 If everybody is quite ready with their salutations to each other, the next item of business is a debate on motion 17892, in the name of Kevin Stewart, on working group and tenement maintenance. Can I ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request-to-speak buttons now? I call on Kevin Stewart to speak to remove the motion. I welcome the publication earlier this month of the final recommendations report of the working group on tenement maintenance. I commend members of the group for bringing together MSPs from all parties in a wide range of stakeholder interests. As convener, Graham Simpson has led the work on bringing the report and its recommendations to publication. I also commend his predecessor, as convener, Ben Macpherson, for the initial work in bringing the group together and getting it started. The consensus that has been achieved is reflected in this motion, which comes today with the support of all parties in the Parliament. The motion seeks Parliament's agreement that the working group's recommendations merit serious and careful consideration. I fully agree with that. I have previously given my commitment to consider the recommendations, and today I reiterate that commitment. It is my intention to make a substantive response to the report in the autumn. I note the working group's intention to hold a conference to consider the recommendations in September, which the Government will support. I am sure that the discussion at that event will help us to take that matter forward. Many people in Scotland live in tenements, which will continue to provide good-quality, safe, sustainable and affordable homes for many years from now, but only if we look after the homes that we live in. Owners of tenements need to accept their responsibility for protecting and preserving them from our older-built heritage through to brand-new flats, and they must carry out repairs and maintenance to common parts of their property. The most recent Scottish House condition survey, the local authority report, estimates that 36 per cent of Scottish homes are in tenements and indicates that disrepair is worse in tenements than in any other kinds of houses. The report estimates that 66 per cent of houses and 76 per cent of tenements have at least some minor disrepair that can cover a wide range of defects and that around 5 per cent of houses and 8 per cent of tenements have extensive disrepair. Regular maintenance is not only a good practice, it is also much more cost-effective to invest in regular proactive maintenance than to let small defects grow through neglect into expensive and potentially ruinous repairs. It is frustrating for owners who accept these responsibilities and are keen to work with their neighbours to find their efforts hampered by a culture of poor maintenance. It is also necessary to look after our homes to play our part in tackling the global climate emergency. We will need more than 80 per cent of the homes that we currently live in to still be in use in 2050. The report recognises that primary legislation will be needed to deliver its recommendations in full and that time is needed for the development and passage of acts. A 10-year timescale is anticipated to implement the recommendations in full. That includes a proposal to commission the Scottish Law Commission to consider the complex interaction of maintenance responsibilities and property law. I will include that point in the response to the report's recommendations that I intend to make in autumn. I completely agree that owners of tenements should plan ahead for future common repairs and maintenance and that they must be prepared to work together and pay their share of the cost of the work. However, as the report notes, it might be difficult to enforce compulsory sinking funds or five-yearly inspections. It is not clear what would happen if a flat owner did not have the money to contribute to a sinking fund or refused to pay. Some homeowners would not welcome the need to hand over sums of money for repairs not required at that point. That does not mean that the proposals are unworkable. However, it means that there needs to be serious thought about how they could be funded and enforced in practice. We all need to work together to address those issues. The motion recognises the challenges that must be met to ensure that our housing stock can continue to provide safe and sustainable homes for the future. For taking intervention, he highlights some challenges around sinking funds. Does he accept that around the world there are plenty of examples where such arrangements are in place and operate very smoothly and that, although it is a challenge, it is not something that is impossible? I have not said that it is impossible and I think that we need to look at what happens elsewhere in order for us to get that absolutely right. I will respond in depth and in the autumn around that. However, Mr Wightman can be assured that we will not do all of that in isolation and we will look at practice that takes place elsewhere to see if we can perhaps plagiarise some of the good ideas that may exist in other places. I am pleased, Presiding Officer, that what the Government has done so far is acknowledged. We have already taken action to improve the condition of Scottish tenements. The report notes, for example, the positive impact of missing shares and equity loans. In my constituency in Aberdeen, I have seen how missing shares are having a positive impact. Often the threat of a missing share is enough to persuade an owner to engage with their neighbours. However, I accept that we need to go further. Energy-efficient Scotland will also drive change in Scotland's housing stock. Poor condition is a factor in the difficulties of keeping houses warm and affordable. We know that a building that lets out heat or lets water in because it is in a poor state of repair is also likely to consume more energy to heat comfortably, and that leads to higher carbon emissions. We will consider how to take those issues forward as part of the programme. The equity loan scheme provides access to funding for some types of maintenance works in conjunction with energy-efficient improvements, which could provide a route to funding for tenement owners. We will be continuing to monitor the performance of the scheme in the coming months with a wider view to roll that out further. I can also give an undertaking today that the recommendation to link a five-yearly report on tenement condition to the home report will be looked at as part of the Government's response to the recommendations for improving home reports. Traditional stone tenements are a distinctive part of Scotland's built heritage, and we have added to that with more modern types of flats. Our system of individual property ownership is also distinctive. As Professor Robertson notes in his recent report on common repairs for the working group, citing an observation from Roman Law, Communio est matter rixarum, co-ownership is the mother of disputes. He quotes Hugo Grotius's remark from the 17th century that common ownership could bring nothing but discontent and dissension. Maybe