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The huge population growth in Edinburgh is having an effect on both rent and house purchase prices. Given that population growth, is the Scottish Government taking specific actions to address the issue in Edinburgh? Can priority be given to Edinburgh in relation to the £600 million of funding that is provided for affordable housing in the programme for government?

I was clear that the policy has made a difference but we are in a situation of public finance restraint. I am sure that Mr Kerr will tell me where, in the Conservative Party’s proposals, the cut to the revenue budget would fall if it were to reinstate the policy.

I will build on the point that Mr Simpson made. If we do not have tenement law reform that obliges tenement owners to organise through owners associations and enables finance to be obtained and raised together, it could be very difficult, practically, to deliver on the 2045 targets. That will be the case if organising and getting all the owners of a tenement property to agree on a position remains as difficult as it is today.

Given the last speech, I note that Conservative colleagues who brought the debate to the chamber should consider that the people whom we represent know what is going on across these isles, and they know about the absolute folly of privatisation of rail services from the 1990s by the Conservative Party, which is having ramifications to this day. For example, there was the very long delay through the night that some of my constituents experienced on the Avanti service just a few days ago, as has been reported in The Scotsman in the past days.

We also know that, compared with elsewhere, the value for money that consumers receive from ScotRail is superior, and that there is strong support across the country for ScotRail’s having been in public hands since 2022.

I am a bit perplexed by members on the Conservative benches who have, in their previous contributions, spoken critically about public ownership of ScotRail but now seem to be demanding continued subsidy that can be utilised and delivered only because of public ownership. What does the Scottish Conservative Party stand for, in this instance? Is it in favour of public ownership or not? It is a mystery.

Please. Enlighten me.

I ask Mark Griffin in good faith whether he will agree that an important point for consideration, which many campaigners and those involved in the working group have suggested before, is whether we could reduce VAT on retrofitting and home improvements in order to help people to afford and facilitate that work.

That was not an answer to the question that I put.

The nationalisation of ScotRail enabled a subsidy, in the form of £40 million of public money, to be used to reduce fares at a time when there was a cost of living crisis. For many families, that was induced by the folly of the Liz Truss Government and the effect that it had on their mortgage costs and elsewhere, which came as well as the damage that the pandemic brought to the economy. Reduction of fares also helped with the stimulus of economic recovery.

I have not heard from the Conservatives today about what recurring spend they would cut elsewhere in the revenue budget in order to meet that £40 million. We have not heard that from the Labour Party, either. In fact, for the past two weeks, on all the issues of public finance, we have not heard any detailed proposals from the Labour Party about how it would change spending priorities. There have been only sweeping statements of criticism without serious policy proposals or solutions.

We are in the situation where the Scottish Government, through nationalisation and making the right choices, was able to bring in a subsidy, which made a positive impact during the period when it was in place. We know that the investment that is going into ScotRail is creating an improved service for people every single week, and it is going up more and more. The cabinet secretary set out the savings and methods, including the fact that ScotRail ticket fares are already some of the lowest in the UK, being 20 per cent lower on average than fares in the rest of the UK. We have also heard about flexi passes and all the initiatives that are already in place, and last week the cabinet secretary made an announcement to Parliament about improvement that is to come to the rolling stock.

Public ownership has made a positive impact, this policy has made a positive impact, and I commend the Government for doing it.

First, I pay tribute to Graham Simpson for bringing the debate to the chamber, following the members’ business debate on maintenance of tenement communal property that I brought to the chamber—in which I debated the issue with Graham Simpson—in 2018. There has been much progress since then, including one Opposition debate and one Government debate, as well as this debate. The subject is important, and it is right that we are having more debates about it in the Parliament.

I declare an interest, as someone who lives in one of the approximately 900,000 tenements in Scotland. The issue of tenement maintenance is relevant to a huge number of my constituents, many of whom, like me, live in a tenement.

The casework that I have had on tenement issues during the time—more than eight years—that I have had the privilege of representing the communities of Edinburgh Northern and Leith has been significant. People are really struggling to get repairs done on their properties. Although the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 is better than the legislation that was previously in place, we do not have a suitable legal structure to incentivise and necessitate people to organise and finance the repair and maintenance of their properties

The work that the group of MSPs and expert advisers has done over the past eight years has done a lot of heavy lifting for the Government. I know that we have the Acting Minister for Climate Action in the chamber today, but this issue is fundamentally one for the Minister for Housing and his colleagues, and I hope that this debate will be brought to their attention.

Many of Scotland’s tenements are factored, but we know—again from our casework, and from a news item that was reported by BBC Scotland this week—about the difficulties that people have with factoring in terms of difficulty and value for money. Some factoring is done very well, but not every tenement will necessarily want to sign up to that, for various reasons.

