Meeting of the Parliament 20 December 2023
I thank the committee clerks and all those who have been involved in the bill. This is a technical bill, but it will have real impacts on people’s lives. I hope that it will prevent situations such as what happened at McClure Solicitors. McClure went into administration two years ago, and the victims of McClure Solicitors action group held a meeting in the Parliament to raise awareness among MSPs of the serious issues that McClure clients face. Many of them have family protection trusts, wills, lasting powers of attorney and the like. An estimated 100,000 clients were affected, and the vast majority of those people are totally unaware of the issues that stem from McClure going into administration.
Clients who have trusts with McClure Solicitors as trustees often cannot sell assets because the solicitors are still on land registry records. That will result in some properties standing empty for two to five years, which will force families to maintain properties without being able to take action such as selling or renting them. Campaigners for the victims action group highlighted issues with accessing and understanding documents. Many of the clients are elderly, and often their children or close family are left trying to make sense of everything while they have responsibility for looking after elderly parents or—worse—while they are going through a period of grief.
Campaigners spoke of having to pay £750 in administration fees to get McClure’s trustees to sign off trusts at the same time as they received letters from solicitors trying to indemnify McClure and its associates from any future legal action. The campaigners’ experience highlights the human impact of what happens when trusts are not appropriately administered or managed.
Lessons must be learned and processes must be put in place to ensure that that does not happen again. I hope that the bill will do that, but those who have been impacted by McClure need help now. I ask the Scottish Government to look at the issue, because Police Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland will not get involved, and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission will not get involved. Someone needs to set up an investigation to ensure that those who are affected are assisted properly and get the appropriate settlement to their concerns.