 Welcome to the second meeting of the Hutchison's Hospital Transfer and Dissolution Scotland Bill Committee. Can I remind those members that are present that mobile phones should be set to silent? We're missing Ruth Maguire at the moment, one of the members of the committee. That's because she is currently moving amendments at local government committee. Depending on how long that takes, she may pop in or she may not be here today. Just for the record, that's why she's not currently with us. I should also say to you that when you're speaking, the gentleman to your left will control your microphones. You don't have to worry about any of the buttons in front of you. The first item on our agenda is a decision on taking business in private. The first thing that we need to do is to decide whether to take item 3 in private. Agreed. Thank you. The second decision is whether to consider evidence at future meetings in private. Can I ask you to agree that? Agreed. And the third decision is whether to consider key issues for the preliminary stage report in private at future meetings. Agreed. Thank you very much. Okay, so today we are taking evidence from the promoters of the bill, the patrons of the royal incorporation of Hutchison's hospital in the city of Glasgow. And I get to now formally welcome David Dobson, a member of the executive committee at Hutchison's hospital charity, Donald Reed from Mitchells-Roberton Ltd, the Chamberlains to the Hutchison's hospital charity and Charles Livingston and Alan Eccles from Brodie's LLP who are the legal advisers to the Hutchison's hospital charity. What we're going to do is open up to some questions over the next wee while, but before we do that, can I just ask you to tell the committee a little bit about what you do in relation to this bill, just a little more background and perhaps start with yourself, Alan? Good morning, convener. Alan Eccles, I partner in the charities team at Brodie's and Charles and myself have been advising the charity on this process and from my perspective, in particular around the Oscar processes in getting the new charity set up, which would be the recipient body for the assets currently held by the charity in its current format. I was appointed as patron of Hutchison's hospital in 2015 by the Trade House of Glasgow. Since January 2017, I have been a member of the Executive Committee of the Hotspun. Good morning, convener and members. My name is Donald Reed. I am the chairman of Mitchells-Roberton Ltd who enjoy the fancy title of Chamberlains to the Hutchison's hospital. Mitchells-Roberton has acted in this capacity for at least 200 years. Despite appearances, I was not present at the inception of our instructions. I have personally been involved acting for the hospital since 1989. Over the years that I have been involved, the demands of governance and administration have steadily increased and have by now become unwieldy, which is why I am pleased to be involved in seeking the streamlining that, among other things, the bill will hopefully produce. Donald, you said 200 years there about the bill that we are dealing with is 1872. That is right. If you read all the boring stuff that goes with the copy of the 1872 act, you will see that it has been in existence prior to the coming into force of the 1872 act under earlier documentation, including our oil charts of 1821. I am Charles Livingstone, also a partner in Brodys, but I am in the Government, Regulation and Competition team. With Alan Advice, the charity on the private bill process, my role in particular was drafting the bill. I have drafted a few private and indeed member's bills. I am also dealing with the consultation and notification exercises. Lovely. David, if I could start with you. Could you explain to the committee why the patrons of the incorporation concluded that a change is needed? Why are we here? To allow the patrons to become more agile in decision making and in governance with regard to the trust, at the moment there are, I believe, 95 people who are patrons of the trust. If we see 15 of them, we are very, very lucky. However, the 95 people have to be contacted properly and are done, that is done, so there is a burden on that and there is also a burden of checking that they have been informed of the meetings and so on. Also, various people are appointed patrons exoficial of other posts. Hence, the deacon convener of the Trade House of Glasgow, exoficial, is a patron of Hutchison's hospital. He will be a patron for the year that he is in a post as deacon convener and in that year that gives you about enough time to find where the paper clips are and not very much time to do anything effective. It is another change that will be incorporated in that we will not be naming posts, we will be naming nominating bodies, like the Merchant House of Glasgow, as a body nominating people to serve as patrons. We hope that this will ensure that the people who become patrons aren't being forced to become patrons but are being willingly involved in our organisation and therefore be more active to our benefit. That's really helpful, thank you. I guess the automatic question that flows on from that is why now? I guess those arguments could have been made five years ago or 10 years ago. What's the impetus to do this now and that's really open to anyone on the panel? The impetus is partly financial in that the commitment of time and effort to managing the extensive paper work that is just simply generated by the sheer number of people means that that cost, although it's a management cost rather than a direct cost that you can put your finger on, has become, in recent years, with cost awareness coming to the fore, as it does in all organisations, has become one that we need to look at where we can. The other reason is that, apart from the cost, it's simply been borne in upon the patrons and the trustees, probably