so, but I hope that the report of the working group on tenement maintenance can be a basis for finding a way forward that allows us to improve co-operation. Between owners helps us to build a culture of proactive common maintenance and preserves our unique buildings for the benefit of future generations. Presiding Officer, I move the motion. Thank you very much. I now call James Simpson, Mr Simpson, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I start with a few thank yous. First of all, I thank the Government for giving up its own debating time to debate the issue. I thank the Minister for Europe, Ben Macpherson, who was the initial convener of the working group. I also thank the fellow MSPs who have been an integral part of the group, Andy Wightman, Daniel Johnson, John Mason, Jeremy Balfour, Maureen Watt, Stuart McMillan and, of course, Gordon Lindhurst, who I suspect was the only member who understood the minister's attempt at Latin. Now, we've had a few debates on this, but housing and the condition of housing does not get nearly enough attention in this place, in my view. It affects all of us, and if things go wrong, it can harm people's physical and mental health. We've all had cases of buildings in need of repair, damp, insecure and leaking, and statistics paint a pretty grim picture that the minister touched on some of them. We know from the most recent housing condition survey that 68 per cent of homes have some degree of disrepair. Disrepair to critical elements stood at 50 per cent, 28 per cent had some instance of urgent disrepair and 5 per cent had extensive disrepair. Those figures have not moved in a year. Nearly a fifth of our housing is pre-1919. That's 467,000 homes, and 68 per cent of those have disrepair to critical elements. That's a lot of homes needing a lot of work done to them. We need to look at this as part of the fabric of our nation, our built heritage is part of our infrastructure. That's the way I think we need to view this. There is a need to act. There were recent statistics in Edinburgh, for example. There are 20 incidents in this city of falling masonry every month, that's just in Edinburgh. Roll that out across the country and you'll see the scale of the property. We're not just looking at what you might traditionally think of as tenements, as older buildings. There are newer ones as well. Where I live in East Kilbride, a lot of the buildings built around the same kind of time falling into disrepair. They're not pre-1919. The working group was set up, and it was a genuinely, and is a genuinely, cross-party group. That's important because if we're going to tackle this extremely difficult issue, it needs to be done with the approval of every party in this chamber. Earlier this month, we published our final report with key recommendations, and I'll come on to those. Implementing the changes is not going to be easy, and there will be a cost, but we can't ignore the human cost in terms of health, physical and mental, and wellbeing of not taking action. Let me have a look at the recommendations. There are three. We believe that tenement properties should be inspected every five years, and a report prepared that will be publicly available to existing or prospective owners, tenants, neighbours and policy makers. The purpose of the report will be to show what condition the building is in, how much it will cost to bring it up to standard if it's defective, and what needs to be done by way of on-going maintenance. The group also recommended the compulsory establishment of owners' associations. Owners' associations are an essential element of tenement maintenance by providing leadership, effective decision-making processes and the abilities of groups to enter into contracts. If, for whatever reason, one cannot be established or it fails, compulsory factoring could be the full-back position. The final recommendation is the establishment of building reserve funds. There was a lot of discussion over how that would look and how it would operate, and the minister has rightly touched on some of the challenges around that, but it was decided that a central fund was preferable to an owner's association-held fund, a central fund has better protection and it's easier to prevent fraud. We know that none of those ideas are simple. It's very, very complex. It could be controversial. A lot of people won't like it, but it needs to be done. The report provides suggestions for further research and actions, as well as timelines, which could take, as the minister rightly says, 10 years or more for the implementation. There's still a lot to do, but I'm confident that we're on the right path. I know that the Scottish Government takes that seriously. I'm pleased to hear that the minister will be making a statement in the autumn. I look forward to that. We need cross-party support, and that's why the motion has not been amended by anyone. I must give my appreciation for the hard work and effort by the stakeholders in the group, our secretariat, Ewan Leitch from the Built Environment Forum Scotland and Ricks, as well as the other organisations and individuals who took part. Without them, we wouldn't be where we are today. In May last year, Parliament voted in favour of a motion that was called for a review of legislation on tenements. That hasn't happened yet, but I hope that today's debate will be a catalyst for it. I'm pleased to hear the minister say that he'll make that statement and that the Government will take part in a conference on this, because frankly, Deputy Presiding Officer, doing nothing is not an option. Thank you very much. I call Daniel Johnson to call Vandy Whiteman. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, too, begin by reeling off my list of thanks, first of all to my fellow members of the cross-party working group. It's been genuinely refreshing taking part in a group such as this that's worked in a very constructive way, and certainly without any hint of political partisanship. I can also thank the Government too for making this time. This is a serious issue, but one that could be easily dismissed as being technical or not necessarily as important as I certainly believe it is. I can also add my thanks to Ewan Leitch, who put an absolute power of work and, quite frankly, without his input, this report would not have been written. I also echo thanks to Ricks, who, again, supplied much of the wherewithal to make this happen. There's a simple reason why I think that this is an important part of work, because tenemented residences and tenemented homes are absolutely core to my constituency. Edinburgh Southern is a part of Scotland who, when you think of the area that I represent, you think of places such as Marchmont, Brunsfield and Morningside, places that are absolutely built of tenemented maintenance. The only way that we will maintain such fantastic areas such as those, but areas that you might not consider tenemented, as we've heard, ranging from post-war local authority built houses through to subdivided mansions, all of those types of buildings that rich seem of different types of homes are tenemented homes. We need