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Yes, absolutely, the EPC system is out of date and the review is urgently needed. We anticipate that the system will change, which is why we have not referred to EPC in my amendments. The amendments should cover the new energy efficiency rating system, for which I hope that we will not wait too long. As you have said, EPC does not take into account the full range of technological advances that we have had in the past few years.

We have a situation where twice the proportion of properties fail on three or more criteria of the Scottish housing quality standard in the private sector compared to social housing. My amendment 257 and its partner amendments in an earlier group, which we have previously debated, would act as a very powerful incentive to drive up quality, along with Ariane Burgess’s amendments to allow tenants to withhold rent when repairs have not been done and for local authorities to inspect accommodation and levy fines on landlords who are not looking after their properties and, therefore, their tenants. We can put significant upwards pressure on standards.

This is a complex area and there are a great many amendments in the group. Bearing both those points in mind, I have left open the matter of how exactly we do those things—I have not been specific, as it would be for ministers to decide how the minimum standards would be defined. I encourage members to vote for almost all the amendments in the group, which all try to do basically the same thing. Emma Roddick’s amendment for landlords to financially compensate tenants when minimum standards have been contravened is helpful, as is Daniel Johnson’s amendment for poor-quality properties to be bought out by local authorities.

I am glad that the Scottish Government is introducing Awaab’s law to ensure that repair issues are addressed, and I support the Conservative amendments that would apply it to the private sector. With respect to the cabinet secretary, there is no need to wait to consult the private sector as the Government has said that it intends to do. In its essentials, a mechanism for a property to be inspected and for repairs to be ordered must surely be the same, regardless of the sector. Some of the amendments might overlap and conflict slightly, but that can be resolved. Speaking of incentives, that would be a strong one for us to work together across the board before stage 3 to develop a plan to ensure that standards in the private sector are the best that they can be—not with their current 40 per cent failure rate.

The only amendment that the Greens cannot support in this group is Daniel Johnson’s amendment 490. It is a well-intentioned attempt to improve access to the common areas of a tenement or similar building, in order for utilities and other works to be done, but I cannot support the amendment as drafted, as it would put a burden on tenants to stay at home—perhaps missing work or having to take annual leave—to do what is essentially the landlord’s job. However, I encourage Daniel Johnson to bring that amendment back at stage 3, with some minor tweaks to it, to address those concerns.

I move amendment 257.

I hear what Meghan Gallacher is saying. However, it would be up to the renter—the tenant—to find out how to join the union. A new employee is provided with a lot of information on their employment terms, but the mechanism for providing that information is not necessarily laid out in statute anywhere; what is set out is that that information will be provided and that an employee can join a trade union. The same principle would apply here. The amendments do not set out information about how someone would join a union, which one they would choose or how they would go about joining; they are about the renter having the information that, in this case, such unions exist and are available. I am not sure that we need to set out in statute—that is, in the bill—exactly how that communication would happen, given that, as you have suggested, communication mechanisms change all the time. The amendments would just require landlords to make that information available to renters, because there is so much information out there that is not communicated at the moment. The amendments would ensure that the landlord was required to communicate that information, and they could do so in a way that worked for the situation.

This has been a thorough and wide-ranging but productive discussion. I have listened carefully to the cabinet secretary and to MSP colleagues. There is clear cross-party agreement on the need to improve the quality of homes, regardless of what sector they are in. Our homes are the foundation of our health and wellbeing, and, too often, they make renters ill. Poor-quality homes can have direct physical health consequences—we have heard about the effects of homes that have mould and damp—but they can also have negative impacts on mental health, confidence and so much more, as Emma Roddick and others have highlighted.

I cannot see a justification for different approaches to be taken to the private rented sector and the social rented sector. Quality matters, regardless of tenure and sector. There is clearly a need for people such as migrant agricultural workers to have healthy, decent places to live in, too, so I am grateful that that issue has been aired. It is one that I have come across repeatedly in the North East Scotland region.

