 Welcome to the fourth meeting in 2023 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. May I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent, and all other notifications are turned off during the meeting? We've received apologies today from Marie McNair, and Ruth Maguire is attending as a substitute. I welcome Ruth to the meeting, and before we turn to our formal agenda, I invite her to declare any relevant interests. yn y cyfnodau. The first item on our agenda today is to decide whether to take items three and four in private. Our members agreed. We are agreed. We are now turned to agenda item two, which is to take evidence from two panels from witnesses on the Civic Government Scotland Act 1982, Licensing of Short Term Let's Amendment Order 2023. On our first panel today, we're joined in the room by Professor Cliff Hague, Charter Town Planner and Chair of the Coburn Association. Rob Dixon, who's the Director of Industry and Destination Development at Visit Scotland, and Elsa Rayburn, who's the Chair of Community Land Scotland, and online we're joined by Gillian McNaught, who's a legal manager at the Licensing and Democratic Services of Glasgow City Council, and Gary Somers, who's a solicitor of licensing at Highland Council. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and we will try to direct our questions to specific witnesses where possible, but if you would like to come in, please indicate this to the clerks, or for those of you appearing virtually, please do this by typing an R in the chat function. I'd like to begin, I just want to kind of frame the context of this meeting with a couple of bits from our briefing papers. So the policy note that accompanied the licensing order explained that it was to establish a scheme to ensure short term short term lets are safe and address issues faced by neighbours and to facilitate local authorities in knowing and understanding what is happening in their area as well as to assist with handling complaints effectively. On 7 December 2022, we received communication from Shona Robison, cabinet secretary for social justice housing and local government, and she said in that letter, I'm writing to advise you that we intend to lay an affirmative Scottish statutory instrument in January 2023 that will seek to amend the Civic Government Scotland Act 1982, licensing of short term lets order 2022. This is in order to amend the date by which existing hosts must apply for a short term let licence from 31 March 2023 to the 30 September 2023. This is a one off six month extension recognising the wider economic circumstances of the cost of living crisis that is placing pressure on existing short term lets hosts and businesses at a time when they are organising and budgeting for work to comply with the new licensing requirements. So I thought I would just do that to remind us as to really the purpose of today. We might start to explore other areas but I just wanted to give us that framing. So I'm going to start the questions and I think this one having said we're going to direct the questions. This is possibly one for everyone to respond to. So I'd be interested here if your organisation supports or opposes the proposed six month extension to the date by which existing hosts must have submitted an application for a short term let licence. I'd be interested here a bit more detail of why you think this and also if you could set out what you think the implications of the delay might be from your perspective and maybe I'll just start with Rob. Good morning. Thank you very much. I think the position for Visit Scotland is complex. Obviously as a government agency we are charged with doing a range of things and in the current position our main focus is to bring together through an industry advisory group those organisations which have I think the most significant role in helping to understand the situation we find ourselves in and in trying to make sure that the industry in all its various guise is sole practitioners through to quite large commercial operators are best able to manage the implications of the new legislation and that the impacts of this are managed in such a way that they have minimal impact on the consumer as well. So in respect of the benefits of the delay I think what it does and what maybe come on to some of this detail is allow further time to assist and work with local authorities to improve the understanding of what is required here to ease some of the pressures that are on the sector in terms of how they can comply with the legislation and in particularly try and address some of the anomalies that we've seen occur in relation to the introduction of the legislation. So that time, that additional time is potentially a benefit in that space. I think equally for local authorities it means that the delay pushes the likely timeframe in which the majority of applications are going to come through back. There is an inevitability with a deadline such as the one with this legislation that the applications will come in a wave towards the deadline whenever it's set. But there's a particular complication I think for this sector in terms of the delay in the date because of course actually the date lands at the end of the very busy summer period. So as opposed to a 31st of March or April cut-off when you're asking businesses to complete the work during a winter and somewhat quieter period, you're actually asking now to take place over the busiest summer peak period. There are pros and cons about the delay but I think we can probably address some of the concerns during the period of the delay and hope that we can deal with some of the complexity and some of the implications that have undoubtedly been felt by local authorities and by the industry. I can expand on some of those points later but that would be my opening conversation. Thank you very much for that. I think that that's a really good point you raise about the seasonality and the kind of end of summer busy season. I wonder if there's any in your mind and along with the work that you're doing with the industry advisory group and we're going to go in some more detail with that but just touching on that. Is there a way that we can start to encourage people to be applying ahead of that time to minimise that delay? Yes and through the work of various sector organisations and through Visit Scotland and the Government as well there's been marketing done and communication work done to try and