following the 2005 act, that the need to modernise and streamline the operation of a charity like ours, which is not enormous but at the same time is not negligible in terms of its funds, has become acute and we are simply responding to what we perceive to be the expectation of best practice in the charity sector. I just want to challenge what I'm hearing a little bit to make sure that we get a proper understanding. If we were dealing with a company registered under the Companies Act, we would expect that company to communicate with all its shareholders, so that's a model that I see here. Similarly, if it was a charity under Oscar etc, again it is a matter of regular behaviour that charities would be communicating quite actively with the people who've joined as members. Looking at the 1872 act, I'm just picking at random, more or less, whereas it is expedient that the patrons should be empowered as they fit, etc. In other words, it's directly saying that these patrons, a relatively large number of them, have been explained to the committee, are under the present arrangements directly involved or able to be. Are you not in danger of losing something important as a charity by, if you like, and I just use this term to provoke you to answer, by casting off this cadre of important people in your community who are supporting what Hutchison's are trying to do? Initially, there may be other answers. We are not casting off anybody. They have voted with their feet by not attending our AGMs and basically attending to their duties if we want to be over the top about it. The model that we are trying to effect is the model that has arrived over the last several years, so we are just making the law catch up with the practice, so I don't think that we'll lose anything. There's an active group of patrons currently who are often in the executive committee. This will be reflected in the equally active group of patrons that will be established in the scale, which, of course, will be subject to the Oscar screws that you mentioned. I'll come back on that very briefly because we want to move on, obviously. If such a large proportion of the patrons as they currently exist have essentially become disconnected from the work of the charity, is that not equally an indication that perhaps the time is up for the charity arrangements other than perpetuating it should be being considered? No? That's the short answer. The charity's work, particularly its work with the needy elderly people that it supports, is by no means out of date or moribund. On the contrary, the people that are supported by the charity are very grateful and the flood of letters of gratitude that come in regularly are a great encouragement, shall we say, to the patrons to realise that they're actually doing work that is greatly appreciated by people who benefit. The other thing to say is that there is always, like anybody who comprises a large number of people, there are drivers and there are passengers. That's the case here. The passengers, if I can use that term, I don't really use it pejoratively because it's inevitable in a big group that there will be some who are less involved in the running of it than others. The passengers, if we can put it that way, are very heavily committed individuals in their own fields from which exoficial without their own choice really and without even their knowledge until they finally arrive there, have been appointed. They can't all be expected to be as involved as the few who choose to make cultures in hospital one of their special interests. It's been to the great benefit of the hospital that a number of those individuals who are exoficial have chosen to do it that way. And in particular, councillors of the city of Glasgow, there's always been a few of them who have taken the hospital very seriously and quite a number of our recent preceptors in the past 30 years have been councillors of the city of Glasgow. There's always a few, but this whole idea has been driven as much by the council as by the administration of Hutchison's hospital because they can see this unwieldy nature of all the councillors being trustees and not all of them, in fact, only a few of them being able to be as focused upon the hospital as we would ideally like. So, for those reasons, the answer to your question is no. Thank you. That's helpful to get that all in the record, I think, convener. Thank you. Just moving on. Can you tell us a little bit more about the constraints that the 1872 act places on you and what you can't do as a consequence of that, for example, and what you might be able to do that you can't do when you become a Scottish charity incorporated organisation? Less. There's less in that. The ability to do what is required by the 1872 act is being done. It's the administration side and the cumbersome nature of the administration that is the real problem rather than that. There is anything that needs to be done which is not being properly done at the moment. If we had a skill, it would certainly afford to use Mr Dobson's word greater agility, that is to say, if something came up in the future which needed, in conventional terms, an adjustment of the purposes or the constitution of the charity, it will be easier under the banner of Oscar to adjust to meet needs as they develop. Our hands are not tied behind our back at the moment. It's just that moving is it's like being in a spacesuit rather than in athletic gear to be able to get done what needs to be done, but it gets done. That's helpful. Do you have any intentions of fundamentally changing the nature of the organisation going forward? Are you saying that this is basically about a tidying up exercise? It's a tidying up exercise. That, I think, states it too minimally. It's more than that. Governance is more than simply being tidy about the way you go about things. It's about improving the link between the trustees