 The next item of business is preliminary stage debate on motion 15617 in the name of Kezia Dugdale on the Hutchison hospital transfer and dissolution Scotland bill. May I ask those who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons and I call Kezia Dugdale to speak to and move the motion for around seven minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to open the preliminary stage debate on the Hutchison hospital transfer and dissolution Scotland bill. I would like to thank my colleague Stuart Stevenson, Deputy Convener, Ruth Maguire and Maurice Corry for their work in getting the bill to this stage and, indeed, also to the clerks and spies for their guidance throughout the process and the detail. The bill was introduced on 25 June 2018 and is being promoted by the patrons of the Royal Incorporation of Hutchison's hospital in the city of Glasgow. This is the fourth private bill to be introduced in this session. The previous three have all received royal assent. By now, I think that we are all becoming more familiar with this very specific but, clearly, necessary and important aspect of the Parliament's work. Perhaps, thanks in part to the most recent bill to be discussed in the chamber, the Paufin Chaffrey Drainage Commission Scotland bill, the passage of that bill gained a fair amount of attention from its observers. The work of our private bill committee has, so far, been far more straightforward. That is partly because no objections were lodged to the Hutchison's hospital transfer and dissolution Scotland bill. As with all private bills, the role of the committee at the primary stage has been to consider the purpose of the bill, its general principles and whether it should even proceed as a private bill. If Parliament agrees, the bill moves into its consideration stage. The Royal Incorporation of Hutchison's hospital in the city of Glasgow is a charity and is the legacy of the Hutchison brothers George and Thomas. The name Hutchison remains well known today, thanks in part to the grammar school of that name in Glasgow. It all began in December 1639 in his will, George Hutchison of Lambhill established the Hutchison's hospital charity, when he left land and funding to build a hospital, which in the 1600s were places to shelter and support those in need. Important milestones in the charity's history are in 1821, when the charity became the royal incorporation of Hutchison's hospital in the city of Glasgow under a royal charter, and in 1872, when it was incorporated in its current form by the Hutchison's hospital act. The purpose of the bill that we have in front of us today is to transfer the property, rights, interests and liabilities of the royal incorporation to a successor Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, or SCIO. We also seek to dissolve the incorporation and to repeal the Hutchison's hospital act of 1872. Before moving on to the committee's consideration of the bill itself, I feel that members might benefit from some background to the royal incorporation. The preamble to the 1872 act provides considerable detail on how the charity developed, 15 pages of pre-1872 history in all, most of which you will get from Stuart Stevenson's speech this afternoon. Several sections cite provisions from the George Hutchison's will in the original Scots. We had the benefit of a comprehensive promoters memorandum as one of the accompanying documents to the bill that set out the history of the charity for us. As I mentioned, it was George Hutchison who donated the land in Glasgow on funds to build a hospital upon it. He also provided funds for clothes, food and lodging for, at that time, 11 aged and decrepid men. The support was for men who had been merchants, craftsmen or tradesmen who had fallen on hard times. George's brother Thomas also made bequests to the charity. He provided funding for educating orphans who were sons of Burgesses of Glasgow and he established a school that became Hutchison's grammar school. A Burgess was an inhabitant of the city, owning land, paying tax and able to trade or practice a craft. The original Hutchison's hospital building was completed in 1650 at the Trongate in Glasgow. It was demolished in 1795. A new hospital building, which included Hutchison's school, was completed in 1805 on Ingram Street in Glasgow. In 1810, the school moved into its premises and then into a purpose built building in 1841. The old hospital building itself can be seen on Ingram Street today. Over the years, other bequests were made to the charity and the eligibility criteria were expanded. For example, from 1781, poor women also qualified if they were residents of Glasgow and if their husbands or fathers were Burgesses. Since 1885, the incorporations distributions for educational purposes have been paid to and administered separately by the Governors of Hutchison's Educational Trust. It is still the 1872 act that regulates the management of the charity and its revenues today, which brings us back to the objectives and purposes of the bill. The bill's promoter, the patrons or trustees of the charity have been decided together that change is needed to allow a more modern governance of the incorporations assets and to enable the charity to function more efficiently and effectively. They believe that a private bill is the best route to achieve that. We heard from the promoter at our committee meeting on 7 November and asked what the 1872 act prevented the charity from doing today. Mr Donald Reed of Mitchell's Robertson, the solicitors firm supporting the charity in their role as chamberlains to Hutchison's hospital, explained as follows. He said that our hands are not tied behind our backs at the moment. It is just that moving is like being in a space suit rather than athletic gear. However, what needs to be done does get done. The patrons set up the new SEIO, the Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, ready for the transfer. That is already set up. The SEIO is a modern, flexible form of organisation for charities provided for by the charities and trustees involvement Scotland Act 2005 and regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. As a committee, we considered the purpose of the bill and the arguments presented in favour of enabling an updated governance structure and more modern financial management of the charity. We also considered the potential impact of those changes on the nature of the charity, its works and its beneficiaries, and whether a private bill was actually necessary to achieve the charity's aims. Our report sets out our considerations, and my committee colleagues will provide some more detail on them later in this debate. The committee supports the general principles of the bill. Overall, we believe that it will help to ensure that the charity can modernise, streamline, improve its governance, remain effective and continue to provide support to its beneficiaries. I therefore move the motion in my name. I call Maurice Corry for around four minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I too thank the clerks team and my colleagues for the progress of the bill to this stage. Deputy Presiding Officer, I thank the convener, Cassie Dugdale, for moving this motion. As the convener mentioned, one of the reasons for promoting the bill is to enable the promoter to update the governance of the incorporation. Based on the 1872 act, which still governs it today, the governing body consists of 95 patrons. Many of those are ex officio, meaning that the individuals are there due to the poster office to which they hold. They are not there through choice. To give one example, all of the