Chamber and committees

It sounds as though there is quite a lot of interaction, consultation, dialogue and back and forth.

As you will be aware, the Local Government Information Unit found that

“Confidence in the sustainability of council finances in Scotland is critically low”.

I am interested in understanding what the commission’s views are on the sustainability of local government finances. Are those views any different from the concerns that the commission has expressed over the past few years?

I will move on to questions from Miles Briggs.

Earlier this year, in March, when we looked at loan funds and capital finance accounting, we heard that regulations that were introduced in 2016 allow councils to extend loan fund repayments into the future, which adds pressure on future budgets. Given that most local authorities have used those flexibilities, is the commission concerned that future taxpayers could end up paying for assets that no longer exist?

I want to return to the subject of earmarked contingency funds. Blyth talked about how that happens at the local level—it is nuanced—but I am curious about the idea of earmarking such funds. Surely, they would be unearmarked. Could you say a bit more about that?

Okay. There is a bit more work to be done there.

Willie Coffey has more questions.

I want to pursue that strand of transformational change a little bit more. We understand from our work on the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 that Scotland has a community empowerment agenda. The community planning partnerships were set up through that piece of legislation. We have been looking at the national planning framework, which brought forward the idea of communities creating local place plans. We have one vehicle that is about the built environment and another that is more about the delivery of certain services. On top of that, we are beginning to do work on the whole community wealth building agenda.

Are there tools in place that could support the process of transformational change that need to be spruced up or looked at? It is interesting that the Verity house agreement points to the community planning partnerships as vehicles for supporting things such as transformational change to happen. What are your thoughts on that and on how we can support local authorities to look in those directions for transformational change?

We now begin our stage 2 proceedings on the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill. We are joined for this item by the Minister for Housing and his officials, as well as by Graham Simpson and Pam Duncan-Glancy.

First, for anyone who is watching, I will briefly explain the procedure that we will follow during today’s proceedings.?Members should have with them a copy of the bill as introduced; the marshalled list of amendments, which sets out the amendments in the order in which they will be disposed of; and the groupings of amendments, which sets out the amendments in the order in which they will be debated.?Those documents are available on the bill web page on the Scottish Parliament’s website.

There will be one debate on each group of amendments. In each debate, I will call the member who lodged the first amendment in the group to speak to and move that amendment and to speak to all the other amendments in the group.?I will then call other members with amendments in the group to speak to, but not move, their amendments, and to speak to other amendments in the group, if they wish. I will then, at my discretion, call any other members who wish to speak in the debate. Members who wish to do so should indicate as much by catching my or the clerk’s attention.

I will then call the minister, if he has not already spoken in the debate. Finally, I will call the member who moved the first amendment in the group to wind up and indicate whether he or she wishes to press or seek to withdraw the amendment. If the amendment is pressed, I will put the question on it.

Later amendments in a group are not debated again when they are reached; if they are moved, I will put the question on them straight away.?If a member wishes to withdraw an amendment after it has been moved and debated, I will ask whether any member present objects. If there is an objection, I will immediately put the question on the amendment. If any member does not wish to move their amendment when it is called, they should say, “Not moved.” In that situation, any other member present may move the amendment. If no one moves it, I will immediately call the next amendment on the marshalled list.

If there is a division, only committee members are entitled to vote. Voting will be by a show of hands, and it is important that members keep their hands raised clearly until the clerk has recorded their names.

The committee is also required to consider and decide on each section and schedule of the bill, and the long title. I will put the question on each of those provisions at the appropriate point. Finally, it is our intention to complete stage 2 scrutiny of the bill today.

Section 1—The register

I will just check whether anyone else wants to come in first. As no one does, I invite the minister to respond.

Do you have anything else to say to wind up, minister?