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I think I will get out while the going is good. The cabinet secretary has called my amendment 70 “sensible”: I will take that, and I will certainly work with her on the matter ahead of stage 3—and that is not for the first time.

Amendment 70, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 71 and 72 not moved.

Amendment 451 moved—[Maggie Chapman].

The cabinet secretary was not kidding when she said that she was going to speak for some time—she did. I imagine that all the members who have lodged very well-meaning amendments in the group will be slightly disappointed. I counted 31 amendments that were not in the minister’s name, and the cabinet secretary has essentially said that she does not support any of them. That is disappointing.

I agree and will come to that, because one of my amendments deals with that very issue.

The minister’s amendment 231 will change section 27 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 so that, instead of setting out what “must” be in regulations under that section, it sets out what “may” be in them, and my amendment 231A would change that back to a “must”. That would mean that everything in section 27(3) of the 2001 act, including the new terms inserted by amendment 231, would be required to be included in the regulations.

The cabinet secretary has already made that point. If she wants to work with me ahead of stage 3, I will of course do that, but we need to have an end point, and that end point must be that we have laws. She should not assume that something is perfect just because Government drafters have written it if other members have perfectly good ideas or if other people have spotted gaps in what the Government has put forward. None of us is trying to be awkward; we are just trying to improve people’s lives.

Amendment 231B is another amendment to amendment 231 and would address the issue raised by Mr Rennie, because it would provide for regulations to include provision on requiring the inspection and approval of repairs to address damp and mould. The convener has a similar amendment, which is amendment 489. When damp and mould are identified in a property, it is easy for someone just to come in, wipe it down, put on a lick of paint and say that it is sorted, when they have not actually sorted it and have not got to the root of the problem, which means that the mould comes back. We need independent assessment and inspection of work, perhaps not in cases of what we might call a light infection but particularly in the worst cases.

That is very good. I completely believe the cabinet secretary. I think that she is serious about this, and if we can move forward in that spirit, we might get to a point at stage 3 where we all agree on something. That is where we need to be.

When I had my discussions with the cabinet secretary, which are always useful, I mentioned that what sparked my amendments in the area was a discussion that I had with an expert on damp and mould. He is a university professor, who I will not name because I do not have permission to do so. He raised the issue of the bill when I was on a visit that was completely unrelated to it. He felt that there were gaps and told me that a new international standard for mould treatment has been set by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. The Scottish Government might not be aware of that, but I can certainly send it the details. If I get permission from that academic, I will put him in contact with the cabinet secretary, because having access to that kind of expertise when we look at bills such as this will help us to get things right.

If there is that international standard for inspection now—which there is—we ought to be aiming for that. We certainly should not be left with the position, as I outlined earlier, where someone can just rub a cloth over something, slap some paint on and say, “Job done,” because it is not job done—far from it.

Amendment 443 would require the regulations that are envisaged in the minister’s amendment 231 to be laid within six months following the changes to the 2001 act coming into force. The cabinet secretary has already made the point to me that that time period could clash with the election period. I take that point on board, so I will not move amendment 443.

Amendment 444 would require ministers to make regulations that would impose on private landlords the equivalent duties to address damp and mould that apply to social landlords, including a requirement to consult. The equivalent legislation in England will apply only to social landlords, although the UK Government has said that it would like to extend the provisions of Awaab’s law to the private rented sector.

The cabinet secretary has rejected all the amendments in the group that are not hers, including that one. She has been very mean in this particular group. We cannot leave the private sector untouched if we are looking at these issues. In the spirit in which I always work, I will work with the cabinet secretary on the issue ahead of stage 3, but she needs to be clear about what the end point is. It cannot be her saying, “The rules are there, Mr Simpson. Don’t worry about it,” because that is not good enough.

I wonder how you define “quality” in law or in regulations.

I want to explore amendment 33, which the cabinet secretary has commented on. I accept that she is doing a consultation. We have already debated my amendments on giving landlords the power to increase rent if they have incurred significant costs. I think that amendment 33 is similar to, although not the same as, those amendments. I do not want to put words into Mr Rennie’s mouth, but I think that his point is that, if a property has been improved between tenancies and has been made a lot nicer than it was—let us say that the landlord has stripped out the kitchen and bathroom and put in new ones, with all new white goods and so on—any landlord who has done that could make the argument that the property would be more valuable on the market. Does the cabinet secretary not accept that point?

In relation to amendment 258, I note that Maggie Chapman wishes to leave the setting of minimum standards to ministers. However, can she give us an idea of what she means by “minimum standards”?

Sorry—I still have one final question. I know that I have taken up a lot of time, but there is a lot to cover.

Given the state of health boards’ finances, which this committee has covered previously, I am struck by a question: why would boards want to take on the responsibility of owning the buildings that GPs work from?

Good morning to you, Auditor General, and to your team.

This is a damning report, but for those of us who occasionally have to use GPs, it probably tells us nothing that we did not know already: services are strained, and it is often difficult for people to get a GP appointment.

You mentioned the programme for government and the announcement of 100,000 extra appointments for things such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and so on. That announcement was made in the context of the First Minister saying that he wanted to end the so-called 8 am rush, which refers to the booking system that many GPs use. People have to phone up at 8 am and that is it—if you cannot phone up at 8 am, quite often you are snookered.

Given that that is the First Minister’s ambition, I turn to the letter from Dr Iain Morrison of the British Medical Association—which I presume that you have seen—in which he says some very strong things. He says:

“We have called upon the Scottish Government to urgently address the shocking situation that General Practice is in and invest directly in GP practices. The funding practices receive for every patient has been eroded year after year against inflation since 2008. In all, eroded funding streams and new cost pressures have created a shortfall in practice funding of 22.8 per cent, and some £290m will be required to close that gap and deliver full funding restoration.”

Dr Morrison presumably knows what he is talking about, as he represents GPs.

Given the situation that you have outlined in your report, and those damning comments from Dr Morrison, does the First Minister have any chance of achieving his aims?

Thank you for that. The report says that the Government’s most recent annual progress report highlights that 3,540 of the 4,925 whole-time equivalent staff working across the six priority services at March 2024 were funded by the primary care improvement fund. Do you know where the other 1,300 were funded from?