and their responsibilities so that the trustees are all more positively involved in the running of the charity and the decisions that it has to make rather than simply trying to tidy something up. I think that we could say as well that there is a great degree of connection between the purposes of the skill in terms of its constitution and what the 1872 act requires. It's expressed in more modern terms. Sorry, that's Scottish charitable incorporated organisation. The constitution, and probably Alan is the best place to talk about this, but the constitution of that does mirror not identically but, in its essence, the current purposes and activities of the charity. It's also fair to say that the current nature of the charity as a corporation established by statute doesn't really lend itself to modern financial management of the sort that the hospital would ideally do in terms of managing its investments. I would defer to Alan on the details. Can you say a wee bit more about that? That was wonderful lawyer speak. What do you mean by that in terms of managing financial resources? Is that about borrowing? Is it loans? I will defer to Alan on that on skills as a vehicle. A skill provides charities with a modern structure. It came in 2011 and is now far and away the most popular format for new charities. It gives charities and their trustees all the powers that they need to carry out their purposes. Other structures, trusts, organisations such as the hospital that are set up under an act of parliament, there are certain restrictions in there that make it, in some cases, that they don't have the same flexibilities to carry out their purposes. It's creating flexibility that other modern charities are able to take advantage of, but also very importantly, this is really about getting the governance right, streamlined, getting the best out of those organisations that have offered up their trustees over the years. Without changing the purposes, they are slightly modernised, but without being changed. I understand that, but I asked very specifically about finances. Is there a specific element of what will change around the financial structure? It gives wider investment powers and more flexible investment powers. A skill has the power to do anything it chooses, so long as that furthers the purposes of the charity. As it is currently constituted, it does not get the complete width of investment powers. That has been the case until the scheme and the 2005 act. A lot of charitable structures have had restrictions on how they could best invest. In some cases, charities are at a disadvantage in terms of generating a return for their purposes. I'm going to push you a little bit further on that, because the whole point of the process is to clearly evidence the Parliament why that is necessary. It would be really helpful if we could understand very specifically what it is that you could do after that happens that you currently can't do in the context of investment. You could invest in anything that furthers the charity's purposes. If an investment manager thought that it was a good idea to be investing in any particular way, so long as the trustees think that that is right for the charity, you can do that. You do not get the same flexibility and there are more restrictions on what you could do and invest in in its current format. The other side of it is changing the composition of the trustees, which is perhaps the most important bit of it. I will follow up on that from Maurice. Yes, thank you, chair. Alan, on that question of investment, are you saying therefore that you will be able to get bluntly a better state of return on investment under the proposals that you are considering? Is that going to increase the bottom line, which is therefore given out to the good causes? If there was investment advice that suggested investing in a particular way and that was right for the charity, it could take that up now as a skill, whereas incorporated by an act of Parliament, there are some restrictions there, so yes, it has the potential to create a better return for the charity. Perhaps the main driver is the quite unwieldy and cumbersome trustee group that there is at the moment, which is a key driver to the real governance benefit that the skill would give over the act of Parliament. That is fine, that is okay. Are we therefore looking at maybe some changes, whether there might be restrictions or opening to what we call green policies, you know the situation in the Church of England that has had recently the highest investments? Is there any link to that sort of idea or is this going to avoid that? No, in many ways quite the opposite. I quite often think of how charities invest as being purposes led, so if you are entering into the scale regime where your powers are based on what is best for your purposes and connected to your purposes and further your purposes, it ensures that you are taking those proper ethical social considerations into account to make sure that that ties in with your purposes. I am just reading the 1872 act and section 4 in particular says that patrons show the power to apply the remainder of evidence and a part not exceeding one-third of the capital of the hospital, et cetera. Is that an example of the constraints that come from the 1872 act, you know the one-third of the capital? I only choose that just as one example. Of what will be relieved if you move to the scale environment? Yes, and certainly the scale, in terms of its purposes, whilst respecting what has been there in the past, do things in a much more permissive way to enable the trustees to do things rather than putting limits on what they are doing. That's fine, good. That's really helpful. Sorry for the interrogation but you'll understand that this is all about helping to aid the process and that's what we're here to do. Could I just go back to David and Donald