Chamber and committees

I want to explore further the point that Mr Griffin made in his intervention about the Government’s proposed ability to redefine homelessness through regulation. We are making legislation not just for the current Government in this session of Parliament but for future Governments in future sessions of Parliament.

I am a member of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, which spends a great deal of time looking at regulations. It is obvious from our work that regulations do not get the same scrutiny as primary legislation does. We do not know what a future Government might look like in five, 10 or 15 years’ time.

Will the minister tell me why there might be a need to introduce a new definition of homelessness via regulations? Why can we not simply include a definition in the bill? If a future Parliament or a future Government wants to change that, it should do so through primary legislation rather than through regulations.

Although we have taken a number of minutes to discuss these amendments, that has shown the advantage of having things in the bill rather than in guidance and regulations. Guidance is not scrutinised at all by the Parliament. It can be introduced by any Government without any scrutiny. Nor does it have any legal authority. As I said previously, with due respect, regulations are not given the same scrutiny as primary legislation.

My real concern is that the Government is not willing to put things in the bill because it does not want to have proper scrutiny from me and my colleagues and to be held accountable for those things. That is a concern in relation to the different amendments that have been lodged for this section.

I say with gentleness to the minister that, particularly with regard to my amendment, he has really not grasped the issues that many disabled people face. We are told by the minister that amendment 1015 is not required because it is already covered by other legislation. However, if his case load is anything like my case load, he will know that such legislation is having too little effect for many disabled and older people, who are too often put into accommodation that is unsuitable for them. I also completely accept the point that Mr Griffin makes in amendment 1015A that it is not just those groups who are affected and that there can be other issues in relation to rural areas, for example.

It is deeply disappointing that the minister has dismissed the amendments so quickly, with no practical solution being given. The minister keeps saying that we need to have further consultation on this and see what comes up in guidelines. Surely, that work should have been done before the bill was introduced, so that these issues—which are fairly obvious—could have been ironed out before this point. There has been a lack of thinking by the Scottish Government on how the bill would work in practice.

Having said all of that, I will not press amendment 1015 to a vote this morning. I will look at the matter again with the minister, if he is willing—as I am sure that he is. However, I am deeply disappointed that the amendment seems to have been dismissed without giving real consideration of what it means for disabled and older people across Scotland.

I am happy to.

I am very sympathetic to amendment 1078. If a future Government did not make such housing available, what would be the consequences? How would the provisions be enforced?

On a point of order, convener.

I thank the member for his intervention, and I appreciate that. I still think that there needs to be some clarification before such a measure is put into the legislation.

As I have said, we are sympathetic to the amendments and we hope that they could appear as final amendments at stage 3, but at this stage, we think that a little more work is required to be done on them.

I have no issue with the Government’s intentions on that. My concern is that we must pass legislation that is fit for future generations. Yes, there has to be consultation, but the mechanism for considering amending regulations in the Parliament involves much less scrutiny than is the case for primary legislation.

I appreciate that time is moving on. We will support amendment 1047, but we would welcome the opportunity to have a conversation with the Government and other members about whether it could be slightly tightened up at stage 3. I hope that such conversations can take place.

I welcome the amendments from Maggie Chapman and Kevin Stewart. This is one of the important debates around the bill. I also add my thanks to Crisis for its briefing on the matter; I know that this is a key area of the bill for Crisis.

It is clear that a line needs to be drawn between someone intentionally making themselves homeless for whatever reason and giving that protection to people who become homeless for different reasons. That is a difficult balance to strike. It is also clear that Maggie Chapman’s amendment 1052 would simply get rid of intentionality completely. I do not think that that is the right way forward, because that would open up the system and cause issues in dealing with the most vulnerable people in our society. For that reason, we will not support amendment 1052.

To start with Mr Stewart’s last point, I think that I have engaged fairly well with Crisis, both face to face and by email. I hope that it would it agree with that.

I agree with him that Crisis has played a very positive role in getting us to where we are today. Some of the amendments that have been lodged in my name were drafted with the help of Crisis. I therefore absolutely agree with Mr Stewart on that.

I also agree that we want this to have, if at all possible, all-party support. That is why we will not vote against Mr Stewart’s amendments, if they go to a vote today, but abstain. The reason for that is that we need to do a wee bit more work around some of the definitions and make sure that everything is absolutely tied up. Depending on where we end up today, that is perhaps a helpful conversation that we could have before stage 3.

There has been progress. As Mr Stewart will know from his former role, housing bills do not come around very often, and so we want to make sure that what is passed in legislation is workable at the coalface for local authorities.

If Mr Stewart’s amendments are moved and pressed today, the two of us in the Conservative group on the committee want to see whether we can find that consensus. That is why we will not vote against them, even if at the moment we cannot give them our full support. We would be very willing to work with the minister, and with others in other parties, before stage 3 to see whether we could do the tidying up that might be required.

Will Maggie Chapman take an intervention on that point?