Chamber and committees

Amendments 50, 56 and 65 all seek to require landlords to provide three months’ worth of council tax statements to evidence that they have moved into the property that is being repossessed. The amendments seek to address an issue that I am concerned about, but the tribunal does not have a role in ensuring that a landlord has moved into the property except when a tenant makes a wrongful termination application. It is therefore not appropriate to require that landlords provide such information to the tribunal, so I cannot accept those amendments.

Amendments 53, 57, 62 and 63 all seek to require the tribunal to consider whether the tenant has been informed about all the available support before it grants an application for eviction. I agree that that is vital support for tenants, but the pre-action protocols for rent arrears—which we made a permanent requirement during the passage of what became the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022—already ensure that landlords are required to do that. The extent to which a landlord has complied with that will be taken into account by the tribunal when it determines whether it is reasonable to grant an eviction. I therefore do not support those amendments.

Amendment 58 aims to ensure that a wrongful termination relating to when a landlord fails to live in the let property would be considered an unlawful eviction. Unlawful eviction requirements provide protection for tenants when a landlord has not used the correct legal processes to end a tenancy. However, wrongful termination applies when they have used the correct process but have misled the tenant and the tribunal into ordering an eviction. I do not believe that it is appropriate to combine those two separate processes.

Amendment 66 would create an offence when a landlord repossesses a property under the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984 but fails to move into the property. Although I am sympathetic to the intention behind the amendment, it would not be appropriate to create a new criminal offence through temporary legislation. In addition, there are existing criminal and civil protections in such circumstances, so I cannot support amendment 66.

Amendment 67 would link substantial rent arrears to financial hardship. As I said in relation to amendment 46, that would substantially reduce the safeguards that are part of the balanced package that we are presenting today. I therefore cannot support amendment 67.

In summary, I support amendment 48 but not the other amendments in the group.

Can the member point to who, in any of our debates on or scrutiny of the bill, has said what he has just accused people of saying? Will he recognise that the Government’s consistent position is to recognise that not all landlords are in the same financial circumstances and that it is the minority of landlords who behave in abusive or exploitative ways?

As Miles Briggs set out, amendment 93 would place a requirement on ministers to ensure that adequate resources are available for the First-tier Tribunal should the provisions in part 1 result in a significant increase in the number of cases being heard.

I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. Where a change is made to a case type in the housing and property chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, the Scottish Government fully funds the cost by in-year transfer based on a spending forecast that is agreed between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. Once the case load has reached a settled state, a baseline transfer of costs is agreed. That is a standard approach that is taken across all First-tier Tribunal chambers. Private rented sector case costs have not yet been baselined. We expect to meet the SCTS shortly to agree a transfer of costs for the remainder of this financial year—including those that result from the legislation via the spring budget revision. That process is adequate to meet the needs of the tribunal, and I do not believe that amendment 93 is necessary, so I urge Mr Briggs to withdraw it.

I am afraid that I will not accept any of the amendments in this group. If members press them, I will ask Parliament to vote against them.

Amendments 51 and 60 seek to make the eviction ground for “substantial rent arrears” subject to the eviction ground of the landlord’s

“intent to live in house to alleviate financial hardship”.

The amendments appear to allow that the landlord could evict a tenant for “substantial rent arrears” only if the former also intended to live in the property. Given that the “intent to live” ground is already a stand-alone provision that can provide the basis for evictions anyway, the effect of the amendments is to make the ground for “substantial rent arrears” redundant in most cases and applicable only in those cases in which the landlord intends to occupy the property. Such a provision would significantly reduce the impact of the package of safeguards, which we have said is balanced with regard to respecting the rights and interests of both tenants and landlords. The amendments would interfere with that balance in a way that would give rise to a significant risk of challenge.

Amendments 53, 57 and 63 seek to place an obligation—presumably on the landlord—to

“ensure that the tenant is informed of all support available, including that the tenant has exhausted applications for any local authority financial support to which the tenant is entitled.”

I am sure that it is not the intention behind the amendments to do so, but we believe that they would inappropriately require the landlord to make potentially intrusive inquiries into the financial affairs of a tenant, when many tenants might not want to share that information with their landlord.

The tribunal already has discretion to explore whether the tenant has attempted to seek support and whether they have complied with procedures in circumstances that require a pre-action protocol. We believe that the intention behind the amendments is not necessary and we urge the member not to move them.

In relation to a landlord’s intent to live in the let property, amendments 59 and 69 seek to tie the link between a landlord’s “financial hardship” and the tenant’s being in “substantial rent arrears”. Those grounds are separate, because it is acknowledged that the cost of living crisis impacts not only on tenants but on landlords, regardless of whether their tenant is paying rent.

If a landlord lost their residence due to financial hardship, we think it reasonable that they should be able to occupy a rental property that they own. In each individual case, the tribunal would determine whether eviction was reasonable in those circumstances. Again, I ask the member not to move those amendments, and Parliament to vote against them if they are moved.

