Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is really helpful to get that on the record and to clarify that for both those cases.

The committee has been quite surprised that some councils have underspent in their housing projects, despite many of them announcing housing emergencies last year, as you will be well aware. Are you able to explain the reasons for that? Did you manage to get into them?

It is useful to hear you say that there are issues and demands other than councils’ commitment to getting houses built. Do you have a list of the councils that have housing underspends? It is fine if you do not; perhaps you could provide the committee with that.

Good morning. The committee has had a really good discussion on virtual attendance—we have got a lot out of that.

I want to move on to the fiscal fines provision in the bill. My questions are probably for the three legal representatives, but the police representatives are free to come in. You will know that the bill proposes to make permanent the temporary provisions on a higher maximum level of fiscal fine—£500 as opposed to £300. How is the higher level of fines being used at the moment? What would happen if the current temporary measures were not made permanent? Do you have any concerns about that?

That has been helpful. You have been quite clear in your view on the temporary provisions being made permanent.

In relation to fiscal fines more generally, you probably heard the evidence session last week, when we heard concerns that there are times when fiscal fines can be used inappropriately. One of the examples given was when the same individual has had multiple fines and has not paid them. Is there anything that you would like to say on the appropriate use of fiscal fines?

I will combine my questions, in the interest of time. Will you also comment on what information victims are given when a case has been dealt with by way of a fiscal fine?

Will you comment on the point about victims?

Thanks.

I have a very general question. You will be aware that, during the committee’s stage 1 scrutiny, concerns were raised about the public’s awareness and understanding of the legislation on private rented housing. Is the new proposed system for tenants and landlords easy to understand? I accept that that is a broad question, and I apologise if you have already touched on it, particularly before I arrived.

That was helpful. It seems that almost everybody wants to come in on this question, so I will just move along the panel. Obviously, please keep your comments to something new that has not already been said.

Good morning—just, by four minutes. Thank you for your evidence so far.

One of the themes of the committee’s stage 1 scrutiny was awareness and understanding of the legislation on private rented housing. I have a general question. Is the proposed new system easy for tenants and landlords to understand?

If you were in the room during the previous panel, you will have heard me ask those witnesses the same question. To summarise their response, it was pretty much unanimous that the new system was difficult to understand, but there was also a strong view that that should not necessarily delay things moving forward—it is about supporting and helping people to understand it. Does anyone have thoughts on that? You can tie that in to what the previous panel said if you heard it.

I will not try to do what I did the last time and ask everybody to speak. I pass back to the convener to chair who wants to come in, given the time constraints.

I broadly agree with Mr Bibby. As he has, I have long been advocating on this issue in the Parliament. Indeed, I have lodged two motions in this parliamentary session alone, on the publication of the “National Primary School Swimming Framework” and on the role of swimming pools, and both achieved cross-party support. That support, which you mentioned at the start, convener, is important. Moreover, back in March 2023, I held a successful garden lobby event entitled, “Everyone Can Swim—Save Our Pools”, so there is a bit of history to this issue.

Like Neil Bibby, I do not have the time to express fully my views on the petition, but I point to the many benefits of swimming—mental health, physical health, community cohesion, social and safety skills—and all the things that can be improved by swimming. Scottish Swimming has cited research that the social value of swimming in the UK is almost £2.5 billion. A small investment in protecting pools now will provide exponential returns for society in the future.

As the convener indicated in his opening remarks—I think that this got broad agreement—I strongly believe that we need to move away from the notion of swimming being just another hobby or sport. Of course, it can be argued that any sport brings benefits similar to those that I just cited, but we need to go back to considering swimming as a vital skill or, at the very least, an important life skill.

I do not know about other members, but that was definitely the case when I was growing up in Coatbridge. We used to go to the Coatbridge baths as part of our curriculum at primary school and high school, and everyone was given the opportunity to learn to swim. It was embedded in us that swimming was a life skill. Now, it is more down to whether families across the country have the finances to do it—I am fortunate enough to be able to send my children to swimming lessons—and whether it is a priority on a family’s radar.

We need to move back to swimming being more of a life skill and that is never more important than now, as we are all seeking more outdoor activities, which has perhaps been boosted by the pandemic. I cannot be the only one whose Facebook feed is filled with people going wild swimming or dooking. I have tried it myself. It is very good and it is quite right that people should be accessing our lovely seas and lochs, which are some of the cleanest in the UK, if not in Europe and the world. People should be accessing that, but it needs to be safe.

I have said previously that it could be a perfect storm if we have the smallest number of people able to swim than perhaps we have ever had, combined with more folk accessing outdoor swimming. We need to take the opportunity to see swimming as a life skill again.

I would go further than the petition, because I would fully support any attempts to introduce statutory swimming lessons. I know that there are difficulties with that in the school curriculum. I have had discussions about that with ministers over the years, but I would welcome any attempts that could be made to introduce lessons being a statutory requirement.

I appreciate that I am probably running out of time, so I will end by giving my full support to the petition. I have deliberately not touched on the pool closures in Dundee and other places, because they are not in my constituency, but any pool closures across the country are concerning. Mr Bibby touched on some of the issues around that; some are for the Scottish Government, but some are for the UK Government, such as the high energy costs. I wonder whether the UK Government could look at exemptions for swimming pools. I know that there has also been a shortage of chlorine at points, which has affected pools in North Lanarkshire. There are various factors that affect the issue, some of which are global, some of which are UK and some of which are Scottish. However, we need to find an approach in which we all work together to make sure that swimming pools are vibrant into the future, and that as many young people and adults as possible learn to swim.