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What I have said is not a comment on the adequacy of the tolerable standard. The tolerable standard provides a base, but Awaab’s law sits on top of it and gives clear expectations for the identification and repair of hazards. In that way, it builds on the tolerable standard. That is not an indication that I do not think that the tolerable standard is adequate—I think that it is. However, if we decide that we want such protection to be in place and have expectations about the timescales for the repair of hazards, Awaab’s law will sit on top of the tolerable standard. We want to enhance the support across the board.

The issue relates less to the type of accommodation and more to the type of occupancy agreement. We have rehearsed the three types that the regulations cover. I know that the United Kingdom Government is considering how to apply Awaab’s law to situations in which licences or occupancy agreements are used for temporary accommodation. Such measures simply cannot be brought into force through this secondary legislation, but we are looking for other ways to do that.

You did not ask me to provide that information to the committee.

I will take your question in two parts, but I understand entirely why these things come together in the rural context.

We have thought hard about it, and we have also spoken to stakeholders to garner their views on what barriers might exist. Although urban-rural is probably an important element, differences between types of building and the difference between the social and the private rented sectors are probably the biggest differences that we needed to navigate. For example, we have tried to build in flexibility to deal with challenges that might be faced in rurality. I do not have the wording in front of me, but it is about taking account of circumstances outwith the landlord’s control when it comes to abiding by the time limit. Of course, those circumstances could include the availability of transport or workforce, all of which pertain more to rural and island areas. We have tried to build in that flexibility.

We have been keen to avoid the regulations being a quick fix and to make sure that the work that is done has a lasting impact, and we have tried to give that practical effect in a couple of ways. First, the property has to be inspected by a competent person. That is an important part of how the regulations are framed. A written update of the assessment should also be given to the tenant. That is not only about making sure that it is done in an expert way; the tenant will be clear about the situation and what is required by that individual.

Secondly, it is about ensuring that the property continues to be substantially free from damp and mould. It is not just about the quick fix; it will be something that endures. We will need to flesh out in guidance exactly what we think preventative measures might be.

There is a little bit of built-in flexibility to account for rural requirements, perhaps, or maybe for a landlord who is not in the country or is away on holiday or whatever. These things happen and the regulations have to be workable in day-to-day life. Equally, we have tried to avoid the quick-fix approach.

The other thing to say is that we will continue to work with Scottish Land & Estates and others as we finalise the guidance.

That work has already started. We consulted closely with a lot of stakeholders at the beginning, when we were developing the regulations. In fact, I have just found the page in my notes showing the stakeholder engagement that we have already done. I have a list of 16 organisations that officials have sat down with and asked what they require of the legislation, what the foreseeable issues that they want us to avoid are and what they would like to come out of it. That list was very much a mixture of tenant and landlord organisations. They have been involved from the start, and we will continue to make sure that they are involved, particularly as we formulate the guidance. We also have good contact with tenants representative groups. We are trying to improve that, and their engagement in the guidance will be critical.

I like the idea of the graphic, just because I saw it done. I saw how much the tenant I talked to was able to walk through it and understand it. I would quite like to see that developed as part of the guidance, but both stakeholder groups will be involved in that.

Nichelle Gill is trying to tell me something. Do you want to come in?

That is a good point, and I recognise that issue from my constituency. Nichelle Gill is right that, if we are able to flesh out our expectation of what

“substantially free from damp and mould”

means, that will make it much clearer for everybody, so that a tenant can say, “Look, that constitutes what I am living through here,” and so that landlords are less able to say, if they were so inclined, “No, that is just condensation. It is not damp and mould in this case.” A clearer understanding of exactly what that phrasing means will be helpful to both parties, and we will certainly try to provide that in the guidance.

Again, the regulations set clear expectations for what will be done and the timings for that. There are a few exceptions to that, but even in such cases we have set out what a tenant can expect. You are right to touch on the question of interpretation, but the independent assessment of the works is an important part of that. Having a competent person examine the works is a very important part of getting to a true agreement on what we are dealing with and what needs to happen next.

We have discussed the route for that in the private rented sector. In the social rented sector, there are generally good relationships between landlord and tenant in which any decision that is made about a tenancy can be challenged. I would expect that any challenge to an assessment would happen in the same way. As MSPs, we often get involved in such issues, and we know that advice services are also often involved. That might continue to be the case.

It is a bit more active than that. We are in engagement with it to understand the level of additional workload that something such as this generates and how the tribunal manages that. My point is that, in relation to your experience of that or your interpretation of whether it is working, I should not like to comment on the work of the tribunal in that sense. However, we are making the policy, we are passing the laws and we are in engagement with the tribunal to make sure that it believes that it can manage it.

Work to develop the guidance is under way. My view is that it must be in place and well socialised before the provisions themselves go live. We are talking about October this year for that. Therefore, I would aim for the end of the summer—that is what Nichelle Gill and I have been discussing—which gives us a balance of the right amount of time to develop it well and enough time for people to understand it before we go live in October. Its content will take the normal form for guidance: it will speak to various parts of the provisions; our expectation of what that looks like in practice; and things such as the point that Willie Coffey was drawing out about what terms such as “substantially free from damp” mean. I am keen that there are graphic approaches as well, such as a style graphic that people might want to adopt, to make the communication as easy as possible.