and ask you a little bit more about the current activities of the organisation? Tell us a bit more about what it is that you actually do for the purposes of the record. We currently give grants or pensions to a group of needy people in Glasgow, a group of 20 to 30 currently. Those people also get the benefit of a social worker who we employ in a part-time basis, who visits all of our grantees and makes sure that everything is going well with them. That is one main thrust of the purposes of the trust. That, of course, is going to be maintained absolutely. Currently, the other broad description of the purpose of the trust is the advancement of education in Glasgow. Over the years that has become established as being paying off 40 per cent of the net income of the trust to another charity, namely Hutchison's Educational Trust. We have no intention of changing that, and that will be within the authority granted by the new skill should we start operating that way. However, it will also free up that other things in the education field could be part of the remit of the trust. The act talks about schools and, in fact, predicts the arrival of what became known as Hutchison's Girls Grammar School prior to the act, which was only boys that were educated. However, it will be a wee bit more than tidying up the statute book by removing from us the power to run schools, which we have at the moment, but do not wish to use and in any future, any of us going to envisage will not be a future for Hutchison's hospital. You made quite clear there that you do not see any of the current activities materially changing going forward. Will you push a bit further on that? Is there any sense that anybody currently in receipt of the benefits of your organisation would lose out as a consequence of this change? What so ever. Indeed, all of the grantees have been communicated with to explain the situation that we are trying to advance. I think that that is recorded in the information that has been passed to the committee. I just mention that to clarify that there is no thought of there being any change. One final question from me before I pass to Stuart, just around the issue of what you are essentially doing is streamlining and making it much more easier to manage this organisation going forward. I guess that we would like to hear a little bit more about how you plan to manage it appropriately when there is such a material change and how it is operated. Who will do that? Me. Hello. It is about freeing up your time, Donald, so you have a bit less paperwork, a bit more focus on the objector. Yes, and a bit less fees to me, convener. I am afraid. I am going to get paid less. I think that this is the first time that somebody has come to the Scottish Parliament and argued for less money. Tell us a bit more about that. Well, at the moment, the way that the hospital charity operates is with this enormous group of trustees who every year empower an executive committee of a smaller number, approximately seven or eight, actually to run the show. To that committee meets quarterly and makes decisions about the investments. It hears reports on the various beneficiaries who are receiving grants. It hears reports from the educational trust on how the funds that are directed there are being deployed in its bursary fund in order to benefit students at the school who would not otherwise be able to be at the school. It hears these reports. For example, in the case of the beneficiaries, there is a lot of quite important personal information that has to be made available in order that these reports can be meaningful, so there has to be a very careful management of the personal data, all of which is managed in accordance with the Data Protection Act and GDPR. The reason that is going forward from there is that we will have a group of trustees who will be committed and informed to the same extent as the executive committee members currently are, but we will be hoping that by them being appointed by choice rather than simply having it imposed on them as a result of a different office that they hold, that the overall body of commitment and understanding will be broader and that there will be a greater ability thereafter to look at innovations if innovations should come along that might be suggested. At the moment, because of the sheer size of the number of trustees that are out there, it is more just a case of ticking over and doing what needs to be done because involving getting major decisions considered by a much larger body is a much more difficult thing. You talk, Donald, about the enormous number of trustees. How many were you talking about? Why did that happen? It is an ex-efficio appointment, so every elected member of Glasgow City Council is an ex-efficio trustee of the hospital, which is why it was mentioned earlier that this part of the driver for this is, on the council's part, a desire to rationalise the various offices to which councillors are automatically appointed, as Donald said, whether they even know about it or not. We have had a fair bit talked about capital, for example, about why we need to move to a different legal basis away from the legislation. Has anything that has not come up in the questions that we have asked so far that adds to why we need to legislate? That is what might be a no. The answer is no. That is fine. I am quite content with that as far as it goes. The alternatives that your promoters memorandum talks about section 42 of the Charities and Trustee Investment Scotland Act 2005. I have had a look at that, and I can see some of the issues there. There is also section 39 of the act that I have got in front of me, which certainly appears to provide an alternative way of having re-organisations. Although there are some complexities associated with the way that it is expressed, it is clearly an alternative way that you could have proceeded. To