Meeting of the Parliament 20 December 2023
I begin by thanking the Scottish Law Commission for its detailed and technical work during more than a decade on the different elements of the bill. I am grateful to the Law Society for its work and suggestions, the briefings that I have received from it and the conversations that we have had about this area of law. I put on record my thanks to Stuart McMillan and members of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for their consideration and scrutiny work.
The Scottish Greens welcome this technical legislation that seeks to deal with the complexities that more than a century of acts and amendments to them has created. This reform and consolidation is the most significant development in trust law for more than 100 years. It is intended simplify our trusts and succession law and to make it easier for solicitors, trusters, trustees and beneficiaries to understand the legal rights and duties.
During the stage 1 debate on the bill, I raised the need to ensure that trusts support positive environmental and social objectives to enhance our environment and community wellbeing. I also stated that, on landholding trusts, the Scottish Greens believe that offshore trusts, blind trusts and private trusts that exist for tax avoidance or ownership secrecy should not be allowed to hold land. Primary beneficiaries of landholding trusts should demonstrate the productive use or development of land for good, while also being locally accountable and accessible. We want our succession law to support collective benefit and fair inheritance principles, and for it not be used to further contribute to Scotland’s land problem.
We remain concerned about the historic inequalities that are embedded in the structures and concentrated patterns of land ownership, and powers within succession law must be considered as part of our wider land reform for community benefit considerations. However, perhaps those issues go beyond some of the technical parameters of the bill that we are discussing.
In conclusion, I reiterate my thanks to those who have got us to where we are today. I look forward to supporting the bill at decision time and to an update on the section 104 discussions that Stuart McMillan referred to.
16:55