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Private Rented Housing Panel (Landlord Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 [Draft]
Agenda item 2 is an evidence-taking session on a piece of subordinate legislation. I welcome to the meeting Margaret Burgess, the Minister for Housing and Welfare, and, from the Scottish Government, Denise Holmes, senior policy officer, and Jackie Pantony, principal legal officer. Because the draft regulations have been laid under the affirmative procedure, the Parliament must approve them before the provisions come into force. Following the evidence taking, the committee will, under the next agenda item, be invited to consider a motion to recommend approval of the draft regulations.
I invite the minister to make an opening statement.
Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to give evidence on the draft Private Rented Housing Panel (Landlord Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 2015.
The repairing standard that is set out in chapter 4 of part 1 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 covers the legal and contractual obligations on private landlords to ensure that a property meets a minimum physical standard. However, despite having a statutory right of entry in relation to the repairing standard, landlords have expressed concern about difficulties in obtaining entry to their properties to carry out inspections and repairs. Those difficulties might arise for a variety of reasons. For example, the tenant might have been repeatedly unavailable to grant access, despite making arrangements to do so, or they might simply have refused access.
Section 35 of the Private Rented Housing (Scotland) Act 2011, which is due to come into force on 1 December 2015, will enable a private landlord to apply to the Private Rented Housing Panel for assistance in exercising their legal right of entry in connection with the repairing standard. If a decision is made to assist the landlord, the panel member must liaise with the tenant and the landlord to agree a date and time for the landlord to be given access. In the majority of cases, the independent panel member’s intervention is expected to result in the landlord being allowed into the property, without the need for legal action to enforce entry.
The regulations set out the content of the applications to be made by landlords and make further provision on decisions with regard to those applications. They should be considered in the context of the wider package of measures introduced by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014, including new measures to strengthen the repairing standard and broaden access to the PRHP by enabling third-party applications to enforce the standard.
I believe that the time is now right to implement the provisions and help landlords to comply with their repairing standard duties, and the regulations form part of the implementation of the wider package of measures that, as I have said, will all come into force on 1 December.
Thank you, minister. Do members have any questions?
Can the minister tell us the number of such cases that panel members might have to deal with?
We do not expect the number of cases to be large; in fact, I think that we have based our approach on there being around 100 or 150 cases a year. That said, we believe that if landlords are saying that they are unable to exercise their duties, provision should be in place to allow them to do so.
On the face of it, the extra cost to the Scottish Government—which is in the region of £150,000 a year—seems a bit high. Can you explain where that figure comes from?
I admit that the costs are on the very high side, but, as we know, the PRHP is undergoing a lot of change and will be taking on a lot more duties and responsibilities. There will be some crossover with regard to accommodation costs, administration costs and staff recruitment costs, and transfers will be made in respect of some of the other functions that the panel is taking over. The extra cost does not all relate to the implementation of this measure; what with the extension of the panel’s activity, it is not recruiting specifically to implement the regulations. Your point that the cost is on the high side is very valid, and we will be keeping our eye on and watching that all the way through.
What mechanisms are in place to review the operation of the provisions and to ensure that they can, where necessary, be tweaked?
We will be constantly reviewing the operation of the Private Rented Housing Panel once it starts to receive applications, and we will know exactly how many and how often applications are being made under the regulations and whether they are proving beneficial for landlords. All of that will be reviewed as we implement all the provisions in the 2014 act.
As there are no further questions, I thank the minister and her officials for their attendance.
We move to item 3, which is the formal consideration of the motion. I invite the minister to move motion S4M-14634, which calls on the committee to recommend approval of the draft regulations.
Motion moved,
That the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee recommends that the Private Rented Housing Panel (Landlord Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 [draft] be approved.—[Margaret Burgess.]
Motion agreed to.
That concludes the consideration of this affirmative instrument. We will report the outcome of our consideration to the Parliament.
I suspend the meeting for a short time to allow a changeover of witnesses.
09:37 Meeting suspended.