what extent was that considered, and why might it be, if it was considered, did you dismiss it? That is not an option for a charity that is incorporated by active Parliament, because the charity does not have the ability to re-organise its own constitution. For an active Parliament, it is separate. I am afraid that I do not have the entirety of the 2005 act. Can I just take you to section 42 of the 2005 act? Under subsection 3, a re-organisation scheme is a scheme where a variation of the constitution of the charity dada dada, transfer of property, amalgamation of another charity, but it then goes on. Subsection 5 does not apply constituting a royal charter or warrant under any enactment, and I think that is what you are hanging your hat on. However, it then goes on in section 6 to say that, despite section 5, which is the enactment provision, those sections apply to an endowment if its governing body is a charity. I am not a lawyer, but it would appear reading that you would be caught by subsection 6 because, albeit that you are by enactment established, you nonetheless would appear to have the power if its governing body is de facto if not under current legislation a charity and therefore would be able to re-organise by that means. I would be interested to hear your observations on that without getting to the point where I, as a layperson, become so baffled that I dissolve. I will do my best. The answer in respect to section 39 is section 42 5, which supplies section 39 and 40 to any charity constituted under an enactment. There is an exception for an endowment if its governing body is a charity. The difficulty with section 42 and that drafting is that that drafting reflects the way in which educational endowments are spoken about, so we mentioned the Hutchison's educational trust, for example. That is an example of where a scheme was made and there have been four or five different pieces of educational legislation where endowments could be placed into the hands of a governing body. That legislation creates a clear distinction between the concept of an endowment and the concept of a governing body. That distinction does not exist in relation to the hospital because it is not really possible to identify one thing that is an endowment and one thing that is a governing body. It is probably impossible to explain it without getting very technical, but I can certainly say that Oscar grapples with that issue itself. In response to our consultation letter, Oscar's response, and the summary of it is noted in the promoter's memorandum, but I can possibly read it out for the record. Oscar, in reply to our consultation letter, said, I note that we were previously asked to consider what options were open to the charity trustees of the incorporation to achieve the modernisation they intend and, in particular, whether the reorganisation provisions of the charities and trustee investment Scotland Act 2005 would be available to them. Our view was that in order for the incorporation of Hutchison's hospital to be able to rely on the reorganisation provisions, it must establish that the charity holds property that qualifies as an endowment. The drafting of section 42 of the 2005 act on this point is ambiguous and its interpretation is difficult. Indeed, we have recommended to ministers that it should be amended. It is therefore understandable that the charity trustees have chosen to promote a private bill and we have no particular comment on and certainly no objection in principle to the proposal. The position is not necessarily that we can say with certainty that we fall outside or indeed inside section 42.6. The difficulty is that its interpretation has never been tested in court, so anybody that relied on 42.6, that reorganisation, would be vulnerable to a challenge. We, as advisers, are not able to say to a charity in the position of the hospital that you can definitely rely on that. While the prospects of that being challenged and struck down are possibly quite low, the impact of such a result would be almost impossible to deal with. That is why the reorganisation provisions for bodies established under an act of Parliament, with the probable exception of the educational endowments that I mentioned, fit more neatly within the legislation. We have not been in a position to advise any such charities that they can use the reorganisation provisions with absolute confidence. I find that relatively compelling. However, just looking at the 1872 act, in essence, the source of funding is from mortifications, which are a particular form of testamentary provision, I understand it. Do they constitute endowments to the charity in legal terms? The property may constitute an endowment, but there is an additional difficulty in unpicking section 42.6, which says that the sections apply to the endowment if its governing body is a charity. If we are dealing with an endowment here, the endowment is the collection of property and assets. The act does not say that the reorganisation provisions can be applied to the governing body. It says that it can be applied to the endowment. That is one of the reasons why it is, in Oscar rewards, ambiguous and difficult to interpret. I think that I am going to rely on what Oscar is saying, which seems to be a perfectly proper place to go. Equally, the uncertainty of that option compared perhaps to the one that you are now pursuing, so I think that that is helpful. Just a couple of things about the patrons, which I think that we can probably deal with fairly briefly. We have heard that there is only a small proportion of the patrons who actively involve themselves in the Hutchinson hospital. In this particular case, of course, it is a more fundamental issue. Are you surprised that, in this case, such a small number has got involved in this fundamental reorganisation? I will answer that one if I may, Mr Stevenson. We are