to maintain them, not just because they are nice buildings, many of which are, but because they are critical to our country, as Graham Simpson points out. Housing is infrastructure, but it is our most fundamental form of infrastructure, because it is the very homes in which we live, and housing is so critical. The minister and Graham have set out some of the detail, but let me set out some of the context. Before I do that, I want to acknowledge Andy Whiteman, because I think that he is the one who established the concept of housing being infrastructure, and that is critical. While housing is infrastructure, we must also recognise the context in which the debate takes place. That is what, in many counts, we are seeing something of a housing crisis, a crisis of availability, with huge numbers of people in this city having to live in a temporary accommodation far longer than they should have to. Likewise, on affordability, too many people are finding themselves either priced out of the housing market or simply that the housing cost is taking up a disproportionate amount of their wage, but also one of sustainability. I was glad that the minister raised the points about the environmental sustainability of our housing and the need to invest in it for those reasons. Those are the reasons why housing is so important, and, yes, maintenance is critical to maintaining housing for all those social goods, because housing is what underpins so much of wellbeing in this country. I believe that there is a clear public interest in taking forward measures such as those that are set out in the report. I think that it is important that we preserve our housing stock and invest in our housing stock for future generations, because it is not just the people who live in the houses right now that benefit from investment. It is future generations that will live in it, too. That is why we need a legal recognition of the reality of tenemented housing, which is that people do not own individual bits of property that is completely distinguished from other people's property. They are, in effect, co-owners of a single building. That is a fact that is not currently recognised in the law. That needs to change. That is what that does, but, over and above those points, there is a fundamental point of public safety that we need to recognise, too, and Graham Simpson alluded to it. In this city, there are huge numbers of roof falls every single month. Between 2014 and 2018, we have seen an almost quadrupling of roof falls. There were 78 roof falls, including 53 masonry falls in Edinburgh. That rose to 179 masonry falls and a total of 254 falls from roofs in Edinburgh in 2018. That can be lethal and has been lethal in the past. That is not simply something that is nice to have, something that will make lives a little bit better, although it will. That is also something that can potentially save lives. I think that the proposals have already been outlined, but we need building checks to make sure that the buildings continue to be safe, to be habitable, because preventative spend is much more cost-effective than spend when the damage has already set in. We need owners associations so that people have the structure and the entity through which they can make collective decision-making reflect. I will close very shortly the reality of the building. No, you are good to close now. For those reasons, I welcome the proposals and look forward to the minister sitting in the autumn. Glad that you understand the word now. Call Andy Wightman will be followed by Stuart McMillan. Of course, the open debate speeches are four minutes, Mr McMillan. You will set the precedent, I know. Very much indeed, Presiding Officer. Like other members, I also want to thank the Minister for making time for this debate. Indeed, the Scottish Government for providing some critical funding that oiled the wheels of the working behind the scenes of this debate. Also, thanks to Ben Macpherson, who I see is not here, but he is presumably busy with other things. It was his debate in January 2018 that first made the proposal that we established such a cross-party working group. Like Daniel Johnson, I very much enjoyed engaging with it, grappling with some kind of quite complicated questions, but, nevertheless, it was very worthwhile. I want to also thank the wide range of members, including landlords, factors, surveyors and council officials who contributed substantial time and effort in analysing the issues, discussing them, researching them and developing papers, particularly thanks to Ewan Leitch from the built environment in Scotland, who has provided the secretariat. The fact that this was called a working group is important. It did some serious work on a vitally important area, the governance of tenemental property. Like other members, I am sure that I have a regular stream of constituents with complaints about common repairs and the difficulties of securing on-going maintenance. Personally, although I no longer own a home, I did own a tenement flat until 1996. The stress of organising repairs, which included threats of violence against me by my neighbours, led me and five other residents to selling up. I know that many other folk have faced similar situations. When we talk about people's mental health and physical health in relationship to the stresses that can arise as a result of living within an environment that is not appropriately governed, it is real. None of that is a new phenomenon. In the past, most of the tenements were owned by landlords and occupied by tenants, so the landlords were responsible. There was not such a variety of responsibility. Nevertheless, most of the properties in Glasgow and Edinburgh have been here for a century at least, in some cases more than 200 years. With proper maintenance and refurbishment, they should last many more years, but they have not had that proper maintenance. Although we have some systems in place and some improvements have been made, as the minister alluded, we still face a very challenging situation. In short, Scotland has allowed a major part of its infrastructure to fall into disrepair due to a failure to develop the kind of modern governance arrangements that are prevalent in most normal European countries. I want to thank Graham Simpson for convening the cross-party working group—I should have said that at the beginning. The working group made three recommendations on building inspections, compulsory owners' associations and building reserve funds, and it laid out a proposal timetable for delivering that. As Donald Johnson alluded, I have mentioned that before, at the heart of the issue, I think that it is the fact that we treat domestic properties in exclusively private interest, despite the fact that a third floor flat will enjoy support from the second floor and shelter from above, and that the lifespans of tenements in this city should be measured in centuries. In that light, those properties are part of the public infrastructure of our city, just like the streets and the sewers and the utilities. Within the public infrastructure, there are private interests—the owners and