before it.
As I said in my speech at stage 1, the parliamentary draftsman has said that he had never previously received such detailed technical drafting suggestions on a bill. We have healthily recycled many of the skills that members have taken from previous lives.
I express the Government's gratitude to the stakeholders who submitted detailed suggestions, which allowed us to improve the bill, including the commercial judges of the Court of Session, the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates, Lord Dervaird and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.
I turn now to issues that some members of the committee asked the Government to consider further during stage 2. At its meetings in the run-up to stage 2, the committee expressed a desire for the consumer protection provisions in the Arbitration Act 1996 that apply to Scotland to be included in the Scottish legislation, so that all the law on arbitration in Scotland appears in one statute. Given that consumer protection is a reserved matter, this Parliament cannot add provisions for the purpose of consumer protection. However, the Government shares the committee's desire to have the consumer provisions in the 1996 act included in the bill. I am pleased to say that my officials have secured in-principle agreement to that effect at official level with both the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Scotland Office. We will take the opportunity in an order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998 to move and update the provisions in the 1996 act accordingly.
Lewis Macdonald asked whether there was any appeal against the court's decision on an application under section 13 for anonymity in legal proceedings. As a result of his raising that issue, amendment 8 provides that there will be no appeal against the court's decision, given that that might be used as a means of raising spurious appeals simply to delay matters.
Gavin Brown was concerned about the use of the term "fairness" in rule 66 and the possibility of its being open to abuse and he asked us to see whether that could be tightened up. Having considered that exceedingly carefully, the Government believes that there would be dangers in creating exemptions to the principle of fairness, especially given that the courts are familiar with judging whether parties have been treated fairly in arbitration and in many other contexts.
lain Smith thought that section 22, which is on arbitral appointments referees, was inelegant following amendment and that it should be revisited. After further consideration, the Government is content that the section reflects the intention of putting in place a means of appointing an arbitrator where the parties cannot agree, without having to go to court, which does not interfere with the existing appointment procedures.
Lewis Macdonald also noted that Scottish ministers had the discretionary power to update the act in light of changes to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law model law and asked whether the repeal of the model law affected whether such a requirement should be mandatory. The Government understands that not all amendments to the model law have been welcomed by arbitrators internationally and believes that it would therefore be much better to keep the flexibility that is offered by a discretionary power.
In its stage 1 report, the committee cautioned the Government not to overstate the economic benefits that might flow from the bill, which I fully accepted during the stage 1 debate. To attract international business, Scotland must first demonstrate that arbitration here is efficient and cost effective. I believe that the bill provides Scotland with a modern arbitration regime that reflects the best of international arbitral practice and therefore sets the scene for greater use of arbitration here.
However, as I said in the stage 1 debate, to a very large extent it will be up to the arbitration practitioners to persuade commercial parties of the benefits of arbitration and arbitrating in Scotland. It is important to summarise those benefits again briefly.
Arbitration proceedings are usually confidential, which offers attractions for commercial parties, particularly if the subject matter of the dispute is commercially sensitive. The bill introduces a default rule to make it clear that arbitration in Scotland will be confidential unless the parties decide otherwise or there are good reasons for it to be otherwise.
Arbitration is also flexible, so that the process can be adapted to suit the dispute. The location, timing and other arrangements can be planned to suit the parties' needs. They are not therefore tied to rigid court procedures and timetables. Lord Dervaird, one of the leading arbitrators in Scotland, has suggested that the arbitrator should get the parties together at the beginning of the arbitration, agree a timetable and then stick to it. In that way, delays and unnecessary expense can be avoided. Indeed, the bill places a mandatory duty on the arbitrator to progress the arbitration proactively and, if that duty is not complied with, the arbitrator can be removed by the court. The bill also creates conditions where the parties can choose their arbitrator, which is not possible in the courts. They can therefore choose a specialist in the subject area of their dispute and reduce the need to lead technical evidence, so the arbitration can be quick, cost effective and efficient.
Members might be interested to know that there is considerable interest in the bill among academics and students of arbitration. That bodes well for both the use of arbitration in Scotland in future and the necessary supply of well-qualified arbitrators and arbitration specialists. The bill has been a catalyst for a new course on international commercial arbitration at the University of Edinburgh, which is the most popular postgraduate masters law course this year, with some 48 students from around the world enrolled on it. That reflects the international interest in using arbitration as a means of commercial dispute resolution.
The bill was also included in a course on dispute resolution that was taught at the University of Aberdeen this year, and it will be included in the course on oil and gas contracting for masters students from around the world. A similar course on dispute resolution is being taught at the University of Dundee's centre for energy, petroleum and mineral law and policy, which runs annual introductory and advanced international arbitration conferences. In addition, discussions are taking place to arrange an international conference in the new year—to be co-hosted by the University of Edinburgh and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators—to welcome the new act and focus the international spotlight on Scotland. We welcome that.
The University of Stirling has taught modules on international arbitration at both undergraduate and masters levels for some years, focusing on the different approaches that are taken to key issues in different jurisdictions. Scots law has tended to feature mainly as an example of how not to do things, but Professor Fraser Davidson has suggested that, with the advent of the bill, the focus has switched to Scotland as a beacon for the future, with particular emphasis on the innovative approaches that the bill has taken to a number of issues. Again, many students on the masters course at Stirling are from overseas, so knowledge of the bill will be carried to the four corners of the world.
Let us hope that Professor Davidson's words are prophetic and the use of arbitration at home increases markedly as a result of the reforms and modernisation that the bill has introduced. We hope that, as a result, more international arbitration work will be attracted to Scotland and we will see a renaissance of Scottish arbitration. I commend the bill to members.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill be passed.
I, too, acknowledge the work of the clerks to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, unused as they perhaps are to dealing with subjects such as arbitration. I also acknowledge the advice and evidence that were given to us by the many people who appeared before the committee.
I welcome the fact that we have arrived at stage 3 and the fact that, as we heard, we may anticipate little dispute about the final outcome of the bill's parliamentary passage in the next hour and a half. That was not necessarily expected when the bill was introduced at the beginning of the year. As the minister hinted, the process began with some uncertainty about the character of the measure that was proposed and where it might best be considered within the Parliament's committee structure. The decision was submitted to our own in-house arbitration procedure, which is known as the Parliamentary Bureau, and as a result the bill was assigned to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee on the basis of the potential economic benefits to which the minister alluded.