no more surprised about the commitment of the totality of the trustees to this issue than generally the commitment over the years. That is to say that there has always been a few who are committed and the vast majority who, for the reasons that I have sought to explain earlier, do not participate to any degree. The democracy of the decision to seek to promote this bill was fully observed in the holding of the relevant meetings and giving notice and so on. None of the trustees had any issues to raise with the wisdom of it and were no doubt being guided by the fact that they knew that there was an executive committee on whom they had good reason to be able to rely. I am going to be extremely picky. Are you using the word trustees as a surrogate and equivalent to patrons? I am, yes. That is fine. Just to be clear that we are not talking about something different. Did any of the people who did not attend the meeting otherwise provide any feedback? I think that I am right to say that none did. That is fine. We will move on. Following on from Stuart Stevenson's comments, I have asked the question about the 95 figure of people who have been involved under the original, the current situation. How many organisations and people did you write to in relation to the consultation? Was it more than that? The consultation letters took place in two phases. There was discussion with the various bodies who are involved in either appointing patrons to the charity or whose members are ex-ficial patrons. There were discussions with Glasgow City Council, Merchants House of Glasgow, Trades House of Glasgow and the Presbytery of Glasgow. The reason for the presbytery is that there are ministers of various parishes who, like councillors, are appointed ex-ficial whether they want to be or know about it or not. There were also discussions with Hutchinson's Educational Trust as a significant beneficiary of the charity. Those took place in the phase of developing the proposals and ensuring that people were on board with those. At the formal stage, in terms of the pre-introduction consultation, letters were sent to the Governors of Hutchinson's Educational Trust. As I said, everybody in receipt of a pension granted by the incorporation received a letter to advise them of what the proposal was. We also wrote to Glasgow City Council, Merchants House, Trades House, Glasgow Presbytery and the Archdiocese of Glasgow, because all of those bodies will be either already have people appointed to the existing trustee body or under the skeel constitution have the ability but not the obligation to appoint trustees to the skeel. We also wrote to Oscar. Do you feel that you have a pretty poor response? We got responses from Glasgow City Council, which was supportive for the reason that I mentioned their interests in rationalising the obligations on their members. We got responses from the Trades House, which was supportive, and we got the responses from Oscar that I have already read out in part. There had already been discussions with the Educational Trust, so we were not necessarily expecting a response to that formal letter. We were not expecting responses from anybody in receipt of a pension. The reason that that letter was sent out while inviting their views was principally to give them comfort that, as discussed earlier, they should not expect anything to change. Merchants House had been closely involved with the discussions as well. It is fair to say that the Merchants House and Trades House patrons are among the more active on the charity. We were not necessarily expecting more replies than we received to those letters. Donald, do you want to say something about the earlier engagement? I was just going to add that, personally, I had prior discussions with the Glasgow Presbytery in, among other things, making sure that I was up to date with all the various amalgamations of churches that have taken place over the past 150 years within the Glasgow Presbytery area, to be sure that we were indeed addressing as a patron the correct minister who, in most cases, is now the minister of several amalgamated parishes, as distinct from the way it was before. The Glasgow Presbytery, and then in the context of that, there were discussions, or at least the Glasgow Presbytery, the office with which I was communicating, was advised of the proposal that we moved forward on that basis, and it indicated at that point. Simply and formally, it would approve it and would endeavour to participate in appointing relevant patrons or trustees come the day, if it happened. Therefore, speaking from that experience, I am not surprised that the presbytery did not offer any formal response to the intimation when it was made, because it probably felt it already had done. One other thing just to say is that it was not a poor response. It was a good response. If a proposal meets with favour and receives no objections, that is actually a good response. I am just thinking about the sheer numbers. What attempt was made by the committee, etc., to follow up with those who did not reply? You have talked about, Mr Reid, talking about the presbytery at length, and obviously understanding from that. Was there any actual attempt made to follow up with those and say, look, I am sorry that you have not replied. Have you had any further objection before we finally close that? No, because we had engaged with the key bodies from whom we would expect engagement based on the experience of the incorporation as to who was and was not engaged. I should add that although those were not consultation letters because they went out to trustees rather than external bodies, there were also letters that went out to everybody who was a trustee of the incorporation as an update reminding them of what had been agreed at the previous annual meeting to pursue the private bill and telling them that we had reached the stage