occupiers—for the time being, and they are essentially short-term private interests, typically around 10 years, 20 years, maybe at most, that too often prevails and has frustrated, I think, progress in this in the past and frustrates the necessity to undertake regular maintenance. I would like us to frame this debate clearly as one concerning the public infrastructure of our urban realm, rather than private property. Let's also agree that owners have responsibilities as well as rights, and those responsibilities need to be laid out well in advance and signposted. In that regard, it's important that we move from the broad agreement of the working group to high-level political agreement to implement them. The proposals that are set out in this report have cross-party support, and we can build on that and agree a programme of work to deliver. Thank you very much. I call Stuart McMillan to be followed by Gordon Lindhurst. First, I would like to thank Graham Simpson for chairing the working group and Ben Macpherson MSP beforehand. I generally think that this has been a useful exercise, and as others have commented on, I think that the title of being a working group was so important in this aspect. I might surely just get to one of the meetings, but I remember that my staff went along on my behalf to others. In 2017, 48.8 per cent were considered to be flats, and they were also incorporated in the termites. I have had many constituents come to me with housing issues, and I will touch on one in a moment. I do not think that every landlord or even the majority of landlords are bad individuals. The vast majority are good, and they do a wonderful job, but that small minority, unfortunately, give their response owners a bad reputation. The recommendations from the working group have been really important to help with the debate. One of the things that I generally believe that we need to improve on as a society is to educate people, but not in a patronising way. People living in tenements generally have to appreciate that they have that joint responsibility for all the common areas in the building, something that Daniel Johnson touched upon in his comments, and whether they are directly affected by any problems or issues. At the working group, there was much discussion regarding the sinking funds, which residents pay into, so there is already that pot of money available where another pair is needed. Although I accept—I am sure that others will as well—that the bill will make monthly bills a bit higher, it could certainly guard against that big one-off bill to ensure that maintenance takes place before issues become emergency repairs and that it costs even more money. The report by the working group made the three recommendations on the sinking fund. I am pleased that the minister, when he opened the other on, indicated that the Scottish Government is going to consider the report and come back with a full and detailed statement later in the year. For me, the first of the recommendations is that building inspections are really important. I think that there are certainly some challenges there, because one of the questions for me is that having them happen every five years is right, but at the same time, do we have enough people trained in that area of expertise to go and deliver the check every five years? It is certainly something that we need to fully consider. The second recommendation being the introduction of the Onus Associations for Tenements. To me, generally, it is a very sensible recommendation. I believe that it could help to foster better relationships between neighbours, something that Andy Wightman touched upon a few months ago. Sometimes constituents have strained relationships with neighbours or those who are dealing with a neighbour who simply will not engage in repair talks. Often, onus associations imagine that we would actually force absentee landlords to engage as well. I mentioned a few moments ago at a garden issue of the sinking funds. I know certainly from my constituent who contacted me recently. They are now thinking about just leaving because of the trouble that they have got with their neighbours in their particular bloc. The sinking fund, although that would certainly help, but I think that the Onus Association would probably help in that situation. Generally, I am conscious of the time, so I welcome the report. I am pleased to play a small part of the report going forward. I am sure that the fact that there is cross-party support on that particular issue indicates how important all the parties in the Parliament should take that particular issue. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As a member of the cross-party working group, I am pleased with the opportunity to speak in today's debate. Now, may I begin, as others have, by thanking my colleagues for their excellent work on this vital report? I will not name them all, others have done so, but may I also thank the minister for citing Grotius, who is a much-neglected source of legal wisdom these days. I do not know what Grotius had to say about subdivided mentions that Daniel Johnson has mentioned, but I am sure that Daniel Johnson can research that for himself at some point. As someone representing Edinburgh and the wider Lothians region, I am acutely aware of how many tenement buildings there are in this area. They play a vital part in our history, not just their housing needs. In fact, I was trying to think whether one needed to make a declaration of interest as a dweller than myself in one of those buildings. I think that people can simply look at the register of interests for anyone who has spoken in this debate since we all have to live somewhere. Without a shadow of a doubt, many of those have fallen into a state of disrepair, and that is why it is absolutely vital that the recommendations in this report are heeded. Under modern conditions, there is, in my view, no effective mechanism in Scotland to ensure the maintenance of tenements that is carried out, far less to the appropriate standard. As a result, it is left up to individuals often to sort the worksite themselves, and indeed usually one proprietor carries the burden of organising them. That is whether one is living in an Edinburgh tenement of six or 16 in a block, it can be extremely hard to get everyone together to agree to works that may be desperately needed. A wide variety of people may live in these flats for different reasons, and many are not themselves owners. Factoring has been referred to by my colleague Graham Simpson, and that can be an option, but there is no legal obligation at present unless that is set out in the title deeds. Even then, it may prove difficult to enforce such conditions. With almost 70 per cent of pre-1919 dwellings facing a state of critical disrepair, we are at a crucial point in the life of such tenements. The necessity of reintroducing a binding system is clear to all. Compulsory owners' associations being set up to help with those essential upkeats and maintenance of tenements is the solution that has been suggested. Such associations would be able to enter into legal contracts, giving