No, it does not. It reflects the fact that there was opposition in that regard yesterday. I do not accept the arguments that have been put by a small number of landlords in the social rented sector. I would be quite happy to work with them, as I would with anybody else, to see how the proposal could be refined. However, in order to have a chance of getting it through Parliament today, I have chosen to focus our concerns on those tenants who are in the weakest position.
Amendment 11 provides for a rent freeze for two years. Unlike under my stage 2 amendments, it would apply only to private tenants and the date from which the two years would begin would be backdated to 1 April—it would not be, as the minister said in his remarks, the date of the act coming into force—to ensure that landlords who have agreed reduced rents in response to the crisis would not be adversely affected by the measure. I made that change in response to legitimate concerns that, where landlords have reduced rents by, say, 30 per cent, that should not be the baseline of the rent freeze.
Amendment 12 recognises that many tenants will simply be unable to pay their full rent because of their personal financial circumstances. Again, I have changed the proposal. The amendment applies only to private tenants and the wording has been tightened further to ensure that it applies only in relation to tenants who are, as proposed new paragraph 3A(1)(b) of schedule 1 states,
“facing unusual or extreme hardship”.
Ministers would have the power to specify further details in regulations.
It is vital to have a provision, albeit that it would be applied only in extreme circumstances, to write off some rents. We do that, in effect, in the free statutory debt solutions that we have—bankruptcy, protected trust deeds and the debt arrangement scheme.
Mr Stewart said that the wording of amendment 13 has not been changed, but it has been. The proposal that I have brought back today is restricted to private tenants. It is an important amendment. The minister said yesterday that no one should be affected because of the coronavirus, and he said that again today. The reality is that, once amendment 9 dies, as it will, there will be nothing to stop landlords pursuing tenants for eviction due to arrears that were accrued during the emergency period that are beyond those tenants’ control.
All that I am trying to do with amendment 13 is to ensure that, once the emergency period is over, no landlord may seek to evict a tenant for rent arrears that were accrued during the emergency period. It is vital to point out, because this has been widely misrepresented, that we would not be writing off any rents whatsoever. They would continue to be owed to the landlord. All that I am seeking to ensure is that no one can lose their home because of those rent arrears.
I encourage members to reflect heavily on the evidence that Amnesty International has given us today. It points out, rightly, that this is a human rights issue. There was a very good chance—I am already in discussion with a Queen’s counsel about this—of a challenge to the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988 on human rights grounds before the crisis. If, after the crisis, we see people—families, single mums, older people or whoever—being evicted due to rent arrears that accrued during the crisis, I believe that that will be a violation of their human rights.
Amendment 14 has the same basic effect as amendment 13, but it is much narrower in scope. It is restricted to tenants of landlords who are in receipt of a loan under the landlord loan fund.
I welcome Pauline McNeill’s amendment 10, which we worked on together. Notwithstanding the welcome increase in the housing fund, which Mr Stewart mentioned, there is still a case for amendment 10 and we will support it.
The proposal in amendment 9 was described to me by the minister yesterday, at stage 2, as being some kind of response that will ensure that tenants get a bit more of a fair hearing, as it were, in a tribunal. However, the provisions in amendment 9 will last only as long as the emergency period, so the amendment will do nothing to help tenants after the emergency period is over. It is rather a betrayal of the Government’s claim that no one should be evicted during the emergency period if it lodges an amendment—amendment 9—that specifically envisages the First-tier Tribunal having pre-action protocols during the emergency period. If it were true that no one should be evicted, there should be no cases coming to the tribunal during the emergency period.
We will be voting against amendment 91, which is in the name of Graham Simpson. Last night I was researching the private providers of large blocks of private student accommodation, and I did not find a single one registered in the United Kingdom. I found Malta, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein and the British Virgin Islands. I do not see why any of those companies, which have made 12 to 15 per cent returns on capital in tax havens, should be relieved of the obligation to pay a modest sum of money to the local authority to maintain the very fabric and infrastructure on which that organisation relies for its return on capital. That is a disgrace, and we will be voting against amendment 91.
Over the past 24 hours, there has been a veritable outpouring of frustration from tenants that modest amendments—and this would be laughed out of court in any other European country—