Chamber and committees

Thank you. Since no one else has indicated that they want to come in on that, I move to my second question, which I will direct to Stacey Dingwall from the SFHA. How have tenants been affected by the pandemic? Are you concerned about increases in arrears and potential increases in eviction action and homelessness? If so, does the Scottish Government need to consider any further protections?

Thank you. I understand that Tony Cain wants to come in.

Hi. I can hear you now.

Thank you very much for that, Tony. You mentioned the registered social landlords sector and housing associations, so perhaps we could hear from Stacey Dingwall about SFHA’s perspective on the partnership role that it plays in the ending homelessness together action plan.

Good morning, Deputy First Minister.

I want to explore how Boundaries Scotland calculates total and ward councillor allocations. What are the benefits of having similar voter to councillor ratios across all wards in a council area? Would variations in the voter to councillor ratio have an impact on effective and convenient local government?

Good morning and welcome, to everybody on the panel. Before I get started, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests and declare that I am still a serving councillor on East Ayrshire Council.

I will explore some issues under theme 1, which is, as the convener said, about tenants’ rights, homelessness and housing quality. I direct my first question to Ellinore Folkesson of Living Rent. Do you agree that tenants’ rights need to be improved, and what would you like to see in the Scottish Government’s forthcoming rented sector strategy? If anybody wants to come in after Ellinore, I ask them to type R in the chat box.

I understand that Ellinore Folkesson from Living Rent is now on the call. Ellinore, what tenants’ rights need to be improved, and what would you like to see in the Scottish Government’s forthcoming rented sector strategy for the protection of tenants?

She is not quite there yet. We will come back to you, Ellinore. Sorry about that.

My next question is take a sort of health check. What progress is being made with the ending homelessness together action plan and the implementation of councils’ rapid rehousing action plans? I direct my question to Tony Cain first.

I am after a health check—that is, your sense—of how we are progressing with the “Ending Homelessness Together” action plan and the implementation of councils’ rapid rehousing action plans. [Interruption.]

I think that we might need to suspend the meeting.

I will hand back to the convener, because my time is up.

We have had a significant number of responses to our call for views. I want to explore a couple of views that have come in in relation to Highland and Argyll and Bute. In her submission to us, Margaret Davidson, who is the leader of Highland Council stated:

“we are strongly of the view that the changes proposed by Boundaries Scotland fails to recognise the specific Highland context, particularly in relation to parity, sparsity, rurality and deprivation and, if implemented, would result in a significant democratic deficit for the Highlands.”

A number of respondents from Islay expressed concerns about their island becoming part of the new, islands-only Islay, Jura and Colonsay ward. For example, Islay community council stated:

“We believe that the recommendation to reduce our Councillors to two and to restrict boundaries to island only would narrow our horizons, risk exclusion from important issues that affect us all and reduce the collective strength of our voice within Argyll & Bute Council.”

Will you respond to those comments, Deputy First Minister?