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Minister, you will be aware that the trade union representatives who have appeared before us suggested that the bill gives us an opportunity to increase transparency and perhaps set some stronger rules around senior staff salaries at institutions. As you know, I have a lot of sympathy with that position. In particular, I cannot understand why college principals are exempt from the salary rules that apply to every other chief executive equivalent in the public sector. I am interested in your response to what the unions have put forward in that regard, particularly Mary Senior’s point that the current position makes it harder to argue for public money to go to those institutions when there are many more than 100 members of senior staff at universities in particular who earn far in excess of what the First Minister does—sometimes four times as much.

Up to a point, I understand what you are saying. The reality is that, conditions can be attached to the significant amounts of public funding that an institution receives. I understand the distinction between universities and colleges: universities are independent institutions that compete in a more globalised market. I do not accept that that makes the University of Edinburgh principal’s recent salary increase acceptable.

We have discussed this before, but is it still the Government’s position that college principals should not be subject to the chief executive pay framework that applies to all other equivalent roles across the public sector, other than public-owned companies such as Scottish Water and Scottish Rail Holdings?

Yes.

That is helpful. I have some sympathy with the Universities Scotland position on this. It was also looking for a bit more clarity with regard to the point that Andrew just made about what should be in the bill. There should be something clear there. It should not be too specific—the point of using regulations is that they are more flexible—but there should be something in the bill to give a sufficient degree of clarity over what kind of threshold we are setting.

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a member of the Church of Scotland. My understanding is that the Church of Scotland is keen to have this issue debated because it has a number of properties that it would like to make available due to long-term ministry vacancies, but it would obviously still require those properties when the ministry vacancies are filled. However, it has found it challenging to engage with the Scottish Government on this issue. Would the cabinet secretary be amenable to a discussion with the Church of Scotland about how its considerable property portfolio can be used to help tackle the housing crisis, given the limitations on that portfolio?

Amendment 454 is a simple one: it seeks to devolve to local authorities the ability to set fees for registration with a landlord register. We talk about “the” landlord register, but there are 32 landlord registers—there is a single national letting agent register for Scotland, the responsibility for which sits with the Scottish ministers; the responsibility for landlord registers sits with 32 local authorities. Most members in the room are former councillors, and I am sure that they can think of many occasions on which they chafed at having decisions micromanaged for them by the Scottish Government.

I see this as being a simple matter of policy coherence: if it is the responsibility of the local authority to maintain the register, surely we should give the local authority the ability to set something as basic as the registration fee. We could have political commentary around whatever rate it set it at—I hope that that would not be the case, given how minor an administrative matter this is—but the point is that the responsibility for setting the fee should sit with the elected representatives to whom we have given responsibility for the register. Amendment 454 would devolve that to our colleagues in local government, in line with the Verity house agreement.

I lodged amendments 232 and 232A and the other amendments in this group because long leases are a matter of unfinished business for the Parliament. Long leases are leases that, at their start, were of more than 175 years and where the rent is nominal, at £100 or less per year, which is sometimes known as peppercorn rent. Long leases put tenants in a position of de facto ownership, despite not having the status of legal ownership over the property or the rights that flow from that. Therefore, long lease tenants are deprived of the full enjoyment of the property through an ability to sell it or pass it on to a loved one, for example.

This set of amendments on long lease reforms has arisen from casework, because, due to a historical anomaly, the remaining long leases in Scotland are heavily concentrated in the three towns area of North Ayrshire in my region—the towns being Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston. The situation remains even after the Long Leases (Scotland) Act 2012 of this Parliament sought to address the issue. The 2012 act converted some but not all residential long leases into ownership. My amendments in this group seek to extend the ability to obtain ownership rights to long lease tenants who did not benefit from the 2012 act, which is those whose long lease had less than a century to run, as of 2015.

Amendments 232, 232A, 234, 235 and 236 would establish a scheme by which qualifying long lease rights can be converted into ownership rights. The amendments seek to address the comparative disadvantage that is currently faced by long lease tenants whose tenancies were not covered under the 2012 act because there was less than a century until their expiration—we can all acknowledge that a century is an awfully long time to deprive somebody of such rights.

Amendment 232 sets out a definition for a qualifying lease along the lines of the 2012 act. However, in this case, it would be a lease that has more than 50 years before it expires. Amendment 232A would give the committee and the Parliament the opportunity to go further and to define it as a lease that has more than five years before it expires. If amendment 232A was agreed to, we would, by and large, finally get rid of long leases in Scotland—I say “by and large” because there is no element of compulsion in here, which is worth emphasising.

Amendment 234 would establish long lease tenants’ rights to apply for the conversion of lease rights into ownership rights, and it would give ministers the power to regulate for the criteria on which an application should be accepted or refused. Again, the provisions are all very similar to the 2012 act but would be extended further to the group who were not covered at that time.

Amendment 235 would establish the process for long lease rights to be converted into ownership rights, and amendment 236 would establish the process for the former landlord to request a compensation payment, with ministers regulating for the specifics of that process as well.

By and large, the amendments simply replicate the 2012 act to cover the group of long lease tenants who were not covered at that point because their leases still had a century left to run. If members agree to that in principle, which I hope they do, I would be keen for us to go as far as possible and to apply the provisions to all long leases that have more than five years left. That would get us pretty close to the point of getting rid of this very odd historical anachronism. However, by default, voting for amendment 232 would agree to the measure in principle and allow us to make progress and, I believe, cover the majority of those who still have a long lease in Scotland by applying the provisions to all those who have more than 50 years before their lease expires.

I move amendments 232 and 232A.

I understand entirely the A1P1 considerations, which come up an awful lot in the Parliament, and rightly so. However, I am interested to understand the considerations that led to 100 years being set as the threshold—I presume that the decision was based on case law. However, my understanding is that it was a somewhat arbitrary number on the basis of taking a very cautious approach, given that the 2012 act was the first time that the inequality of long leases had been addressed. Given that there have been no court proceedings that have challenged the act—or any individual cases that were successful—my suggestion is that the Government’s position that 100 years is necessary to maintain the A1P1 rights of landlords is based on an incredibly risk-averse assumption rather than on case law from elsewhere, for example.

I have pretty much covered the issue already. Although I understand the Government’s reticence around issues relating to A1P1 rights, I emphasise that my understanding is that the threshold of a century that was set by the 2012 act was, ultimately, an arbitrary one that was based on a particularly cautious interpretation of the legal challenges that might arise. Those legal challenges did not arise, and so the threshold is one of those odd historical anomalies and injustices that needs to be rectified. It particularly affects my constituents in the three towns in North Ayrshire, but it also affects a scattering of people elsewhere in Scotland.

Although I entirely understand the Government’s approach, and I am therefore happy not to press amendment 232A, I will press amendment 232, because I think that the 50-year threshold is entirely defensible on the basis of balancing the landlord’s A1P1 rights with the rights of the long-lease renter or tenant.

That is correct.

Amendment 232A, by agreement, withdrawn.