Chamber and committees

Good morning, gentlemen. I will go back to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s previous questions about the legislation that will be introduced next week. I appreciate that we do not yet know the details of the legislation—we will see it, I think, an hour before the committee sits. Obviously, there might be more issues in Edinburgh and Lothian, but I have a number of constituents who have buy-to-let properties, so their mortgages are being paid by the rent payments that they receive. With mortgage payments possibly now going up because of inflation and interest rates, are you concerned that those people will have to withdraw their properties from the market? One of the other unforeseen circumstances could be that there is less housing available for rent, because people cannot meet their mortgage payments.

It is a quick question for Gordon MacRae. On Monday, I met with a fairly large homelessness charity in Edinburgh and heard about the impact of the people coming from Ukraine on the demand that already exists. Obviously, we all welcome the Ukrainians coming to Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland, but how do we deal with the other people who are still on the list? Practically, do you see the way forward as being to keep people in the central belt, or should there be a different policy? The committee has discussed previously whether it is better to distribute people throughout Scotland. Obviously, the issue will go on for a number of months, if not years. What is the longer-term approach?

You will come back to the Parliament in two or three weeks’ time with your budget. I think that last week’s United Kingdom budget will have resulted in some Barnett consequentials. I appreciate that it is early days yet—less than a week—but is there any mitigation from those Barnett consequentials that means that the cut or reduction, whichever word you want to use, might not have to take place?

Thank you. I will be interested in seeing what comes next week.

Last week, many of our witnesses said that there was no openness and transparency in the setting of last year’s budget. Engagement was lacking, and we did not get the information that we required. Do you agree that additional information will be helpful when engaging in the budget process as we look forward to next year?

It does. That is very helpful. Thank you.

I wanted to push a little on that, Professor Steven. At the moment, we are looking at the bill as it is, although there may be amendments.

You can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that, at the moment, if I buy a television for £1,000, assign it to someone else in the appropriate way so that it is registered to a third party, and then stop paying for my television, someone can come along after due process in court and take my television away.

Yes.

That is at the moment, as the bill stands—

I appreciate that sheriff officers cannot come along and take everything, as they used to when we had warrant sales, but could they still remove that television?

Perhaps you could come back to us in writing if there are technical issues that you would like us to consider.

My final question is about those things being included in your draft bill but not in the Scottish Government’s bill. This might be an unfair question to ask you, but I will ask it anyway. Do you agree with the Scottish Government that it is incompetent for it to include those in the bill? If they were to be put back in, would that be competent?