Seòmar agus comataidhean

Before I move on, convener, I wonder whether other members want to come in.

Okay. As I said earlier, these schemes can use up an awful lot of public money. Is your report going to look at who is responsible for spending that money and developing the schemes?

Will the report look at the number of health boards and the value for money that that represents?

Just one more, actually. It relates to your planned audit on best value in policing, Auditor General, which you are going to do in conjunction with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. Our predecessor committee, in its legacy report, said:

“The Committee is strongly of the view that there needs to be a full and comprehensive review of police governance and accountability arrangements.”

Will you look at that, and how will you work with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland?

Thank you. I am looking forward to seeing that piece of work.

Moving on to something else, I note that you are doing an audit of resilience in flooding. That will certainly be of interest to other members; I know from chatting earlier that Mr Beattie has a case study that he might want to mention, and Mr McMillan has a case study on his patch, too. Indeed, the convener and I have a great interest in the big scheme that is being planned for Grangemouth.

What level of detail will you be going into in that piece of work? Will you be looking at individual schemes such as Grangemouth, for example, which is going to use a lot of public money? How will the work link with your planned work on climate change? Will you be looking at case studies and examples of work that has already been done, and will you be looking at things that you think have worked and things that have not?

I look forward to that engagement. Looking at section 42, which is very short, I can immediately see that, if the minister was prepared to work with me at stage 3, we could easily add to the phrase,

“the needs of persons in the area”,

the words “including students”. That is a suggestion. If the minister really is willing to work with me, I will work with him. He knows that. I take the issue extremely seriously, and I will come back to it at stage 3. Today, however, I will not press amendment 1003.

Amendment 1003, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 1004 and 1005 not moved.

Section 42 agreed to.

Before section 43

Amendment 1088 not moved.

Section 43—Local authorities etc: consideration of domestic abuse

Amendment 1013 not moved.

Amendment 1022 moved—[Maggie Chapman].

I want to start by welcoming the minister back to the committee. I am glad to see that he is looking well. We were all quite concerned when we heard that he had health problems, so it is really good that he is back.

I have ditched my two hours’ worth of speaking notes for this group of amendments, and I hope that that wins some support from the committee. [Laughter.]

It is quite simple. Section 42 deals with housing strategies. I mentioned the report that the cross-party group on housing produced on student homelessness. One of the recommendations from that report was that councils’ local housing strategies should include student housing. It might surprise people to hear that, at the moment, they do not. In a city such as Edinburgh, where there are thousands of students, as I mentioned earlier, there is no requirement for that to be reflected in the local housing strategy. You might think that that is quite incredible. There is an opportunity in the bill to rectify that.

As many other members have done, I have had discussions with the minister, so I think that I know what he is going to say, but we will let him say it. Amendment 1004 says that housing strategies should include consideration of student provision. Amendment 1003 is a technical amendment that is consequential to amendment 1004. Amendment 1005 merely spells out what we mean by “student residential tenancy”.

There we go. That was short and sweet. My amendments are very simple and very sensible, and I hope that the minister will see the common sense in them. If he does not support them now, perhaps I can persuade him to do so at some later point.

I move amendment 1003.

If the minister is suggesting that I and he speak with those in the sector ahead of stage 3, is he willing to consider an amendment for stage 3?

I know that the minister loves to have meetings and talks, and they are often very valued, but can he give me a straight answer to this question: subject to those talks or consultations, is he prepared to consider an amendment for stage 3?

As Sarah Boyack has outlined, section 41 would place a duty on relevant bodies, such as councils, health boards and the police, to ask whether an individual is homeless or at risk of homelessness and to take action if they are. Members, including me, are seeking to add to that list.

I have a couple of amendments in the group, and they deal with students alone. The reason for that is that students have raised with me and other MSPs how they are often overlooked in the housing system. I will quote Lawrence Williams from the group Slurp: Students for Action on Homelessness and which is based in Edinburgh:

“From hidden homelessness to unaffordable rents, students in Scotland face a range of housing issues that have long been overlooked by policy-makers and universities.”

Last September, the cross-party group on housing, which I convene, published a report on student housing and homelessness—the committee might be aware of it. We found that thousands of students across Scotland are at risk of homelessness and are unable to access the right housing in some of our biggest cities. Our research identified a shortfall of 13,800 bed spaces in Edinburgh, 6,093 in Glasgow and 6,084 in Dundee.

We also found that there is ambiguity surrounding who is responsible for addressing student homelessness and that there is a lack of co-ordination between universities, councils and other providers regarding student housing. We came up with a set of quite challenging recommendations that we sent to the Government. My amendments seek to give effect to some of those recommendations.

Amendment 1001 seeks to include higher education institutions, which are defined under the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 as “a university” or “a designated institution”, within the list of relevant bodies that will have a duty to deal with homelessness. Members know what that list already includes.

Several weeks ago—you may have forgotten about it—the committee received a letter about this from Universities Scotland. I encourage Universities Scotland to speak to me directly if it has any concerns about my other amendments on students, not just for this committee but for the other committee that is dealing with the bill. With regard to amendment 1001, the letter does not say that universities should not be relevant bodies; rather, it calls for the adoption of the Government’s time-honoured and favoured approach of consulting. That can, of course, often be a delaying tactic, and students cannot afford that delay. The minister will, no doubt, say that we should consult, but we will hear from him.

Universities have a duty of care to their students, thousands of whom come to Scotland to study and many of whom move within Scotland. That is why this is important.

Amendment 1002 would deal with private providers of purpose-built student accommodation and would include them in the list of relevant bodies. Research from the National Union of Students Scotland, which was cited in the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s stage 1 report, found that the average rent for PBSA increased by 34 per cent between 2018 and 2021. That has created a “large disparity” between PBSA and the private rented sector. PBSA is not sufficiently regulated at the moment, and those who live in PBSA will not be covered by the Housing (Scotland) Bill in its current form. Amendment 1002 would add

“a private provider of purpose-built student accommodation”

to the list of relevant bodies.

I think—I would say this—that amendments 1001 and 1002 are both sensible. They deal with people, groups, organisations and bodies that ought to have a responsibility for the students whom they serve and that ought to take homelessness seriously. That is why I lodged those amendments.