Chamber and committees

Do Donna Young or Tony Cain have anything to add to that?

With regard to the committee’s consideration of the instrument, I would like to see some further information about the areas that it will cover and its scope. If we have time to explore that, whether it involves inviting the minister or writing to them, that would be useful.

Good morning to the witnesses, and thanks for your initial thoughts.

Collaboration between partner organisations and community engagement are key to building rural homes. You have all touched on that. How are local authorities, especially large rural councils, which many of you will be working with, supporting community-led development of houses?

It has been a year since the Scottish Government established a £25 million rural key workers housing fund. According to the most recent data, which I asked the Scottish Government for, that fund has not delivered a single home. Can you outline the role that rural housing enablers play in that? The Government established the fund, so why is it not being accessed? Is the Government not providing the money in the best way? How could the fund be better utilised to take into account the very different needs of the communities in your areas?

I lodged the amendments after having been in communication with various home owners in the affected buildings across Scotland with regard to some of their concerns about future costs that they might face. I lodged the amendments in order to see where the Government is with regard to ensuring that the bill clarifies that owners and residents of buildings that are affected by cladding issues will not be held liable for the associated costs.

We also need to consider the management of those costs. We know that, for many of the buildings that might be seen as having a tolerable risk, there may be additional costs around on-going management which, at present, would be part of a factoring bill. Residents want clarification about what that will mean. I do not think that any of us wants to see a situation in which that becomes a licence to print money, with home owners facing annual additional costs on their factoring bill for the inspection of, for example, any cladding that the Government has decided is tolerable, under the single building assessment.

I lodged the amendments to see what the minister’s thoughts on that are, as I said, and to point towards a potential stage 3 amendment that would clarify the situation for home owners who, through no fault of their own, are living in those buildings with cladding and are worried about additional costs that the Government might place on them with regard to the management of their buildings.

I move amendment 50.

As I have said, this group is a set of probing amendments. The minister did not comment on the rationale behind why I lodged them, which specifically relates to the future management of cladding. The bill is empty regarding situations following a single building assessment, where a building is ascribed a tolerable risk, or amber, and regarding what that means for the future management of those buildings.

I would be happy to work with the minister towards stage 3 amendments, as home owners want that clarification as to who, potentially, will be paying the costs. As I said during the stage 1 debate, much of the work that the committee has done suggests that a lot of the future maintenance of buildings is not included in the bill, and there are secondary factors that we need to consider. That might be in the context of a specific factoring bill for the buildings that will be identified and then rated in different ways, with the on-going maintenance of any cladding that is seen to be tolerable.

I wonder what the minister’s thoughts are on that. Is there scope for amendments around that at stage 3?

Given what the minister said about some technical issues that he has with my amendment and given his willingness to discuss it in order to bring it back at stage 3, I will not move the amendment.

Amendment 2 not moved.

Section 10—Appeal against arranged remediation work

I hope that members will follow my train of thought throughout this group of amendments—there are quite a lot of them. These are probing amendments that seek important clarification from the Government on how the responsible developers scheme will operate. The bill does not set that out clearly in a number of areas.

Amendment 67 seeks to amend section 20(1), which would empower the Scottish Government to create several responsible developers schemes. I am interested to understand why several schemes would be needed and how any resources that are provided would be administrated within those schemes.

Amendment 68 seeks to ensure that developers and those in the supply chain make proportionate contributions towards remediation.

Amendments 71 and 72 seek to address issues with regard to paying fees into the scheme. There is no clarity on how much those will be. As we move to stage 3, we need to know how that aspect will operate.

Concerns have also been expressed about the opportunity for a right to appeal. It is important that we consider anyone who will be excluded from the scheme and what impact that could have. That needs to be clear in the bill. My amendment 78 seeks sufficient detail on the right to appeal that may be created through regulations.

All of us have accepted the need to create the right environment for developers to fix cladding and to fund remediation works that might take place. That is important. Amendment 79 would remove powers to create a prohibited developers list. There is concern about what effectively blacklisting companies in Scotland would mean. For some small and medium-sized enterprises, that could be hugely damaging—it could put them out of business.

Through my amendment 3, I am keen to probe the Government’s position on turnover. In the rest of the UK—in England—SMEs with an annual turnover of £10 million have been excluded from the scheme. We know that housing completion rates have been low recently and the impact that that can have on rural and island communities, where most housing is being developed by SMEs. What impact assessments have been carried out on how the bill will impact on those SMEs? I take on board that a limited number of SMEs are exposed to the buildings that are included in the first phase of work.

I hope that these probing amendments are useful to help us to consider the unintended consequences on developers. I am happy to work with the minister ahead of stage 3 to iron out some of the detail, but I think that it would be useful to have clarification on the scheme and on any unintended consequences that might lead to developers being blacklisted.

I move amendment 67.

The minister touched in his comments on amendments 76 and 77, and I think 78, and some of the concerns around where a right of appeal is currently not strong within the bill. I do not know whether the minister is therefore minded to discuss that ahead of stage 3. For SMEs, there is concern about what will effectively become a blacklisting exercise by the Scottish ministers. There have previously been concerns about such practices taking place in Scotland and I am concerned about what that will look like, especially when SMEs will be included in all the legislation. I wanted to seek more detail on that.

On profit margins, there has not been clarity from the Scottish Government on what has already been taken into account as a UK-wide profit margin and where the Scottish legislation would take that UK-wide profit margin, again, rather than profits that are raised or secured only here in Scotland. The Scottish Government needs to provide clarification on those areas at stage 3, because none of us wants to see developers going out of business and not realising the resources that will be needed, specifically around orphan buildings. Driving up the number of orphan buildings is not in the interests of anyone.

Will the Scottish Government provide more detail on that at stage 3? I am happy to work with the minister on drafting workable amendments, specifically regarding amendments 76, 77 and 78.

I listened to what the minister had to say, and I am happy to work with him at stage 3. I feel that there will be a black hole at the end of the bill if we are not able to take stock of how effective it has been. I hope that we can work to create a useful amendment at stage 3, especially with regard to amendment 80.

The minister has outlined this, and I welcome the fact that the committee can do annual health checks in the future, but that will fall within the committee’s work timetable. The time that we might have to do an annual piece of work might be limited, so the burden is on the Government to provide Parliament with updated information on how we are progressing with assessments and remedial work being commissioned, so that residents and the wider public in Scotland can see when the issue is being assessed and we get to an end point at which we can say that buildings in Scotland are safe and that the cladding problems have been rectified. That needs annual reporting back to Parliament beyond the committee.

With that said, I am happy to work with the minister ahead of stage 3 on what I hope will be a proper workable amendment to bring the three amendments together. There are issues, but all three amendments could be brought together in an amendment at stage 3. In that case, I will not press amendment 1.

Amendment 1, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 4 not moved.