Chamber and committees

I want to pick up on the fact—this came up in the earlier session as well—that you get a high level of inquiries, but that does not translate to people taking the next step. Are you able to understand what is going on there? Do we need to think about supporting people through that process more?

You mentioned right at the beginning of our conversation the 21-day period. Is that three weeks or 21 working days?

Do you think that that is enough time for somebody who is not familiar with the process and who may or may not know their rights to become alert to the situation and get motivated to do something about it?

Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2024 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. Please note that Mark Griffin will be joining us remotely and that apologies have been received from Stephanie Callaghan. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence on the Housing (Scotland) Bill from the following Scottish Government officials: Catriona MacKean, who is the deputy director of better homes; Craig McGuffie, who is a Scottish Government lawyer; Charlotte McHaffie, who is the private rented housing team leader; and Yvette Sheppard, who is the head of the housing services and rented sector reform unit. I welcome the witnesses to our meeting.

I invite Catriona MacKean to make a short opening statement.

Thanks very much for that overview.

We will move to questions. You have touched on some of the areas that I wanted to ask about, so I will ask a few questions to get a bit more detail. I am interested in how the bill fits in with the Scottish Government’s overall housing strategy. What part of the strategy is the bill aiming to address?

The bill is connected to the strategy in “A New Deal for Tenants: Rented Sector Reform—Current Proposals”. Is any other progress being made through that strategy?

Mark Griffin, who is joining us online, has a question.

I cannot remember whether you mentioned this in your opening remarks, but I want to get a bit of detail on the difference between rent control areas and rent pressure zones. Are rent controls applied to tenancies in a different way? What rent increase does the legislation allow? Also, I think that you said this, but can you confirm that rent controls can apply across a whole local authority area, whereas rent pressure zones cannot? If you could clarify those points, that would be great.

I want to ask a bit more about the landlord register and data collection. In working on the bill, has the Scottish Government considered requiring landlords to provide evidence that basic safety and environmental standards have been met? Landlords already have to go through the process of energy performance certificates, electrical certificates, gas safety checks and so on. I am interested in knowing what the implications would be of making it a responsibility of landlords to provide that evidence proactively. Have you considered that evidence being provided publicly so that tenants are aware of the context of the rental housing before they go into an agreement with the landlord?