That decision led to many of us becoming familiar with areas of public policy that are not ordinarily on the agenda of a committee that focuses on the economy. Those of us who took evidence in the committee saw witnesses and read submissions that came, almost without exception, from the legal profession and the arbitration community. In that sense, the experience has been an enlightening one for those of us who have not served on a justice committee, because the issues that were contested and the forms of advocacy that were deployed were particular to those professional groups.
However, in spite of that limited constituency, there is an economic rationale behind the bill and, like other parties, we support the proposition that Scotland's arbitration law should benefit from the more modern framework that the bill offers. In its 10 years, devolution has brought benefits in precisely such areas by allowing specific Scottish provision to be updated where such legislation might have struggled to command time in the United Kingdom Parliament's crowded timetable.
Our approach has been to support such modernisation while ensuring that the focus should not fall exclusively on competing for international arbitration business at the expense of domestic consumers. At stage 1, we pressed the minister to consult directly with those involved in consumer arbitration schemes of one sort or another. We believe that such consultation should have removed uncertainties that might otherwise have surfaced only after the passing of the bill—and indeed it did so with regard to the reservation of consumer protection law to Westminster.
The potential economic benefit of attracting arbitration business to Scotland is, at this stage, unknown, and the dubious numbers that ministers initially offered were very wisely withdrawn after stage 1. It will clearly take more than an updated legal framework to attract business from such established global hubs of commercial arbitration as the City of London, where a wider enabling infrastructure is already in place. Nevertheless, it is right to ensure that there are no avoidable legal obstacles in the way of attracting business, and the broad support that the measure in its final form has attracted makes us confident that that is now the case.
From the outset, we were concerned whether the repeal of UNCITRAL model law would narrow Scotland's appeal as the seat of arbitration. I am glad that ministers agreed to make it explicit in the bill that parties could agree to adopt UNCITRAL model law in place of the default rules in the new Scottish law. As the Law Society of Scotland has blown rather hot and cold over the issue, I find it striking that, at this final stage, it has raised no fundamental objection to the resolution to that issue that we achieved at stage 2.
Another important issue was the bill's potential retrospective effect. I am glad that the minister took the opportunity to address such concerns at stage 2, and the setting of a clear transition process and the confirmation that arbitrations that are already under way will not be affected should ensure that there is no unintended confusion for parties to arbitration proceedings in Scotland.
At stage 1, the committee's cross-party view was that, although the bill had the right purpose, it was not yet fit for purpose. I welcome the Government's willingness to address a range of issues that were raised at that point in a set of amendments in the minister's name at stage 2. I also welcome the amendments that he moved this afternoon to address certain remaining issues, including the removal of uncertainty over anonymity in court proceedings. I believe that the bill now strikes the right balance in a number of ways that it did not at the outset.
The minister is also right to say that the consultation process has helped to address some of the issues that arose earlier in the process. However, he should not conclude that, in taking forward such complex and technically challenging legislation, it will always be enough to meet all the interested parties. In this case, it was helpful that the bill's fundamental principles had general support from the outset. I am sure that the minister will acknowledge that, had that not been the case, it would have taken more than stakeholder engagement to resolve some of the issues that might have emerged.
Now that we have reached this stage, it is clearly helpful that the University of Aberdeen and other universities are already teaching students about the interpretation of and the arbitration procedures resulting from the bill. I hope that it will now be possible for those who are involved in the arbitration business to justify at least some of the claims made on their behalf in recent months by attracting international business to Scotland while continuing to provide a cheaper, quicker alternative to the courts in resolving issues between parties in Scotland. That will build on the good name and reputation of Scots law and Scottish arbitration, and there will also be benefits if the Scottish Government engages proactively in attracting such business in future. Of course, it is not for the public purse to pay out vast sums to allow Scottish businesses to market their own business to potential overseas customers, but I hope that the minister will confirm that the public sector's role in promoting Scotland as a place for arbitration will not end with the passing of the bill this evening.
I declare that I used to be a practising solicitor conducting arbitration and that I am retained on the roll of solicitors, although I do not think that I stand to gain personally from the bill. I thank the clerks to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, who were extremely helpful with the bill, and all those who gave evidence to the committee at stages 1 and 2.
The codification of arbitration is a useful exercise, as it helps to present a more modern and dynamic offering of Scottish arbitration law. There is also a good economic case for the bill. It will increase slightly the number of domestic consumer and commercial arbitrations, and there is potential for a greater number of international arbitrations to come to Scotland. It is important not to overstate the case, as was done to begin with, although the initial claim has been withdrawn. However, we hope that the number of international arbitrations will increase, without putting bold figures on that hope.
Ultimately, the success of the bill depends on whether it can make arbitration faster and cheaper. Those two attributes are, of course, related. Rule 23 will impose a duty that the tribunal must
"conduct the arbitration … without unnecessary delay".
Therefore, the duty to conduct arbitration far faster than has happened in the past is in the bill. Also, removing the stated case procedure that existed in arbitrations, which was open to abuse, should help to take time off many commercial arbitrations.
On the stage 2 and stage 3 amendments, it is fair to say that the minister has been inclusive and open in his discussions and negotiations. He has listened to the experts and to the committee's stage 1 report, which is why all 60 stage 2 amendments and all 30 stage 3 amendments were passed unopposed.
The meetings with the consumer groups on 6 August and with legal experts on 18 August were very important. The meeting with the consumer groups was important because it thrashed out a couple of issues and helped us to put to bed the fear that the bill would negatively affect consumer arbitrations.
The meeting with the legal experts was vital to the progress of the bill. The bulk of the stage 2 and stage 3 amendments came about as a consequence of that meeting, at which the experts put their heads together and looked through some of the technical faults in the drafting, some of which had just been brought in from the 1996 English act.
In particular, I pick out the changes to rules 45 and 46. Rule 45, on damages, has become mandatory, so the arbitrator will be able to award damages, which is important. Rule 46, on interest, is also now mandatory, so the arbitrator will have the power to award interest in all arbitrations. The danger with those rules as they were before amendment was that weaker parties to a contract would have been at a big disadvantage to the larger parties, particularly in, for example, a construction contract, in which the main contractor has some sway over a subcontractor. Making those rules mandatory puts both parties on a more level playing field.
