Hansard

I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. I have listened to what has been said and I am pleased with the recognition of the importance of the bill and the valuable work that the Scottish Law Commission has done in keeping our law up to date.

I want to touch on Roz McCall’s point about why the process has taken so long. I cannot speak to the reasons why Governments back in the 1970s and 1990s did not take forward contract law reform proposals. However, since 2013, there has been a lot of work involving the DPLR Committee and its predecessors, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to create a framework for quickly implementing Scottish Law Commission recommendations for law reform. Since 2013, 10 such bills have gone through. In this session alone, we have passed the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act and the Judicial Factors (Scotland) Act, and I hope that this bill on contract law will be passed, too. To my mind, the only older Scottish Law Commission report that remains unimplemented is that on section 53 of the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003, so we are making progress with the Law Commission’s recommendations.

Contract law is fundamentally important to our everyday life. The bill will modernise important parts of Scots law of contract while clearing up doubts that have arisen over the years. The bill largely restates the common law on formation of contract to improve accessibility of the law, and it makes important reforms to clarify and modernise the law. The provisions are a result of a significant law reform project that was undertaken by the Scottish Law Commission, which included four discussion papers on different areas of contract law. The overwhelming majority of consultees agreed that the law needed reform.

On contract formation, the principal reform is the abolition of the postal acceptance rule, which has been a repeated recommendation by the SLC for more than 50 years. As Professor Hector MacQueen told the committee, to abolish the postal acceptance rule without partial codification of the law on contract formation would likely lead to less clarity.

Part 2 of the bill deals with remedies for breaches. Notably, the bill now includes the provision on the law of contractual retention. In 2018, the Scottish Law Commission said that, although the law of retention needed clarification, it should be left to the courts to do so. However, by 2024, stakeholders thought that legislation was needed to bring clarity to the law. We consulted on a scheme for reform of retention, which a majority of respondents agreed with. That came through clearly at stage 1, and amendments were lodged at stage 2 and agreed to by the committee.

I again thank the Scottish Law Commission and Professor MacQueen for the significant and comprehensive work that has been undertaken to review the Scots law of contract and for the Law Commission’s recommendations, to which the bill gives effect. The Scottish Law Commission serves a valuable function in reviewing our laws and making sure that they are fit for a modern Scotland. I thank it for the work that it has undertaken on the four other SLC bills that have been introduced in this session of Parliament and for its continued engagement with the Scottish Government in taking them forward. I commend the motion in my name.