councillors of Glasgow City Council are still patrons, as they were named as such in the 1872 act. The promoter underlined that there is a commitment, an active group of patrons. However, not surprisingly, there are also many who are not actively involved. Although the day-to-day running of the incorporation is carried out by an executive committee, the 95 patrons remain the governing body. That means that they must be properly contacted and consulted, and the promoter explained due to the course of our research that this also has costs associated with it. The promoter seeks to streamline and modernise how the charity operates, to make them more agile in how they can take decisions and, as they explained, to help to respond to expectations of best practice in the charity sector. The modernisation would include moving towards a model in which bodies would be named, which would then nominate people as trustees. The committee feels that a more direct and transparent link to a group of committed trustees would benefit the charity. They would be in the role through choice. That move would help to streamline activities and ultimately improve management and oversight. The promoter also believes that modernisation is needed to enable them to use the assets of the charity to their best effect. In evidence of the committee, it was explained that, as it is currently constituted, the charity faces some restrictions and has less flexibility in what it can do than would be the case for a Scottish charitable incorporated organisational skio. As well as considering the arguments given by the promoter in favour of modernising the governance and financial management of the charity, we also heard about the intentions of the charity moving forward. The charity provided its first pensions or grants to two men in 1643. The committee heard in evidence from the promoter that the charity today provides grants to a group of between 20 and 30 people in Glasgow. It also employs a part-time social worker who visits those receiving grants. David Dobson, who is on the charity's executive committee, described his work as a main thrust of the purposes of the trust and will be maintained absolutely. He went on to state that the other broad purpose of the trust is the advancement of education in Glasgow. Over the years, that has become established as being that 40 per cent of the trust net income goes to another charity, namely the Governors of Hutchison's Educational Trust. We have no intention, he said, of changing that, and that will be within the authority granted by the new skio should we start operating that way. The promoter also confirmed that none of the current beneficiaries would lose out as a consequence of the change. In conclusion, I hope that I have provided members with some useful detail on our considerations and some context as to why, as a convener mentioned in her opening speech, the committee concluded that it is content with the general principle of the bill as presented to us. I now call Stewart Stevenson to close the debate for around five minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I think that the primary task of the committee in considering the private bill is whether the bill is a private bill. We have thought about that, looked at the definition that is in our standing orders and may consider that it is. In coming to that conclusion, of course, we are merely following the long history from 1639, as Kezia referred to it via the 1872 act, which, although not in technical terms, a private bill clearly serves private purposes. Today's bill, being a private bill, is part of a continuum of the support that is given to people in Glasgow. The promoter also considered whether he could use alternative ways of dealing with the issue that confronted him, whether he could use the charity reorganisation provisions set out in chapter 5 of the Charities and trustee investment Scotland act of 2005. That is something that is available to charities in some defined circumstances, but it does appear that there is some lack of clarity as to whether the royal incorporation of Hutchinson's hospital would meet the criteria. To test that, the committee sought the advice from an academic and from a QC. The committee is in considerable detail in the committee's report. It is more fascinating than you might imagine, and I encourage all members to read them. However, the bottom line is that the academic and the QC drew us to the conclusion that the committee that is promoting the private bill had come to that it could not use the 2005 act provisions reliably without the prospect of legal challenge. Instead, it has pursued what is before us today, which is the private bill. The consequences of a legal challenge, where one to arise, could be both financially and practically quite challenging. The safe option that the committee adopted is happy to endorse is to bring forward a private bill. Of course, that leads to an issue for the Scottish Government, which we deal with in our report, which is that perhaps the legislation that I referred to the 2005 act should be revisited to see if we can provide greater clarity. Having said that, the Scottish Government has published a consultation in Scottish charity law in the last month, with a view to a possible update of the 2005 act, and it includes a question that relates to the matter that I have just been referring to. The preparation of consultation would have been well advanced, but, nonetheless, the Hutchison's committee is quite right to bring it forward in early course. The other option is that it could hobble on with the existing 1872 legislation, and the 95—very largely indifferent—people who were on the committee. Indeed, there was some suggestion that many of the 95 people who were on the committee were not even aware of the fact that they were on the committee, including, as it does, all Glasgow's councillors, and many ministers of religion who simply by their office end up legally and formally being on the committee. We did not come to the conclusion that doing nothing made sense, because I think that the trustees made a pretty cogent argument that we should look at updating and modernising the 1872 arrangements and bringing it into the world that we now have, with oversight of Oscar, the Office of Charities Regulator and SCIO. Having considered the alternatives, we are content with the promoters' conclusion that a private bill is the most appropriate and best available method of achieving its aims. We are left with one question alone, and that is how we will adjudge the success of this parliamentary process. The key test is that, for the beneficiaries of this trust, they see no difference whatsoever. It continues to provide the support that they have enjoyed for some time. The support that was described in the 1872 act, based on the mortification of George Hutchison of 1639, which said, ìAged decrepit men may be entered and placed therein.î Now, I am aged but, hopefully, not decrepit, but I was particularly excited by the provision that there will be four shilling Scottish money every day and every year a gown of convenient colour. Before we get too excited, four shilling sounds a lot of money, but in today's money, because it is Scots pounds, not the English pound and decimalisation, that is in modern currency tuppans. I know that beneficiaries get a little bit more than that today. This process should, and I believe will, enable them to continue to receive these benefits in proper legal form. That concludes the debate on the Hutchison hospital transfer and dissolution Scotland Bill, and it is time to move on to the next item of business.