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Does Maggie Chapman agree that the EPC system is completely out of date? It should have been reviewed long before now. Given the current EPC system, it is difficult for landlords in the private rented sector to get homes, particularly rural ones, up to standard in certain circumstances. We need that review to come forward as quickly as possible, in order to have a new EPC system that will give landlords in the social or private rented sector or otherwise more opportunities and options to decarbonise their homes, so that they can choose how best to do that for their tenants.

I accept that. We have had the Minister for Housing at committee on that exact issue. My concern is that we are moving significantly more slowly than our UK counterparts. That needs to be reflected on. In particular, England, as I referenced, has included as part of the ban the buildings that I referenced. We should move towards that at pace.

I understand that there is a consultation, that the responses are being analysed and that we will probably have an update in due course. However, as things stand, any such building being retrofitted, renovated or built can still have that particular building material placed on it. We need to recognise that, particularly if a ban is to be put in place and we have to look at those buildings again.

I believe that there is an issue with schools and hospitals. Although I am not talking about dwellings in terms of housing, all is encompassed in the overall cladding strategy that we need to move forward on and deal with. I do not intend to move amendment 516 today—the cabinet secretary will probably be pleased to hear that—but I have put those issues on the record. The reason for lodging the amendment was to raise the issue of cladding and the urgency of dealing with issues of combustible façade materials.

I will pick up on a couple of the other amendments in the group, convener—I understand that you want to wrap up fairly quickly, but I need to raise concerns about amendments 249, 385, 538 and 539. A number of amendments in the group involve potentially heavy penalties if a landlord fails to maintain a property to what is perceived to be an acceptable standard. I believe that that plays into a wider issue.

Scottish Land & Estates has raised concerns with the minister about a key flaw in the bill, which is that who the relevant landlord is when it comes to the provision of information is not clearly defined. Although the minister’s amendments 303, 304 and 313 sought to address that, they have not resolved the ambiguity around who the person responsible is when a tenant is also a landlord and the head landlord is at arm’s length from the tenancy agreement. It is clear how quickly the complexities can expand. That confusion affects compliance with wider housing regulation, including that on landlord registration and repairing standards.

I understand that SLE has proposed a fix via a clearer definition in the Antisocial Behaviour etc (Scotland) Act 2004, which would bring consistency across housing regulations, provide clarity in relation to compliance, reduce the likelihood of disputes and delays to repairs, and provide clarity on who is responsible for enforcement.

We need to be careful about the amendments in this group. Although they are well intentioned, it is wrongly assumed that the necessary clarity already exists. Given that failing to meet the repairing standard can, ultimately, lead to a criminal offence, surely it is only right that landlords are given clear guidance on what they must comply with. Will the cabinet secretary and the minister commit to lodging further amendments at stage 3 that would deliver that clarity? I would be more than happy to work with the cabinet secretary on that.

I greatly appreciate the clarity that the cabinet secretary has provided on that, which will reassure those who are concerned about the nature of the Government’s amendments, as opposed to the intent behind them. Given the complexities and the potential for knock-on effects elsewhere, we need to make sure that we look at the issue in the round. That is relevant in relation to Awaab’s law and the amendments to legislation that are required in that regard. We must make sure that the scope of the amendments is correct and that matters such as other hazards and the need to consult the private rented sector are encompassed. We must look at all those issues in the round, and I very much look forward to taking part in those conversations.

I thank Maggie Chapman for that clarification, but I am still a little unclear about how it would work in practice. You have said that the information would not necessarily be about which union to join, and I believe that there should be some duty on the tenant to look into the matter. My point is perhaps that it works both ways. We might disagree on that, but I think that the onus needs to be on both the landlord and the tenant in that instance, instead of on just one of them.

I will pick up on the points about defining “quality” and “energy efficiency” that were raised by Maggie Chapman and which she discussed in her subsequent exchange with Graham Simpson. It is important to acknowledge that we are reviewing the EPC rating system. That could have happened way before now—it is long overdue—but we probably need to see what the review concludes before even beginning to look at the minimum standards that are required for a rent increase.

With regard to energy efficiency, as things stand, it is very hard for rural homes to do what is required to achieve an EPC rating of C. If the system used our current energy efficiency standards, it would be incredibly difficult for landlords with properties in rural areas to achieve that rating, which would prevent them from increasing the rent, so we need to look at the issue in the round. I am also a little concerned about how you would define “quality”, because it is very broad term that it is open to interpretation by individuals. I will leave my comments there.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that, should amendment 258 be agreed to, under the existing EPC rating system, it will be really difficult for landlords with rural properties to upgrade their homes to reach the required rating, given how the process is undertaken and assessments are made and determined?

Given that I have supported quite a lot of Willie Rennie’s amendments in this group, it would be remiss of me not to make a short contribution. I totally agree with the points that he has made. In our scrutiny of the bill, we must put in place the correct safeguards to ensure that we drive up investment so that the private rented sector, and other housing sectors, will not be detrimentally impacted by rent controls.

This might be another consequence of the Government not consulting properly in all areas before introducing legislation. I would have hoped that what happens between tenancies could have been teased out before we reached stage 2, because it was raised at stage 1 and even before then, not only by the sector but by members. I am pleased to support Willie Rennie’s amendments, and I look forward to hearing the cabinet secretary’s responses to all the amendments in this group.

As was highlighted—I think by Mark Griffin—this is a really important section of the bill. The conversation has been helpful, including the exchange between Willie Rennie and the cabinet secretary and the points that other members have made in rightly raising concerns about exemptions not being in the bill itself. I still believe that certain exemptions should be in the bill and that there should be further consultation to allow for other exemptions to be considered thereafter.

However, I understand that, given the position and the direction of travel of the Government and the fact that the consultation is live, we should wait to see what responses are received to the consultation. I am sure that the sector will feed into the Scottish Government what exemptions it wants to see in secondary legislation. I hope that the Government takes notice with regard to exemptions and the sector’s concerns about ensuring that it is protected in order that we do not stifle investment, so that we can get on with building more homes and tackling the housing emergency. Tackling the housing emergency is what we should be debating and what I would expect a housing bill to be about. However, I feel as though we are unpicking bits of that debate because of the discussions that we are having in the committee about the amendments that members have lodged.

Oh—an intervention on an intervention. Of course, cabinet secretary.

The cabinet secretary’s remarks have been really helpful, because we know that not been enough data has been published—if it has been published at all—on these areas in the past. We need to ensure that the data is not only made available to MSPs to scrutinise but is put in the public domain, so that people have full transparency on what the market is saying and what information is being collected by local government. If there would be an opportunity for me to be part of the meeting with local government colleagues, I would certainly be interested in that.

I also wonder whether we can, as soon as possible, get a feel for what the simplified system will look like. We in Parliament often talk about high-level things, but, as Alexander Stewart and others have said, local authorities will have to administer the system, and we do not want to put a burden on colleagues who might not have the resource to do the work.