Chamber and committees

This is my final question. You mention in the report the gender pay gap—the gap between what men and women are paid. That is an issue in the financial services industry and it is an issue in the bank. Is it a problem, and what is the bank doing to address it?

As we have discussed, there are inherent risks when investing—if there is investment in companies that are deemed to be high risk, there will be winners and losers. Probably the biggest loser among SNIB’s investments so far was its investment in Circularity Scotland. You have said repeatedly that the bank sees itself as independent and that it does not like political interference—it would say that there is no political interference—but Circularity Scotland was set up in the wake of Government proposals for a deposit return scheme, so could there at least be the perception that there was an element of politics in the decision to invest a lot of money in Circularity Scotland?

I think that the cabinet secretary recognises the issue; what she has not offered is any kind of solution. I hear what she says, which is that there are other things in place. There might well be things in place—she has said that repeatedly during our consideration of the bill—but they are not working, so we need something new. I know that the cabinet secretary is committed to having lots of discussions, but this matter is very important. Albeit that it affects only a small number of people who pass through the system, they still matter, and they matter to Scotland. Are we able to do something for them?

I think that it would. I can speak from the tenant’s point of view by again relating my experience. I am now on my third rental flat in Edinburgh and have some experience of the market. I remember moving out of one flat and being asked to clean it. My wife was a cleaner—that was her business—and she came in and cleaned the flat, yet the letting agent found specks of dust on a skirting board and tried to withhold money from us. That was the flat that I referred to earlier, which was being put up for sale. The landlady said, “Take what you want. Empty the flat,” so I took what I wanted. That was the deal, so it was absolutely ludicrous that the letting agent was trying to withhold money when the flat was cleaner than it had been when I moved in.

I pushed back and they relented, because they realised that they were not going to win. That must happen all the time—it is a racket. If deposits were paid directly to the scheme administrator, we would end up with a better system. It is very positive that the cabinet secretary has offered to work with Meghan Gallacher.

That brings me to my amendment 73 and Ross Greer’s amendment 189. We have heard that there is a patchwork situation across Scotland. Some universities offer to act as guarantors, while some do not. There are local authority schemes in some areas but not in others. I think that the cabinet secretary recognises that. She said that she is prepared to work to resolve those matters ahead of stage 3, and I am prepared to accept that. If we have sensible discussions about arriving at a better situation—which, I am sure, is what Ross Greer is aiming for, as, indeed, we all are—ahead of stage 3, we can see where we get to. If we are not happy, we can lodge amendments again. However, I hope that we will find a solution.

On that basis, I will not press amendment 73.

Amendment 73, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 183 and 189 not moved.

Amendment 535 moved—[Maggie Chapman].

I wonder whether the issue is best dealt with at a UK level, and whether conditions should be attached to the issuing of a grant, which would tackle the issue that Mr Griffin raises.

The cabinet secretary has asked members not to move their amendments in most groups and has done the same here, but we have also seen that she is prepared to work ahead of stage 3 with people who have raised sensible issues. We are all going to be very busy, but that is what we are here to do.

I am pleased that she has offered to work with Maggie Chapman, who raises the serious issue of the sometimes unaffordable size of the deposits that people have to pay. She has also agreed to work with Meghan Gallacher, whose amendment 130 suggests that tenancy deposits should be paid directly to the scheme administrator. That would get round what is, in my view, a bit of a racket, where people can withhold deposits for spurious reasons.

There are some interesting amendments in this group, but I will focus on amendment 141, in the name of Emma Roddick, which raises the issue of when a landlord says, “I intend to sell; therefore, you need to go.” Does the cabinet secretary accept that, when that happens—and it happens quite regularly—there is no monitoring of whether the landlord does put the property up for sale or sells it. That is just not happening. I think that that is what Emma Roddick is trying to address—she is nodding—and it does need to be addressed.

The committee will be delighted to know that amendment 73 is the final amendment that I will speak to. I will leave that hanging, and I will try not to take too long. The amendment raises a serious issue, which is the requirement for foreign students in particular to have a UK-based guarantor. It is a fact that that is not always possible. Sometimes, they cannot come up with a UK-based guarantor.

Amendment 73 would remove the requirement for landlords to require tenants to have a UK-based guarantor who either owns property or earns more than a certain amount of money. The amendment proposes to insert new section 120A(1) into the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 so that Scottish ministers must by regulations provide that, when a guarantor is required, their residential status or annual salary must not be a pre-requisite.

I have mentioned in this committee and the other committee that is dealing with the bill the cross-party group on housing report on student housing and homelessness that came out last September. It found that international students face additional challenges, with guarantor requirements being just one of them. A suggestion in that report was a revised and enhanced guarantor programme to be run by universities. I had correspondence from a student from the University of Aberdeen, who said:

“I do not have a local guarantor, and my parents are old pensioners back in my home country, so I was limited to my choices of housing. I paid some fees to a company that promised to act as my guarantor, but then I got cheated. I barely had less than a month to begin classes, and I was desperate to get a roof over my head. Sometimes I skip my dinner to afford housing rent.”

This is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Amendment 73 might not be the way to do it, or it might be—I shall wait and see.

Ross Greer has an amendment in the group—amendment 189—that suggests that we set up a public body to act as a guarantor for a tenant who is under 26 and is estranged from their family. That is probably the route that we ought to go down. There ought to be a body that people who need it can turn to, and if that is where we get to in this process, that will be a positive outcome. I will decide whether to press amendment 73 on the basis of the debate and what the cabinet secretary says.

Just before I came into the meeting, I had a very quick chat with Universities Scotland—it would have been longer but for the fact that the meeting was due to start. Universities Scotland is alive to all the issues that I have raised. I will be having more and much longer conversations with it, and I am sure that other members will do the same.

As I have said previously, we can probably come to some kind of solution by working together with the sector and the cabinet secretary. We do not want to make matters worse, of course. We need to have enough student housing, but let us accept that some of Scotland’s universities are in a perilous financial state and they are relying on foreign students to bolster their finances. We need to look after those foreign students. We also need to look after UK-based students. Some of them might struggle to get the guarantors that are asked for, so we are not just talking about foreign students.

It is a very good question, but I do not have the numbers. I suspect that they are small, but it is very much an issue. We can explore getting the numbers from the sector in the next few weeks. It would be useful to have the figures, but I do not have them. I know from the report of the cross-party group that there is a huge shortfall in accommodation for students in general, but that does not relate to the specific issue that I am talking about.

I am keen to hear what other members have to say and I will decide what to do on the basis of what I hear.

I move amendment 73.

Monitoring is key. The questions are, who does the monitoring, and then, who does the enforcement? The reality at the moment, is that, if you are a tenant and you are told by the landlord, “I intend to sell; therefore, you need to go”, chances are that the tenant will just go and will not bother monitoring what happens with that property.

Then, of course, the tenant falls foul of the cost of removal. Maggie Chapman raised that very good point in the discussion on amendment 251. Removal costs can be extremely high. I have been in that position myself here in Edinburgh. The property did sell—I checked—but I incurred significant costs to move. If the property had not sold and I was not monitoring whether it had, it could just have been rented out again. These are significant issues, so who does the monitoring?