The commencement rules at section 33 and the transitional provisions at section 33A make it absolutely clear that the bill does not apply to current arbitrations but does apply to contracts with arbitration clauses that have not yet gone into arbitration. However, it is important that the bill gives those parties the opportunity to opt out of the legislation, which is only fair.
Rule 50, on provisional awards, has become default and rule 51, on part awards, has become mandatory. I support those moves. There was a suggestion that, initially, the bill was simply presented the wrong way round, although that was disputed. In any event, it is absolutely right to have rule 50 as default and rule 51 as mandatory. I also welcome the attempts at stage 2 and today to strengthen and tighten the rules on confidentiality. The Government has got that right, too.
The bill's success rests on whether arbitration becomes faster and cheaper. If it does not, arbitration does not have a particularly bright future but, if it begins to become faster and cheaper, it can start to prosper domestically and internationally. The bill attempts to achieve that and it is the best that we could put together, but more important will be the culture shift among arbitrators, legal practitioners and the parties to arbitration. If the combination of the bill and the culture shift makes arbitration faster, the future can be positive.
The minister said in his opening remarks that it will probably be a long time before arbitration is on the legislative agenda again. I am sure that that is right. We will certainly support the bill at 5 o'clock, but I ask the minister to keep a watching brief on the issue. We might not return to it in a legislative sense any time soon, but it is important that the tools are not downed today or tomorrow. I hope that the minister personally agrees in his summation to keep a watching brief and to do everything that he can to ensure that arbitration becomes faster and cheaper.
We are dealing with a relatively technical and unusual bill, but it relates to an important part of the legal remedies that are available to parties who are in contention. I am not a member of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee—I am here in place of Iain Smith, who is not available—so I was not involved in the committee's debates and discussions at stages 1 and 2. However, like Gavin Brown, I have over the years been involved in one or two arbitration procedures, although I am sure with a much lower level of expertise. I guess that that gives me a degree of ancient insight that might or might not be helpful.
As I looked round the chamber when we discussed the amendments earlier, I was intrigued to see the leader and former leader of the Labour Party and various other luminaries of the Labour Party. There were also seven ministers of the SNP Government, including the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, who, of course, was not able to be present during the debate on the Glasgow airport rail link. I wonder whether he came along today to find out something about arbitration that might be useful to him in the on-going debates on that project.
The principal object of the bill is to consolidate and modernise the law relating to arbitration. I do not know whether that will be useful to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, but it is well worth while. It is clearly not entirely satisfactory when the substantive law has been built up piecemeal and goes back in part to 1695 or before. Arbitration has several potential advantages—although I stress that they are potential—over court procedures or when used in supplement to them, but those advantages have often not been realised in practice. The bill seeks to tackle that in principle. As Gavin Brown rightly said, the process must be speedy, it must deal with the technical issues competently and it must result in an award that is final and not subject to appeal unless there are major deficiencies, such as going beyond the remit. It should also be economic.
There are advantages in the ability to enforce an award by registration in the books of council and session and what takes place thereafter. However, I am not entirely clear whether, in the international context, there is enforceability under that procedure outside Scotland. Perhaps the minister can give reassurance on that.
In my limited experience, which related to building contracts, arbitrations were none of those things that they need to be. They were cumbersome and time consuming. Agreeing the remit, never mind anything else, took enough time. The costs were substantial, the process was lengthy and, quite often, one party went bankrupt before it was finished. It is perhaps not surprising that there are not too many arbitrations. The test of the new bill will be the extent to which the objectives of speed, convenience, competence, finality and economy are achieved. It is clear that the committee's work has greatly improved the bill from the condition that it was in when introduced. As has been said, the minister has responded positively to the issues that were raised.
The Government had a vision of Scotland as an international arbitration centre. Lewis Macdonald made some observations on that. There might be potential for that, but it is clearly much less than the Government claimed.
A modern, speedy and affordable arbitration system using well-understood international concepts that is part of a respected legal system, which Scotland has, and in which the international language of English is used could be attractive to people outside Scotland. Indeed, our legal system stands at the crossroads between the civil law systems of the continent and the common law systems of the Anglo-Saxon world.
As the policy memorandum recognises, many contracts specify that English law will apply in the event of a dispute. That is a significant hindrance, although not a total bar, to such contracts being arbitrated on in Scotland. Some contracts go further and specify that any disputes are justiciable only in the English courts. Will the minister give the chamber his thoughts on how that sort of difficulty can be overcome and what the potential is for attracting overseas or even UK arbitration business to Scotland?
The other policy aspect of interest is the possibility of a boost to individual trade and industry low-cost arbitration schemes. I am not entirely clear how those are covered by the bill but, unlike major building or contractual arbitrations, which are an alternative or supplement to court proceedings, such schemes usually operate where court proceedings are not a viable option. Many people are familiar with the Association of British Travel Agents scheme, which is used in package holiday disputes, or the National House Building Council scheme for disputes involving new houses. Such schemes are a key mechanism in building customer confidence in many retail, service and supply businesses, whether the problem is new windows, roofing work, central heating, substandard cars or defective clothing. The areas of greatest deficiencies are usually those where there is no trade body or where the trade body does not have a recognised and reputable arbitration or guarantee scheme. I will be interested to hear whether the bill has any potential to develop those matters.
The Arbitration (Scotland) Bill is hardly at the high end of political and party controversy. It is unglamorous and technical and has probably used up more brain cells than most of us have left—happily, I was not on the committee to suffer that fate. For all that, the bill has benefited hugely from the input and criticism of witnesses and stakeholders and from the diligence of the committee and the minister. It will be a proper end to that work when the bill passes stage 3 at 5 o'clock.
What more can be said? I am sure that members who follow me will find things to say.
I believe that the collaborative approach that has been adopted in the bill is a good model to take us forward. Of course, it helps that we are attempting in the bill to enable arbitration to regain the place that it had in the past as a means of sorting out disputes between private and public bodies. I welcome the potential for consumer law to go in that direction, because an awful lot of groups feel threatened by the thought of having to take disputes to court.
The committee was charged with seeing whether we could modernise Scots law and bring it into the 21st century by making changes. No doubt Parliament will have many opportunities in future years to do similar things. Although the idea of making Scotland a centre for international arbitration is an excellent pitch, we should first try to get more people in Scotland using the system and then sell it elsewhere. There was some discussion at stage 2 about whether we should market Scotland. I think that we should first let the new system bed in, but the omens are certainly good. When courses are taught in our universities that allow people to learn about the arbitration process, word will undoubtedly spread.