them far greater effectiveness. Being able to sing from the same hym sheet like a choir, rather than an individual having to take legal responsibility for the whole of what can be very costly and substantial works. Preventing apathetic owners from holding up repairs that may be urgently required is also crucial. As has been pointed out, it may not be easy, it may not happen overnight, but today's debate heralds an important step forward for thousands of people in Edinburgh and across Scotland as a whole. That is why the working group has called on the Scottish Government to take forward plans to enshrine any of the recommendations into law by 2025. It would be helpful if the Government can clarify the timetable that it would like to work to on this issue. I appreciate that the minister has made some commitments already in his opening statement. To conclude, it is a crying shame what has happened to many of our vibrant and iconic tenements and dwellings, but it has been a real privilege to be able to be part of this cross-party working group, and I hope that we will be able to continue to change matters for the better by agreement when it comes to housing repairs. Thank you very much. I call Pauline McNeill to be called by John Mason. Thank you very much. There is no Latin in my speech. If you hear any, it is by mistake. First, I want to say thanks to the working group for their hard work, Daniel Johnson, Bermac Ferris and Graham Simpson and Andy Wightman, because it is quite unusual in this Parliament that they were a process outside the committees. I think that it should be adopted, so I have to say well done to everyone for doing that. The 2006 Tenement Act was a good act, but it clearly needs to be looked at and reformed. Like other members, I have experienced living in tenement buildings in the west end of Glasgow from 1990 to 2002, and although I loved the large spacious rooms and the cornices, I did not like so much the issues of dry rot, roof repairs and leaks, but those are the things that, if you live in a tenement building, you have to contend with. It is excellent if you have good neighbours and everyone is on board, but I have often found that that is not always the case. There is always either someone who has a difficulty getting involved and can hold up the whole progress of any works. We cannot ignore it as a policy issue. 24 per cent of Scotland's housing stock is a tenement. 29 per cent of that was built before 1919, so that is 7 per cent of all stock. 36 per cent of buildings that are in critical or urgent need of disrepair in the tenement centre compared to 24 per cent. We can see that it is disproportionate like high. As the minister says, we cannot ignore it also because tackling global climate change and our targets in fuel poverty mean that we cannot ignore the issues in tenement properties and flattered dwellings. To achieve that, we need to make it simpler and more affordable to owners who have to improve their properties in the short and long term if we have to meet those targets. It was Gordon Lindhurst and Stuart McMillan that said that many owners do not always appreciate the full extent of their repairs within their own property. Often that could have been built over a very long period of time, and many owners have found themselves in that situation. Perhaps since the introduction of the home report, that might have changed because there is more information available. However, we must make sure that, in going forward, we do not land the current owner with all the bills that have been built over a longer period of time, leading to the building being in disrepair. The common repair management is not easy, where there is not a factor getting together with your neighbours is an essential way in which you try to tackle that. Graham Simpson is quite right to say that dealing with repairs and how to pay for them can affect your mental health going forward, because you are trying to deal with your neighbours. You might have little experience of that, but it is affecting your health, trying to deal with a laking roof and get your neighbours to agree to pay up. I want to mention the issue of windows, because in the west end of Glasgow, we have the problem of the issue of tenement property in conservation areas, where we still have not found a solution yet for people who need to replace their windows, but do not spend an absolute fortune replacing them in areas of conservation. I know that many owners would really like a scheme to be able to do that. Absentee owners are a serious barrier to progress, so we must have obligations played by the absentee owners to ensure that others can manage and keep up the maintenance. The five-year MOT on building seems a good idea. Of course, it all depends on what that means for the owners, mainly in relation to costs, so I suppose that we need to examine the detail of that. Compulsory residents associations seem to be the only way in which we can make the management of tenement buildings easier and more comprehensive. Owners of each individual property cannot avoid the fact that the shared parts of common areas in the same building seem that compulsory residents associations would have to be a baseline for that. I just wanted to ask— No, you can't, I'm afraid. I won't leave time for the mesh statement, I don't want to eat into that at all. I call John Mason, followed by Annie Wells. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to take part in this debate today and mark the launch of this report. As I think others have said already today, this is a difficult subject and it's not going to be easy to sort, but it's something that we really do need to address. Many of us and our constituents are living in flats, tenements, four in a block, which are not being properly maintained and have possibly not been properly maintained for many years. In my own case, our estate of some 270 flats were built some 60 years ago as part of Greater Easterhouse and then had a major refurbishment around 1989, with whole floors removed and entirely new roofs put on. However, that was some 30 years ago—I myself have lived there 29 years—and in most cases, the roofs have not been inspected during that time. Routine maintenance has not been carried out, even gutter cleaning, and you can just see the whole estate gradually deteriorating. We do have factors in place and I have no complaint against them, but their hands are tied if the owners do not pay for maintenance. And of course, I have constituents in much worse conditions in much older properties. And of course, there is a safety angle to all of this, with the possibility of stone or slates falling off roofs, as Daniel Johnson graphically described, not to mention electrical dangers and the possibility of fires, as electrical safety first were reminding us in their briefing. On the other hand, there are tournament properties in very good condition, including modern, post-war and older standstone stock. That is often because they are owned by housing associations who take part of their rent each month and set it aside for planned and cyclical maintenance. When painting or gutter