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I have a number of amendments in this group, all of which relate to the rights of the child when it comes to their being threatened with homelessness or being placed in temporary accommodation.

It might seem strange that I have lodged a number of amendments that amend my own amendments, but that was done purely on the advice of the legislation team. I had planned to lodge duplicate amendments stipulating that a child is a person under the age of 16 and that a child is a person under the age of 18, to give the committee the opportunity to make a decision on where it felt that that distinction lay.

My preference is for all the amendments to my amendments to be agreed to, as that would stipulate that a child was someone under the age of 18, an approach that is supported by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. Therefore I hope that the amendments with an A after the number are agreed to, too, if the committee agrees to the substantive amendments.

On the detail, amendments 1053 and 1054 present alternative options—they are very similar. Amendment 1053 uses the wording

“best interests and rights of children”,

whereas amendment 1054, which is the alternative amendment, simply refers to the “rights of children” to make things slightly tidier, given that article 3 of the UNCRC requires that the best interests of a child be considered anyway. Indeed, it might be tidier just to agree to amendment 1054, but I thought that it would be good to give the committee the option to make it absolutely clear that we should consider children’s “best interests and rights”. It was good to hear the minister comment on the amendments in yesterday’s debate in the chamber. If I caught his meaning correctly, he indicated support for them.

Amendments 1053 and 1054 refer to the rights of the child threatened with homelessness and state that children should have their rights under the UNCRC and their best interests considered when relevant bodies make decisions about them. We covered some of that ground in the chamber yesterday, but the motivation behind the amendments is Shelter’s report, “In Their Own Words: Children’s Experiences in Temporary Accommodation”, which tells stories of children forced to live in completely unsuitable temporary accommodation, and how their lived experience of homelessness, of being threatened with homelessness or of being placed in temporary accommodation was, essentially, life limiting. Decisions that were being made for them were disrupting their education, their health and their social life, and limiting their future life chances.

With record numbers of children in temporary accommodation and more than 16,000 children part of households that are applying to be homeless, we should take urgent action to ensure that, in the relevant policies and laws that we hope to pass through the legislation, we capture the requirement for their rights under the UNCRC to be considered.

Amendments 1055, 1056 and 1059 relate to decisions to place children in temporary accommodation, and ensure that children who are homeless or threatened with homelessness have their rights and best interests taken into account and that local authorities allocate them to either temporary or permanent accommodation. The amendments are a response to the conditions that Shelter described children as living in when they are allocated to unsuitable temporary accommodation. That report, which I think most of us will have read, argues that local authorities must take a rights-based approach when dealing with children who are facing homelessness so that they are protected from unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

I ask members to support the amendments and I look forward to the Government’s response to them.

Will Mr Balfour take an intervention?

I agree with the minister’s sentiment of not wanting to narrow the definition of homelessness. However, I am concerned that the Government is moving away from that definition being set in primary legislation towards a mechanism that would make it easier to narrow the definition of homelessness. Will the minister give us a reassurance that it is not the Government’s intent to use that mechanism—in place of primary legislation—to narrow the definition of homelessness?

I agree with the principle behind amendment 1015. As Jeremy Balfour set out, there are potentially circumstances in which homes are not suitable for people, for a range of reasons. However, those circumstances might not be covered by a protected characteristic, which is why my amendment 1015A would add paragraph (c) to Jeremy Balfour’s amendment. I am particularly thinking about a rural context, where houses might not have appropriate adaptations, or where residents perhaps live too far from the health or social care services that they rely on. That would make their home no longer fit for purpose, because they would not be able to access the services that they need to live their lives. My amendment asks authorities to take those circumstances into account.

In essence, amendment 1015A is a probing amendment, because I want to hear what the Government has to say on it. Paragraph (b) in the amendment is sponsored by Scottish Land & Estates. The housing emergency is at its sharpest for many people in a rural setting. If someone loses their job, they may have to travel a vast distance to take up a new job, so the house that they live in will no longer be suitable for that. They might end up having to make a choice between being unemployed and not being able to sustain a mortgage or tenancy because they have lost their job, and accepting a new job in a different location where they cannot find anywhere to live.

That is why I lodged my amendment to Jeremy Balfour’s amendment 1015. As I said, my amendment is very much in the realm of a probing amendment. I would like to hear the Government’s response to the instances that I have set out and the particular impacts in a rural setting.

My amendment 1072 seeks to ensure that individuals who are in receipt of a housing first tenancy are given priority for welfare services to ensure that their tenancies are successfully maintained, and that existing resources are allocated to the housing first approach in order to deliver what we hope it will achieve. The link between maintaining a tenancy and access to other forms of support is broken in some instances. For the housing first approach to work, flexible support must be provided for as long as it is needed and individuals must be given the right wraparound support to help them with issues such as substance abuse and mental health issues. There is a misconception that the housing first approach provides the solution but, actually, it is the wraparound services that come with it that help to sustain the tenancy, and a multidisciplinary approach is needed.

The evidence from stakeholders, including those who are now choosing not to engage with housing first, is that there is a real concern that, because of budget cuts, the wraparound support in housing first to sustain tenancies is falling away. There is a real concern that, because of cuts, it is not working as we all envisaged it working and in the way that we all think that it is working. We know that a multidisciplinary approach is needed, and I am concerned that people are not getting the wraparound support that they need because of cuts.

In that case, housing first can become counterproductive, which none of us wants to see. The potential pressure of having a tenancy without wraparound support can sometimes be more damaging. That is why amendment 1072 seeks to ensure that housing first is always part of a wider multidisciplinary approach to helping people with complex needs. I urge members to support the amendment.

I move amendment 1015A.

Perhaps I picked the minister up wrongly in the chamber yesterday, but I understood from his closing speech that he had planned to support my amendments. Could he clarify his comments made in the chamber yesterday?

I had hoped that amendments 1053 and 1053A, in combination, clarified what would happen to 17 and 18-year-olds. The amendment to amendment 1053 changes the age to anyone under the age of 18. As I have said, I hoped that that would give clarity.

Some of the points that I wanted to ask about have been covered. Beyond the actions that the Government has said that it is taking, such as issuing guidance about not blaming tenants, the actions of the regulator on statistics, and the potential inclusion of a form of Awaab’s law in the Housing (Scotland) Bill, what else do the Government, landlords and the regulator need to do on damp and mould?

We have heard about skills and the accreditation of assessors, the potential for recourse to tribunals for tenants, and the withholding of rent. Are there any points that have not been covered so far on what powers we should give to tenants or action that the Government or landlords should take?

Peter, your organisation has called for a remediation programme for RAAC, similar to what exists for cladding. Can you expand on why that is necessary and how you think it could operate?

They are just being told that their property is unsafe and they need to find alternative accommodation themselves.