Chamber and committees

You almost took the words right out of my mouth, as Meat Loaf would say. We have not received purpose and effect notes from any of the other members. I also put on the record that I only received the Government’s purpose and effect document at 10 to 9 this morning—10 minutes before this meeting started—so I have not been able to reflect on that in any way at all. That is slightly disappointing, because we normally receive those documents 24 hours before the committee meets. It has been impossible—certainly for me—to be able to reflect on it. It has made it more difficult not to have had that before us earlier.

If we are going to talk about these documents, we need to make it clear that we have not received any from back benchers and that the Government’s document came too late to be able to examine it.

Will Maggie Chapman take an intervention on that point?

The point that you just made to Mr Doris and what the minister said to Meghan Gallacher highlight the concern that I have. Surely, in order to pass good legislation, you should consult COSLA and stakeholders first, and then work out what the legislation should be. We are doing this the other way round. You—and, to some degree, Mr Stewart—are saying, “Let’s pass the legislation, and then we will work out what it means and how it will work with COSLA.” My concern is that, in quite a number of areas in the bill, we are being asked to pass the principle without knowing the consequences of it. I worry when I hear that local authorities have not responded to your amendment, because it means that we do not know how it will work in practice, and the same is true, to some extent, with Mr Stewart’s amendments.

For the record, there is some concern at Crisis about the homelessness definition and the Government’s ability to change it through regulations. The Scottish Conservatives will support amendment 1047, because its intention is right, but I would like to have further discussions with the minister.

Accommodation in and of itself is important, but the right type of accommodation is as important. I lodged amendment 1015 because I want to look at the suitability of accommodation for people with some protected characteristics.

I will use the most extreme example. Somebody might be found a flat in Edinburgh but, if they have a wheelchair and there is no lift to the flat, putting them in it would mean that they would be housebound for the whole period. Yes, they would have suitable accommodation, in that they would have a roof over their head and would be dry and warm, but so much of the rest of their life would be restricted.

I am concerned that, because there is so little accommodation in many parts of our cities and rural areas, people are being placed in accommodation that does not fit their needs, whether they have children, are disabled, are older or have other protected characteristics. We need to ensure that we see a house not just as a place where people can be warm and dry—although, clearly, that is very important—but as a place where someone can function and lead as normal a life as possible, given the restrictions on them. I would be interested to hear what the minister has to say about that.

I support Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments 1050 and 1060 although, depending on what she has to say about them, I might change my mind. I support Roz McCall’s amendment 1073 and look forward to hearing Maggie Chapman’s remarks on amendments 1070 and 1071.

I move amendment 1015.

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?

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 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 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.

On a point of order, convener.