Seòmar agus comataidhean

That concludes our discussion of “Housing to 2040”.

Before we finish, as I mentioned, we have a few questions, which I know are not necessarily relevant to all the witnesses, about the regulations under the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022. I hope that we can get through those questions quickly, but let us see how we get on.

I will start. I would like to know whether those of you to whom this is relevant agree in principle that the Scottish Government should use its powers to amend the rent adjudication system to smooth the transition away from the rent cap.

Does anyone have anything to add? We have questions that will build on this.

We were expecting to have another person on today’s round table, who would have had another perspective on this subject, but we are missing a bit of input on these questions, unfortunately.

I will bring in Willie Coffey now.

The second item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

The third item on our agenda is a round-table evidence-taking session on the “Housing to 2040” strategy. We are joined by John Blackwood, the chief executive of the Scottish Association of Landlords; Michael Cameron, the chief executive of the Scottish Housing Regulator; Maureen Chalmers, community wellbeing spokesperson for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Callum Chomczuk, national director for Scotland of the Chartered Institute of Housing; Sally Thomas, chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations; John Mills, co-chair of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers; and Jane Wood, chief executive of Homes for Scotland.

I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. To begin our conversation, I invite everyone to briefly introduce themselves. I will begin. I am the convener of the committee and an MSP for the Highlands and Islands.

I should just point out that you do not have to operate your microphones yourselves—we will do that for you. It is one less thing to think about.

I take it from those responses that, in general, you are all tremendously supportive of the vision, but there are concerns about what comes in behind to support it, and that some of the things that we have come up against in previous years, such as Covid, have prevented us from rolling it out. It is good to hear that the vision still stands, but I hear the views about the importance of how we make it happen and the need to give it a bit of a review.

I call Pam Gosal.

I highly recommend that you look into Midsteeple Quarter in Dumfries, where there is incredible community-led work that is strongly supported by Dumfries and Galloway Council. It is a tremendous example of community work on town centre living. They do detective work to find the people who own the properties, then buy them at a price that is, interestingly, usefully low for the community.

Maureen Chalmers, do you want to come in?

Is there something that we can do about the complexity of ownership? Could the Scottish Government do something to help people to understand who owns property, or to find that out more quickly?