Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Official Report 925KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Regulation of Social Housing (Influence of Local Authorities) (Scotland) Regulations 2018 [Draft]

Under item 4, the committee will take evidence on a draft statutory instrument. I welcome from the Scottish Government Kevin Stewart, who is the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, Yvonne Gavan, who is from the housing services policy unit, and Kirsten Simonnet-Lefevre, who is a solicitor.

The instrument was laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that Parliament must approve it before the provisions come into force. Following this evidence session, the committee will be invited under the next agenda item to consider a motion to approve the instrument. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has reported on the instrument and did not draw it to the Parliament’s attention on any of its reporting grounds.

I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Thank you, convener, and good morning. I am pleased to be here today to present the Regulation of Social Housing (Influence of Local Authorities) (Scotland) Regulations, which complete the implementation of the policy in the Housing (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2018.

First, I thank both this committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, which have worked with the Government to expedite their scrutiny of the affirmative instrument that is before the committee today. I realise that that is unusual, but your agreement to expedite it will enable the economic statistics committee of the Office for National Statistics to take the regulations into account at its next meeting on 19 September, which we hope will lead to registered social landlords being reclassified back to the private sector very soon thereafter.

We are all well versed in our understanding of why the bill came about and the need for us to take action to ensure reclassification of RSLs to the private sector. It is crucial in order to enable our work towards delivering 50,000 new affordable homes during this parliamentary session to continue.

The instrument that is before you today is the last step in working towards securing that reclassification. The committee will recall that section 9 of the 2018 act enables ministers to make regulations “limiting or removing” the influence that local authorities may exert over RSLs, through any ability they may have to appoint officers of the RSL or to exercise certain voting rights. The instrument specifies that local authorities may nominate only up to 24 per cent of the board members of an RSL and that they may not exercise control over RSLs—for example, through powers of veto over the RSL.

At stage 2, the Government lodged an amendment to introduce a sunset clause—that is, a time limit of three years on ministers’ powers to make regulations under section 9—meaning that the powers will expire three years from the time that the 2018 act received royal assent, which was in July this year. We took that action to address concerns that this committee, the DPLR committee and UK Finance raised about the open-ended nature of the powers during their scrutiny of the bill.

I once again thank the committee for agreeing to expedite its scrutiny of the instrument. I look forward to moving the motion to approve the regulations to limit the influence of local authorities over registered social landlords.

Thank you. As no members have any questions, I move to agenda item 5. Under this item, the committee will formally consider motion S5M-13767, which calls for the committee to recommend approval of the draft Registered Social Landlords (Repayment Charges) (Scotland) Regulations 2018.

Only the minister and members may speak in this debate. I invite the minister to speak to and move motion S5M-13767.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government and Communities Committee recommends that the Regulation of Social Housing (Influence of Local Authorities) (Scotland) Regulations 2018 [draft] be approved.—[Kevin Stewart].

Motion agreed to.

The committee will report on the outcome of our consideration of the instrument shortly.

I suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.

09:40 Meeting suspended.  

09:41 On resuming—