Chamber and committees

The impact has been a subject of concern from the social rented sector, but we have been pleased with our ability to reach agreement with the sector. The average approach—the approach of not setting a cap and not even seeking a voluntary, uniform cap for the social rented sector, but of offering an average instead—allows for some flexibility.

Some social landlords will have an urgent need to invest in quality and maintenance as well as other aspects of their investment programme. Some will have managed more successfully than others to keep rents low and under control during the pandemic. They will not all have followed exactly the same path, because they are independent bodies. Given the different circumstances that different social landlords are in, it was appropriate that we allow some degree of flexibility.

Social landlords exist for a social purpose and they are not there to extract the maximum rent that they can extract from the properties that they have on offer; they take that social purpose very seriously. None of them would seek to impose unaffordable rent increases or ones that could reasonably be avoided. In fact, we are seeing early indications that the rents that are being set are significantly below average. I have seen figures from some local authorities that have set their rent increases for the coming year at 2, 3 or 4 per cent—significantly below the average that we have been seeking. We anticipate that that will continue to be the case, and the Scottish Housing Regulator will continue to give us information on that.

Obviously, we are in regular dialogue with them. I have to say, though, that I have seen some media reports that have not quite captured the full detail of this. If there is an announcement about what is going to happen to the cap, not every media report will properly capture the difference between the impact on the social rented sector and the impact on the private rented sector. That is why we need to continue to work directly with social landlords, for example, who have that on-going responsibility for consultation and tenant engagement, as well as with private landlord representative bodies and organisations that speak directly to and advocate on behalf of tenants.

It also worth reflecting on the fact that there is a role for organisations that engage with tenants in the social rented sector but which are not social housing providers, such as the Tenants Information Service, and the work of local authorities such as Glasgow’s tenant-led housing panel—is it a panel? [Interruption.] I have been told that it is a commission—I will actually be seeing some of them later this week. They, too, continue to have a role not just in letting us know about additional channels of communication that we should be using but in speaking directly to tenants. Indeed, they have been very active in doing so.

Previously, when we have debated not so much this legislation but the new deal for tenants, it has been clear that ideology comes into the debate a little bit. There are some who are of the view that a more deregulated, more free-market approach to housing will increase supply and that any impact on prices will be detrimental to that. Actually, if we look at some European countries that have had systems of rent controls in place for a long time, we see a larger private rented sector as a proportion of the housing stock than we see in Scotland.

That is not the universal experience, and it is well understood that rent controls can achieve their objectives well or poorly. We continue to engage with all stakeholders to ensure that we design a system that is right for Scotland and that will be able to achieve protection in terms of affordability but which will also be consistent with what Scotland needs in terms of good-quality housing supply and investment in all the hugely important priorities around the transition to net zero.

There is a connection between rental income and investment in either sector. That relationship between rental income and investment is not the same in the social rented sector—which, as I said earlier, is a non-profit-making sector—as it is in the private rented sector. There are examples of build to rent, but a great deal of private rented accommodation is not actually provided by landlords—it is not necessarily built by them but is acquired by them as existing property.

Therefore, there are huge differences between the sectors, and we are keen to continue to do the work that we have been taking forward since the publication of the new deal for tenants and which will continue to be in development until the bill is introduced later this year. I look forward to further extensive dialogue with the committee at that point.

To give tenants confidence, the Government is already doing a huge amount of work—and more is to come—on communications with people about the cost of living crisis, the support that is available and the advice that they can follow to minimise their exposure.

As for the sector, I come back to exactly the same points that I made to Miles Briggs about working closely with the sector ahead of any decision about the cap’s future. The initial six-month period, to the end of March, does not directly impact on social landlords’ rental income, but it gives a clear focus to ensure that we can work with them and make a decision that is well informed by their perspective on the future operation of a cap and the future of how to support tenants, not just through investment in the quality of properties—in repairs and maintenance and in net zero measures—but through the wider services that social landlords provide. We are actively engaging with them and creativity is being brought to bear, as I have said.

Those are important and well-put questions. Information in the impact assessments that accompany the bill will give some indication of the differential impact and the intersectional aspects of inequality in relation to it. [Interruption.] I have just been told that those impact assessments have just been published, so they will be available to you.

It would be wrong not to reflect, as I did earlier, on the fact that data on the private rented sector is one of the areas where there is a lot more work to do. The social rented sector tends to be a better position, not only because of certain requirements, but because in many cases it is structurally easier to collect that data. The social rented sector has larger landlords, which operate mostly in a close geographic area and are well regulated. Because the private rented sector is much more fragmented, with many more individual landlords, it is much harder to collect that data under the current framework. That is something that we are looking to improve.

On the question of accessing the various support schemes and funds that the Government has put in place, I will certainly engage with my colleagues who are responsible for social security to make sure that we join the dots between the issues within their remit and the ways in which the bill and its reporting mechanisms will operate.

I have not expressed concerns about the unworkability of the bill. I am satisfied that it is compliant and consistent with devolved competence.

I assume that you are not still thinking about the social rented sector.

We can certainly consider how we might put that on the agenda for the task and finish group and engage with the sector on that. There are many instances in which that happens and there are many more where it could happen, if the right support was in place. It is probably never going to be a blanket solution for every circumstance, but the member is right to bring the issue to our attention, and I will see whether we can write to the committee again on it soon, if we manage to put it on the task and finish group’s agenda for a response.

The housing bill was, of course, included in the programme for government announcement. Therefore, we will be working at pace on that. I hope that the member will acknowledge that many of the officials who have been working incredibly hard at an incredible pace to bring forward the emergency legislation are the same people whose job it is to support us in the longer-term development of the housing bill. I will not say that there is no possibility of an impact, but we will be working on understanding any impact that not only developing but operating the emergency legislation will have on our longer-term work.

However, the intentions of that longer-term work are absolutely unchanged. They are not only to develop the proposals under the new deal for tenants and measures such as the national system of rent controls but to take that wider approach to preventing homelessness. I know that the committee has discussed many approaches to achieving that with the cabinet secretary.

Do you want to add anything, Mandy?

I see.