Meeting of the Parliament 24 September 2025 [Draft]
I reiterate the declaration that I made yesterday. I am a landlord who lets houses under private residential tenancies and I have also let or given housing to individuals as part of their job. I have been letting houses for more than 30 years and I am a qualified surveyor. Before I was involved in politics, I let houses for clients. I say that so that there is no accusation that I have ever used weasel words to cover up what I do.
Amendments 192 to 196 would ensure that, when an eviction is to be carried out at the end of a tenancy, it must be done within four months of the end of the tenancy. The rationale behind that is that, in every month that the tenant who stays there is unable to pay the increased rent, the burden on them to pay it at a later stage increases. Amendments at stage 2 suggested a period of three months. I am now probing to see whether the cabinet secretary agrees that four months is a more reasonable period than three months and she is therefore in a position to support that. I do not believe that it would restrict the discretion of tribunals and courts; it would just give them deadlines to work to.
Amendments 394 to 397 are about evictions for antisocial behaviour. They relate to PRTs, secure tenancies, assured tenancies and protected statutory tenancies. They mandate that, for each type of tenancy, the tribunal’s specified period for a person to be evicted for antisocial behaviour should be no more than two months. That provision has been specifically requested by people who are not landlords but are tenants, because they have been told that tenants in the house next door to them have been behaving antisocially. In some cases, they might be drug users or drug sellers who never seem to be moved on, which causes problems for neighbouring people in tenancies. That has happened in various places around Inverness and across the Highlands. It is therefore perfectly reasonable that, once antisocial behaviour has been proven, there should be a finite amount of time before the tenant is moved on.
I support Meghan Gallacher’s amendments on terminal illness, which I am delighted that the cabinet secretary and the Government appear to support. It seems totally appropriate that terminal illness is considered in such cases.
I cannot support Maggie Chapman’s amendment 8, which would extend the eviction period to 12 months in certain circumstances, such as when the landlord intends to sell the property or when the extension is intended to alleviate financial hardship. All that it would do is to create more financial hardship for the landlord and tilt the balance too far in the tenant’s favour.
The provisions in amendments 198 and 198A would be unfair on both parties. There is no justification for the notice period for evictions to be extended beyond 16 weeks.
15:45Maggie Chapman’s amendments 77 and 44 propose a five-month ban on evictions every year. I think that the ban would be during the winter period. That would mean that a tenant could not be evicted during the winter, whatever the problems were. I am not sure that I see the logic of that, so I look forward to hearing Maggie Chapman’s arguments. It would be a bit like the transfer window for football teams, with things not being allowed to happen at certain times of the year.
Under amendments 284 and 284A, removal costs would be paid by the landlord. That would be completely unjust, and I see no reason for it. It should be for the tenant to move their equipment out of the house in the same way as they moved it in. If Ms Chapman expects the Conservatives to support amendments 284 and 284A, which would compensate the tenant for moving out, will she give me an assurance that the Greens will support my amendments 206 and 214, which would require tenants to pay for the cleaning costs at the end of their tenancy if they have kept a pet in the home? I might then be in a position to support her.
Katy Clark’s amendment 288 sets out that, if a landlord has been unable to sell a property, they cannot let the property. That means that, just because of the state of the market, they would be burdened with having to pay double council tax on that property for the period in which it was unable to be let.