Chamber and committees

Does Ms White appreciate the history of the bill and how matters have progressed since 2010? If the bill is not passed today, we will go back to scratch and there will be no reform of the legal profession.

Amendment 28 makes it clear that different licence fees can be charged to different types of applicants for different types or categories of a licence to reflect the fact that there are now many types of business models entering the legal services market, such as those providing incidental financial services. The amendment allows for the charging of bespoke fees to be permissible under the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010. Allowing the charging of such fees would be part of the regulatory scheme rules. They would need to be approved by Scottish ministers, with the agreement of the Lord President, thus ensuring a check on the fee charging. An example of a licence that would apply only to certain businesses would be an incidental financial business licence.

Amendment 29 repeals section 49 of the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010. That removes the requirement that, for business entities to be eligible to be a licensed provider, they must be at least 10 per cent owned by solicitors or members of other regulated professions. That simplifies the regulatory framework and potentially broadens the pool of eligible professionals, which will encourage more diverse ownership structures within the legal profession and foster innovation and competition while maintaining high standards of professional conduct.

Under the 2010 act, an approved regulator must be satisfied that all non-solicitor investors are fit to have an interest in a licensed provider, for example in terms of their financial position and character. Section 64(4) of the 2010 act provides that, if a non-solicitor investor is a body, the regulator must be satisfied as to the fitness of both the body and any person having ownership or control of that body.

Amendment 30 relaxes that requirement so that it only applies in respect of persons who have significant control or ownership, as determined by the approved regulator, taking a more proportionate approach.

The bill repeals section 1 of the 2010 act, removing the duty on regulators to comply with specified regulatory objectives in the act in favour of the new regulatory objectives introduced by part 1 of the bill. Amendment 65 similarly repeals the obligation on legal services providers to have regard to the regulatory objectives under the 2010 act. Instead, those providers will need to adhere to the professional principles set out in part 1 of the bill. That change will reduce the regulatory burden on legal services providers, making compliance more straightforward while maintaining high professional standards.

Sections 77 and 78 of the 2010 act are, therefore, not needed. Section 77 requires approved regulators to act compatibly with the regulatory objectives in that act, and section 78 requires approved regulators to issue a policy statement in relation to section 77. Amendment 66 repeals those sections, and amendments 65 and 67 make related consequential changes.

I move amendment 28.

Amendment 28 agreed to.

Section 80—Majority ownership

Amendment 29 moved—[Siobhian Brown]—and agreed to.

After section 80

Amendment 30 moved—[Siobhian Brown]—and agreed to.

Section 86B—Safeguarding interests of clients

The Scottish Government recognises the distress that is caused to victims of crime and fully supports the activity to reduce that harm. Police Scotland has published an action plan that aims to provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime. That includes stopping people from becoming perpetrators of acquisitive crime, bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals, and strengthening collective protection against retail crime.

I regularly engage with the legal profession, and that issue has not been specifically raised with me in my meetings. I know that the Scottish Legal Aid Board can and often does provide funding for solicitors to allow services to be delivered to people all around the country. I also know that there are some gaps in our rural communities at the moment, and SLAB is looking at the geographical issues. That is one of the issues that we consider in the discussion paper on how we can improve things.

The handling and recording of non-crime hate incidents is an operational matter for Police Scotland, and revised guidance on the handling of non-crime hate incidents was published by Police Scotland in August last year.

We have regular discussions at official and ministerial level with Police Scotland on tackling hatred and prejudice, in line with our engagement with Police Scotland across the Government on a range of issues.

Legal aid funding allows solicitors to deliver their services to people across Scotland, and those services can be delivered remotely as well as in person. Every year, legal aid helps many people with civil problems. Legal aid expenditure is on track to be more than £170 million this year, which is the highest ever level.

However, I recognise that improvement is needed and that there are challenges in certain areas with certain types of legal aid work. Our programme for government commits us to taking forward the reforms that are set out in the recently published legal aid reform discussion paper, which will simplify the system for solicitors and those who need legal assistance, along with longer-term proposals for funding and improving the delivery of services. That includes a review of legal aid fees that will help develop regular assessments to ensure that systems remain fair and sustainable and deliver for the public purse.

As I have said previously, we are unable to do legal aid reform in the current parliamentary session, but I am committed to making improvements that we can make in this session.

The discussion paper sets out three key strands of work that we will undertake to improve and reform legal aid. In the immediate short term, we will simplify the judicare model by bringing regulations to Parliament this year. It is our intention to make changes to criminal, civil and children’s legal aid. We will make summary legal aid available for guilty pleas and cases continued without pleas in summary prosecution cases. A lot of work is set out in the discussion paper, but that is what we will be aiming to do in this parliamentary session.

The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 created the offence of domestic abuse that incorporates coercive and controlling behaviour, including financial abuse. Anyone who is experiencing domestic abuse is encouraged to seek help. Equally safe, which is Scotland’s strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls, explicitly recognises economic abuse. Our £26.1 million a year delivering equally safe fund supports survivors, including through the greater Easterhouse money advice project, which delivers specialist financial advice and support for survivors in Glasgow. The victim centred approach fund will provide more than £32 million to 23 organisations between 2025 and 2027, including £12 million for advocacy support for survivors of gender-based violence.

I assure the member that we are determined to support women to get the right access that they need. We have provided a pilot project in Edinburgh that provides an early intervention service offering legal advice to women and children who are impacted specifically by domestic abuse. In addition to the current judicare system, we have provided annual grant funding of £230,000 for the past eight years to the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre.

I am aware that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs has previously outlined some of the challenges with the implementation of part 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021. The challenges are fully understood by our justice partners and external stakeholders. We will look to outline the next steps in the coming months.

I am very concerned by the rise in shoplifting crimes and recognise the significant harm to retail businesses from theft, as well as threatening and antisocial behaviour, which is totally unacceptable. The Scottish Government is committed to supporting Police Scotland’s robust approach to addressing the issue, which is why we have made £3 million available this year to support Police Scotland’s work, alongside retailers, to tackle retail crime. That forms part of a record investment of £1.6 billion for policing this year, which is an increase of £90 million from last year’s budget.