encourage applicants to apply early to get on and do the work and I think there's been an effort to do that my understanding is that the Government will continue to ask businesses to do that but we all know in whatever period or frame we're looking at that a deadline is a deadline and the applications will come at the end of the process. I think we probably can't avoid that. Yeah I would agree with you. I know all about that kind of thing. I'm going to go to Gillian. Have you got anything to add and what's your perspective from Glasgow City Council? Yes, thank you very much for inviting me to attend this morning. From Glasgow City Council's perspective, the proposed delay would allow the existing host more time to apply for their application. My learned friend Mr Dixon did say there's always a concern that perhaps applicants will wait till the end of a deadline to apply. That was a concern in relation to the end of March date that was set. That would be still existing that concern for the 30th of September deadline if it was approved. I don't think there's any way around that. We can all Glasgow City Council can try as we have been doing to encourage applicants to apply early but there's obviously a realistic concern of them ensuring that they are in a position to apply with trades and their application being up to the standard required. In relation to the administrative burden perhaps on licensing authorities, given that there's no proposed reduction in the processing times, there's no concern from Glasgow City Council in relation to that part of the proposal. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. We're opposed to any delay for a number of reasons. I think the concern around cost of living is misplaced because those most affected by the cost of living crisis are not individuals who own several short-term lets. It's the people that can't get houses who are most affected by the cost of living crisis and that's obviously hugely impacted by the number of properties that are being turned over to short-term lets in our urban and rural areas. We must remember that people who own houses and want to let them out can still do so. They can still generate really significant income from private rented tenancies so it's not as if they're being left with no income at all. I think the delay will worsen the cost of living crisis for those most at risk. The impending legislation was already noticeably being felt in terms of properties that were coming back on the market for rent and we see that that has stopped overnight once the proposals for a delay were announced, which is impacting hugely on the credibility of the scheme and whether it's ever going to be brought into place so I think that really needs to be borne in mind. We know that poor tourist accommodation will be unsafe and unlawful for longer. One of the main purposes of the legislation was to improve the safety standards and all we're doing is allowing another busy season to operate with accommodation that is not meeting those standards and as I see it there's no interim measures to ensure that properties are brought up to standard in the short term. We were ensured by the industry in the first place that all operators were already operating to safe standards and that legislation and licensing wasn't required and yet we're now being told that actually they can't bring those properties up to standard. So there's some issue there that were properties at standard and didn't need licensing or are they not at standard and actually we need a longer period for licensing because they can't get the contractors so there's an issue there. I think local authorities do understand what is required and they've each produced their own schemes which have local nuance. We agree that local authorities should be able to include local conditions because they know their local areas. I think their delay also gives more time to dangerous and unlawful operators. There are a significant number of operators who we know are operating in properties that won't get planning consent, particularly in Edinburgh, but they'll continue to operate without licensing and without planning. The other thing is that it also penalises a delay further penalises those people who have already applied. There are lots of people who did take licence of the legislation coming forward and did try to get ahead of the game, did bring their properties up to standard and now they're going to be penalised if there's a further delay. The final thing for us is the whole issue of the 10-year planning rule that properties, if they've been operating for 10 years in this particular use, no longer require to apply for planning commission and I'm sure Professor Hague will know more about this. The longer the licensing scheme is delayed, the longer it is before local authorities can start to implement short-term control area orders and those properties that are 8, 9, 10 years in operation will be able to claim lawful existing use rather than being required to apply for planning consent. I think it's a huge risk that the more we delay the implementation of the scheme because local authorities have quite rightly said that they need to wait for the implementation of the licensing scheme to understand numbers, to understand them where issues of concentration apply and therefore those are the areas where they might look at short-term let control area orders. The longer you delay implementing the licensing, the longer it will be before those control area orders can be brought into play. I think that there's a huge number of concerns if we delay it further. Thank you very much for that. I'll bring in, I'll go to Gary, who's online from Highland Council. What's your perspective from Highland Council? Good morning. Thanks for asking me along to speak this morning. I can echo some of the sentiments that have been shared by my learned colleague, Ms McNaught. Highland Council, I understand from our discussions with other local authorities that we've got the highest number of applications that have been received for a short-term let licence, and we're currently setting 809 applications. I would say that, in terms of the benefits of it, we had a number of the proposed delay. I'd say that we had a number of rural and remote communities, particularly in the small aisles community council, which is from Muck and Canna, who had said that, based on the existing timelines, they had struggled to be able to get tradesmen and