Chamber and committees

I find myself today in a state of déjà vu. I recently spoke in the stage 1 debate on the cladding bill on issues around cladding and fire safety. I said in that debate that I would very reluctantly support the general principles of what I saw as a deficient bill but that that support would expire if improvements were not made. That is also my view of this bill, hence the sense of déjà vu.

This is yet another framework bill that leaves so many questions unanswered and which would give the Government sweeping powers to potentially do some pretty shocking things, all with little parliamentary oversight. The net zero committee makes that point very strongly and it is right to do so. It is hard to argue with the general principles of the bill, but the Government does not need legislation to have a strategy or set targets—it can just get on and do that.

I will start with the report from the finance committee. We have already heard some of it. The report states:

“Based on the evidence we received, the Committee believes that enforcement costs are likely to have been underestimated and, while we note the Minister’s argument that these powers would be used at local authorities’ discretion, they should nevertheless be accurately reflected in the FM. Ensuring that all local authorities are financially able to utilise the enforcement powers will be important if the Bill’s ambitions are to be delivered.”

It goes on to say:

“The Committee notes the cost estimates from Zero Waste Scotland of bringing all local authorities into alignment with the existing code of practice would be £88.4 million. We are therefore unclear how much more funding will be required to support local authorities to meet any ‘further requirements’ in the proposed mandatory code which the Scottish Government considers necessary to meet its waste targets.”

It is a pretty damning report and, not for the first time, the finance committee has slated a bill for not having realistic costs.

I have very real concerns about the sweeping powers that the Government wants to award itself. On charges for single-use items, that could include a container that people might get a takeaway meal in—a fish and chip tax. What about the proposed bin fines if people have the wrong items in their bins? I can see responsible people putting out their bins, only for someone else to come along and put something else in them, and then be hit with a fine. Also, what do we do about people who live in flats with communal bins—if the bins have the wrong items in them, do all those people get fined? I do not know. It does not say in the bill.

There is a suite of responsibilities for councils, but there is no financial recompense. The net zero committee made that point in its stage 1 report when it said:

“We are aware of the pressures local authorities are facing which makes increasing recycling performance challenging. The prospect of penalising councils for failing to meet targets seems counterproductive and only serves to exacerbate existing constraints on local authority budgets.”

I heard the minister earlier, so I take the point that she wants to make on board. The minister is giving me a thumbs up to that—good.

Indeed, Consumer Scotland said:

“Additional support may be needed for local authorities with higher levels of geographic isolation or deprivation.”

The point about geographic isolation has already been made.

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of the bill is the section about restrictions on the disposal of unsold goods. I do not know of any business that would want to deliberately have unsold goods lying around. It does not make economic sense. The whole section is incredibly vague, but we could have a situation where small and large businesses are being fined simply for having excess stock. That is highly likely to lead to a cross-border trade in stock just to avoid Lorna Slater’s unsold goods tax. However, Ms Slater has not spoken to the UK Government about the potential implications of the bill in relation to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, or at least she had not when she gave a comment to The Scotsman on 9 March—maybe she has since. You would think that she might have learned her lesson on that from the deposit return debacle—apparently not.

There is a large section on littering from a vehicle; most of us would call that fly-tipping. That needs to be tackled, because it is a blight on our communities. Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Conservatives’ very own Great Uncle Bulgaria, will have more to say about that. [Laughter.] Sorry about that.

The bill needs to be improved, but we also need more in it and less in regulation. The Government has to be put on notice that it needs to spell out its thinking in more detail. A circular economy—[Interruption.] I am struggling to get through this. A circular economy is one in which we reuse more, throw less away and cut down on waste. We would all agree with that.

Let us start at the beginning. Other members have rightly said that the whole issue began when Grenfell tower turned into an inferno in June 2017, killing 72 people. It was a scandalous mass tragedy that could have been avoided had inflammable cladding not been on the building.

One would think that there would have been a UK-wide response to find out which other buildings had unsafe cladding, schemes in all parts of the UK to help home owners who were unable to sell, a ban on said unsafe cladding and a programme of removal, but here we are, nearly seven years on, with a bill that the Scottish Government did not even consult on.

What does Willie Coffey understand by the phrase “tolerable risk”?

Would the member want that level of detail in the bill?

