Chamber and committees

When the Scottish Conservatives led a debate on hotels and housing asylum seekers, I said that discussions about illegal immigration—no matter how difficult—are important.

I also raised the horrific attack on a 15-year-old girl in Falkirk, in my region, who was raped by an asylum seeker who entered the UK illegally. Distrust in politicians, locally and nationally, is rising because they are choosing not to listen to the valid concerns of communities.

Today’s debate does not address questions about the pressures on public services that are fuelling division in our communities. Minister, what is your response to my constituents who are concerned about what happened in their community, and what additional protections—

I was talking not about investment but about affordability and lack of supply, which I am sure are two issues that Maggie Chapman would agree with me on when looking at making improvements in relation to good practice. However, I genuinely believe that the aim of amendment 47 could be achieved without legislation and therefore without it being in the bill. That is where we disagree.

The conclusion that I have now come to relates to the work that I have undertaken as part of lodging the amendment at stage 2.

Regardless of whether Maggie Chapman and I agree or disagree, I am pretty certain that if amendment 47 is not agreed to, there will be future discussions about how we can strengthen good practice to ensure that the private rented sector works not only for landlords but for tenants. As we so frequently discuss in the context of the bill, finding that balance is very important.

The amendments that I have lodged in this group will strengthen the bill to include provisions on terminal illness when we are dealing with evictions. I thank the cabinet secretaries—Shirley-Anne Somerville and Màiri McAllan—and their officials for not only being sympathetic to my proposals at stage 2 but working with me to produce amendments to support families who are living with a terminal illness.

We have a lot of amendments to get through this afternoon, so it is not my intention to go through each and every one of my amendments. They will add provisions to the bill so that, when the courts or the First-tier Tribunal are looking at evictions, they can consider the impact on a tenant or a member of the tenant’s household who has a terminal illness. That is a compassionate way to look at evictions.

I thank Marie Curie for the exceptional work that it has carried out in trying to gain cross-party consensus on the issue. It has been working hard alongside colleagues and speaking to MSPs about how we look at evictions in a compassionate way. I will speak briefly about the evidence that Marie Curie has found and what led to the amendments being lodged. Every year, approximately 27,600 people in Scotland have to move home because of a close bereavement. The amendments will make huge improvements for terminally ill tenants and will provide bereaved families with every opportunity to succeed a property or remain in their own homes.

The “Dying in the Margins” research study by the University of Glasgow and Marie Curie, which documents the direct impact of financial hardship on terminally ill people, has been central to informing the amendments. In particular, there is the story of Stacey and Joost, who faced significant issues in getting an accessible home that met Stacey’s need, followed by a decision to evict Stacey’s widower from their home just 12 days after Stacey died. The amendments will go some way to preventing such instances from happening again and ensuring that everyone is treated with dignity throughout their end-of-life experience.

We need to thank the wonderful team at Marie Curie for raising the issue with me and other MSPs and for its tenacity in continuing to improve conditions for people with a terminal illness.

Given our time considerations, I will briefly speak to a couple of other amendments in the group, but I do not intend to speak to them all, because we are up against it.

Maggie Chapman’s amendments 7 and 44 were also lodged at stage 2. Although I understand her argument, I still believe that the amendments are unworkable. I hope that, if they are moved, members will vote against them, because they could create more problems with evictions before the period begins or ends, which could put pressure on other housing options such as social housing.

Amendments 197 and 197A, on protection against eviction in the first 12 months of a tenancy, have prompted stark warnings from industry bodies. I have gone on the record to say that such a provision would be a gift to rogue landlords and would drive more good landlords out of the sector. In turn, that would worsen the housing emergency, so I hope that Maggie Chapman does not move those amendments.

Amendments 284 and 284A would require landlords to pay removal costs to tenants. They would impose unreasonable financial burdens, even in eviction cases that were lawful and accepted as necessary. We cannot afford to risk discouraging property letting, particularly among small-scale landlords, which could further reduce the housing supply. It would also add complexity and potential for dispute, which would strain the tribunal system even further.

There are other amendments in the group, but I will leave my remarks there for timing reasons.

We are discussing this amendment, not decisions that have been taken elsewhere.

When we consider balance and the parity of the sector, we have to be reasonable in the amendments that we lodge. I do not think that we can undermine confidence in the sector any more than it has already been undermined by decisions that have been taken in our consideration of the housing bill up to this point.

I believe that amendments such as this will lead to more landlords leaving the sector. We need a stable and predictable deposit scheme, which is good for maintaining landlord confidence. We will reflect that in what we vote for this evening.

I thank members, as I do not believe that anyone has spoken against my amendments in relation to terminal illness. I also thank colleagues who have engaged with Marie Curie and have been fully supportive of what those amendments seek to achieve. As the cabinet secretary laid out, when people who have a terminal illness experience an eviction, that is an added pressure on what not only they but their families are dealing with. It is good that we are working together to add some compassion to the bill. I thank everyone who has worked with Marie Curie to make that possible.

