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I call Willie Coffey, who is joining us on BlueJeans.

Thank you for laying out clearly the intentions of part 4 of the bill with regard to making the two measures in question permanent.

How do the reforms that you have presented fit into the programme of work that is outlined in the new deal for tenants consultation and in relation to the forthcoming housing bill? What more needs to be done to increase awareness among tenants?

We move on to questions from Mark Griffin, who joins us on BlueJeans.

John Blackwood wanted to come in on that.

Thank you. In the interests of time, we have to get on, but I am glad that you made that point. Does Matt Downie or Alastair Houston want to come in?

Thank you for bringing us back to what the proposals are about. We move to questions from Graeme Dey.

Item 2 is evidence on the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. The committee is leading on scrutiny of part 4 of the bill, which makes provision for strengthening protections from eviction for private rented tenants.

We will hear from two separate panels of witnesses today, with the first consisting of stakeholders and the second being the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights.

We are joined remotely for our first session by Alastair Houston, who is a solicitor and head of housing and court department, Legal Services Agency; Matt Downie, who is the chief executive of Crisis; John Blackwood, who is the chief executive of the Scottish Association of Landlords; and Andrew Watson, who is a researcher at the University of Glasgow.

I will aim to bring all witnesses into the discussion, but if members wish to direct a question to a particular witness, please make that clear to assist our broadcasting team in operating cameras and microphones. If any of the witnesses wishes to come in on a particular point, they should let me know by typing R in the chat function and I will bring them in at an appropriate point.

I intend to allow up to around 75 minutes for the session. I now open up the session to questions from members and begin with a question that I will initially direct to Matt Downie.

Do you agree that the tenancy proposals in the bill will contribute to the Scottish Government’s objective of addressing the harms that have been caused by the pandemic and tackling systemic inequalities that have been made worse by the pandemic?

I bring in Elena Whitham.

Do these changes need to be made permanent now or should they be part of a wider package that might be introduced in a future housing bill? Perhaps Andrew Watson could respond to that.

Yes, that is fine.