cleaning or even a new roof is required, there is a fund sitting there ready and available. My question is, can we learn from what is happening in housing associations and come up with a system that will work for all flat owners? It seems to me that this is what this report is suggesting with its three proposals—building inspections, owners' associations and reserve funds. That is not only good for the good of the individual owners or their families, but it is a national problem and we need a national solution. Much of our housing stock has been there for 100 years, as Andy Wightman was saying, and there really should be no reason that it cannot still be there in another 100 years. It is a national asset and gives our towns and cities their distinctiveness. As I said at the beginning, this is not an easy subject, but the problem impacts both on individuals and on the whole country. Taking those measures may well not be popular, especially if owners have to put aside money each month for maintenance, and the reality is that it will cut into spending on other things, be that holidays, new furniture or whatever. There absolutely is a valid question about what happens to people who have no available cash to start saving. That is a real challenge. However, I believe that there are a fair number of people—some have said 80 per cent—who could afford to maintain their buildings but are just needing a better and simpler system in order to do so. If we can bring in that better system for those people, then we can look at what extra help the minority would need. That certainly applies in a constituency like mine, which has a lot of high-quality properties but has many properties that are worth less than £100,000 and some that are worth not anything at all. Grants will continue to have to play a part, but I also think that we will have to look at imaginative solutions such as interest-free loans that are only repayable when a property is sold. However, for today, we are focusing on a better system. Other countries have in place the kind of suggestions that we are making, such as building inspections, owners' associations and reserve funds. I thank those very much who have done the real work for this report, and I am very pleased to associate myself with it and to support its recommendations. Thank you very much. I call Annie Wells to be followed by Maureen Watt, Ms Wells. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As an MSP for Glasgow, it will come as no surprise that I am speaking in today's debate on tenement maintenance. Glasgow is famed for its tenements as part of the city's fabric since the 19th century. To live in one is to be immersed in Glasgow's rich history. Rather amazingly, around 73 per cent of Glasgow regions live in a flat of some description, compared with under 25 per cent for comparable cities in England and Wales. The importance of this debate therefore cannot be underestimated, and for that reason, I want to put on record my thanks to the working group, itself, for all the hard work that it has put into highlighting this issue. We have known for some time the problems that are facing Glasgow's tenements. Last year, a report revealed that thousands of Glasgow's closies are in critical disrepair. It was estimated that around 46,000 tenement flats, built before 1919, were now dangerous and required majoral, structural, weather tightening and restoration work. The cost of the work came to just under £3 billion. That is a substantial figure, and, concerningly, that is just Glasgow. Across Scotland, there are nearly 600,000 tenement properties equating to 24 per cent of Scotland's total housing stock, and alarmingly, 68 per cent of old dwellings have some degree of disrepair, however minor it might be. In Glasgow, the main areas of concern are Govan Hill, Ibrox, Cessnock, East Pollock Shields, Strathbungal, Haghill and Denison. I understand that the council is in the process of carrying out condition surveys of around 500 pre-1919 tenement properties across the city before it publishes another report in November. Although that will, hopefully, kickstart at the beginnings of a longer-term plan for the city, the working group in tenement maintenance set up last year has already set out a number of recommendations. As I have heard those recommendations, the Scottish Government can action and I hope they do, and I wish to welcome the minister's commitment to come back to the chamber later in the year. Currently, individuals are being left to themselves to sort the work out, and that is where we are seeing on a mass scale its tenements left to the t-rate beyond repair. As we have also heard, it is called for regular building inspections every five years and a publicly available report. That would allow existing and prospective owners and tenants to know what condition the building is in and what future expenditures might be expected. It is also called for the establishment of compulsory owners associations to provide leadership, effective decision making processes and the ability of groups to enter into contracts with building professionals. Finally, as we have heard, it is called for the establishment of building reserve funds, held centrally with guidelines set as to how much buildings need to contribute depending on the age of the building and the building type. The Scottish Conservatives support all those recommendations and support the working group's call for legislation to put forward to Parliament by 2025. That will enshrine the responsibilities of tenement maintenance until all. The Scottish Government needs to take decisive action to protect our built environment and to take forward the recommendations of the working group. I was told three years ago during my first tour of the Scottish Parliament that the MSPs had their offices in a building that represented, through its architecture, a tenement building. It is therefore with the hint of irony that we have buried our heads in the sand for so long when it comes to addressing the scale of the problem. If we are serious about bringing tenement buildings across Scotland back into liveable conditions, then we have to take forward the recommendations of the working group. To not give this issue urgent attention, we will be letting down thousands of people who this problem affects. I, too, am pleased to be taking part in this debate, having attended all the meetings of the working group on tenement maintenance since September last year, when I was eligible to join, although I understand that the meetings started in March. I have been very impressed by the professional and talented experience on the group, the way that those folk in subgroups have taken forward different strands of work very quickly, effectively and efficiently. I, too, would like to thank you in leech of Built Environment Forum Scotland for providing the secretariat and the academics, including Douglas Robertson, for their input and to Graham Simpson in the way that he has chivied along the work. I joined the group because I love the wonderful granite tenements in my and the minister's constituencies, which look absolutely majestic