Chamber and committees

If Miles Briggs and the Tories are not against the change, I presume that they will vote for it at decision time.

We have discussed registration versus licensing on many occasions. We considered registration as part of the 2019 consultation and we considered the proposals that the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers made last year.

However, we do not think that registration offers the same protections as licensing does to guests, neighbours and local communities. To be robust and effective, a registration scheme would have to do many of the things that a licensing scheme will do, and the fit-and-proper-person test, which is critical and will be in the licensing scheme, would not be in a registration scheme.

On the working group, I am pleased that many stakeholders have said that they will continue to work with the Government on the detail.

We have already introduced legislation that allows councils to establish short-term let control areas and manage the number of short-term lets. The introduction of a licensing scheme will protect the safety of guests by ensuring that all short-term lets in Scotland comply with mandatory safety standards and that the people who provide such lets are suitable. That will ensure that short-term lets are safe and can continue to make a positive impact on local economies, while balancing those issues with the needs of local communities.

The licensing order, which the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee approved last month, gives local authorities the autonomy to tailor the scheme to address particular local issues and needs. It will enable authorities to know what is happening in their areas and to be responsive and handle complaints effectively.

We have engaged with stakeholders. We have listened. We have made changes. We are committed to working with local authorities to review levels of short-term lets in hotspot areas in 2023.

I urge members to support the motions.

Tackling child poverty is a national mission for this Government and we are making considerable investment to increase family incomes and reduce household costs. In 2020-21, we spent £2.5 billion in targeted support for low-income households, including nearly £1 billion to support low-income families with children. This year, through our Scottish child payment and bridging payments, we will put around £130 million directly into the pockets of low-income families across Scotland who need it most, including in the member’s constituency. We will further increase the support that is available to families by doubling the Scottish child payment to £20 per week from April this year.

We are committed to ensuring the safety of people in homes with unsafe cladding. We are progressing with our single building assessment and cladding remediation programme, which is free to home owners, and 25 high-priority residential blocks of flats have already been selected for the initial phase of the programme. Inspections are under way and we expect the first completed reports soon. We expect that the majority of buildings will be shown to be safe. Where issues are found, we will seek appropriate solutions for remediation and urge other parties, such as developers, to play their part.

Scotland has led the way in the delivery of affordable housing across the United Kingdom and I am proud of our record of delivering more than 105,000 affordable homes since 2007.

We remain committed to our target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. To support that aim, our draft budget increase of £174 million for affordable housing brings investment in 2022-23 to £831 million and total investment across this parliamentary session to £3.6 billion. That means that we can continue the important work, started in 2007, of ensuring that everyone in Scotland has a warm, safe and affordable place to live.

Providing a suitable home for everyone is at the heart of our “Housing to 2040” strategy, and we are providing local authorities with investment of £53.5 million over 2018 to 2024 to tackle homelessness and move people as quickly as possible into settled accommodation with the right support.

Communities will also be supported by the continuation of the rural and islands housing fund, which is backed by £30 million of investment in the current session of Parliament. We have committed to delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which 70 per cent will be for social rent and 10 per cent will be in remote, rural and island communities.

The regulations were introduced to protect lives and property, and to bring owner-occupied and social rented properties into line with the private rented sector and with new-build homes. We encourage everyone to install the alarms. As the regulations are not yet in force, information will be collected in the next Scottish house condition survey. As we have consistently said, the legislation says that work should be done within a reasonable period that takes into account individual circumstances, and no home owner will be penalised if they are unable to do the work.

In my statement, which is the next item of business, I will outline the publicity that there has been on the issue and, indeed, the awareness that is out there. I will cover that in some detail.

We have put £1.5 million into care and repair and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to support homeowners who might have struggled to put those appliances in place. From the most recent figures, I think that around 2,000 people have been supported in one way or another through the care and repair service, but I will go into more detail on that in my statement.

As I said earlier, the Scottish house condition survey collects information on homes and minimum standards for housing. The legislation will add adequate provision of fire alarms to that minimum standard, so that future iterations of the survey will collect data on compliance with that element of housing standards.

The key issue is that the safety of such people will not be as enhanced as that of those who have interlinked fire safety devices. We know, because the experts have told us, that having such devices could save lives. Therefore, I would have thought that the message from all of us, first and foremost, would be that people should comply as quickly as they can.

However, the member is right—there are no penalties, as such, for non-compliance. Local authorities have a duty to ensure compliance, but they will not do that by knocking on people’s doors. That said, we are expecting people, as home owners, to make this a priority and to put the installation of such fire alarms above other things.

We understand that there are issues that will mean that people will require to have more time to have such devices installed. In response to a number of questions, I have explained what reasonable excuses, or reasonable reasons for needing more time, would be. The message to people is that they should do it as quickly as they can, because it could be life saving for them and their families.

I ask the member to remember what we are talking about here. We are talking about the installation of devices that the experts have told us could potentially save lives. I would have thought that that would have been the overriding concern and priority for every member of the Parliament.

On insurance, I could not have been clearer about what the ABI has said. It is a requirement to have working fire alarms. However, it does not specify the standards for those. It has been clear—that is what industry has told us. However, at the end of the day, everybody should make sure that they get in touch with their own insurance company if they have concerns.

I would have thought that some members—whether Graham Simpson or anyone else—would at least have welcomed the fact that this measure could potentially save lives. I find it extraordinary that members seem to be against these measures being brought in. I would hope that, in their communication with constituents, the first part of their communication is to reiterate the importance of complying, because this could be a lifesaving measure. That is what I would ask them all to do. The information that I will provide after the statement will help them to ensure that they provide that accurate information to their constituents.