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Are you saying that there is a level of nuance in that?

Absolutely. He wants to make sure that we are advocating properly.

Miles Briggs has some questions.

I would welcome that.

We turn to agenda item 4, under which we will take evidence on the draft Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Amendment Order 2024 from Paul McLennan, who is Minister for Housing in the Scottish Government. As members know, Mr McLennan will give evidence remotely. He is joined online by Scottish Government officials Craig McGuffie, who is a lawyer; Jessica Niven, who is unit head in the more homes division; and Andy Kinnaird, who is head of transforming planning.

I welcome the minister and his officials to the meeting, and I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you for that. I think that you touched on this in your opening statement, but I would like to get a better understanding—without getting into too much detail, because members have a number of questions—of what the problem is that the order is trying to fix through the provisional licence provisions. What was the problem that you identified that meant that you needed the order to address that?

We will have to come back to the theme. Gerry Tierney indicated that he wanted to respond to Gordon MacDonald’s initial question.

Thanks very much for that, James. That was really helpful. Miles Briggs will bring in the topic of evictions.

Okay—thank you for that. We will move on. I will bring in Gordon MacDonald.

Thanks for picking up that important point, Emma. We move on to the wider issues that have been raised in written submissions.

Does the minister wish to respond to any of those comments? Members should bear it in mind that only the minister can respond; officials are not permitted to speak to this item.