Chamber and committees

I recognise the ambition to create a level playing field, but sometimes, when regulations come into play, that does not happen. I am sure that you will monitor that to the nth degree.

I know that you recognise the issue of the distilling industry because of your constituency interests. The fact that those AD sites have not had to be authorised and are not regulated to the same degree has allowed for innovation, and I am sure that we would all want that to continue in the industry. Are discussions taking place on the potential impact of the proposed regulatory changes on distilleries that use AD? Will SEPA take all that into account as it gradually begins to regulate? This is a very sensitive area, and I do not think that anyone would want to stop the innovation that is going on. Could I have your comments on that?

I am not going to bite on the hydrogen prompt that you gave me, as I would have done normally.

My final question is a very simple one. You say that you are going to take a great interest in the issue, and I think that you recognise that the committee is going to take a great interest in it, too. Therefore, I ask that, as you monitor the situation, you keep committee members up to date on how we are dealing with it, considering the sensitivities.

First, as a general comment, if somebody estimated a cost as X up to double X, I would find that a bit questionable. I do not want you to go into detail today, but it would be interesting to see your workings for all of this.

Mr Doris has already asked about the £100,000 for external consultants, and Mr Roberts, you said that you have used external consultants when the expertise has not been there. How much have you spent on external consultants in, say, the past year?

Thank you very much.

Good morning. I turn to the subject of anaerobic digestion. Concerns have been raised by some anaerobic digestion stakeholders that the regulations will threaten the viability of non-waste anaerobic digestion plants, because of the retrofitting that they might have to do on such sites to comply with the licence conditions. A number of the folks who have concerns are those who use distillery by-products in anaerobic digestion. What does all of that mean? Can you give us assurances that those folks have nothing to fear from the changes to the regulations? How will you monitor all of that as we go forward?

We would be grateful for that.

How many times has the same individual consultant or same organisation of external accountants been used on more than one occasion?

Again, it would be very useful for the committee to see where you are getting the external advice from and how you are going about contracting external advisers. I agree with Mr Doris that, in some regards, it would be better if those things could be done in-house. I recognise that there are certain levels of expertise that are difficult to capture, but legal advice is not normally one of them, I would say.

I am grateful to the committee for allowing us to speak this morning. I also put on the record my gratitude to the Government for its co-operation in this area, and I am very thankful to Crisis for the engagement that I have had with it.

As committee members will be well aware, I served as the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning from 2016 to 2021. At that point, I commissioned an expert group led by Jon Sparkes, the former chief executive of Crisis, to recommend short and long-term solutions to ending homelessness in Scotland. That group—the homelessness and rough sleeping action group—asked the Government to revise laws that act as barriers to people getting the help that they need to prevent and resolve homelessness.

One of the pieces of legislation that the Scottish Government agreed to revise was the test for intentionality. Following a formal consultation period, I was proud to introduce the changes that led to the provisions on intentionality becoming a power and not a duty, which Maggie Chapman mentioned.

That change gave local authorities the discretion to investigate whether a household had brought about their own homelessness. Crucially, it ensured that some form of accommodation and housing support was available for those few folk who were found to be intentionally homeless.

I am pleased to see that that change to the law back in 2019 has made a real difference again, as Maggie Chapman highlighted in her speech. The expert group that I mentioned—HARSAG—consulted through the “Aye We Can” consultation with many people with lived experience of homelessness in Scotland. It heard from many groups of people, including LGBT+ people, who reported that the intentionality test was a major barrier to getting support and that there was a lack of understanding of the realities of family breakdowns when they were coming out.

In my humble opinion, convener, it makes no sense to put legal barriers in front of people who are in housing crisis and who need help to remain in their homes. That is why I have lodged amendment 1032 and the related amendments 1033 to 1035, 1037 to 1039, 1046 and 1048 to remove intentionality as a consideration in a case where someone is threatened with homelessness.

We should all unite on this issue. I hope that the Government will continue to co-operate and make that a reality. Finally, I once again thank Crisis for its input and engagement, and I urge members to support the amendments.

I am grateful to the committee for allowing us to speak this morning. I also put on the record my gratitude to the Government for its co-operation in this area, and I am very thankful to Crisis for the engagement that I have had with it.

As committee members will be well aware, I served as the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning from 2016 to 2021. At that point, I commissioned an expert group led by Jon Sparkes, the former chief executive of Crisis, to recommend short and long-term solutions to ending homelessness in Scotland. That group—the homelessness and rough sleeping action group—asked the Government to revise laws that act as barriers to people getting the help that they need to prevent and resolve homelessness.

One of the pieces of legislation that the Scottish Government agreed to revise was the test for intentionality. Following a formal consultation period, I was proud to introduce the changes that led to the provisions on intentionality becoming a power and not a duty, which Maggie Chapman mentioned.

That change gave local authorities the discretion to investigate whether a household had brought about their own homelessness. Crucially, it ensured that some form of accommodation and housing support was available for those few folk who were found to be intentionally homeless.

I am pleased to see that that change to the law back in 2019 has made a real difference again, as Maggie Chapman highlighted in her speech. The expert group that I mentioned—HARSAG—consulted through the “Aye We Can” consultation with many people with lived experience of homelessness in Scotland. It heard from many groups of people, including LGBT+ people, who reported that the intentionality test was a major barrier to getting support and that there was a lack of understanding of the realities of family breakdowns when they were coming out.

In my humble opinion, convener, it makes no sense to put legal barriers in front of people who are in housing crisis and who need help to remain in their homes. That is why I have lodged amendment 1032 and the related amendments 1033 to 1035, 1037 to 1039, 1046 and 1048 to remove intentionality as a consideration in a case where someone is threatened with homelessness.

We should all unite on this issue. I hope that the Government will continue to co-operate and make that a reality. Finally, I once again thank Crisis for its input and engagement, and I urge members to support the amendments.

This is an extremely important debate, as I think that we are seeing in this room today.

First of all, I say to Mr Balfour that his colleague to my left, Mr Simpson, knows that I am someone who does not like unintended consequences and will go through things with a fine-toothed comb. There has been discussion today about folks’ own experiences of local government and how lists work and do not work in certain places. The fact is that we have different situations in different places.

However, the one key thing is the people aspect, as Ms Chapman has rightly said. Mr Doris talked about case studies; it would be difficult to put some uniform case study together, but I have to say that it can be brutal to listen to the voices of lived experience who have faced a knock-back, because of intentionality. I am not going to relay cases in the here and now—we will all have seen them in our casework to one degree or another. What we have to realise is that, after some of the trauma that folk have gone through, they do not necessarily want to tell the world about it.

I think that we need to get to a logical position here. I recognise that some folk think that there might be unintended consequences, but I also think that we all have a duty to work together to get this right.