It is a pity that one of the things that we have left behind is the old Scots word "arbiter". The word "arbitrator" is used in arbitration practice around the world, so it is a pity to see a good Scots word leaving Scots law. Nevertheless, those of us who mourn its passing also recognise that we wish to be part of the internationalisation of the arbitration process in the modern world.
In the words of the minister, the bill offers an elegant way to deal with the process of arbitration. The way the committee worked mostly allowed us to reach agreement without a vote and our approach showed that when stakeholders from outside Parliament were involved, parties in the committee could reach conclusions.
I thank for their input all those who made the bill possible. It will be a useful addition to Scottish statute.
In the tone of my speech, I will take my cue from Rob Gibson.
Today is noteworthy not simply because we are about to pass a valuable piece of legislation but because, collectively, we may find ourselves with insufficient to say. A few cynics among us will attribute our comparative brevity to the bewilderment that some of us, as members of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, felt when we were asked to pilot a piece of what is, unarguably, justice legislation through the Parliament, but let me offer a more positive reason, which is the Government's willingness to take on board most of the key representations that were made at stages 1 and 2. The passage of the bill is a near-textbook example of the Parliament's procedures as envisaged by our forerunners in the Scottish constitutional convention and the consultative steering group. It is right for us to reflect on that in the moments before the bill is passed.
This is a distinctively Scottish bill that was urged on us by civic Scotland and for which the Government found space in its legislative programme. The bill was tested to destruction in committee, based on our wider evidence taking and the views that civic Scotland had expressed to us. The minister and the bill team agreed to listen, revised the proposals over the summer, in the light of representations, and lodged more than 60 Government amendments at stage 2. Ministers have again been responsive today, as is evident from the unanimity that every stage 3 amendment has commanded. That is the sort of consensual law making for which the CSG longed.
It is valuable today, just days short of our final 10-year anniversary celebrations, to recognise how the law-making process can work in line with those early hopes and aspirations. Realism demands that I point out that there are issues on which strong differences will continue to typify our debates. That is right when 128 of the 129 members who grace the chamber were elected to legislate on a party-political label. However, it is important to make the point that the process that was envisaged can work.
The widespread consensus that exists on the bill is not the same as unanimity. Members have mentioned the concerns of the Law Society and others that remain outstanding. Last night, as I tried to arbitrate on who was right—the minister or the Law Society—it struck me that at this time, before the bill is finally passed, any arbitration or adjudication on matters still outstanding can be merely provisional. To use a seasonal metaphor, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating—or, to use an alternative foodie formulation, we must now just suck it and see.
The approach of our 10th anniversary and the passage of such a consensual piece of legislation should encourage us collectively to reflect not only on how we pass legislation but on how, after its passage, we arbitrate and look back to see whether that legislation meets the objectives that were set by ministers, whichever party they represent. In the coming couple of weeks, every party that is represented in the chamber will set out its views on the Calman commission and the national conversation, both of which propose amendments to the stage 3 procedure to build a greater pause into the process. However, it is surely as important that we enshrine a process that allows us to look back and reflect on the extent to which legislation meets ministers' objectives, as set out in the stage 3 debate.
It is fair to say that today we have been at the cutting edge in meeting the aspirations of 10 years ago—in finding a procedure for legislation that can be inclusive. Surely the next challenge for the years ahead is to find a mechanism for looking back to see whether the objectives have been met in practice.
I will stop there, Presiding Officer—I risk departing even further from the details of the bill, about which it was my explicit intention to speak. It was not my explicit intention to fill this speaking slot beyond what had been offered to me, however, so I give way to the next speaker.
I, too, thank the clerks to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee for their assistance throughout the passage of the bill.
As of 5 pm, Scotland will have a vastly improved regulatory position with respect to arbitration. I hope that Parliament will unite on that. From what we have heard up to now, that is probably what will happen. The Arbitration (Scotland) Bill will certainly promote Scotland as an international centre for arbitration.
As I said during the stage 1 debate, it will be difficult to compete with the established players in arbitration such as London, New York and Geneva. However, I hope that, with an improved and consolidated law, Scotland will be in a better position internationally. A service that is more competitive and that can be sustainable is in the interests of every single community in Scotland, even though the perception might be that Edinburgh will be the main beneficiary. I do not see how any party that is represented in the chamber can argue against it.
As with any other industry or service in Scotland, we should, when it comes to arbitration, want to compete at the highest level, while appreciating that we need to establish ourselves first. I am sure that, in time, the Scottish reputation for arbitration will grow and will further enhance our wider international reputation.
Our committee's stage 1 report said that the bill was
"not yet fit for purpose",
so the bill has been amended with 60 amendments at stage 2 and 30 today. I remember gently urging my committee colleagues at stage 1 to temper their language—I was not aware of many bills that had appeared before the Parliament without being amended.
I was surprised that none of the amendments came from Opposition parties, even if they thought the bill was not fit for purpose. It is unfortunate that politics can sometimes be that way—criticising without offering any tangible solutions.
Does Stuart McMillan accept that the Opposition view, as he described it, that the bill was not fit for purpose, was one of the factors that contributed to amendments being lodged that we were able to support?
The collegiate way in which the Scottish Government proceeded with the bill certainly helped to improve it and to ensure its passage through Parliament.
As I said, there were a number of amendments, and the Government listened to concerns that other parties in the Parliament raised, as well as to those of people outside Parliament. I congratulate the Government on holding the stakeholder sessions in August to help to progress the bill. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend either of those events because of the arrival of a new addition to my family, but I appreciated the Government's continuing openness to discussing and progressing the bill in a collegiate manner, which was beneficial to the Parliament as a whole.
Various issues regarding certain sections of the bill have been rehearsed both in committee and in the chamber, and clarity on a couple of those points has improved the bill. The imposition of a mandatory rule for a tribunal to conduct arbitration "without unnecessarily delay" and "unnecessary expense" is an important step. That is in rule 23. To be competitive internationally, it is imperative that tribunals have a reputation for fairness and expediency, and that their procedures be as unobtrusive as possible. That can only be a good thing for anyone involved.
