Chamber and committees

We will have to come back to the theme. Gerry Tierney indicated that he wanted to respond to Gordon MacDonald’s initial question.

Thanks very much for that, James. That was really helpful. Miles Briggs will bring in the topic of evictions.

Okay—thank you for that. We will move on. I will bring in Gordon MacDonald.

Thanks for picking up that important point, Emma. We move on to the wider issues that have been raised in written submissions.

Does the minister wish to respond to any of those comments? Members should bear it in mind that only the minister can respond; officials are not permitted to speak to this item.

Minister, if you could keep your answers to the point and very brief, that would be great. Mark Griffin has a question, I have one more question and then we need to move on to the next bit of the work that we are going to do together.

We have a final question, for which I would like a very brief response, please.

We heard from VisitScotland, in its written evidence, that it believes that

“there is evidence that licencing authorities have misinterpreted the guidance and or used the old 2021 Order not the current 2022 Order as the basis for their policies and practices in some cases.”

Are you aware of that? If you are, do you have a sense of how that occurred, and what are you doing about it?

The result of the division is: For 4, Against 0, Abstentions 3.

Motion agreed to,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Amendment Order 2024 be approved.

Thank you very much.

I think that Lucy Hughes indicated that she wanted to say more about equalities.

Thank you very much. We will go into a bit more detail with our next set of questions, which will be asked by Gordon MacDonald.