Chamber and committees

I am pleased to have the chance to speak in the debate—after all, it is extremely important. Five minutes is not enough time in which to do justice to everyone who has contacted me to raise their concerns about the legislation. Many of the stories that I have heard resonate and are reflective of some of what we have just heard from my colleague Christine Grahame. I will speak to just a few of those stories, but I want to thank everyone who has contacted me and to reassure them that I have been listening to what they have been saying.

As my colleague Murdo Fraser said, the tourism sector is vital for Scotland. However, the SNP Government is refusing to extend the deadline of 1 October for applications to the licensing scheme for short-term lets, damaging one of Scotland’s leading industries at a time when people are absolutely flummoxed and already struggling. Like every politically driven SNP-Green wheeze, the new licensing regime is not designed to encourage business or promote tourism.

Last week, I joined the Save Self-Catering in Scotland gathering outside Parliament and spoke to lots of self-catering operators, many of whom were from the Lothians, which is the area that I represent. One man, who was from Edinburgh originally, was disheartened that he is now being branded a “parasite”. He asked me, “How do you think that makes me feel? How would that make you feel?” He has never had any complaints about any of his short-term lets or self-catering businesses.

I have received countless emails and phone calls from concerned constituents. Even paper copies are coming through now—that is how disheartened and dejected the industry is feeling.

An elderly gentlemen contacted me to say that, when his wife’s parents died, they left them their two-bedroom flat in Edinburgh’s old town, which they use for short-term lets. His wife has unfortunately developed Alzheimer’s disease and has very little income. Therefore, the income that they make from the rental goes towards her very expensive care home fees. He said that he has been advised that he will not be granted a licence under the STL legislation, and therefore the support for his disabled wife will end.

Will the minister take an intervention?

Will the member give way?

The situation in Edinburgh is very complex. Everyone that I have heard from is tearing their hair out because of the complexity and the non-refundable nature of the entire process. I am not going to take another intervention on that topic. The wife in this family is now in a very challenging personal situation. Social care in Edinburgh is bad enough, frankly.

I have also been contacted by the manager of the McNeil Trust, a charity in Edinburgh that provides free self-catering accommodation for members of the Christian Science community. She is concerned about how the legislation in its current form is affecting charities such as the one that she manages. From an email that she has sent this afternoon, I gather that she might be in the chamber today.

She said:

“We are not against regulation”—

nor are we—

“and we are not against health and safety, but we need fair and just legislation. I am urgently calling on the Scottish Government for a ‘pause’ in the implementation of the licensing legislation due to come into force on 1st October so that fair and just regulation”—

being fair and just is a common theme—

“can be achieved by sitting down with stakeholders and getting it right.”

That is a clear example of how this one-size-fits-all policy is unfit for purpose.

I have also been contacted by a constituent called Julian, who has given me permission to quote from his letter. He writes:

“Firstly, l am writing as an ex-SNP member. l resigned my membership last month in disgust at the way the STL legislation has been handled and the absolute lack of interest that l have received from my local MSP Angus Robertson when l tried to raise the issue with him. The current version of the STL legislation is a madness that has to be stopped!”

I have also been contacted by Alison Burns, who, for 30 years, has been exchanging her home with visitors from across the globe—all without incident. She told me that the inclusion of such arrangements demonstrates an extreme lack of understanding, because no money exchanges hands.

We have already heard about the East Lothian constituent on the social media channel that I was also asked to join. I was absolutely astounded that she was told to go off and get a job and then to go off and claim benefits, but we have heard the minister’s response to that.

It is not in anyone’s interest to shield rogue operators, and the sector believes that strong licensing is important, but it must be fair and practical, not deliberately onerous. However, predictably, the SNP-Green Government has no desire to work with businesses to achieve reasonable outcomes.

The recent court ruling involving the City of Edinburgh Council raises questions about the legality of some aspects of the legislation. Can the SNP Government guarantee that it is legally robust and will not be struck down further in the courts?

In April, it was revealed to me in a written answer to a question from the minister that the Scottish Government had cut alcohol and drug recovery services by £19 million in 2022-23. Now that we have seen a 14-year high in the number of alcohol-related deaths, and Scotland remains the drug death capital of Europe, does the minister accept that those cuts have had a devastating effect on people’s suffering with drug and alcohol misuse, and will she commit to restoring funding to those services in 2023-24?

This morning, it was revealed that there have already been 600 suspected drug deaths in the first half of 2023, which is up 7 per cent on the same period last year. It is vital that the Scottish Government takes every practical step that it can to tackle the epidemic of drug misuse that is sweeping our country.

I have reservations about the effectiveness of consumption rooms. However, the Lord Advocate’s decision yesterday tells us that there was always a way to take that measure, and the Scottish National Party now has one less excuse for its failures.

Annemarie Ward of drugs charity Faces & Voices of Recovery UK—Favour UK—has said that safe consumption rooms need to be underpinned by vital access to prescription programmes, detoxification and rehabilitation services, as laid out in the right to addiction recovery (Scotland) bill. It is now up to the SNP Government to demonstrate that safe consumption rooms can work, to back our crucial right to addiction recovery (Scotland) bill and to finally start tackling the drug deaths crisis that Nicola Sturgeon and now Humza Yousaf have presided over.

Following the minister’s statement in June, I asked her about the recovery programmes for those suffering from addiction in our prisons. The answer referred only to those services provided to people after they leave prison. I will therefore ask the question again: can the minister tell us what is being done to break the cycle of addiction in prisons?

Pensioners now disproportionately pay the highest rates of council tax, and nearly one in 10 people now pay the highest rates of income tax.

I will again put the question that Michael Marra asked as the minister did not quite answer it constructively. The damaging 22.5 per cent rise in council tax is nothing more than a raid on pension incomes. Will the Scottish National Party reconsider that increase as it is threatening to push thousands of people out of homes in which they have lived for decades just to make up for its gutting of local government funding over the years?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an estimate of the number of households whose council tax bills have risen this year. (S6O-02471)

He is pushing his luck today.