Welfare Reform Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Official Report 515KB pdf

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Petition

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Evictions Due to Underoccupation Deductions (PE1468)

The third and final item of business today is consideration of what action to take on PE1468. We took evidence at our meeting last week on the petition from Mike Dailly and other representatives from Govan Law Centre as well as from COSLA, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers.

Since the petition was lodged in March 2013, the petitioner has been successful in having the proposal in the petition adopted by Jackie Baillie MSP as a potential member’s bill. Although it would be for the Parliamentary Bureau to decide, it seems likely that the Welfare Reform Committee would consider any such bill.

The committee will shortly consider a report on the subject matter of the petition—the bedroom tax—and it could incorporate evidence that we have received on the petition in the report. So, the recommendation is that the Welfare Reform Committee take no further action on petition PE1468 and close our consideration of it. What do members think?

I agree with the recommendation, but I would like clarification on procedure. I presume that the Public Petitions Committee sent the petition to us. Do we have to respond to that committee or do we just incorporate the evidence in our report and say that that is our response?

We would close our consideration of the petition and inform the Public Petitions Committee that we had done that.

We would not be making a formal report, would we?

No—we would incorporate the evidence on the petition in our bedroom tax report.

The answer to Linda Fabiani’s question is that we should, out of courtesy, inform the Public Petitions Committee of whatever we decide this morning. We can use the information that we have got through consideration of the petition as we go forward with our inquiry.

I would be perfectly happy to tell the Public Petitions Committee that we have a bedroom tax report coming out and that we will incorporate in that report any evidence that we have received.

I have to say that I am very surprised by the recommendation, given the evidence that we heard last week, and I certainly do not agree with it. On the first point, it would be odd to rely on a private member’s bill as a vehicle. If we think that the issue is so important that we might need to legislate on it, to rely on a private member to take that forward is an unsatisfactory way of tackling the issue. Private members’ bills are a bit of a lottery, to put it mildly. There are many reasons why they are promoted, or not promoted, and such bills are certainly no substitute for Government action or committee action. For the committee to rely on somebody else who is not a member of the committee—much as I wish Jackie Baillie every success in her endeavour—would not in any way be a satisfactory conclusion.

That aside, last week’s evidence left me confused—that is the politest way of putting it—about the difference between the petitioner’s call for legislation to guarantee that there would be no evictions as a result of the bedroom tax and the Scottish Government’s support for councils’ no-evictions policy. I am entirely baffled as to the difference between the two, and I think that for the committee to let that pass now, and not at the very least to write to the Minister for Housing and Welfare to ask for a specific explanation on that point in relation to the petition, would be ridiculous. The petitioner and the public would also be baffled as to why we would not take any further action.

Ken Macintosh recommends that we write to the Scottish Government on that point.

I would like to comment on what the clerk’s paper is proposing, which I think is perfectly reasonable. I am not baffled; I thought that the evidence was clear on that and on many other points. There was a preponderance last week of evidence on the issues and the technical difficulties in proceeding as has been suggested by the petitioner.

The recommendation is reasonable. As the convener has rightly said, there will be no formal report, but we propose to close the petition and to note that we are holding our own inquiry into the bedroom tax and that last week’s evidence on the petition will be considered as evidence for that inquiry. That is the way forward. We would, once we have our report on the bedroom tax, want to do a number of things, including to seek responses to our conclusions from the Scottish Government and others. We should not pre-empt our own inquiry.

Annabelle Ewing has made the point that I was going to make in response to Ken Macintosh. We have at no stage suggested that we will rely on a member’s bill; we are just noting as part of the context that the petitioner has been successful in persuading a member to progress the proposal in the petition. That is just the backdrop; we are not saying that we are relying on an individual member.

Annabelle Ewing has set out the wider context. We are looking at the bedroom tax already and will continue to do so. How could we avoid looking at the bedroom tax? We know that it is in our work programme and that we can usefully incorporate some of the evidence that we have heard. Some of the evidence that we heard last week will be helpful in our wider consideration of the bedroom tax, and we can work it into our on-going inquiries. I fully back the recommendation that has been presented by the clerk.

I am trying to achieve consensus so that we do not divide. Is it possible that we could do both? Could we write to the Government and wait for a response before closing the petition, or do members just want to accept the position?

I suspect that the Public Petitions Committee has already done that.

Yes—because we discussed Margaret Burgess’s response last week. Ken Macintosh has, however, asked a specific question about part of that response from the Government.

My understanding is that, since last week, there has been an eviction under the bedroom tax. The point is that, as a committee, we are looking at the impact of the bedroom tax, but the petition talks specifically about a no-evictions policy. If it is true that there was an eviction last week because of the bedroom tax, there is even greater reason for clarity. To shut down the petition strikes me as strange. We have not come to a view on it as a committee.

We have to take a decision. There is a recommendation in front of us, and Ken Macintosh has put a counter-recommendation. We are not going to get agreement, so the only way we can decide is to put the question to the committee. Ken Macintosh has suggested, I think, that we write for clarification on the questions that he has raised. Do members support that proposal?

Members: No.

I suppose that we have to divide on it, then. Do members agree that the committee should write to the Government about the petition?

For

Macintosh, Ken (Eastwood) (Lab)

McMahon, Michael (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Lab)

Against

Ewing, Annabelle (Mid Scotland and Fife) (SNP)

Fabiani, Linda (East Kilbride) (SNP)

Hepburn, Jamie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)

Johnstone, Alex (North East Scotland) (Con)

Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)

The result of the division is: For 2, Against 5, Abstentions 0.

We are therefore left with the recommendation.

I would like to clarify something. The proposal is not that we close the petition but that we close our consideration of the petition. It is the Public Petitions Committee that decides whether to close the petition.

That is the recommendation in the paper. Do members agree to take no further action on the petition and to close our consideration of it?

For

Ewing, Annabelle (Mid Scotland and Fife) (SNP)

Fabiani, Linda (East Kilbride) (SNP)

Hepburn, Jamie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP)

Johnstone, Alex (North East Scotland) (Con)

Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP)

Against

McMahon, Michael (Uddingston and Bellshill) (Lab)

Macintosh, Ken (Eastwood) (Lab)

The result of the division is: For 5, Against 2, Abstentions 0.

We will write to the Public Petitions Committee informing it of the outcome and will let its members know how the petition progressed.

Our next meeting will be on 3 December 2013.

Meeting closed at 12:16.