The Court discussed and affirmed Lord Hoffmann's views in AG of Belize, noting that implication was part of the process of "determining the scope and meaning of the contract".

In Philips Electronique Grand Public SA v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd [1995] EMLR 472, 481, Sir Thomas Bingham MR set out Lord Simon's formulation, and described it as a summary which "distil[led] the essence of much learning on implied terms" but whose "simplicity could be almost misleading".

Sir Thomas's approach in Philips was consistent with his reasoning, as Bingham LJ in the earlier case The APJ Priti [1987] 2 Lloyd's Rep 37, 42, where he rejected the argument that a warranty, to the effect that the port declared was prospectively safe, could be implied into a voyage charter-party.

It could be dangerous to reformulate the principles, but I would add six comments on the summary given by Lord Simon in BP Refinery as extended by Sir Thomas Bingham in Philips and exemplified in The APJ Priti.

First, in Equitable Life Assurance Society v Hyman [2002] 1 AC 408, 459, Lord Steyn rightly observed that the implication of a term was "not critically dependent on proof of an actual intention of the parties" when negotiating the contract.

Fifthly, if one approaches the issue by reference to the officious bystander, it is "vital to formulate the question to be posed by [him] with the utmost care", to quote from Lewison, The Interpretation of Contracts 5th ed (2011), para 6.09.

It is necessary to emphasise that there has been no dilution of the requirements which have to be satisfied before a term will be implied, because it is apparent that Belize Telecom has been interpreted by both academic lawyers and judges as having changed the law.

And in Foo Jong Peng v Phua Kiah Mai [2012] 4 SLR 1267, paras 34-36, the Singapore Court of Appeal refused to follow the reasoning in Belize at least in so far as "it suggest[ed] that the traditional 'business efficacy' and 'officious bystander' tests are not central to the implication of terms" (reasoning which was followed in Sembcorp Marine Ltd v PPL Holdings Pte Ltd [2013] SGCA 43).

The Singapore Court of Appeal were in my view right to hold that the law governing the circumstances in which a term will be implied into a contract remains unchanged following Belize Telecom.

The second point to be made about what was said in Belize Telecom concerns the suggestion that the process of implying a term is part of the exercise of interpretation.

It only spells out what the instrument means"; and at para 23, he referred to "The danger ... in detaching the phrase 'necessary to give business efficacy' from the basic process of construction".

As Sir Thomas Bingham trenchantly explained in Philips at p 481: "The courts' usual role in contractual interpretation is, by resolving ambiguities or reconciling apparent inconsistencies, to attribute the true meaning to the language in which the parties themselves have expressed their contract.

It is of some interest to see how implication was dealt with in the recent case in this court of Aberdeen City Council v Stewart Milne Group Ltd 2012 SLT 205.

It is true that Belize Telecom was a unanimous decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and that the judgment was given by Lord Hoffmann, whose contributions in so many areas of law have been outstanding.

In those circumstances, the right course for us to take is to say that those observations should henceforth be treated as a characteristically inspired discussion rather than authoritative guidance on the law of implied terms.

The claimant's argument, by contrast, is that a term should be implied into the Lease that the Basic Rent payable in advance on 25 December 2011 should effectively be apportioned on a time basis.

If one concentrates on the factors identified in paras 33-35 above, there appears to be a strong case for the implied term for which Mr Fetherstonhaugh QC powerfully argued on behalf of the claimant.

On the other hand, as Mr Dowding QC rightly said on behalf of the defendants, the factors identified in paras 38-40 above chime with the warnings given by Sir Thomas Bingham in Philips and his reasons for rejecting an implied warranty in APJ Priti.

Even if I would have reached that conclusion, I consider that it could not have stood once one faced up to the clear and consistent line of judicial decisions which formed the backcloth against which the terms of the Lease, and in particular the provisions of clause 8, were agreed.

Given that it is so clear that the effect of the case-law is that rent payable and paid in advance can be retained by the landlord, save in very exceptional circumstances (eg where the contract could not work or would lead to an absurdity) express words would be needed before it would be right to imply a term to the contrary.

I accept that refusing to accede to the proposed implied term in this case can lead to the operation of clause 8 having the somewhat curious effect discussed in para 35 above.

However, while the difference in result between the tenant paying the £919,800 plus VAT before or after 25 December 2011 can fairly be said to be capricious or anomalous, it does not begin to justify a suggestion that the contract is unworkable.

In the leading textbook on the subject (Lewison, Interpretation of Contracts 5th ed (2014)), the judgment is realistically taken to "represent the current state of the law of England and Wales" (p 284, para 6.03).

In the same way the passages cited from Aberdeen City Council do not appear to support a sharp distinction between interpretation and implication, still less for the necessity of a sequential approach.

Lord Hope who gave the lead speech (which also had majority support) clearly saw them as part of a single exercise: the implied term was the "product" of interpretation.

I adhere to the view I expressed at para 15 of my judgment in the Mediterranean Salvage & Towage case (which is quoted by Lord Carnwath at para 62) that in Belize, although Lord Hoffmann emphasised that the process of implication was part of the process of construction of the contract, he was not resiling from the often stated proposition that it must be necessary to imply the term and that it is not sufficient that it would be reasonable to do so.

Another way of putting the test of necessity is to ask whether it is necessary to do so in order to make the contract work: see the detailed discussion by Lord Wilberforce in Liverpool City Council v Irwin [1977] AC 239, 253-254.