Hansard

I have no hesitation in welcoming the passage of the bill, which will go a long way towards securing many of the rights for private sector renters and their landlords that Labour members have longed for. However, it could have done much more. That is why we supported in particular Patrick Harvie’s amendment 83, which called for a review after three years. That raises an overall concern about post-legislative scrutiny in the Parliament. An opportunity has been missed by failing to support that amendment.

The bill certainly introduces powers that are long overdue. Shelter in particular has campaigned for such legislation for the past 10 years. I congratulate it and all the other housing groups that have fought hard to get us to this point. However, I agree with Ken Macintosh that it is regrettable that some of what we are doing could have been done when we previously looked at housing legislation.

Renters in the private sector have had too few housing securities for far too long. They could face no-fault eviction, and they have faced unexpected rent increases, possibly multiple times in one year. Renters do not even know whether their landlord has a criminal history, and they still have little power to hold their landlord accountable for maintaining homes to a habitable standard. Indeed, complaining about the condition of an accommodation’s amenities could still lead to the tenant being met with eviction.

That is not to say that the bill does not make valuable progress in increasing renters’ security in their tenancies and potentially improving the overall quality of life of many private sector renters. It does that, which we welcome.

The bill requires landlords who want to evict their tenants because they intend to repurpose the property or house their family to show evidence of that intent. It is well past time that we arrived at that outcome.

As the minister and others have said, the bill is not only about tenants; landlords will also receive desirable securities. For many, the payments that they receive from their property form their livelihood. The bill gives them greater security by ensuring that they will have at least one month’s notice before renters leave, which could adversely affect a landlord’s income. It gives landlords an avenue for raising rents if they have made improvements to their let property, which is only fair.

Although the bill offers timely protections to landlords and private tenants, it should be appreciated that they will remain insufficient for many tenants. The protections that they will have are good, but they might not be good enough. I remain disappointed that we could not reach an amicable outcome on many of the amendments that Labour lodged.

I acknowledge that, after hearing debates at stages 1 and 2, the minister moved in a number of areas, but today the Government rejected amendments from us that had the full and widespread support of organisations such as Shelter Scotland and the National Union of Students. Those amendments would have provided even greater protection for the renter than the bill offers.

That it remains the case that a renter can be evicted for one month’s rent arrears is a huge failing in Labour’s view. I understand that there is a need to strike a balance between the competing interests of renters who do not make timely payments and landlords who deserve their income, but I find it hard to believe that the SNP thinks that failing to make one month’s payment on time qualifies as that balance.

I have heard strong arguments for three months’ arrears being necessary before a renter can be evicted, with a tribunal hearing being required for earlier eviction in the event that the renter is unlikely to make their payments, but we put forward a compromise of two months’ arrears in an effort to improve the bill. That was rejected—even that compromise was deemed too much for the Government.

As Siobhan McMahon said, our amendment to establish a private residential tenancy charter that would drive up standards in the private rented sector was also rejected. I would like to clarify our position. That proposal did not drop out of thin air. The consultation on the bill and the accompanying debate were about driving up standards, habitability and quality. It was because the Government failed to put into practice in the bill what the consultation identified that we lodged an amendment at stage 3 to achieve that. What we are talking about is not an add-on from nowhere; it came out of the consultation. Our proposal should have been supported.

Everyone in Scotland deserves a safe, warm and secure home. We recognise that too many young people in Scotland are stuck in a cycle from which they cannot escape. They end up renting to save for a deposit, but the rent is so high that they cannot put enough money away. Because we understand that problem, we pressed for better standards in the private rented sector and tried to offer more protection for private renters from bad landlords than the Government proposed.

I know that the Presiding Officer was concerned about Jim Hume’s overly informal introductory comments at the start of this afternoon’s proceedings, but I hope that she will indulge me by allowing me to make a personal comment about my daughter’s contribution. Siobhan indicated that she saw me and Ken Macintosh as bookends: Ken was her boss and I am her dad. I have to reject that, as that would suggest that what she has done in the Parliament has been a book, for which we are the bookends. I do not see it that way. She has written only a chapter of her life in here; she has much more to do. [Applause.]