Hansard

I am grateful for that, Presiding Officer.

Bob Doris makes very fair points, and I hope that such arguments will come across in the consultation responses. Tenants’ voices are critical if we are to shift some of the power imbalances and address some of the injustices that exist. Hearing those voices can now be better organised in many places in the social rented sector, but there is still scope to do things better and to learn from best practice. I hope that people will take the consultation as an opportunity to put forward constructive ideas for how to achieve that.

I am seeking views on existing private rented tenancies and the grounds for repossession, and I am exploring how tenants can feel more at home in their rented property through simple things such as being able to decorate or keep pets. Those things might be seen as trivial by some people, but they are critical to the feeling that a house is a home and to supporting people’s wellbeing and mental health.

I am proposing new restrictions on evictions in winter. There are a number of questions around defining how that will work, on which we want to hear views. That is in addition to ensuring that the penalties for illegal evictions in the private sector are a meaningful deterrent.

I am highlighting the need to help people who live in non-traditional rented accommodation—from student accommodation to residential mobile homes, and from the Gypsy Traveller community to people in agricultural tenancies.

It is right to raise standards, but it is just as important to ensure that renting is affordable. On average, people who rent privately spend more of their income—more than a quarter of it, and for some, much more than that—on rent.

The social rented sector already has some safeguards in place to protect tenants from high rent rises, and all the money from rents should be reinvested for the good of tenants. The position is inconsistent, to say the least, in the private rented sector, where approaches to rent setting can vary dramatically among landlords. We are therefore consulting on how to introduce an effective national system of rent controls by 2025 for privately rented homes, with appropriate mechanisms to allow local authorities to introduce local measures.

I recognise that campaigners for that policy are impatient; some people even argue that we should use emergency coronavirus legislation to bypass the need to consult. I do not agree with that. The Scottish Parliament has always consulted before legislating, where that is possible, and that is as it should be: it helps us to make better law. The weakness of the 2016 reform to create rent pressure zones is a warning about legislation that is developed swiftly without adequate testing or dialogue.

I want the new system to be one that works for the long term. That means collecting the information that we need, learning from what works well elsewhere and taking the time to get it right. We will improve the collection of data on rents and other factors in the private rented sector so that we have the evidence needed to inform an effective system. A more detailed consultation on rent control will follow later in the session, as we gather that evidence and as building the evidence base picks up pace. At the same time, we will consider how best to share good practice and improve affordability in the social rented sector, too.

Affordability and supply are of course closely linked, and I know that Parliament will support my commitment to our expanded programme of building 110,000 affordable homes, 70 per cent of them being for social rent, by 2032. That programme is on a larger scale than any for decades, and I am determined to work with colleagues across both Government and Parliament to ensure that every contribution counts—public, private, community and third sector—in achieving that goal.

New homes for rent are rightly a major theme in the new deal for tenants, but most of the homes that we will live in in 2040 are already here today. That is why we are seeking views on how we can improve quality and raise standards across the whole rented sector, both in physical buildings and in the services that are provided to all tenants. With that in mind, I am seeking views on establishing a new housing standard for all homes.

I could say more. There is a great deal to do, and a great deal of work ahead of us throughout this session of Parliament. There will be no shortage of views, and the consultation is open for the next 16 weeks, so that everyone can engage on the wide-ranging and ambitious aims of this agenda.

I believe that the draft strategy will deliver a new deal for tenants, with stronger rights, greater protections against eviction and access to better, more affordable homes. That will help us to deliver a fairer Scotland, to tackle child poverty and to meet our climate change targets.

I urge MSPs across the chamber to support that ambition, to contribute their ideas and to join me in welcoming this new deal for tenants.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the publication of the consultation on A New Deal for Tenants, which seeks views on the Scottish Government’s ambitious plans for the rented sector; agrees that the 1.85 million people who live in the rented sector should have improved quality, standards and rights in the place they call home; supports the aims of A New Deal for Tenants to ensure tenants have more secure and stable tenancies, flexibility to personalise their homes, improved safeguards against eviction, improved regulation and effective national rent controls in the private sector; recognises that this strategy will support progress towards the human right of an adequate home for all, and welcomes, therefore, this draft strategy seeking to make renting a home more affordable, safer, with a higher quality, better managed and more secure.