Chamber and committees

We have a few more questions. I will see whether I can rattle through them.

I have personal experience of great landlords in the private rented sector, and what I am about to ask is not a reflection on them. Last week, Tony Cain discussed how

“The private rented sector attracts a significant element of poor landlordism, but it also attracts criminal activity.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 3 September 2024; c 13.]

That was in response to a question that I asked about landlords having to put their energy performance certificates, gas safety checks and electrical inspection condition reports in a public-facing setting—by uploading them online somewhere—so that someone who is about to go into an agreement with a landlord can see that they are showing a certain level of accountability. I am interested in hearing your thoughts on that requirement being included in the bill through an amendment.

Great—thanks for that.

We will now move on to discuss rent, and I invite Pam Gosal to ask the first question. A few other members wish to ask supplementaries, and you can then come in with your second question, Pam.

Mark Griffin has a supplementary question.

Will you give us a timeline for the work that you are doing, so that we have an understanding? For example, if we publish our report, how much time will there be between our report coming out and that information coming out?

Tentatively, at this point.

Okay—but we really need to move on.

This has been a really interesting discussion so far. A number of you have said that the budget is at too high a level to be usefully understood or scrutinised. We are here to scrutinise the marine directorate, as the committee has chosen to do. I am also hearing that there is a need to incentivise change to achieve the national outcomes that you have mentioned and to ensure that we reach the objectives of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and the Fisheries Act 2020.

Phil Taylor, you mentioned that first. How do you see public money being used to incentivise the change that we need and to achieve those outcomes?

My question is inspired by what you just said. Not this past summer but the one before—this summer did not really happen—I met with fishermen who said that they would love to be around the table with politicians and scientists. During this morning’s tea break, Colin Moffat and I were chatting about the fact that information is not quite getting through. Scientists gather data in one way while fishermen who are out on their boats see something different.

How do we join those dots and get together to make urgent changes? We have forums such as the RFGs and the IFMAC, but something is missing. I think Alastair Hamilton said that not everybody wants to get round the table and that the problem is that some people just want to go out and fish. It seems to me that we have all those different forums but that something is not quite working. Elspeth Macdonald is nodding.

Thanks for all your responses. To clarify, should we, as a committee, ask the Government to publish to a more detailed level so that we can see where the budgets are intended to go? Should we ask the Government to report on what was spent and how it was spent? For example, in 2022, we approved £25,000 for the marine directorate for additional duties resulting from the UK leaving the EU. Should that kind of thing cover reporting? I am looking for a yes-or-no answer.

So, you are saying that there needs to be greater transparency. If the budget data is difficult for you to understand, in order for us, as a committee, to be able to scrutinise it, it needs to be in a much more accessible form, and it needs to give us the necessary level of detail.