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That is a good point.

Rosemary Agnew mentioned that Covid disrupted the ability to get information from the public sector. Your website says that there is still a four-month delay. Aside from the inability to get information, did Covid create a delay in anything else?

Very quickly, and the response should be brief.

Yes.

Certainly, as you say, if we have a community empowerment agenda, we perhaps need to look at that. It was also helpful to hear that the board of the Scottish Housing Regulator has a specific and clear remit to look after the interests of tenants. How we deal with tenants and community is something that we should take away.

I thank our witnesses for coming in and giving their evidence. It has been very helpful to hear about your work over the past year and, obviously, the challenging landscape in which social landlords and tenants live and work.

I suspend the meeting briefly for a changeover of witnesses.

Agenda item 4 is evidence on the Council Tax (Variation for Unoccupied Dwellings) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023 from Tom Arthur, the Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance in the Scottish Government. Mr Arthur is joined for this item by Scottish Government officials Heather Galbraith, who is a solicitor; James Messis, who is the council tax policy lead; and Jessica Niven, who is the unit head at the more homes division. I welcome the minister and his officials to the meeting and invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Thanks very much for that introduction, minister. I am interested in hearing why you think that a council tax premium of 100 per cent might encourage second home owners to use their accommodation differently for the benefit of local communities—for example, by making their property available for long-term rent. Do you understand the typology of second home owners enough to determine whether that would be effective?

Something else that came up in our conversations was a concern that, in some situations, inspections show that the materials that were set out in building plans in the first place were not then used. We heard that in relation to a number of points across the building. That relates to Willie Coffey’s point about people not knowing what their homes and buildings are made of. Perhaps the Parliament can look at that in the longer term.

Thank you for your comments. We will hear from the Scottish Government bill team for the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill next week.

We agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next three items in private. As that was the last public item on our agenda, I close the public part of the meeting.

Okay. Thanks for that.

Thank you for seeking that bit of detail, Miles.

That concludes our questions. I thank the minister and his officials for the evidence that they have given.

We turn to agenda item 5, which is consideration of the motion on the draft regulations. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-11186.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Council Tax (Variation for Unoccupied Dwellings) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023 [draft] be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

The committee will publish a report setting out its recommendation on the draft regulations in the coming days.

I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow the minister and his officials to leave before we move on to our next agenda item.