Chamber and committees

The member might be aware that Transport Scotland is supportive of the proposal for a developer-funded station at Winchburgh. The Minister for Transport met Winchburgh Developments Ltd, Fiona Hyslop, Transport Scotland, Network Rail and West Lothian Council on 6 December 2022 to discuss progress in developing plans for the new station.

Network Rail has been working on an estimate for the next stage of station design development, which was handed over to Transport Scotland just this week. I anticipate that further meetings will be scheduled once the detailed estimate has been reviewed.

While delivery of investments in new vessels and port infrastructure is being progressed, the Minister for Transport has authorised the purchase and deployment of MV Loch Frisa and has chartered MV Arrow for overhaul and resilience cover, and she recently agreed a nine-month charter of MV Alfred. Additional funding has been committed for enhanced maintenance of vessels, and work will continue with Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and the operators to identify potential additional second-hand tonnage to support the fleet.

Those measures, combined with our fares freeze, demonstrate that the Scottish Government is absolutely committed to improving the lifeline ferry fleet and better meeting the needs of island communities. Of course, ministers—like everybody else—fully appreciate the level of anger and disappointment that some of the recent issues in relation to lifeline ferry services have caused in those communities.

The Government takes extremely seriously the issues that Richard Leonard rightly raises. He is right to be concerned about those matters.

Of course, most people recognise that, while longer-term infrastructure is coming into place, the charter gives additional, very important capacity, which will be welcomed by most people who rely on the services. However, the terms and conditions for crews under a charter are a matter for the operator. CalMac has confirmed that the crew are receiving the living wage, and Transport Scotland officials are monitoring the situation and will keep the transport minister apprised of any further action that is required.

I am not able to provide a name. The Scottish Government is responsible for the decision to charter the service, and I suspect that, if we had not put that extra capacity in place, we would be getting an earful from the member and others across the chamber for other reasons.

I am privileged to be able to offer a few comments from the Scottish Green Party at this moment.

Over the past wee while, I have heard both the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister reflect on how they might have felt back in their early days as teenage activists if they had known the role that they would go on to play as leaders of the Government of Scotland. However, my first memory of meeting Nicola Sturgeon, years before I stood for Parliament, was when she was in opposition, not in government.

I am sure that there were times when being in opposition meant saying no, but, in the first year of this new Scottish Parliament, with the rights and equality of a marginalised group on the line, Nicola Sturgeon recognised that, when the Government does the right thing, the role of the Opposition involves being constructive. The law that is often called section 28 was a nasty homophobic hangover of the 1980s. In the first debate on repealing that law, Nicola Sturgeon said:

“Section 28 is plainly and simply about discrimination. It is about singling out one section of the population and labelling it as unacceptable.”—[Official Report, 10 February 2000; c 965.]

She was not the only politician saying so, but what she did helped to ensure that the issue was not seen as Government versus Opposition and that rival parties with serious disagreements could work together to find the common ground for the good of the country.

I have agreed and disagreed with Nicola Sturgeon on issues over the years since then, but, in recent months, she has shown that same commitment to stand by another vulnerable group in our society while so many in politics and in the media were dredging up the tropes and prejudice of past decades and redirecting them against transgender people. I can still see today what I remember from those days—Nicola Sturgeon’s commitment to being an ally to marginalised people remains part of her character as a politician.

I did not know at that time that I would go on to join the Scottish Parliament or that I would have the chance to sit with Nicola Sturgeon on the advisory board of the yes Scotland campaign for Scottish independence. I did not know that I would share the stage with her at the Glasgow Hydro, of all places, even if we did have to share the bill with a certain Mr George Galloway.

I certainly could not have imagined that she and John Swinney would pick up the phone and offer to negotiate an agreement that would bring the Greens into Government for the first time in this country’s history, advancing action on climate justice and progressive values, and, in doing so, infuriating right wingers, vested interests, polluting industries and even one or two of the Government’s own back benchers.

I also see today what I remember from earlier days: Nicola Sturgeon sees the value in politicians and political parties recognising their differences but seeking common ground and finding ways to work together for the good of the country.

On this day of national reflection, we all share the sentiment that Nicola Sturgeon expressed a few minutes ago. As for the things that her time as First Minister will be remembered for outside of the political bubble, I think that, for most people, it will be her leadership during a pandemic that changed all our lives.

At the start of the pandemic, as we were just coming to terms with what the world was facing, some Governments around the world chose bluff and bluster, pretending that they knew the answers or offering false simplicity in place of the complex truth. Nicola Sturgeon made a braver choice—to be clear about what was not known and to express the same fears and uncertainty that we all felt. Throughout the pandemic, she not only fronted up the Scottish Government response on an almost daily basis but did so with honesty, clarity and humility. By doing that, she earned the public trust.

Therefore, whatever the future brings, I thank both Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney for their service to Scotland. I wish them very well. My highest hope for them is that they continue to find ways to infuriate all the right people. [Applause.]

