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Thanks very much for that overview.

We will move to questions. You have touched on some of the areas that I wanted to ask about, so I will ask a few questions to get a bit more detail. I am interested in how the bill fits in with the Scottish Government’s overall housing strategy. What part of the strategy is the bill aiming to address?

The bill is connected to the strategy in “A New Deal for Tenants: Rented Sector Reform—Current Proposals”. Is any other progress being made through that strategy?

Mark Griffin, who is joining us online, has a question.

I cannot remember whether you mentioned this in your opening remarks, but I want to get a bit of detail on the difference between rent control areas and rent pressure zones. Are rent controls applied to tenancies in a different way? What rent increase does the legislation allow? Also, I think that you said this, but can you confirm that rent controls can apply across a whole local authority area, whereas rent pressure zones cannot? If you could clarify those points, that would be great.

I want to ask a bit more about the landlord register and data collection. In working on the bill, has the Scottish Government considered requiring landlords to provide evidence that basic safety and environmental standards have been met? Landlords already have to go through the process of energy performance certificates, electrical certificates, gas safety checks and so on. I am interested in knowing what the implications would be of making it a responsibility of landlords to provide that evidence proactively. Have you considered that evidence being provided publicly so that tenants are aware of the context of the rental housing before they go into an agreement with the landlord?

Okay. It is interesting that, at the beginning, you said that part of the bill is about improving the renting experience, and you talked about pets and personalisation. I imagine that, if a person knows that they have a landlord who proactively provides all those certificates and ensures that those requirements are fulfilled, that would be helpful in the relationship that they are entering into.

Thanks. You will probably be aware that the committee is monitoring petition PE1778, which is about the landlord register in general. There are concerns that it does not really do what it needs to do. Maybe there is something in that space as well. The bill is being drawn around the provision of affordable rent, but the experience that people are paying for is also important.

So it is about timing and the purpose of the bill but, as your review develops in the coming months and the bill is still going through the process, might you come to a different view based on that review?

We will move on to the theme of implementation. I will bring in Mark Griffin.

We will have to move on, because we are a bit pressed for time. Thanks so much for clarifying the work that you have been doing with landlords in relation to monitoring the landlord registration system, with the data showing that there has been a 2.1 per cent increase in the number of registered properties.

We have come to the end of our session. It has been really helpful to have you here to answer questions so that we can get some details on your thinking behind the bill and its intention.

I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.