Hansard

As convener of the Local Government and Communities Committee, I am pleased to present the key conclusions from our stage 1 report on the Housing (Scotland) Bill. On the committee’s behalf, I thank all those who gave evidence to us. In particular, I thank the minister’s officials for responding to our numerous requests for additional information. I also thank my fellow committee members for their hard work in considering the bill. Last but not least, I express my gratitude for the support that was provided by the committee’s clerks and researchers.

The Housing (Scotland) Bill proposes to introduce another layer of housing legislation in Scotland. The bill includes a range of new provisions and amends a number of previous acts, but it seems that the Parliament will need to consider yet further housing legislation, as the minister has made a commitment to introduce another housing bill later in the session. The committee believes that it would have been preferable to have consolidated many of the provisions in the Housing (Scotland) Bill with those that will appear in the proposed private sector housing bill. We would have preferred to consider the changes to existing legislation in their totality. In our view, that would have been a far simpler approach than the one that the Scottish Government has pursued.

The committee acknowledges that the Government carried out an extensive and inclusive consultation with stakeholders in preparing the Housing (Scotland) Bill. However, the committee is concerned that there was no evidence of direct engagement with tenants other than through those stakeholders. We hope that the Scottish housing regulator will do better in taking up the challenge of consulting tenants directly, because we believe that it is crucial that the views of tenants, not just of their representative bodies, are taken into account in determining social housing priorities.

In its stage 1 report, the committee decided to focus its consideration on four key issues: the modernisation of social housing regulation, the reforms to the right to buy, the amendment of legislation on private sector housing, and issues relating to the licensing of houses in multiple occupation and to the protection of unauthorised tenants. Whereas my committee colleagues will cover specific aspects of the bill in their speeches this afternoon, I will outline the committee’s key conclusions and recommendations.

The bill’s proposals on the modernisation of social housing regulation were broadly welcomed by the witnesses who gave evidence. The committee supports the provisions that will establish the Scottish housing regulator and confer on the SHR its objective and functions. The committee concurs that a single regulator will provide the simplest and most effective means of ensuring a consistent approach to the regulation of all social landlords and the services that they provide to tenants. Furthermore, the committee recognises that the inclusion of the objective for the regulator to safeguard and promote the interests of persons who are or who may become homeless will support efforts to tackle homelessness. The committee also considers that the role that housing associations can play in wider community regeneration is important and should be recognised by the Scottish housing regulator in the implementation of its objective.

The evidence that the committee heard on the Scottish social housing charter demonstrated widespread support for the charter among stakeholders. The provisions seem to satisfy the demands for flexibility in balancing national outcomes with—this is an important point—local needs. The charter will also provide a means of raising standards in social housing. However, the committee calls for as much direct consultation of tenants as possible in the preparation of the charter.

The second area that the committee focused on was the reforms to the right to buy. The committee noted that

“the Scottish Government has ensured that those tenants with an existing right to buy retain that right”

but, as the minister noted, the bill will end the right to buy for new tenants who enter the social rented sector, reform the pressured area designation and end the right to buy for new-supply social housing.

In general, those three proposals were welcomed in evidence to the committee, although there were some differences of opinion. Some stakeholders called for more measures to ensure the retention of housing stock in the social rented sector, while others expressed concern about the effect of loss of receipts from sales. The Scottish Government has taken into account situations in which tenants could be disadvantaged by the reforms and has included exemptions to protect them.

There was overwhelming evidence from a variety of organisations testifying to the complexity of the legislation on the right to buy. The committee concurred with those organisations that, if enacted, the bill would further complicate the position, so it was of the view that

“it will be particularly important to communicate the right to buy provisions clearly to tenants so that they have an accurate understanding of their entitlement to right to buy.”

The third area that the committee considered—the amendment of legislation on HMO licensing and the extent to which it would address the problem of rogue landlords and the flaunting of licensing requirements—turned out to be one of the most challenging. The committee took evidence in the knowledge that additional provisions were likely to be introduced in subsequent legislation but without knowing the exact nature of those provisions.

It was established that the success of the register requirement has been patchy, with more proactive local authorities achieving high registration rates. Particularly notable is the fact that not a single landlord has been prosecuted for failing to register since the relevant legislation was enacted. The lack of prosecutions has had the effect of allowing bad landlords to continue to operate outwith the system, which has meant that protection for the most vulnerable tenants has been limited. It appears that, as it is currently framed, the bill will not address that issue.

The committee was of the view that increasing to £20,000 the penalty for failing to register might act as a further deterrent to landlords who do not register, but it felt that unless a greater incentive was provided for local authorities to pursue a prosecution, that provision would not have the desired effect. We believe that the requirement for landlords to register needs to be promoted and that additional methods should be used to identify unregistered landlords. Those methods could include sharing data and requiring letting agents to check landlord registration and to provide information on the identity of landlords to local authorities.

When it considered the proposals on houses in multiple occupation, the committee came to the conclusion that the legislation on HMOs was complicated and dislocated, which we believed clouded its original purpose and hindered the capacity of local authorities to deal with the problems with HMOs in their areas. The committee welcomed the new provisions in the bill as a means of further protecting groups such as migrant workers and felt that the provisions could tackle the breaches of planning control that often result from landlords trying to maximise the letting potential of a property. We took the view that local authorities must use the tools at their disposal in housing and planning legislation to support sustainable communities and maintain private sector housing.

The final area that the committee considered was that of the protection of unauthorised tenancies, which was rendered difficult by the fact that the committee had to report on the bill at stage 1 before the repossessions group had completed its work and reported. Nevertheless, the committee concluded that it was important to strengthen and clarify the legal position of tenants in relation to repossessions when there is an unauthorised tenancy. I note that the repossessions group’s report was published last week and the minister covered the issue in response to the committee’s stage 1 report.

The committee raises a number of significant issues in its report, and I am sure that my committee colleagues will provide more details about some of them during their contributions to the debate. With the caveats that I have mentioned, the committee supports the general principles of the bill and recommends to the Parliament that they be approved.

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