Seòmar agus comataidhean

I put the same question to Helen Shaw. Do you have a sense of the scale of the problem? Do you get a sense that the problems might be in a particular type of housing or geographical area? I have even been thinking that they might not necessarily be in a particular geographical area but that they could be due to the ground on which the houses are built or the way in which they are built.

This question may have been answered by what you have just said. The housing ombudsman’s follow-up report on dampness in English social housing noted that one clear area that landlords in England need to improve is the knowledge of their stock. How do social landlords currently monitor dampness problems in their properties in Scotland? Are you content that social landlords know their stock well enough to take proactive action to deal with potential dampness problems? I think that you are saying that there is a move to systematise and be more proactive.

We are now joined by our second panel. Paul McLennan, who is the Minister for Housing, is joined by Scottish Government officials. Naeem Bhatti is head of the fuel poverty and housing standards unit, and Darren Knox is from the fuel poverty and house condition analysis team. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting, and invite Mr McLennan to make an opening statement.

Thank you very much for that opening statement.

I would be interested to hear whether the Scottish Government has a good understanding at the national level of the scale of the problem of dampness and mould in Scotland’s housing. We have heard in evidence in previous sessions and earlier this morning that there really is not enough data collection. Could the Government make any improvements in data collection?

I will follow up on that. At the end of the previous evidence session, Callum Chomczuk suggested that we need all the right information in one place for both tenants and landlords. Is that something that the Government could help with?

That concludes our questions. It is really great to have a minister for housing, because that is what the committee has been missing. It allows us to get deeper into the issues that we need to address, so we very much appreciate your coming along and giving us evidence.

Something else that has come up in the evidence is the issue of accessible language. We have the information but we need to consider whether it is accessible to people when they find it.

As we previously agreed to take item 3 in private, I now close the public part of the meeting.

That is a very good point. I move to questions from Marie McNair.

I want to go back to and pick up on Rhoda Grant’s first question. Perhaps I can illustrate my concern by telling you a little story—it will not be too long, convener.

I was contacted by a constituent—a scientific adviser—who objected to the salmon farm in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. They felt that they had engaged all that they could, but their views had still not been taken into account. As a scientific adviser, they had also written on behalf of a marine sector association with regard to the original application, as well as personally—