We need ways of ensuring, therefore, that tenements are self-organised, and that people are necessitated to undertake repairs and maintenance and that they have funding available to do so. That is where we are. We are nowhere near the point of considering retrofitting, which needs to be done not only in order to meet our climate obligations, but—importantly—to ensure that our homes are warm and watertight and that quality of life is enhanced. We have to make these changes just to get to the point at which enough repair and maintenance is taking place to ensure public safety and the integrity of people’s properties, and to ensure that our stock is enhanced at a time when we have a housing crisis.

The issue needs more focus from the Parliament as a whole, and from the Government, because it affects all those in urban Scotland, including my constituents. The Scottish Law Commission is doing excellent work, and its consultation is important. We need work to be undertaken on the consideration of sinking funds. Thereafter, as a Parliament and as a political community of representatives and parties, we need a shared position of agreement as we go into the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2026, so that a bill on tenement maintenance is one of the first pieces of legislation that is considered in the next session of Parliament. We need to take the time now to work through the development of the hard law and the human rights considerations that are part of the issue. In the next session of Parliament, we will need to legislate quickly, and implement the changes as soon as possible after that. If we do not do that, we will not get on to even the idea of retrofitting.

The heat in buildings bill that will be introduced as part of the programme for government is worth while and important, but people will not be able to undertake the changes that it will necessitate in tenements unless tenement law is reformed. The practical function and legal operation to enable such retrofit will not be in place. Therefore we need both a new act on tenements and a shared commitment. The debate is an important step forward in achieving those.

Does John Mason agree with a point that Miles Briggs has made on several occasions this year—that, if we are to reform the Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004, perhaps there is also a need to make changes to the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011?

As a new member of the Criminal Justice Committee and as a constituency MSP, I am pleased to speak in today’s important debate on the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1.

As members across the chamber have remarked in the debate, we are served very well across Scotland by the exceptional dedication and commitment of Scotland’s police officers and all the diverse work that they do to keep communities safe. In Edinburgh Northern and Leith, I am grateful for the weekly collaboration that I engage in with people from Police Scotland to serve constituents on a range of matters. Their professionalism is exceptional.

However, no organisation is perfect—we all know that—so, if things go wrong, the police must be held to account, improvements must be made and lessons learned. Justice in relation to internal complaints must be thorough and robust, and sanction must be used where it is appropriate and right. Some of the hardest cases that I have dealt with as a constituency MSP in terms of complexity and sensitivity are those regarding complaints about the criminal justice system, and I am sure that that is also the experience of colleagues.

As a country that polices by consent, a principle that, as others have said, is central to our justice system, we must have appropriate and strong accountability. New laws, such as the one that we are considering today, must be brought through in due course, through modernisation and to future proof public confidence in standards of police conduct.

The vital safeguards that are set out in the bill will enhance the professional service that is already delivered by officers as they perform their privileged duties to keep us all safe. I will say more about that in a minute but, before I get into the bill’s key proposals, I will touch a bit more on the point about policing as an essential service and a privileged duty. Although I do not want to discuss too much the jurisprudence of the legislation, I note that fair and accountable enforcement is key to the rule of law. If the state is to have a monopoly of violence, and if that is to be for just and benevolent ends, at least in the modern period—as Maggie Chapman highlighted, it was not necessarily the case historically—we must rely on a strong police service to enforce the rule of law and uphold democracy, and that enforcement must be fair and accountable. The bill will enhance that.

The bill will put the pre-existing code of ethics that is currently embedded throughout policing on a statutory footing in a way that will ensure that there is a thorough review process and accountability for its widespread publication. The bill will make the code of ethics legally binding, and I welcome that.

With regard to complaints against the police, the bill, as other members have touched on, aims to simplify the process—I welcome that, as will my constituents—in order to ensure that there are robust mechanisms in place to investigate complaints in a timeous way, and to investigate allegations of misconduct and other issues of concern in relation to the conduct of police officers in Scotland.

The bill also provides greater powers for the PIRC and places on Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority requirements to respond to the PIRC’s recommendations and to provide the commissioner with direct access to relevant information, including on the commencement and conclusion of gross misconduct proceedings, regardless of whether the person leaves the police or continues in the service.

I think that those powers will be warmly welcomed, but I ask the Government to comment on one point in summing up, although this may be for stage 2 or 3. What initiatives will the Government undertake to continue to raise awareness among members of the public of how to lodge a complaint in an appropriate manner if they have concerns about the service that they have received?

Other measures in the bill that are to be welcomed include the introduction of the Scottish advisory and barred lists, and the setting out of a duty of candour to ensure that the police co-operate fully during investigations of allegations against constables.

There is more in the bill, and I look forward to the stage 2 debate. I conclude by quoting an important statement from Lady Angiolini with regard to formalising the delivery of the majority of the recommendations that her review made in 2018. In evidence to the committee, she said:

“I do not think that having a voluntary version is good enough for an organisation that has so much power. It is really important that there is a structure to that.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 16 May 2024; c 8.]

For those who may question the necessity of this legislation in ensuring that we formalise the recommendations in Lady Angiolini’s review, I think that that statement is worth remembering.