Chamber and committees

The result of the division is: For 5, Against 0, Abstentions 2.

Motion agreed to.

The next item on our agenda is consideration of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 (Saving Provisions) Regulations 2024 (SSI 2024/19). As it is a negative instrument, the committee is not required to make any recommendations on it. Do members have any comments on the instrument?

No one has any comments. Is it agreed that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

The committee will publish a report setting out its recommendations on the previous two instruments in the coming days.

I suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

The next item on our agenda is an evidence-taking session on the Local Authority (Capital Finance and Accounting) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 with Tom Arthur, Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance. Mr Arthur is joined for this item by Scottish Government officials Elanor Davies, who is head of local authority accounting, and Susan Robb, who is a solicitor.

I welcome the minister and his officials to the meeting and invite him to make an opening statement.

Thanks very much, minister, and thank you, too, for taking the time to lay things out in quite a bit of detail and for the work that you have been doing on the regulations.

I would be interested to understand why the Scottish Government feels that regulations are needed now, given that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has stated that

“there is no requirement for a review of capital accounting”

and that, during last year’s consultation, directors of finance said that

“no clear rationale for this review has been provided to support the proposed changes.”

Thank you.

That concludes our questions in that evidence session. I appreciate the minister’s and officials’ provision of information.

We turn to agenda item 7, which is consideration of the motion on the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-12003.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Local Authority (Capital Finance and Accounting) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

Motion agreed to.

The committee will publish, in the coming days, a report setting out its recommendations on the instrument.

At the start of the meeting, we agreed to take the next item in private. I therefore close the public part of the meeting.

Thank you for your opening statement. It was helpful that you went into some of the detail and acknowledged the very helpful Scottish Parliament information centre blog with the calculator. It was also helpful to hear about the awareness-raising campaign on renters’ rights, which certainly came up in our evidence sessions on the regulations.

On the topic of rent adjudication, I am aware that the Scottish Government is listening to the needs of both landlords and tenants. For a rent increase that may be allowed on adjudication, the draft regulations propose a lower limit of 6 per cent and an upper limit of 12 per cent. To what extent does that strike the appropriate balance between the needs of tenants and the needs of landlords?

The question is, that motion S6M-11979, in the name of Patrick Harvie, be agreed to. Are we agreed?

Members: No.