As for amendments 70 and 62—which I think is consequential on amendment 70—we have considered carefully what the appropriate level of arrears should be.

We have concluded that six months’ worth of rent is the appropriate level. A reduced threshold for triggering that eviction ground might see tenants being at risk of eviction after a relatively short and temporary period of financial difficulty.

We do not believe that the amendment should be supported, and it is worth reflecting that some members in the debate have argued that a level of six months of rent arrears is setting the bar too low, while others have suggested that it is setting the bar too high. We come back to the issue of balance: we need to ensure that we have a balanced package. We believe that the bill represents that, so I cannot support the amendments in this group. I urge members not to press them, and to vote against them if they are pressed.

Without once again getting into the politics of the reasons behind the rise in interest rates, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the majority of private rented tenancies in Scotland do not have a mortgage behind them, and that many of those that do are on a fixed rate that will not be due to change in the immediate period ahead.

The approach that we have taken is, as I have said, balanced. It recognises that, where there are increased costs, there needs to be some degree of flexibility, but the approach needs to work in a way that is balanced.

I come to amendments 28, 29 and 30. Amendments 28 and 29 will cut across the work that we and the social rented sector are committed to doing collectively and collaboratively through the short-life working group that I have mentioned. As I said, I get the sense that there is a real willingness to work in that collaborative spirit to ensure that there is a way forward that protects tenants as well as the providers of social housing. Amendments 28 and 29 do not set out a way in which we think that the protections for the social rented sector would work. In fact, I think that they might undermine and pre-empt the work that we intend to take forward, which we intend to do with momentum.

On amendment 30, it is important to recognise that student tenancies are structured differently. We have the desire to offer parity of protection, but student tenancies often include energy costs. We have defined rent for this sector to make it clear that rent includes the

“Sums payable in respect of services, repairs, maintenance or insurance”.

However, where utilities are included in the rent and the student makes “excessive use” of them, it is right and fair that an accommodation provider can seek recovery—

I will come to some of the arguments around Mr Rennie’s amendments and some of the reasons why I do not think that his approach would give certainty in the way that he suggests.

We are firmly committed to working with the sector as well as supporting it to undertake meaningful consultations with tenants while that work continues. To drive that progress forward, we have established a short-life task and finish working group that brings together Government officials with leaders from across the sector to identify and consider the available options.

Every discussion in which I have taken part with the sector—I think that this is true of the cabinet secretary’s discussions with it as well—gives me great confidence that we can find a way to meet the needs of tenants in the sector, who would have the same expectation of security for themselves as other tenants, and the needs of the sector as well as the wider purposes of social housing. I am therefore not able to support amendments 4, 5, 21 and 23, and I ask the members not to press them.

Amendments 6, 16 and 24, in Pauline McNeill’s name, raise a substantive issue. The aim of the bill is to protect tenants, helping them to stay in their homes during the cost crisis by stabilising their housing costs. The average tenancy in Scotland lasts around 18 months, so the emergency measures will provide protection to the majority of tenants. The application of the rent freeze on that basis responds to the need to ensure proportionate measures.

Pauline McNeill has mentioned the risk of illegal evictions. The additional penalties that the bill will provide create a strong disincentive for landlords to pursue unlawful evictions. The member is quite right to raise the issue about raising awareness in the sector among tenants and landlords, and we will debate that point when we get to other parts of the bill.

Prospective tenants who enter into a new tenancy will do so on the basis of an agreed rent, and they will immediately have protection from any rent increase, as the provisions in the bill will apply while their tenancy is in effect.

The majority of tenants have security of tenure. We might need to continue to discuss aspects of those provisions with Pauline McNeill over the course of the day. The enforcement of a rent freeze or rent controls—

None of us wants to see anybody in this country facing financial hardship. I only wish that both Governments were acting with due regard to that risk.

I will come on to Mr Greene’s amendment, but I want to address those wider points about balance first, because they also relate to Mr Balfour’s amendments 8, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 20.

Mr Balfour once again sets out—quite fairly, as he is within his right to do—that he is fundamentally against the measures in the bill. He does not support the measures that we are taking to protect tenants. I urge him, as well as others, to recognise comments that the Scottish Association of Landlords has made about the balanced package of safeguards. He is concerned about people facing costs that are outwith their control, but he seems to be concerned only about landlords who face costs that are outwith their control. I think that Mr Griffin was quite right to pick up that we should be concerned about landlords and tenants.

I will give way in just a moment.

The need for that balance is what the 50 per cent figure seeks to recognise. It seeks to ensure that, if there are increases in prescribed, limited costs, they will be balanced between landlord and tenant.

The First Minister was clear, and I regret that the member is choosing to misinterpret what she said in that way. It is very clear that the intention is to prevent rent increase notices as a response to the programme for government announcement. The bill as it stands will achieve that.

Although I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this group of amendments, I must ask Parliament to vote against all the amendments in it.