Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a quick question on amendment 378. Can you explain the rationale for having a maximum pre-notice period of three months? I completely get the two-month minimum, but why have a three-month maximum?

Like Meghan Gallacher, I will fall foul of the request to be brief, in this group at least. However, as one of my amendments is 12 pages long, I think that I can get away with it this once—maybe.

A warm, safe home that we can call our own is absolutely essential to our wellbeing. That being the case, forcing somebody out of their home should only be done in the most rare and unavoidable circumstances. At the moment, eviction notice periods work differently depending on how long a person has been in a property, and I struggle to see the justification in that. Being forced from your home against your will is going to have an impact regardless of how long you have been there. That being the case, my amendment 187 provides a four-month notice period for everyone, so that all tenants are treated equally. It also has the virtue of simplifying the system.

The same amendment provides a 12-month protection from eviction in the same way as will shortly be provided to tenants in England under the Renters’ Rights Bill. The amendment would ensure that people have a guarantee of a minimum of one year of stability in their home, and it also ensures that protections in Scotland do not fall behind those of other parts of the UK.

My amendments 188 and 200 provide for a ban on winter evictions, specifically between November and March. Disallowing evictions during the winter period is not at all exceptional or experimental. We had an evictions ban in Scotland very recently, and almost the same measures as I am proposing have been in force in France for more than 70 years. Similar provisions exist in certain states in the United States, where evictions cannot happen when the temperature drops below a certain level. In a country that can be as cold as ours, I do not think that I need to press home the point too strongly that we should not be moving people out of their homes and into temporary accommodation that is often poorly insulated, and, where new arrangements do not work out, onto our freezing streets.

There are, of course, appropriate exemptions, but the ban will apply to most of the common grounds for eviction. I understand that the Scottish Government’s approach prizes flexibility, and that is appropriate when ensuring that evictions do not coincide with exams taken by a member of the household, for example, which can happen at any time of the year. The case is similar for religious holidays, as clearly Christian and Muslim households, for example, will need protection against evictions at different times of the year. However, winter evictions are a different matter. As we all know from sliding down the Royal Mile in the ice and snow, Scotland is reliably cold in the last few months and first few months of each year.

The Scottish Government’s approach is asking for inconsistency. The bill says that tribunals “may consider” delaying an eviction due to a “seasonal factor”, but they might not. They might also differ in the interpretation of a “seasonal factor”. Even if members have concerns about particular aspects of the drafting, I ask those members of the committee who agree with the basic principle to support the amendment when I move it, which I intend to. I will be happy to work with them ahead of stage 3 to iron out any details.

If the cabinet secretary does not intend to support the proposal, I have one simple question. The Scottish Government—including my party and that of the cabinet secretary—brought in an evictions clause through the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022. If it was the right thing to do then, why is it not the right thing to do now?

Amendment 251 gives effect to a long-standing ask from Generation Rent. It would require the First-tier Tribunal, when allowing an eviction, to order the landlord to make a payment to the tenant equal to two months’ rent, or allow the tenant to withhold the last two months of rent. That is in recognition of the significant costs that tenants incur when being evicted.

Polling by Survation for Generation Rent showed how much money tenants lose. Fifty-two per cent of tenants reported that they took more than four days to pack, move and clean at the end of a tenancy, often requiring time off work, which can be costly for those who do not have leave available. Due to overlapping tenancies, 40 per cent of private renters reported that they had had to pay rent on more than one property at once when moving home. More than a third—40 per cent—of those renters had paid rent on two properties for more than two weeks. That is not to mention the costs of cleaning the property or having it cleaned and hiring vehicles to move possessions. When up-front costs, deposits set at five weeks’ rent and time off work are all considered, it typically costs renters £1,400 just to move home. The measure in the amendment is a modest one to help people deal with those costs, which are often put on them at short notice.

Moving to other amendments in the group, there are many that we in the Greens support. Mark Griffin’s statutory review of eviction grounds is a timely and helpful measure. A root-and-branch review is desperately needed. His amendment to restrict evictions where ECO4 energy improvements have been made addresses issues arising recently in respect of troubling evictions, whereby people agree to the disturbance of installation works, only to be evicted so that the more energy-efficient property can be sold or rented more profitably.

Meghan Gallacher’s amendments to restrict evictions in the case of terminal illness make well overdue compassionate changes. I also welcome the tougher sanctions on landlords who do not play by the eviction rules or seek to manipulate them. Those amendments have been lodged by Katy Clark and I thank her for doing so.

However, there are a number of amendments that I cannot support. Edward Mountain’s amendments appear to water down the bill’s plans for evictions to be delayed. I opened by noting that evictions should happen only in the most rare circumstances and only when absolutely unavoidable. That being the case, and with all due respect to faith groups who rent out properties, needing the property for a religious purpose is not a good enough reason for an eviction not to be delayed. I also see no reason to exempt the Church of Scotland alone from those provisions. I therefore encourage colleagues to vote against Willie Rennie’s amendment 452 and Meghan Gallacher’s amendment 487.

I think that is happening already.

I appreciate that these are not your amendments and that you are speaking on behalf of Edward Mountain. One of my concerns with amendments 172 and 182, on professional cleaning, is the costs. I wonder whether, if we had conversations with Edward Mountain between now and stage 3, he would consider amending the wording slightly to say that the property must be cleaned either professionally or in another way to a similar standard, to ensure that tenants are not liable for extortionate costs. I also wonder whether there would be room for conversation about exempting people with assistance animals from those costs.

