Chamber and committees

Thank you. I am looking forward to seeing that piece of work.

Moving on to something else, I note that you are doing an audit of resilience in flooding. That will certainly be of interest to other members; I know from chatting earlier that Mr Beattie has a case study that he might want to mention, and Mr McMillan has a case study on his patch, too. Indeed, the convener and I have a great interest in the big scheme that is being planned for Grangemouth.

What level of detail will you be going into in that piece of work? Will you be looking at individual schemes such as Grangemouth, for example, which is going to use a lot of public money? How will the work link with your planned work on climate change? Will you be looking at case studies and examples of work that has already been done, and will you be looking at things that you think have worked and things that have not?

Auditor General, I notice that one of the audits that you are due to publish in May will be on the Scottish National Investment Bank, which, since it was formed in November 2020, has had two permanent chief executives and an interim one. The current chief executive is about to retire, which means that the bank will soon be on its fourth chief executive in less than five years. That is an issue.

I know that you cannot tell us exactly what will be in the audit, but I wonder what level of detail it will go into. Are you looking at individual investments made by the bank and the value for money that they represent? Is that the kind of thing you are looking at?

Okay. So you will be looking at things such as the condition of the police estate, and what are, in a lot of cases, crumbling police stations—

Before I move on, convener, I wonder whether other members want to come in.

Okay. As I said earlier, these schemes can use up an awful lot of public money. Is your report going to look at who is responsible for spending that money and developing the schemes?

Will the report look at the number of health boards and the value for money that that represents?

As Sarah Boyack has outlined, section 41 would place a duty on relevant bodies, such as councils, health boards and the police, to ask whether an individual is homeless or at risk of homelessness and to take action if they are. Members, including me, are seeking to add to that list.

I have a couple of amendments in the group, and they deal with students alone. The reason for that is that students have raised with me and other MSPs how they are often overlooked in the housing system. I will quote Lawrence Williams from the group Slurp: Students for Action on Homelessness and which is based in Edinburgh:

“From hidden homelessness to unaffordable rents, students in Scotland face a range of housing issues that have long been overlooked by policy-makers and universities.”

Last September, the cross-party group on housing, which I convene, published a report on student housing and homelessness—the committee might be aware of it. We found that thousands of students across Scotland are at risk of homelessness and are unable to access the right housing in some of our biggest cities. Our research identified a shortfall of 13,800 bed spaces in Edinburgh, 6,093 in Glasgow and 6,084 in Dundee.

We also found that there is ambiguity surrounding who is responsible for addressing student homelessness and that there is a lack of co-ordination between universities, councils and other providers regarding student housing. We came up with a set of quite challenging recommendations that we sent to the Government. My amendments seek to give effect to some of those recommendations.

Amendment 1001 seeks to include higher education institutions, which are defined under the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 as “a university” or “a designated institution”, within the list of relevant bodies that will have a duty to deal with homelessness. Members know what that list already includes.

Several weeks ago—you may have forgotten about it—the committee received a letter about this from Universities Scotland. I encourage Universities Scotland to speak to me directly if it has any concerns about my other amendments on students, not just for this committee but for the other committee that is dealing with the bill. With regard to amendment 1001, the letter does not say that universities should not be relevant bodies; rather, it calls for the adoption of the Government’s time-honoured and favoured approach of consulting. That can, of course, often be a delaying tactic, and students cannot afford that delay. The minister will, no doubt, say that we should consult, but we will hear from him.

Universities have a duty of care to their students, thousands of whom come to Scotland to study and many of whom move within Scotland. That is why this is important.

Amendment 1002 would deal with private providers of purpose-built student accommodation and would include them in the list of relevant bodies. Research from the National Union of Students Scotland, which was cited in the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s stage 1 report, found that the average rent for PBSA increased by 34 per cent between 2018 and 2021. That has created a “large disparity” between PBSA and the private rented sector. PBSA is not sufficiently regulated at the moment, and those who live in PBSA will not be covered by the Housing (Scotland) Bill in its current form. Amendment 1002 would add

“a private provider of purpose-built student accommodation”

to the list of relevant bodies.

