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I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s points. I said that 52 CPOs have been pursued by Glasgow City Council, of which 34 have been concluded, but there are more than 1,600 long-term empty homes in the city, which gives an idea of the scale of the issue and of the power and bandwidth that are needed in order to tackle it. I welcome the opportunity to continue the discussion about how we might achieve the optimum approach to giving local authorities greater powers, codifying as best practice what Glasgow is already doing and expanding Glasgow’s capacity, as well as that of other local authorities.

Where I disagree with the cabinet secretary is that I think that there could be benefit in including that in the bill. There is an analogy with listed buildings. Sections 42 and 43 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 created a mechanism known as the listed buildings repairs notice, which is analogous to a repairing works notice for any residential property. The notice creates an escalation procedure towards a compulsory purchase order.

The explanatory note that was published by Angus Council says:

“The local authority can serve a notice on the owner of a listed building specifying works it considers reasonably necessary for the proper preservation of the building. It is appropriate for consideration when a building is neglected and the need for permanent repair accumulates to the point there is potential for serious harm. If after a period of not less than two months, it appears reasonable steps are not being taken for its proper preservation, the local authority can begin compulsory purchase proceedings. The Council can acquire a listed building that is not being properly conserved if this will facilitate its repair either by the Council or through an appropriate repairing owner to which it is subsequently passed.”

I feel that there is a similarity of intent there. That is a statutory measure that councils can exercise—they do not do so often enough, but that is another story—and I think that there should be a similar mechanism for inhabited residential property, so that we can create a formalised system of escalation through the repairing works notices that are already in place, culminating in a compulsory purchase order. Perhaps that could be achieved through an amendment to the wording.

I thank colleagues who have spoken so eloquently about their respective amendments so far. I am here primarily to speak to amendment 477. The intention behind it, as the minister suggested, is to address long-term dilapidation in privately let property.

The synopsis of the amendment is that, if a property in private let is deemed to be substandard by failing to meet the repairing standard or the tolerable standard for a period of longer than 12 months, the tenant would have a right in statute to apply to the local authority to initiate a compulsory purchase order process or an escalation to a compulsory purchase order for the property and, therefore, to transfer it to an appropriate local registered social landlord, whether that be the local authority itself or a third-party housing association. The Scottish Government could underwrite that procedure and recover the costs of the purchase over a reasonable period—for example, 25 years from the receiving social landlord’s taking ownership of the property—which would have the effect of making the policy effectively cost neutral for the Government. It would allow for established best practice of using CPOs to take over long-term vacant housing stock to be expanded to housing stock that is in generally poor condition, although habitable—which already happens in Glasgow in areas such as Govanhill—and for the approach to be accelerated and scaled up.

Glasgow has been at the forefront of using CPOs to tackle problems of long-term vacant properties, which has increased affordable housing supply and ensured the upkeep of pre-1919 tenements, of which there are around 70,000 in the city, with an estimated repair backlog of £3 billion. The CPO process has been a way of responding to the blight that has been caused by derelict, abandoned flats and homes that have been left vacant for a variety of reasons, or properties that have previously been let out but are now below the tolerable standard.

Glasgow’s promotion of CPOs has sent a message that the local authority is active in taking steps against private landlords or other individuals who fail to address problems with their property. Although that is a last-resort measure, 52 homes across Glasgow have been pursued for compulsory purchases since 2019, and 34 of those processes have been concluded. In the other cases, 13 owners opted to sell voluntarily to housing associations, and a further two properties were sold to or occupied by family members, which means that the planned CPOs were not continued. In all cases to date in which the CPOs have been confirmed, once Glasgow City Council has invested in the property, it has entered into a back-to-back agreement with a local community-based housing association, which has carried out the necessary repair works to bring the property up to a tolerable standard and back into active use in order to provide affordable housing for those who need it. Given the housing emergency in the city, the need is particularly acute.

Some of the properties that have been targeted have been lying empty for more than 14 years, while other properties have been designated as being below the tolerable standard for more than five years. All those empty properties, because they are generally tenement stock, create environmental blight and affect neighbours and the wider community. The benefit that is derived from bringing those and other homes back into use is significant, particularly for tenants and owners who live in close proximity and have suffered as a direct consequence of abandonment.

However, given budgetary constraints, there is a limit on how much any local authority can achieve through CPOs alone. The steps in making and obtaining CPOs are complex, time consuming, costly and resource intensive. In Glasgow’s case, they are also dependent on establishing a partnership with a housing association, because the city does not itself manage social housing. The housing association must be willing to take on the property after the council purchases it, because, without that, there is a risk that the council would be paying money to acquire assets, which would cost further sums to repair and still be left on the council balance sheet.

Even with back-to-back purchases, the cost and resource implications of seeing CPO cases through to confirmation limits the number of CPOs that the council can promote. The council has indicated that its preference would be to expand the process to compulsory sales orders, which I know that the Government has been considering. The officers of Glasgow City Council consider that that could address the situation relating to up to half of the long-term empty homes in Glasgow. However, that is not on the horizon—indeed, I do not believe that the Government has published timescales for that—and the bill provides us with an opportunity to put in place a potential remedy that would create a proper demand signal and a system of escalation in statute.

I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s comments. There is a really good system in Glasgow—albeit not one that has worked at a scale sufficient to address the housing emergency in the city—and there could be an opportunity to codify that in the bill, giving local authorities the confidence to create a more sophisticated system. That could perhaps be underpinned by Government investment to supercharge the opportunity to use CPOs at scale. I know that the Government is looking at a law reform procedure for CPOs, and this might tie in with that. There is an opportunity to use the bill to do something positive to address the housing emergency in Glasgow and elsewhere.

In its written submission, the Scottish Drugs Forum mentioned the risk of gaming the system. Kirsten Horsburgh, could you perhaps elaborate on what your written submission said about that potential unintended consequence?

Thank you very much.

The bill’s policy memorandum says:

“The Bill also establishes a timescale to begin treatment of, at most, three weeks after being prescribed it but earlier if practicable. This is in recognition that time delays in receiving treatment impacts on the treatment having a positive effect, as someone can become more unwell in the period between diagnosis and treatment, potentially becoming seriously ill and in a state of trauma. In addition, delays in treatment can lead to scenarios where a person cannot take up the treatment after a period of time passes, for example if they have deteriorated in condition or lost faith that treatment will be provided that will help them.”

I note that the Salvation Army, WithYou and Turning Point have raised concerns about the need for preparatory work to be undertaken before individuals can begin abstinence-focused recovery treatment. Therefore, with regard to how the bill is drafted, is there a way to define that clearly, so that the time in which people enter into the process of preparation would count in relation to that three-week period? Could that be considered?

Yes.

That helpfully moves me on to my next question, which is about the unintended consequences of the reporting mechanisms in the bill as it is currently drafted. You just alluded to some, but could you perhaps expand on the point about potentially unintended consequences?

Thank you.

Right, okay—that is helpful.

Annemarie Ward, I wonder whether you have any views on the provisions in section 1(5) and (6) in that regard?