in the sun but deeply grey in the rain, but inside and out are in need of a great deal of TLC. It is not only those but more recent council housing that require attention and where properties have been sold on. Those form a large part of the 900,000 households across Scotland that fall under the Tenement Scotland Act 2004. As I said, the occupation of those homes falls under various ownership, council ownership, owner occupiers, long-term tenants and sometimes very absent landlords. It is very difficult, as we know, to get agreement on doing repairs. I also think that many people who purchase a house do not remember that, as well as paying mortgage or rent mortgage particularly, they will be required to maintain their property. I think that sometimes lawyers are selling agents at a miss in really telling people what is involved in buying particular properties. Unlike other MSPs, I have had a fair number of cases of constituents, whether they have been home owners or tenants in private property or in council-owned properties, whose homes are requiring major repair. Indeed, despite the missing share of availability, some councils have not been as good as others in using it. I hope that many councils will learn from Edinburgh on how that should be done. Private owners, too, I think, in many cases, have legitimate serious concerns about the costs that are put forward by the council in particular, which are sometimes much more than the estimates that owners themselves have for that work. That is why owners' associations are really important. I hope that, when we get down to the detail of those, they include all those residents in the building. If they wish to be involved tenants, too, because I think that if they keep up their properties and feel a bit of responsibility in maintaining the block in good order, it will avoid the building falling into disrepair. Owners' associations should become a given in new blocks and that they should have syncing funds so that we begin to see the benefits that can be drawn from having an association and the syncing funds and that people in other areas will see that where owners voluntarily come together—I think that that might happen in other areas such as the areas that Daniel Johnson has mentioned or in the new town—where people come together in voluntary organisations, it is infinitely preferable to compulsory associations or compulsory factoring, which, as we know, can be especially fraught. I have several instances of where it is fraught especially. There you must end to being fraught. I think that there has been a great number of contributions. What I think is notable is how much agreement there is in the chamber. I do not propose to rehearse any of the arguments, but let me emphasise what I think the key points are for the minister bearing in mind his statement in the autumn. There are three simple propositions behind what we are talking about, that we should check our buildings, that we should provide owners in common with a mechanism for making agreements and coming to co-decisions and that people who co-own buildings should save together. Those are three simple ideas but vitally important ones for maintaining our housing stock in this country. The key issue that we have, I believe, is getting it going. I believe that, once we establish those mechanisms, we set the expectation that this is what we expect when we own tenemented property, that it will reinforce itself, that simply the culture will change, the expectation will change and that is something that will simply happen. Coming to the first point, building checks. I think that we now have a system in place with home reports where people expect to see a home report when they buy a house. I think that the same thing will come true of the tenement building check, the so-called building MOT that simply people will not be prepared to buy a tenemented property if that is not in place. If we can establish that, I think that it will take hold. Likewise, owners associations. I think that that is possibly the most difficult bit, but again that expectation that that is put in place. I think that this is one area where the Government will need to give some thought about making it easy for owners associations to be set up whether that is off-the-shelf articles of incorporation, publicity schemes to promote their use. Ultimately, when building works are needing done, if those mechanisms are there and on the shelf, building owners, co-owners will reach for them because it will make those decisions easy. Likewise, sinking funds. I think that we will need to make them mandatory, and that will be difficult. Again, the missing share scheme points to how that can be made to work. If that is not in place and that those funds are claimed back at the point of sale, that will be popular, but it will make it work. I think that there are other examples elsewhere in the world where this has been made to work, where those systems and mechanisms have not been in place, but they have put them in place, such as Ireland, where multi-user developments were introduced in 2011, and sinking funds were established on a simple 200 euro per annum fee just to get them going. Those are the sorts of things that we will need to look at in Scotland, because I think that we can. Indeed, we must, because we have been here before. The Labour-Lib Dem Administration consulted on those same proposals back in 2003, but decided that it was too difficult. I do not think that we can come to that conclusion this time. Yes, it is difficult, so I urge the Government to have courage, but I think that we need to in order to preserve our housing stock. I would urge the other parties to join the consensus, because if we make this something of common and collective interest, something that we recognise is difficult so that we must stand shoulder to shoulder, then we will make it happen, and our housing stock will be the better for it. Thank you very much, and I call Jeremy Balfour, who is close with Conservatives. Can I again thank the Government and the Minister for making time for this debate and for all the contributions that have come from across the chamber? The Scottish Parliament working group on time at rights, which I have been proud to serve on as a member, was formed in March 2018, and it was set out to find common themes on how to improve legislation in this area. Quite remarkably, we did find common themes that had cross-party support, and perhaps even more important than that had support from the experts in the field. The strength of the reportage that the speakers have mentioned earlier is that we have not only got cross-party support from, well, four of the five parties, but we are not quite sure where the Lib Dems are, but hopefully they will appear at some point. More important than that, we have the buy-in of the professionals and local authorities as well. I also wanted to thank Ben MacPherson for bringing me a debate a couple of years ago. The reason why I took part in that debate when it first came up was for my rather troubled experience as a local councillor here in Edinburgh. I was pleased that, more