Secondly, rule 24, which covers the duties of parties to tribunals, is similar to the rule that applies to the tribunal itself: they must act as efficiently as possible, and failure to do so could have financial consequences.
I am sure that the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill will have a beneficial effect on the arbitration business in Scotland, and that it will make our industry more competitive internationally. I fully welcome this non-party-political bill, and I hope that it receives full support from across the chamber at 5 o'clock.
I thank the clerks to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee and my fellow committee members for their help and support during our consideration of the bill. I also thank the people who gave evidence and helped us with the bill's technical aspects.
The bill's main purposes are to clarify, consolidate and extend Scottish arbitration law, and to provide the statutory framework for arbitration. It will ensure fairness and impartiality in the arbitration process, which is important. For businesses, it will minimise expense and ensure that the process is efficient. The bill will replace the dual arbitration regime that currently applies in Scotland with a single codified set of rules, which in principle will apply to domestic, cross-border and international arbitrations. Members should welcome such an approach.
As Lewis Macdonald said, the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee was designated lead committee on the bill. My colleagues and I supported the general principles of the bill and recommended that Parliament approve them at stage 1. However, the committee agreed by majority that the bill as introduced was not fit for purpose and that amendments would be needed if it was to meet its objectives. The committee reminded the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, Jim Mather, of his commitment to meet relevant bodies. The minister has said that such meetings took place prior to stage 2.
The committee considered and agreed an approach to scrutiny of the bill at stage 2 and wrote to external organisations to seek their views. The responses helped members who had not been involved in arbitrations. At stage 2, 60 amendments in the name of the minister were lodged, all of which were agreed without division, which illustrates the non-partisan approach to the bill. We welcome the clarity that the amendments at stage 2 and stage 3 have brought to the bill. Bodies such as the Law Society have welcomed the bill as a progressive bill, which aims to achieve much-needed reform and to make arbitration a powerful tool for dispute resolution in Scotland.
In Scotland, arbitration is not currently regarded as an attractive form of dispute resolution and in general is considered to be slow and expensive. The services of an arbitrator, unlike those of a judge, are paid for by the parties who are involved and, depending on the complexity of the case, legal representation might also be required. If no recognised set of arbitration rules exists, parties can be unable to agree on rules to govern the arbitration process, let alone reach a resolution speedily.
The bill places emphasis on reducing expense, timescales and complexity by seeking to simplify the rules of arbitration. That approach is welcome in these difficult economic times. A streamlined mechanism for resolving contractual disputes will be welcome in, for example, the construction sector. I am convener of the cross-party group on construction and have been made all too aware of problems that arise from payment practices, particularly for smaller businesses, which frequently have to assume costs when clients do not pay. When there is a dispute about payment, many small businesses cannot afford the expense of the solicitors and advocates who would be required in taking another party to court. The extension to all parties of the arbitration process from sectors that already have in place good systems, such as the tourism industry, should be welcomed, and the principles of fairness, impartiality and need to minimise expense should help small businesses in our constituencies. I hope that the bill will encourage industries, trades and professions to set up low-cost arbitration schemes.
The strategy of developing a self-financing dispute resolution centre in Scotland is welcome. I hope that the bill will encourage the use of arbitration domestically as a means of commercial dispute resolution, thereby helping to attract international arbitration business to Scotland. That would have spin-off benefits for our hotels and restaurants and for our transport services.
I welcome the bill and hope that it will receive members' full support at decision time.
I congratulate the team that was responsible for producing the bill and I also congratulate the committee of which Rob Gibson and I are members for seeing the bill through.
Arbitration will never make the hairs on the back of the neck stand on end; we do not go around the squares of great European towns and see statues to the unknown arbitrator—although he probably is unknown. We find statues to generals and martyrs—which reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's lovely phrase to the effect that martyrdom is the only way to achieve immortality without talent—but we do not find statues to people who exist to prevent wars.
As far as I know, no arbiter was in business at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein question. That dispute between Germany and Denmark was so complex that Lord Palmerston, the then British Foreign Secretary, said that only three people understood it: one was dead, one was mad, and the third—Lord Palmerston—had forgotten all about it.
That sort of thing can be important. Not a lot of members will know about the Venezuelan crisis of 1896, in which Britain nearly went to war with America. America's President at that time was the sensible figure of Grover Cleveland, but we nearly managed to send our battleships steaming in the direction of New York, because someone let a process get out of sync. The situation had to be retrieved by the Oxford academic whose biography I wrote—James, Lord Bryce, who was a product of the University of Glasgow. From that crisis was created the Anglo-American arbitration treaty, which has coped with the relationships between our two countries from then up to the present.
A much more serious incident that nearly brought Britain and America to blows was almost totally of Scottish creation and Scottish resolution. It was the business of the Confederate steamship Alabama, which was built in Birkenhead by a Scottish shipyard owner whose name—we are not likely to miss the nationality—was Macgregor Laird. He forgot—whoops!—to inform the British Government that the ship was due to sail. Another Scotsman, W E Gladstone, winked at it because he sympathised with the American Confederacy at that time. The Alabama sailed and proceeded to sink or capture most of the federal marine. At the end of the civil war, the Americans approached Gladstone, who was by that time the Prime Minister and who had shifted from his enthusiasm for the Confederacy to being a proponent of democracy, and said, "What about it, then?" The result was the first important international arbitration case. Under the settlement that was made in Geneva in 1871, Britain stumped up $15 million for the damage that was inflicted on the American merchant marine. Even given that the exchange rate at that time was roughly $4 to £1, that made a considerable dent in the British Exchequer. That established the process of international arbitration, which is one factor that has governed the famous special relationship between Britain and America. It was jaw-jaw—or better, money-money—rather than war-war from then on.
It is intriguing that the British representative at the arbitration was Sir Alexander Cockburn, who was from a well-known Edinburgh legal family. He sat later on the bench as Lord Cockburn. Some years later, he came up in conversation when his great-grandson, Evelyn Waugh, was asked by a friend, "Evelyn, is there anything that you really regret?" Waugh said "Yes—that I was not born the descendant of a peer." The friend replied, "But you're the descendant of Lord Cockburn." Evelyn Waugh said, "Yes, but he was a useful peer. I want to be descended from a useless peer." Lord Cockburn was a very useful man in setting up the system of the settlement of disputes.