Does Miles Briggs agree that it is not just about ministers having reporting duties but about action, so that people actually get work done on their properties? I am less interested in hearing from the minister on how he is doing; I want to know what is happening on the ground.

One of the criticisms of the responsible developers scheme, and of the bill in general, is a lack of clarity. For example, we do not have enough information on how the scheme might work and who would be covered. Can the minister tell us that, and how open is he to dealing with sensible amendments to the bill to clear up some of the confusion around it?

I know that the minister has not been in post for long, but I can tell him that a number of us, including Jeremy Balfour and me, have been going on about this issue for years, and we have demanded action from the Scottish Government, which has not come. As the committee report states,

“Progress with cladding remediation programme in Scotland has been slow, with just one building out of 105 so far having remediation works carried out. The Scottish Government has introduced this Bill in order to address some of the issues behind these delays.”

There is a sharp contrast between the pace of response here and in England. I do not seek to make any political capital out of that—it is just a fact. As far back as 2020, I and others, including Mr Balfour, were calling for a ban on combustible cladding in Scotland, but that appeared to be too difficult a concept to grasp. The lack of urgency here in Scotland is illustrated by this point from the committee report:

“the Scottish Government has committed to ensuring that all 105 buildings”

in its remediation programme

“are on a pathway to a single building assessment by summer 2024. In contrast, as of December 2023, in England 1,608 buildings (42%) have either started or completed remediation works. Of these, 797 buildings (21%) have completed remediation works.”

It goes on to say:

“Of the £97m so far provided by the UK Government to the Scottish Government for the purposes of cladding remediation”,

just £7 million has been spent, which is 7 per cent.

Those issues have been known about for some time, but despite that, the bill is rushed. It suffers from vague language, which has no place in legislation. The Law Society of Scotland highlighted concerns about a lack of clarity around the definitions of “Development”, “Risk to human life”, “Undergone development” and “Premises”, and around the

“interrelationship between ‘single-building assessment’, ‘single-building assessment report’ and works.”

That is not good enough, and if the bill is to proceed, it must be vastly improved, but after listening to the minister earlier, I am not filled with much hope that it will be improved.

Secondary legislation has its place, but I do not like to see it overused. The committee says that it can allow some flexibility in the operation of the responsible developers scheme, but the lack of detail currently available creates significant concern for developers, and it quite rightly calls for the inclusion of greater detail in the primary legislation in relation to that scheme. Therefore, I expect the committee’s support if I lodge an amendment to that effect.

Members will know that I chair the tenement maintenance working group, which reported in the previous parliamentary session. We have been dealing with some of the issues that are covered in the committee’s excellent report. We reconvened this session, and we are working with the Scottish Law Commission, which is doing extensive work ahead of producing proposed legislation, probably in the next session. That is hardly a rush job.

I asked some of our experts to cast their eyes over the bill and suggest where it could be improved. We have alighted on section 6 of the bill, which gives the Scottish ministers power to arrange remediation work that has been identified in the single building assessment report as being needed to

“eliminate or mitigate risks to human life that are (directly or indirectly) created or exacerbated by the building’s external wall cladding system.”

However, SBAs that have been carried out under the pilot scheme have identified other fire safety-related works, such as a lack of adequate fire escapes. I will be looking at an amendment to tackle that.

Homes for Scotland has outlined some key and rather obvious concerns. It is not clear what a single building assessment actually is. The cladding assurance register is fine to keep a record of what properties have been remediated to date, but there is a lack of clarity on what information will be provided, the obligations of which parties are required to complete work for registration, who will be responsible for continual monitoring, and the timescales and scope for the inclusion of properties.

On the responsible developers scheme—again, we got no joy from the minister earlier on this—there is not enough information on how that might work and who is covered, but it gives the Scottish Government the ability to prevent businesses from operating in Scotland if they fail to comply with terms that are not yet known. That is not good enough, and that is quite different from the situation in England.

My view is that the bill as it stands is not good enough. I am disappointed by the minister’s response so far. I will very reluctantly support the bill’s general principles, but that support will expire if there are no improvements as the bill progresses.

You mentioned projects of more than £5 million and programmes of more than £20 million. What is the difference between a project and a programme?

Okay. So, you would say that that has gone down.