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What engagement has taken place since the last time that you came to give evidence?

What is the hold-up?

Okay, that is helpful. In addition to that commitment, there are six other outstanding commitments that the Scottish Government has made to the committee. Four of those date from 2023 and two date from last year. What has been done to ensure that those six commitments will be met?

Good morning. The standing item on the agenda when you and your colleagues come to visit us is the historical commitments that the Government has made to the committee in relation to instruments. On numerous occasions, the committee has requested an update on the amendment to the Scotland Act 1998 (Specification of Functions and Transfer of Property etc) Order 2019 (SI 2019/183). The last time that you gave evidence, you said that there might be an update in this calendar year. Are you able to update us?

Thank you. As you are aware, this committee’s remit includes consideration of bills that come from the Scottish Law Commission and, after the Easter recess, we will look at the Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) (Scotland) Bill. Do you expect any other bills to come to the committee this session?

I am not sure whether that was a yes or no to my question. Is it likely that something will come forward this calendar year?

With regard to the wording of amendment 1089, what do you understand by the phrase “including consideration”? That could mean someone thinking about it, then simply moving on. What would you expect “including consideration” to actually mean in practice to a local authority housing officer sitting there on a Tuesday afternoon?

This is an important part of the bill, and one which, I am sure, all members will want to see work in practice.

I appreciate that Katy Clark will not be pressing amendment 1061 or moving her other amendments in the group, but I should say that we would have supported them, because the intention behind them is right. However, going back to the meaning of the phrase “including consideration”, which I raised in my intervention, I do not want to teach my granny to suck eggs, as Katy Clark is a better lawyer than I ever was, but I do think that there needs to be a better legal test. My fear is that this will simply become a box-ticking exercise.

We will support Maggie Chapman’s amendments 1022 and 1069, if she decides to move them. We also support the amendments that will be discussed later by Meghan Gallacher and Rachael Hamilton.

Amendment 1023, in my name, creates a duty on social landlords to point those who have experienced domestic abuse to appropriate legal advice and opportunities. I claim no expertise on what it must be like to experience domestic abuse, but I am sure that people need legal help and advice at an appropriate point. Often, though, it is not clear where to get such advice, nor is it clear which legal firms still do that type of work, wherever you are. There is, particularly in rural areas of Scotland, a lack of criminal or civil lawyers who do legal aid work on domestic abuse. The amendment, therefore, would make the social landlord not do the work themselves but point the individual towards it. That would be really helpful.

Will the member take an intervention?

Good morning. As we go through the amendments in this group and those in other groups, I suspect that we will see some of the weaknesses that exist in the bill. I am sure that all members want the bill to work, but, as it is constituted at the moment, there are simply too many unanswered questions and too many uncertainties with regard to the duty to act.

In his comments about amendment 1090, Mr Griffin said that there was a lack of clarity on the ask and act duties. I think that he was being kind, because there is a gaping hole with regard to what those duties will mean in practice if the provisions come into play.

I will give the committee an example that I have given to others. If someone comes into the royal infirmary up the road at 2 am on a Saturday night and discloses—or it becomes clear—to a nurse that they are homeless, what should that nurse do? What is her duty in that regard? There is no clarity on that. I think that we will be setting up public bodies to fail unless we give people a clear definition and a clear understanding of what is required.

When Kevin Stewart was on the committee, on one occasion on which we were taking evidence, he forcefully pointed out that there needed to be a change of culture if the ask and act provisions were to work. It is true that there needs to be a change of culture, but there can be a change of culture only if people understand what that culture change is meant to look like in practice. At the moment, the bill simply does not provide such an understanding.

On Mr McLennan’s amendment 1040, I note that one of the problems with the bill is that it puts a lot of weight on guidance. As the minister will understand, guidance has no legal authority—there is no way to enforce it. Guidance can be a piece of paper that comes out but gives neither the public body nor the person who might be threatened with homelessness any rights or any possibility of legal challenge in relation to it. We will support amendment 1040, but, in my view, this should be done by amendment and not by guidance.

On amendment 1018, in my name, I suppose that we are hoping and expecting that there will be a cultural change in public bodies and that everyone will simply understand the ask and act duty on them. However, there is no stick in the bill for a public body that does not achieve that change. There is a lack of clarity on what happens if NHS Tayside, NHS Lothian or any other public body that we end up with does not achieve that. There is absolutely no stick to hit them with. That is what amendment 1018 would allow. It would allow somebody who has not been treated correctly by a public body to at least have the option of challenging the decisions made by that body. That seems to me to be a legitimate right.

I appreciate that you can already have a judicial review in regard to the decision of a public body, but my amendment would put it in the bill. It would not create a new right or something that is not there in law already, but it would give a strong indication from the Parliament that we expect public bodies to take the ask and act duty seriously and that, if they do not, they could be open to legal challenge. That seems to me to be where we want to get to. I will leave it there.