Hansard

I will, if I may, madam convener.I have acted as the legal adviser for the trust since 1984, and before that, my firm has acted for the trust for as long as it has been in existence, since Sir William Burrell died. We also acted for Sir William Burrell and my firm prepared his will.Do cut me short if I digress and cover ground that other speakers will be covering. I will comment briefly on some of the legal issues as they relate to the Burrell collection that affect the trustees and the council, and also on why, having been persuaded by Glasgow Life that wider lending powers for the collection could be of benefit, the trustees have decided to support the bill that is before the committee.In the terms of the memorandum that was signed by Sir William and Lady Burrell and Glasgow Corporation in 1944, Sir William donated his art collection to the city subject to various stipulations. Those included an undertaking to keep the collection intact in the building that was eventually to be built. There was an express provision that allowed the city to make temporary loans of items from the collection to responsible institutions within Great Britain.In that agreement, Sir William further undertook that his will would provide a fund to be administered by trustees to allow additions to be made to the Burrell collection. He further stipulated that plans of the future Burrell gallery were to be approved either by him, or by his testamentary trustees if the building had not been built by the time he died. The deed did not, however, provide any clear legal role for his testamentary trustees in relation to the Burrell collection.In William Burrell’s will of 1953, the residue of his estate was left in trust with trustees being directed to apply the income for the purchase of additions for the Burrell collection. Many of the terms in the 1944 agreement were repeated in the will, which ensured that any items that were purchased by the trustees for the Burrell collection—which, you will remember, had already been donated—were covered by the same restrictions on lending and so on. In the will, however, Sir William imposed an additional restriction on future lending that prevented articles such as tapestries, pastels, carpets, rugs, lace and needlework from being loaned at all. That restriction is fully effective to cover items that are purchased by the trustees for the Burrell collection, but there is considerable legal doubt about whether Sir William’s will could unilaterally amend restrictions that he had previously imposed in an agreement that was made in 1944. Two deeds therefore govern lending from the Burrell collection, and they are not entirely symmetrical in their terms.As the committee is aware, in 1997 Glasgow City Council promoted private legislation in the United Kingdom Parliament to amend the terms of the will and of the 1944 agreement to allow the Burrell collection to be loaned outwith Great Britain. Unfortunately, there was not much consultation with the trustees at the time and they opposed the draft provisional order on the basis that Sir William Burrell’s clearly stated intentions regarding lending should be upheld.09:45 The inquiry took place in October and November 1997 and lasted about five weeks. A vast quantity of evidence was led before the inquiry regarding the donor’s wishes, modern transportation techniques, the benefits of reciprocal lending between institutions to promote research, and the perceived financial benefits to Glasgow’s museums through being able to lend the Burrell collection freely. The committee will have heard much evidence on those matters and will probably hear much about them after we have departed.The parliamentary commissioners confirmed that the trustees had an interest in the Burrell collection and, indeed, a right and a duty to enforce the conditions that applied to the collection, but they found in favour of widening lending beyond Great Britain, subject to the proviso that certain categories of items that they considered to be fragile—they are the items that are mentioned in Sir William’s will—should not be loaned at all. In other words, they had to stay within the Burrell collection. Previously, that had not been thought to be the case.That outcome was not quite what either party envisaged at the time, and although the commissioners’ findings are persuasive, they are not law, because the city did not proceed further with the provisional order. The commissioners did not address the question of how future lending to and from the Burrell collection was to take place and, indeed, they did not specify what role the trustees would have in relation to future administration of, and lending from, the Burrell collection. However, they urged both parties to co-operate for the future benefit of the collection.As Sir Peter Hutchison stated in his submission, one consequence of the commissioners’ findings was to release the trustees from the absolute requirement to uphold strictly Sir William Burrell’s lending restrictions. Since 1997, the city and the trustees have worked towards a satisfactory and workable arrangement to regulate all lending to and from the Burrell collection.The trustees’ central role in relation to lending is firmly established under the lending code. Their agreement must be obtained for all lending both to and from the Burrell collection. On the strength of that, the trustees feel able to support the bill that the committee is considering. By providing a mechanism for future amendment—which is not the case with the 1944 agreement or Sir William Burrell’s will—the lending code enables the parties, if they mutually agree, to make changes to lending procedures if subsequent experience shows that to be necessary and desirable. As the committee heard previously from Mr Eccles, legislation by the Scottish Parliament is the only effective way of allowing the conditions that are imposed by both the will and the agreement to be amended.I hope that this résumé has been of some interest and benefit to the committee. Thank you for allowing me to speak.