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The cabinet secretary said that the measures were not designed to be transitionary, so why was the committee told that they were, and that having a gap between the measures and RCAs coming into force would be extreme and problematic?

Thank you.

I have a question about amendment 314 and only one request being allowed in a 12-month period. Would that apply once information has been provided? My concern is that, if information is not forthcoming or only partial information is provided, surely the local authority should be able to go back to the landlord and say, “Where’s this missing information? We need more.”

We have not seen rents decrease where more homes have been built. I have lodged further amendments to the bill, which we will consider at a later point, on some of the challenges around mid-market rent and build to rent. We have not seen rents go down when a lot more homes have become available through the kind of building that Meghan Gallacher describes.

I will finish my point first. We have seen homes become unaffordable for a vast number of renters, with renters being forced into homelessness or invisible homelessness, such as sofa surfing, which is not always captured by the figures that we have. There are many ways to increase the supply of homes, and the measures that I am proposing seek to retain affordability as a key element of that supply.

My amendments in the group focus on two main issues. Some are subject to pre-emption, and we will come to how that washes out in a moment.

I thank Emma Roddick for her comments. I agree with the points that she made, and my amendments address issues that are very similar to—or, in some cases, exactly the same as—those that she has sought to address.

I turn first to the issue of rent levels and what they actually mean or represent. My amendments 448, 449 and 450 address a technical, but important, issue. Current challenges to rent increases are based on open market rent as understood through advertised rent, not rents that are actually being paid. Since the majority of advertised rents are set at the maximum that the market will bear, open market comparison always pulls rents upwards. A real rent comparison would act as a stabiliser, and amendments 448 to 450 seek to move us towards that. As Emma Roddick outlined, we need to collect clear, coherent and comparable data across the country.

In her remarks, the cabinet secretary indicated that she was not clear about the benefit of the measures that are proposed in amendments 449 and 450. The benefit is just that—they will allow rent officers to have real rent information rather than some mythical advertised or guesswork information. Having accurate information on what renters are experiencing and landlords are charging will allow us to have a much clearer sense of what is going on than we have at the moment.

The next bunch of amendments—amendments 237, 324A and 325A—seek to raise the fines for non-provision of information and the provision of false information from £1,000 to £10,000 in both the original and the proposed new sections of the bill. That underlines the importance of getting the necessary correct information, which was highlighted in the evidence that the committee received at stage 1. In that evidence, it was identified that what made rent pressure zones unworkable was not having the information in the right form, as Emma Roddick outlined.

We cannot be in a situation in which the fines that are imposed are treated by some landlords as just the cost of doing business. If they get found out, they will be fined, but they will incorporate those fines into their expected costs. The fines must be real incentives to act properly and appropriately and provide the information that is required when it is required. That is why I believe—and I think that others round the table agree—that the £1,000 fine is just too low. It does not incentivise appropriate and proper behaviour.

The Scottish Government has a large number of amendments in the group, and I support most of them. Overall, rent controls will work only when local councils have the necessary information on rents and other aspects of the properties. The Government’s amendments seek to provide for that information.

I support Emma Roddick’s amendments in the group and the intention behind them, which is to shift the burden of providing information on to landlords by requiring them to provide it as soon as possible after they register as a landlord, rather than waiting to be asked for it.

Carol Mochan’s amendment, which provides for the information that is provided by landlords to be sent to the tenants, who will then be able to challenge its accuracy and perhaps provide additional information, is also welcome.

Section 15 is important. If we want to ensure that we have accurate and appropriate information, we need to support the mechanisms for the collection of that information, and we need appropriate penalties for use when it is not provided or it is provided falsely or inaccurately.

Overall, there is a lot of positive work in section 15. I take on board the cabinet secretary’s offer of on-going conversations, and I would be pleased to engage with her on that basis in advance of stage 3. However, like Emma Roddick, if we do not get to where we need to be and we do not get as far as we need to go, I will seek to bring my amendments back at stage 3.

I accept what the cabinet secretary has said about the post-war consensus and I take on board the exchange that she had with Daniel Johnson about not getting into an economic lecture here. However, it is quite clear that, in economic terms, the financial crash in 2008 broke that consensus, and since then, we have clearly seen wages vastly underperforming any other measure of inflation. Indeed, that looks set to be the new consensus. Looking back to something that is 80 years old as a justification for not allowing people to pay rents that increase in line with their earnings is problematic. However, I accept that we will just disagree on that point this morning.

Greens oppose exemptions to rent control measures. To work for renters and landlords, the system needs to be simple and transparent. We broadly have that with the system as established. Adding various exemptions—such as if the landlord is an employer of the tenant, is a military landlord, is a social landlord, if the property is buy-to-let—would make the system excessively complicated. Many renters are already not familiar with their rights. Bringing in a system of rent control but taking it away again for significant numbers of renters will only add to that problem.

The cabinet secretary has spoken a lot this morning about clarity for landlords and for investors. What about clarity for renters? Having so many different exemptions would not provide clarity for tenants. Therefore, I ask committee members not to support most of the amendments in this group but to support my amendments 329E, 329F, 329J and 329M. Amendments 329E and 329F have been worked up in partnership with Living Rent. If we absolutely must have exemptions, those amendments would limit them to properties that charge local housing allowance and social rates, so they meet the intention that the cabinet secretary outlined.

Amendment 329J would disallow exemptions for mid-market rents. Such an exemption would blow a significant hole in rent controls and mean that many lower-income households would not be protected; they would be priced out of much of the rental market. Amendment 329M would disallow exemptions for build-to-rent properties, to address the same situation that amendment 329J addresses for mid-market rents. An exemption for build-to-rent properties would mean that the vast majority of new-build build-to-rent properties could not be controlled under the legislation, which runs counter to the existential point of the bill.

I urge colleagues to consider very carefully the questions about exemptions. Exempting mid-market rents and build-to-rent properties could drive lower-income households out of urban centres and city centres. It could stoke gentrification. I ask members to consider what kinds of city centres we want to create—city centres for everyone or city centres that are only for the richer people who can afford to live in areas where rents are not controlled?

I repeat that, broadly speaking, the Scottish Greens do not support exemptions to rent controls. If we must have exemptions, they should be limited to those properties that are charging above the local housing allowance rates.

Okay.

The minister has mentioned that there are other rent guarantor schemes across Scotland. However, international students are quite often not allowed to access them. The minister has asked whether we can strengthen those existing avenues of support. Has he had conversations with any of the existing schemes to explore what might be possible, given what he said in response to both my and Jeremy Balfour’s amendments?