Chamber and committees

The Government is committed to implementing Awaab’s law for private tenants as well. There are existing powers, which we must ensure are used to the maximum extent. It is part of the engagement with the private rented sector. I have raised the issue with the Scottish Association of Landlords on a number of occasions, so it is aware of our commitment in that regard, and we will engage with the organisation.

I am happy to come back on the two points relating to social housing and to the private rented sector, but we are committed to having Awaab’s law for the private rented sector as well.

There are powers in the existing legislation, but they are not always used. One of the key things is to ensure that we use existing powers. If we bring in Awaab’s law—as I said, we are committed to introducing Awaab’s law for private tenants as well—we must do so in consultation. For individual landlords, there will be a slightly different approach to how we do that. We are discussing that with the Scottish Association of Landlords, including what its role is and how we ensure that individual landlords are aware of the requirements.

I will speak to the more general point and then come on to the specifics. The Government recognises the challenges that tenants are facing. I will bring Stephen Garvin in in a second. Our broader approach to RAAC includes housing, but it is about the wider issue across Scotland—there have been a couple of issues with it in my local authority, including Preston Lodge high school and the Brunton theatre in Musselburgh. We have taken a much broader approach than the UK Government and we have looked at the NHS, schools and right across the sector; I will bring Stephen Garvin in on that point. That faced the challenges, and we worked very closely with the regulator on that point, and I was on a building safety group that was chaired by the cabinet secretary.

Obviously, we expect all social landlords to ensure that their tenants are accommodated safely. There are a number of issues. I have engaged with Aberdeen City Council, for example, and West Lothian Council, over their approach to RAAC. In Aberdeen, obviously, it was slightly different. RAAC can impact on properties in different ways. In Aberdeen, the properties will have to be demolished. There is a mix of private and social tenure. We have had numerous meetings. I am heading up to Aberdeen at the beginning of May to meet tenants and residents to discuss that point. We worked very closely with the people at Aberdeen City Council. Because they had to decant very quickly, we have had to engage with them very quickly, to make sure that there are properties for people to move into. That approach is slightly different from the approaches of West Lothian, Dundee and other areas. We have engaged with all that. The officials will engage with all RSLs and local authorities on that as we go ahead.

If there are any specific examples about furniture, I will be happy to pick up that point. I had not heard of that particular case but, if there are examples, I can pick those up and come back to you.

I will bring in Stephen Garvin, then I want to add a few things on our general approach to RAAC, not just when it comes to housing but more broadly.

Again, that is why what the LHEES looks like is really important. You are right that there will be a mix of tenures, as there was in Wester Hailes, for example, for the area-based schemes. The approaches will obviously be slightly different. In Wester Hailes, for example, if there was a private tenant, there were different ways to provide the funding, so there are different ways to look at the issue. The overall funding package is an important part. In Wester Hailes, the area-based schemes allowed people to plan things out.

Having spoken to the City of Edinburgh Council teams at the time, I think that the consultation at the outset and the discussions that took place were key. I had a chance to speak to private tenants and social or local authority tenants about how that was done. That approach worked, and it was very much done in consultation with tenants, whether they were private tenants or council tenants. We need to consider that approach, which worked, as we go forward. The process will need to work in different parts of Edinburgh and in different parts of Scotland. The area-based schemes and the work in Wester Hailes show that that approach works.

I do not know the full extent of that. Cladding and RAAC are slightly different issues, but I am happy to come back to you on the point about legislation.

I should say, though, that this does come down to funding; we will continue to press the UK Government on that, but so far we have not received any positive reply. We will also continue to engage with home owners and see how best we can support them.

We are obviously sympathetic to home owners and their situation. We are getting feedback from Aberdeen City Council and other local authorities on the feedback that they are getting. When I go up there to visit residents, I will probably hear that. We continue to push the UK Government for funding, but it has so far refused. The latest response from the UK Government makes it clear that it does not intend to provide any funding and that the issue is devolved.

There are a number of points to make. I know that the UK Government approach was very much based on hospitals and education buildings, but there was not an extensive look at the RAAC issue in the UK. We continue to push for that. As you know, the budget is set against continued and unprecedented pressures on the public finances, which is one of the issues. We will continue to push the UK Government on that point, and any support that we can get from the committee or from Mr Griffin’s Labour Party colleagues would be extremely helpful.

We have talked about IStructE, which does not define RAAC as a defective material, and it is still widely used. Again, it depends very much on whether we are talking about a repair, demolition and so on. We will continue to look at the issue, but we will need support from the UK Government for any such remediation programme going forward. We will continue to push the matter; the previous UK Government said that it would fund necessary improvements, but obviously there has been a change of Government. The current Government has not, so far, refused to provide funding to help us in that regard, but we will continue to look at the issue as we move forward.

That was one of the key things from Grenfell, and there have been close governmental discussions on that and on cladding.

I will bring in Stephen Garvin on that broader point and then Alan Johnston in relation to the discussions, because it is being discussed on a UK-wide basis.

The first issue comes back to the cladding assurance register, what happens once a building has been remediated and what we do going ahead. I will bring Alan Johnston in on that particular point. The second point is incredibly important, and it was one of the main issues—if not the main issue—that came through in the Grenfell inquiry. That is a reserved matter, and the UK Government has a green paper out on construction product regulation, but we are working very closely with it on that particular point.

I will bring in Alan Johnston on the cladding assurance register, which was set up and designed to pick up on the particular issue that you were talking about. I will bring in Stephen Garvin on the second point, which came out of the Grenfell inquiry and is really important.

I will bring Alan Johnston in, because he has been involved in the discussions. It is safe to say that those discussions have been very good and there are now minor things that we need to tie up. As discussed during previous committee sessions, the process, as with the SBA, has been about engaging with developers to ensure that their concerns were picked up uniformly. I have met developers individually and collectively as we developed the developer remediation contract and we are very close to getting it signed. Although there is some commercial confidentiality in the process, it is important to say that discussions have been collaborative and I thank the sector for its efforts so far.

I will bring in Stephen Garvin on that point, because there is broader building safety work that is being done around capacity.