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I will bring in Mark Griffin with a few questions.

Thank you for your opening statement. We have a number of questions to get through today, and we will follow our usual format. I will start with some general questions, and then we will go on to rent control, evictions, personalisation and other issues. I hope that we will do so in the time that we have allocated, but we might go a bit over time.

I will start with a question that came to light as a result of our evidence session last week. We heard concerns from witnesses, including a representative from the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland, about the absence of a clear vision for the private rented sector in Scotland. Can you briefly set out your vision for the private rented sector and the role that the bill plays in its delivery?

We will stick with the questions on rents and come back to you.

Thanks. Getting that detail was worth our while. We go back to Willie Coffey for questions about evictions and so forth.

It will depend on how long our questions are, too. We may have some long questions.

We have a few more questions. I will see whether I can rattle through them.

I have personal experience of great landlords in the private rented sector, and what I am about to ask is not a reflection on them. Last week, Tony Cain discussed how

“The private rented sector attracts a significant element of poor landlordism, but it also attracts criminal activity.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 3 September 2024; c 13.]

That was in response to a question that I asked about landlords having to put their energy performance certificates, gas safety checks and electrical inspection condition reports in a public-facing setting—by uploading them online somewhere—so that someone who is about to go into an agreement with a landlord can see that they are showing a certain level of accountability. I am interested in hearing your thoughts on that requirement being included in the bill through an amendment.

Great—thanks for that.

We will now move on to discuss rent, and I invite Pam Gosal to ask the first question. A few other members wish to ask supplementaries, and you can then come in with your second question, Pam.

Mark Griffin has a supplementary question.

Will you give us a timeline for the work that you are doing, so that we have an understanding? For example, if we publish our report, how much time will there be between our report coming out and that information coming out?

Tentatively, at this point.