Despite the cabinet secretary’s assurances, I remain unconvinced that the current systems for ensuring quality are working. If they were working well, we would not see the levels of failure to meet the standards that we see. We need to have better and more unified standards, proper checks on properties, penalties where those are not being met and timescales for substandard properties to be remedied. The amendments from the Greens and others would help us to move towards that.

Like Graham Simpson, I am not trying to be awkward, but because these issues are of such grave importance to renters and their advocacy groups, I will press amendment 257.

I hear what the cabinet secretary says about the existing powers and the guidance that we have, but it has become very clear that many tenants do not know the full range of their rights and that landlords are not providing them with the information that, as you indicate, they should provide according to the 2016 act and other requirements. What does the Scottish Government intend to do to strengthen those provisions and ensure that landlords comply?

I will come back on that very briefly. You cannot look into something if you do not know that it exists. The amendments are about providing the information to the tenant that unions exist. As you say, the tenant would then need to do their own homework and explore which one might be right for them—if, indeed, they choose to join such a union. However, if they do not know that those unions exist in the first place, they cannot explore which one to join.

My first amendment in this group, amendment 229, would extend a key protection to tenants of properties that are not in rent control areas and properties that might be exempt from rent controls. Where a rent control area is in place, rent increases would be limited to one increase per property in any 12-month period, even if the tenant changes in that time. It is unclear why, as a matter of principle, all private tenants should not enjoy those basic protections. Amendment 229 would mean that, if the landlord had increased the rent in a previous tenancy less than 12 months before the start of the current tenancy, they would have to set the rent for the current tenancy at no more than the final rent payable under the immediately preceding tenancy. It is a modest and sensible measure to stop landlords taking advantage of a change in tenant to hike rent further.

Amendment 258, in my name, would set the important principle that a rent should not be increased if minimum standards are not met. In partnership with an amendment in a later group, that principle would apply in and outwith rent control areas. I will address that more fully when we discuss the main set of amendments that relate to quality, but there is a clear problem with poor energy efficiency, damp and other problems in some parts of the private rented sector, which I am sure that we are all well aware of. If we freeze or cap rents where minimum standards are not met, landlords will have little choice but to bring their properties up to scratch.

Amendment 266 is consequential to amendment 258 and would ensure that the affirmative procedure is used.

Can I just clarify that the member is referring to minimum standards in energy efficiency as well as quality?

I will take those in turn. There has been quite a lot of discussion about what energy efficiency would look like. We currently have the energy performance certificate ratings, but we expect those to change, which is why we have not defined those in the bill. The use of the affirmative procedure, as provided for by amendment 266, would give the scope to properly define minimum standards on the basis of whatever energy efficiency measures were determined to be appropriate, if not EPC.

There are mechanisms that outline and define quality in housing regulations and in amendments on repairs and standards that we will discuss in later groups. We need to ensure that there are adequate measures, some of which relate to energy efficiency, on things such as draft proofing.

Amendment 266 is consequential to amendment 258 and requires that the regulations that amendment 258 refers to are brought in using the affirmative procedure.

Amendment 451 states that information related to amendments 449 and 450, which we debated a lifetime ago—yesterday morning—would need to be taken into account when determining open market rent.

Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 214 would require the landlord to specify in the rent increase notice the reasons for the rent being increased. That adds transparency, which is very welcome, and we support that amendment.

Mark Griffin’s amendments 501 and 500 would weaken protections for private tenants of some social sector landlords. We cannot support those weakened protections.

There are three sets of amendments in this group, and I will take each of them in turn. The first set, which comprises amendment 158 and consequential amendments 148, 149, 159, 160 and 185, would allow the Scottish Government to introduce an emergency national rent control system.

