Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the eighth meeting in 2024 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent.

The first agenda item is to decide whether to take item 8 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Under agenda item 2, we will take evidence on three sets of regulations. I welcome Patrick Harvie, the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights, and his Scottish Government officials. Yvonne Gavan is a team leader in the housing services and rented sector reform unit; Adam Krawczyk is head of housing, homelessness and regeneration analysis; Poppy Prior is a solicitor; and Yvette Sheppard is head of the housing services and rented sector reform unit. I invite the minister to make an opening statement.

It is good to hear that, having started with 10 per cent and 15 per cent, there was engagement and listening and you settled on those other figures.

That concludes our questions. I thank the minister and his officials for giving evidence.

We turn to agenda item 3, which is consideration of the motion on the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-11978.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 (Expiry of Section 10: Extension) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Patrick Harvie]

The question is, that motion S6M-11978, in the name of Patrick Harvie, be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.

Thanks for that.

I go back to the reference in the regulations to “a board”. Could you go into a bit more detail about what that means and about what you imagine the chair and the commissioners will be doing?

That was really helpful—thank you. Indeed, it is, I would say, reassuring.

I am also interested in understanding in what situation the Scottish Government would appoint only one commissioner who is

“representative of ... the food business or ... third sector”

and only one commissioner who possesses the “expertise or experience” with regard to the list of “food-related issues”. Again, why would we not want all commissioners to fulfil at least one of those criteria? I understand that this is about flexibility, but I just want to understand what you are imagining here. I know that you are trying to create flexibility in order to bring all kinds of people in, but surely, as you thought through the SSI, you would have imagined certain scenarios where that might have been the case.

It is clear from the committee’s fisheries adviser’s advice, as well as the stakeholder evidence that has been sent to the committee over the past few days, that the SSI before us is necessary but is not sufficient to restore the Clyde cod stock. As the deputy convener has said, we are aware of the PhD work on the Clyde stock assessment, which is being supervised by the marine directorate and the University of Strathclyde. The committee’s fisheries adviser, Professor Paul Fernandes, said that such an assessment is necessary in order to properly manage the Clyde stock and that peer review is not essential for it to be used to inform policy.

As many of our comments and questions today have indicated, there is concern about the scientific evidence. I would appreciate a commitment from the Government that the PhD work in relation to the SSI will be shared with the committee, although I understand that it is a draft. That is the work of the marine directorate and Professor Mike Heath at the University of Strathclyde on the state of the stock and the recommendations for recovery.

I would appreciate a commitment to using the latest science, including that PhD, when such SSIs are developed—I am thinking, in particular, of the replacement SSI on the Clyde cod closures from 2026 onwards. I would also appreciate it if the Scottish Government marine directorate could begin scoping additional measures to protect the stock, especially bycatch reduction measures, because the latest science says that that is the main pressure.

Thanks for that. It is good to hear that that work is being done. I understand that the Strathclyde university assessment provides clear evidence confirming the results of peer-reviewed studies that show that high fishing mortality, not disturbance of the sea bed, is the key cause of low population size.

I go back to my earlier point that bycatch from nephrops trawling is part of the issue. It is interesting that we end up returning to bycatch in a discussion about creeling, but I think that we need to keep at the forefront of our minds the fact that it is trawling that is the issue.

Earlier, in response to a question about the benchmarking of the stocks in the west of Scotland, Allan Gibb made a point that I want to bring into the conversation. In a letter to the committee, Gillian Martin said:

“In the West of Scotland ICES benchmark report (ICES 2022), it is made clear that … , the best scientific evidence indicates that … Clyde cod are very likely to be a distinct stock from the rest of Division 6a”

but that they are lumped together with those cod—that is, the other west of Scotland cod—because of “data limitations.” I want to get the message out there that those stocks are considered to be separate.

That comes back to the issue around data that we have been getting into today. I know that we carry out our work on the basis of scientific evidence, but we are now asking what that scientific evidence is and who is using which evidence. Elena Whitham made a good point about gathering evidence in partnership with the sector and with the tremendous marine environmental non-governmental organisations that are doing work in the area. We need to get a much better understanding of the picture that we are looking at, and Gillian Martin’s point about data limitations shows that there is work to be done if we want to get the best picture of what we are trying to support in terms of stock recovery and so on. I go back to my point about the fact that we are trying to ensure that there is a flourishing fishery across all sectors.

So, you are just using the term as a quick, catch-all, shortened way of saying all of that.