Arbitration is a way of preventing heroism. We have heroism and wars, and we have boring meetings in Geneva. However, the result of the latter is considerably greater progress in civilisation. Civilisation was invented in Scotland in the 18th century by Adam Ferguson of the University of Edinburgh; it meant to him simply a state that decides its disputes in a court and not by force of arms. We in Scotland ought to be particularly proud of that.
The Scottish Government has done well in taking and running with the idea of making Edinburgh a centre for peaceable and expeditious settlement of disputes. We have considerable expertise behind us, which I have gone on about at some length, but we have also the expertise that we garnered during the 1970s and 1980s, as the minister suggested, by being the power that had most to do with the North Sea and the tremendous new technologies that had to be integrated into legal frameworks. We did not just create the science of positioning, which enabled for the first time from the creation of the world—depending whether one views that as a single act or something stretching back several thousand millennia—a floating object to remain absolutely stationary in the water. That was done down at Ferranti and at Racal in Leith. We also perfected the simple and effective solution of disputes between oil countries and between the people who extract oil from the North Sea.
We therefore have a background that gives us tremendous effect when it comes to suggesting good paradigms for the way in which Governments and private concerns can conduct themselves and come to safe, expeditious, unheroic and boring agreements—as long as they do it in Edinburgh. We will have many more of those, given the spread of international linkages, such as multi-user railway lines and the use of different sorts of pipelines, which may go in one direction for oil and in another for the return of carbon. Such business will come to us if we work out expeditious means of settling disputes.
In an age when the virtual world is advancing on us day by day, why not use computer programmes to do so much of the boring and tedious work for us, so that in number-heavy cases they can present us with the options and allow people to come to rapid settlements? If I may conclude with an appalling pun, you know IT makes sense.
We now move to the wind-up speeches. I call Robert Brown.
I am sorry—I was not expecting to wind up. I have said all that I want to say on the matter already.
I now call Derek Brownlee, who has maybe said all that he has to say as well. No?
I do not know in my speech whether to follow the example of Christopher Harvie and talk about martyrdom or to follow the example of Wendy Alexander and talk about brevity. On balance, I think that my contribution in summing up for the Conservatives will follow Wendy Alexander's lead, which is in itself a remarkable achievement, certainly from my perspective.
I turn briefly to the substance of the bill. There has been remarkable consensus across the chamber on the subject. That is perhaps not surprising, because it is in no one's interest that any form of dispute resolution, whether arbitration or any other mechanism, should be expensive, time consuming or unwieldy. Whether we are talking about commercial disputes or any other form of dispute, disputes are by their nature a bind and an economic cost on the underlying issue.
I understand why the bill was given to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee—although, had I been a member of that committee, I would probably have thought that it would be better addressed elsewhere—because of the potential economic benefits of arbitration and, indeed, the economic costs of the logjams that can currently arise during disputes.
The key question is whether the potential benefits that have been put forward as the reason for introducing the bill will be realised in practice. However, even if those benefits are not realised, we will not—from all the contributions that I have heard so far—end up in a less attractive place than we are at present, so the risks seem to be entirely on the upside.
Lewis Macdonald hit the nail on the head in pointing out that other factors attract people in their choice of where to conduct arbitration. We need to be cognisant of those other significant factors that lead people to go elsewhere. If arbitration in Scotland is to be a success, it is crucial that we get a critical mass not just of business but of expertise. That point has been reflected on in a number of speeches during today's debate.
It is only fair to pay tribute to the way in which the Government has approached the bill. It cannot have been particularly pleasant to be on the receiving end of a committee report that stated that the Government was not going about the matter in the right way, but the Government's approach thereafter was laudable in showing that it was listening to the committee's recommendations. The general consensus across the Parliament seems to be that the bill now is better than the bill that was introduced, so we are in a much better place than when we started out.
As both Wendy Alexander and Lewis Macdonald mentioned, the bill is precisely the sort of technical law reform that the Scottish Parliament should be able to enact. If—let us be quite honest about it—this Parliament deals with such subjects only "once in a generation", as the minister has said, how frequently would Scots law on the issue have been reviewed at Westminster? Therefore, it is significant that we have been able to spend time on the bill.
I was not sure whether Wendy Alexander was being ironic when she praised the Government for finding space in its legislative programme to introduce the bill. Although that must have been a real challenge to ministers—umpteen mind maps must have been discarded before the way through was found—I believe that there is a place in this Parliament for substantive technical law reform, which might not make the front page of every newspaper but has a value in the wider world. We look forward with interest to the discussions with the UK Government about the reserved aspects.
A couple of noteworthy speeches were those of Robert Brown, who mentioned GARL perhaps more in hope than in expectation—and who probably understated his previous expertise in arbitration matters—and of Christopher Harvie, whose speech I found refreshing. His was perhaps the first speech in the Parliament in which Venezuela was not mentioned simply as an invitation to laud Hugo Chávez on some crackpot socialist ideal that he has launched upon the poor people of his country. To hear from Professor Harvie about the Venezuelan crisis was not perhaps what I expected when I sat down for this afternoon's debate, but it was enlightening nonetheless.
In conclusion, the Conservatives hope that after the bill is passed this afternoon—as it undoubtedly will be—its potential benefits will be realised. We should be able to look forward not just to an improved legal basis for arbitration but to some of the economic benefits that might arise not just from attracting arbitration to Scotland but from speeding up our arbitration process. If we could find a way of speeding up the legal process more generally, we would reduce costs and—my goodness—the Scottish economy would be in a very much better place and stronger as a result.
I am delighted to speak in the debate on behalf of the Labour Party. As has been mentioned, Labour members will support the bill. One might say, indeed, that that is a case of arbitration in action.
I am pleased to note that the minister listened to the concerns of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, which raised a number of points about the bill at stage 1. We all know that Mr Mather is a reasonable man who practises what he preaches, so I was unsure what he had done to deserve the punishment of steering the bill through Parliament. However, we have heard some of the history of that, which I believe has something to do with the Justice Committee's Tory convener, Mr Aitken, feeling that he was a bit overworked. Be that as it may, the bill ended up at the door of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, which has done a fine job.