where we were going to be introducing the bill. That was pre-introduction as well. You categorically feel that there has been no objections at all, not even a smidgen of a sinifavid. Thank you. I will do a few wrap-up questions and then offer you the opportunity to tell us anything else that you do not think that we have covered. I take you back to 1821, which is where we started here. Looking at the explanatory notes of the bill, it says that the charity was initially built up in the 17th century by way of multiple deeds of mortification and similar deeds, some of which are written in old Scots or otherwise archaic language, and in particular the possibility that there may still be valid documents of which the current patrons are unaware. I guess that I would like to know what you think the chances are of old documents turning up that might scupper your efforts. I can speak to that as probably the person of the three lawyers before you. I am undoubtedly the oldest. In my personal experience of 30 years, in fact more than 30 years, I have got black over the years going through tin boxes full of stuff, looking for anything that might be relevant, not finding it. This stuff is the archives of my firm, which, as I have said, well actually for a wee boast that is the oldest firm in Glasgow, and some of its archives go way back deep into the 19th century and one or two interesting documents I found dating from the 18th century and even earlier. There is nothing there. I would think that it is such a remote possibility as to be discounted to nil. There is no chance of finding a document that might challenge the objectives of the organisation going forward. I do not think so. I can maybe just add to that from a legal perspective. The reason that is mentioned in the explanatory notes is to explain why the legislation itself takes what is very much a Belt and Braces ultra cautious approach to capturing everything that might have a connection with the incorporation and that one would want to go across to the scale. In fact, the background 1821 is the royal charter, the various deeds of mortification and other legacies that date back as early as 1639. We cannot envisage of what might come about. It is extremely unlikely that anything might come about, but what we did not want was for this legislation to leave any prospect of there being a legal or ownership lacuna in respect of any property or obligation or anything like that. That explanation is there to explain why the legislation is a little bit more extensive. It has more subsections to it than some other examples of charities that have been constituted under act of parliament and are looking to reconstitute in another form. It is because we are dealing with things that are so historic and have come from so many sources that we just did not want to leave even the possibility of something being left behind. In the event that something does appear, the legislation will have taken care of that and the scale will be the responsible body to deal with it. It will not undermine anything that the act is doing. The act is intended to protect against that eventuality. What you are saying is that, in the scope of the drafting, you have done it in such a way to scoop up anything that might arrive and provide any mechanism to deal with it in that event? Exactly. It is to leave nothing behind was the approach. I am just going back to the 1872 act and section 26 thereof, which looks very much like a standard legal catch-all. I would just invite you to agree that the intention of 26 is to catch everything that went before. It is just reading bits of it. All property heritage will move real and personal wherever is situated at the time we are passing that. All conveniences and assignments and then a long list of other things are connected with the hospital before mentioned mortification charities. Whether the same are held absolutely in security is the most comprehensive of legal lists that, in 1872, would scoop up everything, whether known about at that time or thereafter or not, and that that could be something upon which we rely on to catch all the things that are unknown. That would be the intention of that bit of drafting. If that bill were not passed and something cropped up from pre-1872, you would be looking to rely on section 26 to confirm that that was held in the incorporation as it is currently constituted. What the current bill intends to do is to use more modern and hopefully more understandable drafting looks to apply a similar approach now. Not only will we avoid any issues in respect of things pre-1872, we will avoid any issue in respect of anything done between 1872 and the point at which this bill is passed if indeed it is. Indeed, the bill that is before us that you have brought to us does not abolish the 1872 act. Does it? Yes, it does repeal it. I have just very quickly looked at it without—and I have left my glasses somewhere else. Oh, it is a disorder—oh, well, yes, it might say that, but does it do it? Yes, it is section 21, which says that the transfer order is dissolved. Oh, no, it is section 2, correct. And then 2 says the act is repealed. It is because it is the top of the page, I did not see it. My apologies. Thank you. That has been pretty comprehensive. Is there anything that you would like to get on the record that we have not given you the opportunity to say or do? On behalf of the hospital, I have my role in it to thank this committee for its careful addressing of these issues and for the opportunity to respond to your questions. Great. Well, thank you very much for your evidence this morning. We wish you well. That is the public part of the committee business, concluded for the day. I am just going to suspend it in a second, but before I do that, can I just advise that the committee will next meet on Wednesday 28 November? Thank you very much. That is suspended.