Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.”

Good morning to the cabinet secretary and officials. In many ways, this grouping relates to the most important part of the bill. If the bill is passed, the provisions in this section will allow the introduction of rent controls for the first time in Scotland for almost 40 years. They could not have come a moment too soon. Since 2010, the rent for a two-bedroom property has increased by 61 per cent, on average, across Scotland but by 82 per cent in Glasgow and by a staggering 104 per cent in Lothian. Has the quality of properties soared to match those rent increases? No. Have people’s wages in Lothian gone up by 104 per cent since 2010? Certainly not. That is a sign of a fundamentally out-of-control private rented sector.

My amendments to the minister’s amendment 332 would change the formula that the Scottish Government has proposed, which would cap rents at CPI plus 1 per cent up to a maximum of 6 per cent. My alternative proposal is to cap rents at the lower of CPI and earnings growth up to the same maximum of 6 per cent. That is an important principle. I have asked the Scottish Parliament information centre to model both of those formulas. The Green version would make a small but significant difference to rents in most areas and a bigger difference in others. Had the Green formula been applied in Glasgow since 2019, rents would be £19 a month lower than if the Scottish Government’s formula had been in place. In Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, they would have been £66 lower. For many renters who are struggling with low incomes and the rising cost of living, that would represent significant help.

More importantly, though, my amendments would establish an absolutely critical principle that rents should match people’s ability to pay. If the earnings and living standards of renters are not increasing, neither should those of landlords. It is interesting that analysis has not been undertaken to justify the principle that the cabinet secretary set out—that other income is available for renters, beyond wages. We have very little evidence of that, and we know that most renters do not have significant other income. For landlords’ incomes to rise more quickly than those of renters is nothing more than the pure extraction of wealth from those on lower incomes by those who are privileged to own properties.

It is simply not acceptable to have in legislation the raising of rents by 1 per cent above the cost of living as a given, regardless of what else is happening in the world. We should not be locking in above-inflation increases, which is what the Scottish Government’s formula does.

My amendment 332H would add an extra but important provision. It would allow ministers to specify exemptions to the formula in order to allow lower increases, a freeze or a decrease. I will speak to that principle more fully in the debate on the next grouping, in which I have a similar set of amendments. I have lodged amendment 332H to recognise that, in some areas of Scotland, rents have gone up by as much as 100 per cent in the past 15 years and that even a small increase would simply pile misery on top of that. In 15 years, very few renters have seen their incomes go up by anything approaching 100 per cent.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that.

I press amendment 148.

Local housing allowance rate is determined and well understood. In fact, it is published on the Scottish Government’s website, so I am a little unsure as to why the cabinet secretary says that she does not understand what is meant by local housing allowance rate. It is published, and rent officers provide information on the 30th percentile of local rented accommodation. I am struggling to understand her point.

Has the Scottish Government done any analysis of the incomes of renters and what proportion of those comes from sources other than wages?

I hear what the cabinet secretary has said about other means of income being available to many households, but does she accept that wages are the primary source of income for the vast majority of renters and that, as we know, wage inflation has clearly not kept pace with the CPI?

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?

Purpose-built student accommodation can, and does, provide an important source of accommodation for students, but the sector is, quite frankly, getting out of control. A basic room in one PBSA block—the Vita student block in Fountainbridge in Edinburgh—is £406 not a month, but a week. That means that a student will be paying over £1,600 a month for the smallest—just 20 m²—and most basic room on offer. All that that does is line the pockets of private developers at the expense of students at a time when, as we know, student homelessness is on the rise.

The National Union of Students Scotland and student living rent groups across the country are very clear that student accommodation must be included in the bill. After all, students deserve the same protections as any other renters. That is why we need to look at controlling rents for student accommodation, too.

I welcome Graham Simpson’s amendment 59, which empowers the Scottish Government to introduce rent controls for student accommodation. However, as he alluded to, the way in which the amendment is written means that the Government will not have to do anything. Given the student housing crisis and the risk of homelessness that too many students face, doing nothing should not be an option for us today. My amendments 59A and 59B therefore require the Scottish Government to introduce controls into the sector. The detail of how that will be done will have to come later—after the appropriate consultation, of course—but I hope that we can take the first step today.

My other two amendments in the group—amendments 535 and 536—address a different set of issues, which I am sure that the National Union of Students Scotland and others highlighted to many of us. We know that, by virtue of not necessarily having family or other connections here, international students can struggle to get a guarantor, but we also know that they are very unlikely to default on rents. Amendments 535 and 536 therefore seek to introduce specific controls for non-United Kingdom domiciled students.

Amendment 535 would create a

“guarantor scheme for non-UK domiciled students”

whereby

“a public body”

would

“act as guarantor”

for international students, which means that they would not struggle to get rents simply because they do not have somebody who can say, “Yes—we will be the guarantor.”

Amendment 536 creates a review of deposits for international students. Deposits can be a further barrier for students who not only do not have a guarantor but also do not have access to other funds in the UK. We know of too many stories where international students are asked to pay three, six or 12 months’ rent up front in advance of signing a lease for a flat. That cannot be acceptable. We would not expect any other renter to pay so much money for accommodation in advance. I hope that we can move to reducing deposits so that the students whom we welcome here to study, many of whom play such an important role in our communities, are not priced out of doing so.

Accommodation is one of the key limiting factors for many international students. I hope that members will take amendments 535 and 536 seriously, because the situation is out of control.