The one thing that disappointed me about Mr Mather's speech was the lack of any evidence from books that he had read about arbitration. Normally, his speeches are peppered with authors' comments and references to learned tomes that I have to look up on the internet to find out whether I should read them. However, I am happy to assist him with his reading matter. I can tell him that there are more than 130,000 books about arbitration, as I found out through a Google search earlier today, including "Early English Arbitration" by Derek Roebuck, which is a snip at £33.91 on Amazon. Mr Mather might prefer the expert guidance on the art of good pleading that Charles MacDonald QC and Chirag Karia provide in their book, which represents ideal reading for a minister who will have a lot of pleading to do in the Parliament until April 2011.
To be fair to Mr Mather, he took away the points that the committee raised at stage 1, with the result that we voted through the amendments that he so graciously acceded to. Given that we will be voting together at 5 o'clock, his pleadings have been successful so far, so perhaps he has no lessons to learn from Charles MacDonald QC—who knows?
As someone who was not involved in the earlier deliberations on the bill, I have found the debate interesting. I admit that I was a little concerned when I looked across at the Conservative benches and saw that we would be up against the dynamic duo of Mr Gavin Brown and Mr Derek Brownlee. Mr Brown apparently took an inordinate interest in the bill during the earlier stages of its consideration, and I was told that that was something to do with his background. In his speech, he admitted to having spent a lot of time in Scotland's courts—as a solicitor specialising in contract disputes, I hasten to add. The fact that he has been shortlisted in the "one to watch" category at tomorrow night's politician of the year awards is surely a concern for his colleagues, especially Mr Brownlee, who, if I recall correctly, was in that category last year. We have been watching him ever since.
I am sure that Gavin Brown will not mind me sharing with members The Herald's description of him as a potential leader of his party. Whether he is a potential leader of his party here in Holyrood or at Westminster is not clear, but if he can arbitrate between the warring wings of Murdo Fraser on the right and Annabel Goldie on the left, it is clear that he has a future somewhere. He might even be able to help his party to decide just what its policy on Europe is, but that is perhaps for another place. [Interruption.] Mr Brown is yawning—he is bored already. Good heavens!
We know that Mr Brown likes a laugh, as he has just demonstrated, as one of his fantasy dinner guests would, I read, be the comedian Ricky Gervais. The Conservatives might want to bear that in mind when they look for a cabaret turn at their office Christmas party. His other chosen fantasy dinner guest was Winston Churchill, who the good people of Dundee had the wisdom to reject as their MP. Instead, they elected the temperance candidate called Scrymgeour. However, I digress.
We heard from the Opposition solicitors Brown and Brown, which sounds like a law firm. Gavin Brown told us that the bill represented
"a more modern and dynamic offering",
and that in future arbitration would be faster and cheaper, which we would all welcome. For the liberals, the senior partner—at least in age—Robert Brown told us of the Government's vision. I know that the Scottish National Party and its ministers have many visions, but on this occasion the vision is of Scotland as a modern arbitration centre. We all agree with that objective.
I was taken with what Mr Mather said about the number of universities that now teach arbitration legislation. As ever, he used a telling phrase when he spoke to his amendments. He said that he was amazed at the elegance of the bill. We have probably all been amazed by that, but it was a nice phrase nevertheless.
My colleague Lewis Macdonald commented on the dubious figures surrounding the bill at stage 1. I cannot for a second believe that Mr Mather would be guilty of such practice, but luckily he has managed to temper his enthusiasm for what the bill might mean for Scotland and we have a much better forecast in place.
Rob Gibson wanted arbitration to be restored to its rightful place by a 21st century law. We all say, "Hear, hear," to that. Wendy Alexander reminded us that the way in which the bill had been constructed and considered represented almost a textbook example of how it was anticipated that the Parliament would work. She also made the helpful suggestion that we should perhaps put in place a method of checking whether any legislation that the Parliament passes does what it says on the tin.
Stuart McMillan came close to making a speech that was not fit for purpose, but he managed to rescue himself just in time, and his speech fell in with the other consensual speeches. I am sorry that he is not here. Where has he gone? I do not know whether he has fallen out somewhere. Perhaps he has gone for a cup of tea or a lie down after listening to Christopher Harvie.
I miss Christopher Harvie's contributions in the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee. He gave us a long historical discourse. The last time that I heard Schleswig-Holstein mentioned was in a school history class, which was not yesterday. As ever, Professor Harvie amazed me with his knowledge and his ability to speak off the cuff. One thing that he can guarantee is his immortality in the Parliament, perhaps without the martyrdom to go with it.
In conclusion, the debate has been consensual. We now have a bill that is worthy of the Scottish Parliament and to which everyone has consented. It will be passed at 5 o'clock. All members should welcome that.
I congratulate the bill team on showing assiduous professionalism. Its attention to detail and the support that it has given me have been terrific. It has been galvanised into producing a bill that is very much fit for purpose. I must also weave into my remarks congratulations to the committee, which really stepped up to the mark. Gavin Brown made contact with his previous life and brought his expertise to bear, which was nothing other than helpful and constructive and sometimes demanding, although positively so.
The bill is long overdue. Legislation on arbitration has been under consideration for at least 20 years. Some of the existing legislation has essentially been in force since it was passed by the old Scottish Parliament in 1695.
At one time, arbitration was the dispute resolution method of choice in Scottish commerce, but its popularity has diminished in recent years due to the unsatisfactory state of the law, which is obscure and out of date and has significant gaps. Robert Brown gave us an interesting view on that. He said that the process was previously slow and expensive; I almost read from what he said that it was conducive to bankruptcy. The law stood in need of reform, and without the bill the use of arbitration would have continued to decline in Scotland at a time when its use is increasing in other parts of the world. We have an opportunity to share in that development.
The bill patently provides a framework that is based on the UNCITRAL model law, but the gaps in the model law have been filled in so that Scotland will have a comprehensive arbitration regime that can be applied to both domestic and international arbitration and which captures the best of generally accepted international practice.
Obviously, the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill is a technical bill. I was therefore grateful for David Whitton's speech, which put it in a broader context. It has benefited from close consultation with stakeholders—indeed, the engagement on the technical, legal side of the bill has been almost unparalleled. I take Lewis Macdonald's point: engagement has not been the only answer, but it has been an important part of the process. I am grateful for the points that Gavin Brown made about that. Lessons have been learned that we can apply to other bills. In a future iteration, I would want the stakeholders to get involved at the earliest possible stage and to get them genuinely involved in the process.