I think—I would say this—that amendments 1001 and 1002 are both sensible. They deal with people, groups, organisations and bodies that ought to have a responsibility for the students whom they serve and that ought to take homelessness seriously. That is why I lodged those amendments.

As Sarah Boyack has outlined, section 41 would place a duty on relevant bodies, such as councils, health boards and the police, to ask whether an individual is homeless or at risk of homelessness and to take action if they are. Members, including me, are seeking to add to that list.

I have a couple of amendments in the group, and they deal with students alone. The reason for that is that students have raised with me and other MSPs how they are often overlooked in the housing system. I will quote Lawrence Williams from the group Slurp: Students for Action on Homelessness, which is based in Edinburgh:

“From hidden homelessness to unaffordable rents, students in Scotland face a range of housing issues that have long been overlooked by policy-makers and universities.”

Last September, the cross-party group on housing, which I convene, published a report on student housing and homelessness—the committee might be aware of it. We found that thousands of students across Scotland are at risk of homelessness and are unable to access the right housing in some of our biggest cities. Our research identified a shortfall of 13,800 bed spaces in Edinburgh, 6,093 in Glasgow and 6,084 in Dundee.

We also found that there is ambiguity surrounding who is responsible for addressing student homelessness and that there is a lack of co-ordination between universities, councils and other providers regarding student housing. We came up with a set of quite challenging recommendations that we sent to the Government. My amendments seek to give effect to some of those recommendations.

Amendment 1001 seeks to include higher education institutions, which are defined under the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 as “a university” or “a designated institution”, within the list of relevant bodies that will have a duty to deal with homelessness. Members know what that list already includes.

Several weeks ago—you may have forgotten about it—the committee received a letter about this from Universities Scotland. I encourage Universities Scotland to speak to me directly if it has any concerns about my other amendments on students, not just for this committee but for the other committee that is dealing with the bill. With regard to amendment 1001, the letter does not say that universities should not be relevant bodies; rather, it calls for the adoption of the Government’s time-honoured and favoured approach of consulting. That can, of course, often be a delaying tactic, and students cannot afford that delay. The minister will, no doubt, say that we should consult, but we will hear from him.

Universities have a duty of care to their students, thousands of whom come to Scotland to study and many of whom move within Scotland. That is why this is important.

Amendment 1002 would deal with private providers of purpose-built student accommodation and would include them in the list of relevant bodies. Research from the National Union of Students Scotland, which was cited in the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s stage 1 report, found that the average rent for PBSA increased by 34 per cent between 2018 and 2021. That has created a “large disparity” between PBSA and the private rented sector. PBSA is not sufficiently regulated at the moment, and those who live in PBSA will not be covered by the Housing (Scotland) Bill in its current form. Amendment 1002 would add

“a private provider of purpose-built student accommodation”

to the list of relevant bodies.

I think—I would say this—that amendments 1001 and 1002 are both sensible. They deal with people, groups, organisations and bodies that ought to have a responsibility for the students whom they serve and that ought to take homelessness seriously. That is why I lodged those amendments.

I would like some clarity. The minister says that he supports an amendment from Bob Doris, which is not being considered by this committee, so it will not be voted on today. He also mentioned amendment 1012, which was lodged by Alexander Stewart. To be clear, is the minister saying that he thinks that, if Mr Doris’s amendment is agreed to, Mr Stewart’s amendment is not necessary? We cannot know whether Mr Doris’s amendment will be agreed to, because it is not being considered today, and it is being considered by a different committee. If it is not agreed to—I am sure that it will be, but if it is not—will the minister be minded to support Mr Stewart’s amendment?

I am listening carefully to what the minister is saying. I do not think that Jamie Halcro Johnston is at all suggesting that somebody who goes out in the wilds for a walk and maybe takes a tent with them, with the intention of going home the next day, is rough sleeping. Surely the minister is not suggesting that.