I have a quick question. One of the concerns is that the rent that is adjudicated could be higher than the amount that was asked for. That surely cannot be what the Government is intending. Is that what the cabinet secretary intends, or is there room for something else to come through?

I will focus my comments on my amendments in the group; I know that my colleague Ariane Burgess will speak to others.

My amendments are designed to focus on the quality and efficiency of properties. We know that many landlords in the private sector provide high-quality homes, but we also know that many do not, and improvement across the board is definitely needed.

At least 55 per cent of homes in the private sector have wall insulation, compared with 69 per cent in the social sector. That is why almost 70 per cent of social homes have an energy performance certificate rating of C or higher, which is almost 20 per cent higher than in the private sector.

Levels of disrepair to critical elements are the highest in the private sector. In relation to overall quality, in 2023, 40 per cent of private sector dwellings failed the Scottish housing quality standard, compared to only 30 per cent in the social sector.

The failure rate of 40 per cent shows that the current system is not working. I think that there has to be more than just the one provision in legislation—there has to be an overarching view. I would welcome a little more detail on that. Also, what information are you hoping to get out of the consultation? We know what is wrong. We know that homes are not at appropriate levels, and we know what needs to be done to fix them. What is the consultation seeking to achieve? Why is it necessary? Why can we not just get on and make the changes that we need to make?

Rent controls will work only if tenants are aware of their rights. With rent control areas covering some parts of the country but not others, we have to ensure that how a rent control affects tenants is communicated clearly to them. That is what amendment 273 would do: it would require the landlord to say whether the property was covered by a rent cap. That is not covered by existing legislation or guidance, as rent controls do not currently exist. According to amendment 273, landlords should provide that information to their tenants, as well as advertising to them their right to join a tenants union and their other rights under the private sector charter that is being introduced by Rachael Hamilton, which we also support.

Amendment 274 is a minor amendment that applies the tenants union provisions to the social rented sector.

Tenants unions, such as Living Rent and others, have been a driving force for a fairer private rented sector for years. They have challenged landlords who have neglected their tenants and their properties, they have won hundreds of thousands of pounds in rent cuts and other payments for renters, and they have ensured that much-delayed repairs have been done. Landlords who are compliant with the law and are interested in supporting their tenants—as we are assured that many are—should not be concerned that their tenants will know that they can unionise from day 1 of their tenancy.

I also support amendments 422, 247 and 248, from Mark Griffin and Daniel Johnson. They would empower tenants and, in the case of amendment 422, would ensure protections for landlords and tenants by making what is currently best practice in agreeing inventories into a statutory duty. We believe that it should be statutory.

I appreciate that you are speaking to another member’s amendment, but do you agree with the concern that I raised about tenants having, under amendment 490, a default responsibility to be present at their property to allow people access? Surely ensuring that the property is accessible should be the landlord’s job. Does he agree with that concern about the amendment?

One of my hopes for the bill is that it raises tenants’ awareness of their rights significantly. As Emma Roddick has already alluded to, there is a lot of opacity and people are not sure where they stand. Too often, renters do not know their rights, they do not know where to get the right information and they do not know how to challenge landlords who contravene those rights.

Under the bill as drafted, tenants would have a mere 21 days in which to challenge a rent increase. If they do not act within those three weeks, an illegal increase would then be unchallengeable. That cannot be right. Tenants—perhaps thousands of them—who have busy lives, might not have time to research their rights and might not even be aware of those rights, and if they do not make a challenge in those three weeks, they will be ripped off by landlords, with the stamp of approval of the Scottish Government and the bill. I hardly need to say that I do not think that that is acceptable. Until we get to a position in which tenants know their rights and are fully supported, we need to offer some flexibility. My amendments 161, 162, 201 and 202 do that by increasing the limit from three weeks to one year.

I have not simply invented that figure. It comes directly from the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, which allows those with a good reason not to have challenged a decision on their payment sooner to challenge it for up to a year. There is therefore congruence with other legislation that the Parliament has passed.

My other set of amendments in the group addresses concerns that were raised by Living Rent. At the moment, renters who challenge rent can end up with the rent officer raising the rent beyond that which is being asked by the landlord. That acts as a serious disincentive to challenging an unreasonable rent notice and might explain why there are so few challenges to rent service Scotland. My amendments 497, 498, and 499 would resolve that anomaly and offer discretion to the rent officer to take into account quality, energy efficiency and other relevant standards when considering a rent challenge.

Amendments 238, 239, and 240 would introduce a £10,000 fine if the landlord has levied an increase beyond that which is allowed under rent control provisions. That is absolutely crucial. At the current level of £1,000, landlords might take a calculated risk that, if they can raise rents more than is allowed, the amount that will be gained might be more than that £1,000. A fine of £10,000 would offer a genuine disincentive. We cannot allow landlords to chance their arm or write off fines as simply a cost of doing business.

Emma Roddick’s amendments 139 and 140 also try to create, through the fines system, a financial incentive for landlords not to challenge illegal increases. The fines are less strong, but I support the principle behind the amendments.

Amendments 399 and 400, from the Government, would lengthen the timescale for challenging rent increases in areas that are not rent controlled. That is welcome, but a nine-day increase is minimal and not sufficient, and I ask the cabinet secretary to consider bringing back a much stronger version at stage 3.