It is clear that economic methods of dispute resolution are needed. Gavin Brown talked about cheaper and faster key measures. The culture shift will be driven by purpose, and the purpose must be to offer the parties cheaper and faster effective arbitration. In the current economic climate, businesses are increasingly choosing to resolve their disputes out of court in order to save time and money. I am grateful to Marilyn Livingstone for making a point about the opportunities that the bill offers to small businesses in particular. It is not fanciful to hope that we can create a more open and collaborative approach in the business community on the back of the bill. We have certainly spent a lot of time trying to bring businesses together and to get them to talk to one another. Moving down the route of the bill could be useful in boosting the competitiveness of Scottish business.
The flexibility of arbitration makes it one method of non-court dispute resolution that is available to individuals and businesses to facilitate the speedy and effective resolution of disputes at a viable cost. Alternative dispute resolution is something that we can augment and build on in Scotland.
I will mention some of the people whom we have met as a result of the bill—the people who can help to drive it internationally. I say to Mr Whitton that some of them have actually written books, which I may mention before I finish. Those books have added to the weight of their arguments.
It is worth recognising where we are just now compared with the UK Arbitration Act 1996. Although the approach to arbitration in the bill is generally consistent with the 1996 act, which applies in the rest of the UK, the opportunity has been taken to augment and update to reflect modern arbitral practice. The Chartered Institute of Arbiters believes that the bill is superior to the legislation in the rest of the UK, and it is hoped that the recognised framework, the quality of the bill and the fact that arbitration will be much cheaper in Scotland than in London will attract business here. We take on board Robert Brown's point about some cases being justiciable only in English courts. We must get people to recognise the benefit of coming to an attractive, neutral venue—indeed, many feel compelled to come here even without such encouragement.
The difficulty is that the terms are in standard contracts, which are produced long before the contractual dispute arises. Someone therefore has to go right back to base 1 to get the deletion of a term or insertion of a reference to arbitration in Scotland if we are to make any progress. It is a challenging issue.
It is a challenging issue, but it is linked to Gavin Brown's point about the need to keep a watching brief to ensure that progress happens. As Lewis Macdonald said, we must ensure that the public sector does everything that it can to establish the link between the professional bodies that are involved, academia in Scotland and Scottish Development International in getting the point across.
I am interested in what the minister has just said to Robert Brown about his earlier comment on England being the first point of reference for arbitration. Now that we are about to pass this 21st century legislation, what does the Government intend to do to market Scotland as a centre of excellence for arbitration practice?
I will come to that specifically in a minute. It is important to recognise the appetite that was shown at the stakeholder sessions for those groups to meet again and to keep at it as the work develops.
Apart from the cost advantage, there are other advantages to arbitration in Scotland. The bill is world leading and it is important that we are an English-speaking location. We have a safe, evocative environment and can offer a high level of amenity. There is an opportunity for our tourism industry to see arbitration as an extra string to its bow every bit as much as it is an extra string to the profession's bow. Furthermore, the Scottish arbitration rules are deliberately set out in the main body of the bill. That approach means that the rules will be read not only as a relatively self-standing code—as Gavin Brown mentioned—and a guide to practitioners but as one that is easy for non-lawyers to understand, which helps us to get the message across about the great potential for arbitration in Scotland.
The bill alone will not increase the amount of arbitration that is carried out in Scotland; the case for arbitration must be worked at. We must see those who are involved making the case and pointing out how cost effective arbitration will be in Scotland. As I said earlier, we will publicise the benefits of the bill and make as much progress as possible in that regard.
Wendy Alexander talked about unanimity and the consensus that exists around the bill. She also, pretty sensibly, made the point that we need a clash of ideas to move things forward—that is the nature of arbitration.
One of the delights of taking the bill through the Parliament has been the fact that I have been able to have lengthy conversations with the likes of Sir Anthony Evans, who has done much for arbitration in Dubai, and John Campbell, who is pretty stellar here in the Scottish scene. I have also spoken to Americans such as Kenneth Cloke and William Ury as well as our own mediators here in Scotland, John Sturrock and David Semple, and lots of Law Society members. The feeling is that there is a real potential for Scotland to be a centre for alternative dispute resolution—that is very much on the cards.
I will share with members a wonderful quotation from Kenneth Cloke, which, in essence, reinforces what we do for a living:
"It is my belief … that ardent dissent, courageous confrontation and a willingness to personally engage in conflict are essential to bringing about fundamental social, economic and political changes."
We will stick to our tools while we move forward.
Another interesting thinker in this area is a guy called Chris Argyris, who urges us not to take positions but to look at the facts, understand the problem, look at the alternatives that could be used to overcome the problem and consider using hybrids of those alternatives. The nice thing that he encourages us to do—which I think Wendy Alexander was also encouraging—is not only to stick at it, as Gavin Brown was suggesting, but to look for long-term improvements as we move forward, which will ensure that an idea does not become frozen in time.
Rob Gibson shared with us some interesting thoughts about international arbitration. Although I have calmed down about the economic benefit of the legislation, I must tell members that, had they been at the session on 30 April with the various stakeholders, they would also have been swept up in the enthusiasm around the potential that we face. I leave that thought with members.
My enthusiasm was fired up again today when I heard Chris Harvie talking about Adam Ferguson, because the ownership of a brand called the progress of civilisation is pretty interesting. Chris Harvie spoke about the need to cherish that legacy in making Scotland a centre for the peaceable—I think that that was the phrase. I rather like that idea and I think that it has enormous scope.
We have travelled a good way on what has been an interesting journey. As recently as 2002, Robert Hunter, the author of a leading textbook, wrote about the 1996 report on the modernisation of Scottish arbitration law:
"It was, of course, politically naïve on my part to expect that a technical and relatively uncontroversial report, on a subject which is understandably of little interest to the general public, would be speedily implemented, even by a new Scottish Parliament… Eventually, I realised that there was no immediate prospect of a … Bill to reform the domestic arbitration law of Scotland."
I am really glad that, together with others, we have been able to develop the measures in this bill. As Lewis Macdonald said in the stage 1 debate, this Parliament was specifically established to address issues such as the one that Robert Hunter raised.
I look forward to the implementation of the bill, to maintaining a watching brief on the situation and to knocking down some of the barriers that lie in our way. I confidently commend the Arbitration (Scotland) Bill to Parliament.
As we have finished our deliberations on the bill, I suspend Parliament until 4.59.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—