Hansard

With this legislation, the Government seeks to modernise the law relating to judicial factors. As the minister has already set out, some of the legislation dates back as far as the 18th century.

Judicial factors have important, if seldom-used, legal functions that apply, for example, when a solicitor or solicitor’s firm has breached the Law Society of Scotland’s accounting rules and is, or appears to be, insolvent, or when no executor is willing to administer a deceased person’s estate.

Scottish Labour agrees with the Scottish Government’s stated aim of clarifying the current legislation and making a judicial factor a more attractive option in a range of circumstances.

Like other members, I thank the Scottish Law Commission, without which the legislation would not exist, the Law Society of Scotland for its helpful briefings and evidence to Parliament, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee for its scrutiny of the bill. I also thank the minister and her officials for the way in which she has conducted the legislation. I was pleased that, at stage 2, the Government introduced amendments that responded to some of the concerns that were raised in the committee’s stage 1 report on behalf of stakeholders.

There is broad agreement across the chamber and among the legal profession that this area of law is outdated and in need of modernisation. Scottish Labour has supported the bill throughout its passage through Parliament. In the light of the amendments at stage 2 and, today, at stage 3, we will be pleased to support it again this evening.

I will be surprised if the bill, should it pass today, makes it on to the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers. There is nothing headline grabbing or unduly controversial about updating legislation on judicial factors, and neither should there be. However, the legislation will make some people’s lives a little bit easier, and it is important for that reason alone.

The bill will make the judicial factor procedure easier to navigate for a missing person’s family members, who are struggling with the grief and uncertainty caused by their disappearance. I am glad that the minister heeded calls from the Labour benches—particularly from my colleague Martin Whitfield—as well as from stakeholders and the committee, to explicitly outline provisions around appointing a judicial factor in the case of a missing person. I welcome the minister’s comments regarding the work of the charity Missing People in that regard, as she seeks to expand the clarity on it.

We all know the vital work that charities do in our communities—many of them help to deliver front-line services to the most vulnerable in society. Amendments that were agreed at stage 2 mean that the bill will deal more appropriately with the specific case of judicial factors that are appointed to charities.

The stage 3 amendments were largely technical in nature, and we, on the Labour benches, were happy to support them. Recent history is littered with examples of bills that were variously rushed, incoherent or light on detail, meaning that well-intentioned bills became unworkable acts of Parliament. However, I am pleased that, as a result of cross-party working and the Government responding to the concerns of stakeholders such as the Law Society of Scotland, the bill will buck that trend.

The bill’s provisions interact with a range of other areas of law including charity law, trust law, the law of succession, child and family law and bankruptcy law. An interaction that stakeholders have raised questions about is how the bill will operate alongside the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000. The Law Society of Scotland has asked for clarification of which provision will ensure that guardians who have been appointed under the 2000 act remain outside the judicial factors regime and in what way we will ensure that judicial factor appointments do not become a loophole for those who would wish to evade the safeguards for incapable adults that are set out in that act. I would appreciate it if the minister would address those issues in her closing speech.

Scottish Labour welcomes this important update to our nation’s laws and we will be pleased to support the bill at decision time this afternoon.