Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2016
Amendment 7 is a technical amendment that extends the meaning of tenancy and connected expressions in other enactments to include a private residential tenancy.
Various statutes lay down rules in relation to tenancies. When the word “tenancy” is used in a statute, it ordinarily picks up the common-law meaning. At common law, a fundamental feature of a tenancy is that it has an ish, or a termination date. A private residential tenancy does not have an ish. Therefore, in enactments passed before or after the bill, references to tenancies would not ordinarily catch private residential tenancies. Amendment 7 ensures that they do, where appropriate.
Amendment 52 is being made simply to flag up in the bill the effect of the amendment made by amendment 75 to the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, which will prevent a sublet or other private transfer of a social rented house from creating a private residential tenancy over the social rented house.
Amendments 71 to 74, 76, 78 and 79 make changes to various other pieces of legislation in consequence of the bill. I do not propose to go through each amendment in detail but, in brief, the other pieces of legislation affected by the consequential amendments are being altered so that they will, in future, apply in the same way in relation to private residential tenancies and tenants as they presently apply in relation to existing types of statutorily protected tenancies and tenants.
Amendment 110 is not required, as paragraph 7 of schedule 1 to the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 will, once it has been brought into force, make the change that the amendment would make. Therefore, the amendment duplicates existing statutory provisions and I cannot support it. Accordingly, I ask David Stewart not to press amendment 110.
I move amendment 7.