Although it is not technically relevant to the instrument that we are discussing—which is a clarification of the drafting of the legislation on the introduction of rent adjudication measures, as and when the temporary measures come to an end—when we referred to the landlord registration figures, we made it clear that that is only an administrative source of data. It does not provide the rich granularity of data that all stakeholders recognise is necessary. Longer-term reforms need to be made to ensure that there is data collection in the private rented sector at the level that we need it.

Although we have an admittedly limited source of information through the landlord registration scheme, it shows that there has been no decrease, and perhaps a slight, very marginal, increase in the number of registered properties prior to the emergency measures coming into force. Mr Briggs is right that there would be a time lag between landlords seeking to make decisions about their future in the industry and any deregistrations. We acknowledge that that is the case and we have presented the information that we have available to us.

As I said in response to your first question, everybody—landlord organisations, tenant organisations, housing academics and the Government—recognises that there is significant need for additional data and for depth, detail and granularity of data in the private rented sector. That is a long-term piece of work, and the Government will bring further work for the attention of the committee and Parliament to improve the collection of data in the private rented sector. For the time being, we have noted that the information that we have, limited though it is, from the landlord registration scheme does not show a drop-off in the number of properties that are available.

Good morning, convener, and thank you. I am happy to be here today to present the draft Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 (Incidental Provision) Regulations 2023.

As we have discussed with the committee previously, you will be aware that the emergency Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, which was passed last year, had three key aims: first, to protect tenants, stabilising their housing costs by freezing rents; secondly, to reduce the impact of eviction and homelessness, through a moratorium on evictions; and thirdly, to reduce unlawful evictions and avoid tenants being evicted from the rented sector by landlords who want to raise rents between tenancies during the operation of the temporary measures.

Last month, the committee considered and voted for regulations to extend some of those provisions beyond 31 March to the end of September this year. I was pleased that the Parliament also voted to approve the regulations, thereby ensuring that important protections for tenants continue, given the challenging and uncertain economic times.

Although it is crucial that some emergency provisions continue for the time being, the emergency 2022 act is, of course, temporary, and it is equally important that we plan for the time when the protections come to an end.

During the passage of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Bill, we acknowledged that termination of the rent cap might lead to a large number of private landlords seeking to increase their rent all at once, which could cause significant and unmanageable rent increases for tenants. In those circumstances, the existing rent adjudication process will need to be temporarily modified, to provide a suitable adjudication mechanism that is fit for purpose.

For that reason, the emergency 2022 act contains a regulation-making power to temporarily reform the existing rent adjudication process, which was brought in by the Private Housing Tenancies (Scotland) Act 2016. The proposed approach would support our transition out of the emergency measures and help to mitigate unintended consequences that might arise from our bringing the temporary rent cap to an end.

Schedule 3 to the emergency 2022 act provides ministers with the power in that regard. The short affirmative instrument that the committee is considering today makes a minor technical amendment to schedule 3, to put it beyond doubt that the powers that are conferred on the Scottish ministers function as intended. It does that by renaming a title and heading, renumbering a section and correcting a reference. That will ensure clarity if and when the Scottish ministers choose to exercise the powers conferred on them in schedule 3. Instruments that are made under that power will be subject to the affirmative procedure and subject to scrutiny and approval by this committee and the Parliament.

The severity of the costs crisis and the urgent need to respond quickly meant that the 2022 act had to be drafted and delivered at pace, to ensure that tenants could be offered additional protection as quickly as possible. The short technical instrument that the committee is considering today clarifies a small part of the drafting, to ensure that the important rent adjudication provisions will work as they are intended to do when the time is right to bring the emergency provisions to an end.

I thank the committee for its scrutiny of the draft regulations. I am happy to answer any questions that you have.

The Scottish Government has a responsibility to ensure that temporary emergency measures are necessary and proportionate and that they are appropriate and fit with our housing objectives, and we have a responsibility to take that approach to our new housing bill so that it is consistent with what we seek to achieve in housing.

As a starting point, we recognise that the right to adequate housing is a human right. That has not been delivered by everyone, and we have a situation in which the level of regulation on a number of standards is significantly different between the private and social rented sectors. We are seeking to reduce the gap in outcomes between those types of tenures. Our experience is that, in the long term, increasing the quality of the regulation of the private rented sector is compatible with growth and viability in that sector.

Although I have noticed that some people have sought to blame the emergency measures for decisions that have been made on the new supply of rented accommodation, the measures have no impact on initial rent setting; they impact only in-tenancy annual rent increases. I recognise that some people will argue against any form of protection for tenants or regulation in the market. I do not think that that extreme position would be appropriate, but we will seek to continue to ensure that the measures that we take strike the appropriate balance between providing safeguards for landlords, which are included in the emergency 2022 act, and continuing to expand protection for tenants.

—and I ask Parliament to approve the necessary and important measures that are before it today.