Members of the committee will remember our introducing emergency powers in a great rush during the Covid pandemic. The simple aim of amendment 158 is to ensure that we do not have to rush to reinstate those powers, should the unthinkable happen again and we face a similar public health or other emergency. We would not need to go through the process of an emergency bill because we would already have the powers to act. That does not mean that ministers would have to use the powers; it means that they would have the opportunity to do so if circumstances called for them. It is a simple precautionary measure.

The second set, which comprises amendment 199 and consequential amendments 186 and 196, seeks to reinstate the transitional provisions that offered some protection to tenants ahead of rent control areas coming into force. Those protections expired at the end of March, exposing renters to unacceptable rises in rents, above the protected limit of 12 per cent that those provisions guaranteed. Those measures were meant to act as a bridge to the bill’s controls, and it makes absolutely no sense for them to have lapsed before rent control areas are in place and the bill has achieved royal assent.

I would go as far as to say that knowingly allowing those protections to lapse was reckless, and no impact assessment was undertaken before that happened. Renters on lower incomes—those who can least afford such uncontrolled hikes—have virtually no protections now. The Scottish Government, which supports rent controls, is allowing rents to soar in the two years before its new rent control measures come into force. Landlords can use and are using this period to hike rents before rent control measures begin.

The Scottish Government told this committee:

“If we were to move directly from the emergency measures by switching them off entirely at some point in the future and go back to open market comparisons for rent adjudication, there would be severe and unintended consequences.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 28 February 2023; c 7.]

That is exactly what is happening now—we are experiencing “severe and unintended consequences.” We need to act, and that second set of amendments deals with that situation.

My third and final set of amendments, which comprises amendments 424 to 426, would introduce “special rent control areas”. Those areas would work much the same way as rent control areas, but they would allow for rents to be increased by a lower amount than is specified in the central formula, to be frozen or to be cut. Those powers are crucial. Rents have increased by grotesque amounts in some areas—as we have already heard this morning, they have increased by more than 100 per cent in some areas—and the central formula of CPI plus 1 per cent up to a maximum of 6 per cent will do nothing to address that.

There is a very strong case in Glasgow, Lothian and some other areas that have recently had large rent increases to apply short-term controls that would allow for much tighter limits on rent. If we do not do that, we would essentially be endorsing the unacceptable increases that have taken place in recent years.

I will be happy to discuss with colleagues whether those tighter controls should require different processes for approval, different standards of evidence or other safeguards. I have already limited the lifetime of the proposed special rent control areas to one year. However, I hope that we can agree on the principle that there are some areas in which tighter controls will temporarily be needed. Recognising that principle means that we should do something about it, which is what I am seeking to do with my amendments. I hope that colleagues can support that principle and therefore my amendments.

I move amendment 148.

I acknowledge that the national rent cap does not take into account geographical variation, but that is the point—it is a national system that is designed for a situation in which there are external pressures that are extraordinary.

I appreciate what that cabinet secretary said about the powers being broad and that local authorities will have interim assessment powers within the existing framework, but there might well be instances when we need to act very quickly. I believe that having that power would give some comfort to renters who do not necessarily have the leeway to cope with external shocks—that is why we introduced the emergency provisions a few years ago. The amendments would give ministers the power to do that again, but they do not require them to use that power.

I take issue with what the cabinet secretary said about the protections that expired at the end of March not being intended as a bridging mechanism. The Housing (Scotland) Bill was supposed to be much further along by this point in the parliamentary session and we had expected rent controls to be in place by now, so the protections were bridging mechanisms. The fact that no impact assessment was carried out means that the Scottish Government has no idea what the negative impact of the loss of those protections will be on renters.

Finally, the designation of special rent control areas is a temporary measure that would deal with hyperlocal areas. However, I appreciate what the cabinet secretary has said and giving those powers perhaps goes too far. I wonder whether there is scope for conversation on and an opportunity for us to consider hyperlocal issues in areas that a local authority has already designated as rent control areas. I would appreciate an intervention from the cabinet secretary on that point.