Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 December 2020
I, too, would like to thank my colleagues for their work on the bill to this stage, and I add my thanks to the clerks. Briefly, I will depart very slightly from my script. The work that is carried out on private bills is incredibly important and is an important duty that we have in the Parliament. It is, by its very nature, niche, but it is obviously of fundamental importance to organisations such as the Society of Solicitors in the Supreme Courts of Scotland, the functions and underpinnings of which are set out in statute. I therefore thank the clerks for keeping us straight, for keeping on top of the detail and for getting the bill through to this stage.
I intend to concentrate on the mechanisms that are required for the winding up of the society, and on certain aspects of the society’s meetings.
The promoter made it clear from the outset that the main aim of the bill is to address the lack in the Solicitors in the Supreme Courts of Scotland Act 1871 of powers to wind up the society. It came to the attention of the current office bearers that, should the society one day find itself in the regrettable position of having to wind up, it currently lacks the powers to do so. Understandably, the office bearers do not wish to find themselves, as one put it,
“aged 85 and the only person left at the table,”
only able to
“resign from office, walk away and leave an organisation that still exists with nobody to manage it.”—[Official Report, Solicitors in the Supreme Courts of Scotland (Amendment) Bill Committee, 17 December 2019; c 10.]
Quite so. The bill therefore inserts into the 1871 act section 52B, which sets out the general process for decisions on the winding up of the society.
The process starts with the council agreeing a proposal to wind up the society, followed by either a general meeting of the members or byelaws being made to decide the procedures to be followed at a special general meeting. The society’s members must be given at least 30 days’ notice of the special general meeting at which they will consider the proposal to wind up the society, using the previously agreed procedure.
If the members vote to wind up the society, the council will implement that decision, either in accordance with the arrangements that have been made by the society or in such manner as the council considers expedient.
At the preliminary stage, the committee questioned whether the procedure to dispose of the society’s assets was detailed and robust enough to encompass any tensions as a result of the division of the society’s substantial assets. We noted that, even with the best of intentions, the division of assets may lead to tensions. It was therefore welcome that the promoter proposed amendments to the bill at the consideration stage to strengthen the procedure around the division of the society’s assets, which include the society’s headquarters, situated just off the Royal Mile.
The bill has therefore now been amended to require that the society’s members are consulted on how any property be distributed in the event of the society being wound up. That consultation must take place before the special general meeting where members would discuss any proposal to wind up the society.
I hope that I have provided members with useful detail on how the bill has been amended at the consideration stage to strengthen the procedures for winding up the society. However, as the promoter has made clear throughout the passage of the bill, it is hoped that those procedures will not be required any time soon. I agree with the committee’s recommendation that the Scottish Parliament agrees to pass the bill.
15:46