Hansard

It has been an exciting afternoon. I can say that because sitting on the front benches dealing with the amendments allows the time to pass rather more quickly than it does for the poor unfortunates who find themselves sitting at the back trying to do paperwork and watching the clock. It has been an exciting day. I have made a spirited defence of the negative procedure, which puts me in a minority in the Parliament. I also managed to lead my party into voting against an amendment that was consequential to one that we had agreed to earlier in the proceedings. It has been an eventful day so far. By the way, Presiding Officer, that was a mistake, but these things happen.

In this debate on the motion that the bill be passed, I will cover a number of key issues. The bill has some things that are of value. Commendable work is being done to reach a position in which those who work in the private rented sector and who are reputable can succeed in providing housing for those who need it. The work that the Government is doing with the private sector representative organisations—the landlords organisations—is commendable.

The bill is the first attempt to bring letting agents into line. Landlords and letting agents have an enormous amount to contribute to housing in Scotland in the long term. By bringing them into the regulatory structure, we can ensure that, as I have said before, all landlords do what the good landlords have been doing for ages. That is important.

In Scotland, our housing structure is creaking at the seams. I know that I have been accused of defending some of the issues that might have caused that. However, there is hope in the discussion that we have had today. I believe that our obsession with social housing masks a fault or flaw in the market in Scotland. We seem to take the view that government responsibility at local and national level is to deal with those who are in the greatest need through the provision of social housing. Implicit in that is the idea that everyone else can look after themselves, but I do not believe that that is the case. We need to think long and hard about the shape of the Scottish housing market. That is why I was particularly delighted to hear the minister talk in her opening remarks about the Government making efforts to bring together developers and investors so that they can go on and build affordable houses in Scotland.

The greatest pressure on social housing today comes from the fact that there is no process by which those who are in it can move up the ladder. We can provide the next rung on the ladder by taking the investment opportunities that I know exist to build affordable housing for mid-market rent in large quantities. The reason why there is such demand in the private rented sector is our failure to provide an alternative in the centre of the housing market. What I heard from the minister suggested that the Government might put more effort into achieving what can be achieved through private or institutional investment and through the developers that are in a position to build homes and relieve the pressure in the market.

Another positive element of the bill is the move to first-tier tribunals in dispute resolution. From the evidence on the bill, it was obvious that there is an appetite for that. In fact, those who saw the opportunities that are offered by introducing that for the private rented sector want to extend it to the social rented sector. The minister has spoken about that in previous debates. We can take heart from the fact that the Government’s view is that, if the tribunals are a success in their proposed form, a future opportunity will be taken to consider extending their range so that we make more effective use of their powers.

There are, however, things that I wanted to see in the bill that are not in it. The change to the allocations policy that would have allowed age to be taken into account in allocations was in the original draft of the bill but was removed by the minister at stage 2. I tried to put it back in today, but my amendment was rejected. We have problems in our allocations policy that we need to address, and I saw taking age into account as a criterion as a small first step towards dealing with some of those problems. The Government’s failure to press ahead with the recommendations of its consultation in that area is, I believe, a weakness in the bill.

Another issue that was addressed in the original consultation draft but which never saw the light of day when the bill was published is the concept of starter or initial tenancies. At stage 2, I lodged a detailed amendment on the subject that was rejected. I would have liked something in the bill that would have given us a specific tenancy to be granted to those who have the greatest difficulties and required those who supply tenancies to provide the necessary support to individuals.