I will be brief and then will close my remarks. On amendment 283, in my name, which relates to religious properties, and on the points that have been raised by colleagues Jeremy Balfour and Willie Rennie, I still believe that the issue is unresolved. I therefore ask the cabinet secretary to continue to engage with the Church of Scotland. A representative of that church contacted me and other members across parties to bring about an amendment of that nature. If there are unresolved issues, there are still opportunities, in my view—even if they are not written into the bill—to look at those, to make sure that properties are not sitting empty when they could be used. That goes back to the fact that we have a shortage of homes up and down the country, and we should make use of every possible lever to use the homes that are already in existence.

I will leave my remarks there, and I press amendment 79.

Amendment 79 agreed to.

Amendment 80 moved—[Meghan Gallacher]—and agreed to.

Amendment 192 moved—[Edward Mountain].

On amendments 316 and 317, I lodged amendments that were the same at stage 2 and have continued to liaise with the Chartered Institute of Housing with a view to bringing them back at stage 3.

We need to recognise the resourcing and capacity pressures that are placed on local authorities by the prevention duty. Amendment 317 sets out a continuing professional development requirement for key housing management and homelessness practitioners, which will help to ensure that practitioners remain skilled and knowledgeable. For example, letting agents in Scotland have to complete a minimum of 20 hours of CPD every three years, alongside having a core qualification.

In recognition of the potential impact of new duties on the housing workforce, the Government should help to develop a housing skills and employability task force that would ensure that there are sufficient routes into the sector to address the issues that social landlords face over the next few years. It would be important to have CPD in place for the ask and act duty as well, given the nature of that duty and all the additional requirements that will be placed on local authorities if they are to fulfil their duties.

I have a couple of brief comments on other amendments in the group. We will support the sensible amendments in the name of Jeremy Balfour. Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments on care leavers are also sensible. Like my colleague Roz McCall, she does a lot of work in that area. I thank her for lodging the amendments and look forward to voting in favour of them at the relevant time.

We will also support some of Sarah Boyack’s amendments. There might be too many of them, but you have to be in it to win it with stage 3 amendments. We will vote for the ones that we think are relevant to the bill.

As I lodged amendment 47 at stage 2, I will give a brief outline of why Scottish Conservatives will not support it at stage 3.

Further to the debate at stage 2, I had extensive discussions with stakeholders in the private rented sector. They raised concerns that the PRS charters—should they be brought into force—would work too slowly to address issues such as affordability and lack of supply. They also said that the issue could easily be addressed in regulations, which would be more capable of amendment should we need to examine further difficulties in relation to the private rented sector.

For the benefit of all members in the chamber, I can say that I will not move amendment 290, as I have identified a concern with its drafting.

I will speak briefly to amendment 45, which Maggie Chapman lodged. I believe that lowering the deposit cap is unnecessary. It could leave landlords less protected against arrears and damage to property, and it could undermine the sector. For that reason, the Scottish Conservatives will not be supporting that amendment.

I appreciate that I have probably been rather cheeky in lodging my amendment, as I also did so at stage 2, and I understand that it probably does not encompass the exact intent of the bill. However, I have had several discussions with previous ministers regarding the publication of the Grenfell tower inquiry phase 2 report recommendations. In fact, I wrote to the previous minister, Paul McLennan, on the matter, and I thank him again for the time and engagement that he gave to the issue while he was in post.

Identifying buildings and remediation has been incredibly slow, and I am concerned that the method for testing fire performance, BS 8414, is still a route for buildings to fall within compliance. Buildings such as hospitals, care homes, boarding schools and hotels are, in effect, dwellings—they are buildings that people can stay in. For that reason, they need to be captured in the ban on combustible facade material. I lodged amendment 375 to continue to raise those concerns and to consult the Scottish Government to try to ascertain its position on including in the ban hotels, hostels, boarding schools and any other building that falls into that category.

Considering other amendments that we are discussing this evening, I do not know whether the cabinet secretary is in a position to set that out tonight but, if she is not able to do so, we would welcome her coming to the committee or providing a statement to give an update on where we are in relation to remediation of those types of buildings. In particular, I would like an update from the Government on where we are with regard to the recommendations in that report.

It was some time ago, but I believe that Graham Simpson said that he is not going to move his amendments in this group. Is that right? [Interruption.] I am sorry—I have caught him off guard. I understand what Graham Simpson is attempting to do with his amendments. He has done a lot of work on issues of damp and mould in properties.

I will speak to Maggie Chapman’s amendments 1 and 2. The creation of a special rent control area where the permitted rate of increase would be even lower than that proposed elsewhere—potentially 0 per cent or less—would mean no increases or even a reduction in rent. The Scottish Greens have already made known their feelings. They do not believe that the scope of the rent controls goes far enough, which further highlights the fact that they do not understand the housing sector or the precarious situation that we find ourselves in with landlords leaving the market.

The anti-landlord rhetoric from politicians is partially to blame for landlords leaving the sector. The Scottish Association of Landlords has estimated that, since 2016, 35,591 landlords have exited the register, bringing numbers down to their lowest level in a decade. We need investment and we need landlords to stay in the market if we are to ensure that we have enough supply of homes to meet demand. That is why we need to be careful about the amendments that we introduce at stage 3. To create special rent controls will lead only to more landlords exiting the market.

Introducing varying rent controls would not solve any of the issues that Maggie Chapman seeks to solve with her amendments. That would only create an uneven picture and deter developments from proceeding through future investment opportunities. For the reasons that I have outlined, the Scottish Conservatives will not support any amendments that would cause further harm to our housing sector.