than what I said, how good Edinburgh was as a model. If it had come here a few years ago, it might have not been quite that experience. We went through a difficult time as a local authority and how we should deal with tenements. The council has learned from that, and it has shown that we can move forward together, and we need to work on that. Everyone has mentioned the three recommendations, and I will not go through them again to save time, Deputy Presiding Officer. John Mason was right in his comments when he said that the difficulty will not be agreeing with the principles, but it is how we will implement it in practice. Daniel Johnson and others also picked up on that point. That will be the challenge for the minister and for the Government when it comes back with the autumn statement. We can agree broad terminology and broad principles, but when it comes down to how we do it and the amount of money that will be involved, I suspect that that is when we will have to work very closely together. Beyond that, how do we sell it to our constituents where they will have to pay extra, as has been pointed out by other speakers? It is important to make the point that Graham Simpson started with. That is not just an issue for Aberdeen, Edinburgh or Glasgow. It is an issue for lots of cities and towns throughout Scotland because tenements exist not just for those from 100 years ago but for those from post-war and even more recent. I think that we have to look at what we are going to do with tenements and flats that are built today. I know that many people now have factors and I think that that is a way forward. It is a question of whether we need to look further at how we encourage or perhaps force owners to have some kind of factor within their bloc. In conclusion, I thank all those who did the hard work, particularly to Ben Macpherson and Graham Simpson, who have chaired the meeting. We have set ourselves a target of 2025. That is the date that we want to see things implemented. That might seem a long way away for some of us, but the hard work now starts. I know on this side, and I am sure that across the whole of the chamber, we look forward to not only hearing the minister summing up now, but perhaps more importantly, what he will say come the autumn. I am very grateful to all the members who have taken part in today's debate. I think that the common ground on the points that the issue is reflected in the joint motion and in the consensus that there has been this afternoon between members of the Parliament and all the main points. There have been many points raised. First of all, one of the things that we must do as we move forward is to make sure that we get the definition of a tenement bloc absolutely right. As Mr Balfour said at the very end, it is not just those blocs that were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. We are talking about buildings that are still being constructed today. Tenements are a building that comprises two or more flats that are designed to be in separate ownership and are divided from each other horizontally according to the Tenement Scotland Act 2004. That may include some divided mansions, although not many of them exist in my constituency, as Mr Johnson said. I know from my own casework the problems that can be caused with common ownership and trying to get repairs. It is very frustrating for owners who accept their responsibilities and are keen to get things done to find that some of the others in their bloc are not so willing to do so. A number of members, including Pauline McNeill and Andy Wightman, said that those things often lead to real problems in terms of mental health. It is not just the cost of doing the work that is necessary, it is the human cost of not doing the work. I have come across this time and time again in Aberdeen where people have been worn down by the fact that they cannot get traction. We all agree that we want to preserve our Tenements for the future. We all agree on the scale of the task that is involved. There will, of course, always be disagreements on the detail and the timing on how we progress. Mr Lindhurst asked me about timing. I am not going to give an answer to that. I will give that substantive response in the autumn, as I have said. I think that it would be wrong for any of us to lay out a timetable about how we move forward. It would be wrong for any of us to say exactly how we are going to move forward, because it may well be that we have to do some of that incrementally. We need to look at what is required in terms of any changes in secondary legislation and regulation, and what will require primary legislation in all of that. It is always very difficult to give timescales when it comes to that kind of thing. However, I will reiterate what I said, and I will provide a substantive response in the autumn. It seems that some folk now think that that is a statement and that that is not something that I have agreed with the Minister for Parliament, so I might have to go back and have the conversation with him. I will round about that, but the substantive response will come in the autumn. I want to touch on a couple of things in my final couple of minutes. That is a round about the existing powers, because there are existing powers to help folks out there. I was frustrated myself about Aberdeen City Council and its lack of use of missing share powers. That has changed. It is now using missing share powers. That is of great relief to me. It is of great relief to my constituents. As I have said before, I would like to know from members where they are finding difficulties in their own patches. I wonder whether I can be helpful in terms of cajoling some of the councils to move forward. I have also spoken previously about some of the schemes that we have in place in helping folk, including the equity share scheme that we are piloting in a number of local authorities. I am keen to look at rolling that out across the country, which I think can make a real difference in helping folk to access the finance that they may need to make the repairs in their properties. Mr Wightman said that we are grappling with complex questions here, and I think that that is very fair to say. That is an extremely complex issue, and as Mr Johnson pointed out, it is an issue that Parliament has looked at previously and kind of copped out of. I would say that none of us can afford to do what happened in the early 2000s. Some of that may take a bit of time. It may take 10, 15 or 20 years to get all of that right, but I think that the work that has gone on in the working group and the responses that we have seen shows that we cannot ignore that. We will have to explain exactly how we are going to move forward in that front, and there may be disagreement, as I said, around some of the particulars of that. However, ignore that, and I hope that we can continue with the consensus that we have had today as we move forward. That concludes the debate on the working group and tenement maintenance. It is time to move on to next item of business. I will have a few seconds at the front benches to take the places for the statement.