professionals to visit those islands, particularly over the winter months. They had said that there had been some difficulty in complying with certain mandatory conditions, so I understand that those communities in particular would have welcomed the proposed delay. In terms of the impact that the delays had on the Highland Council itself, we haven't employed various new members of staff in both our legal and environmental health teams in order to meet the legislative requirements of the short-term legislation and to cope with the anticipated volume of applications for our area, which, based on existing data, we estimate that there could be up to 10,000 existing short-term let properties in the Highland Council area. Our budgets for setting up and implementing the STL regime and the associated process and the cost for employing members of staff were calculated and justified in the basis of the income that we anticipated that we would receive based on the level of applications with the existing deadline. Effectively, based on the projected application numbers, in order to meet the process and teams, we required 14 new members of staff for our legal team and 6.3 new members of staff from our environmental health team across a number of posts. Since we are now being advised that the majority of existing hosts are going to wait until much closer until the new deadline to submit their applications, we have concern on the impact that that could have on our budgets and the income that we will receive in the position for those members of staff, in particular some of the new members of staff where their appointments were only justified if they were based on a fixed-term basis and those fixed terms are due to expire in October 2023 when we would have anticipated that the bulk of STL-liceness applications would have been received and processed. Due to the delay in the income that we will receive from application fees, existing hosts and the current funding position generally with local authorities, there are no guarantees that those posts can be extended. In the event that we cannot extend the contracts, we risk being unable to have the necessary staff in place to process applications at the now likely peak time, which in turn risk delays and a significant impact on the systems and processes that we have already put in place. It also creates the risk of deemed the grants of a licence for a period of 12 months if applications are not processed within statutory timescales, which of course carries a reputational risk for the council and the wider scheme. My final point for the moment is that we would comment that immediately after the proposed delay was announced, we received quite a number of inquiries and a number of misinformation that appears about there, which said that there were potentially going to be further deadlines or other amendments to the STL-licensing legislation. We would comment that that would lead to a risk of a possible loss or a partial loss of confidence in the licence regime more generally. I think that any further amendments also risk a further misinformation more generally, and as I said together with a loss of confidence in that, perhaps a risk of a lack of compliance with the short-term licence regime. Thanks very much for that, Gary. I'm just interested. You talked about there being, I think, 809 applications currently out of an expected up to 10,000. I think that's what I heard. Of those 809, are you going to continue processing those applications that are already in or are you putting a halt on that? No, absolutely. We are processing all the applications that are coming in. We are continuing. We've got the systems and processes in place. We've got the staff where issuing licences. So, yes, absolutely, still processing those and encouraging as many applicants as possible to submit their applications well in advance of the deadline. We're raising awareness by attending tourism conferences, by hosting seminars with local chambers of commerce, with other chambers of commerce throughout the Highlands, with booking platforms that are preserved, BNB, GroBiz and attending in person some other Highlands tourism board conferences. So, we are very much getting the message out there to applicants and prospective applicants. Please submit your application as soon as possible. It's just that what we have received is some feedback from applicants that have said, you know, we appreciate that, but if there's no real benefit to us submitting our application, some applicants have said to us that there's no incentive for them to submit their application before the new deadline, because they've pointed out that if they submit their application now and the STL licence is issued, the new date for the licence will fall sooner than if they just leave it closer to the deadline date. And I think that that kind of marries up with, that marries up to the availability of tradesmen and professionals. And a lot of existing applicants, a lot of people who have already made their applications, had expressed some concern because they had went to great lengths and great expense in getting tradesmen and getting professionals to attend their properties in order to make their application based on the existing timelines. And some had expressed, especially in remote areas, some had expressed that this was a quite considerable expense, so there had been some concern and grievance from those who had already submitted their application. And they've also said that they think it's unfair that their renewal, they view it sometimes, is that their renewal will be due sooner than if they had waited until the new proposed deadline, and that they've said that their counterparts who have not submitted their licence will effectively get another season without having to have submitted their licence. That's—and again, just echoing some of the earlier sentiments about the seasonal nature of it, I think that's where that really comes in, that the way that they're saying it is there. If you don't submit your licence, if you don't submit your application just now, you could get another season for then your renewal would be due later than if you submitted it just now. Great. Okay, thanks very much. Thanks for that going into a bit more detail there. Cliff Hague. Yeah, thank you for the invitation to address the committee this morning. I'm chair of the Coban Association, which is the Civic Trust in Edinburgh, sorry, established in 1875, and we exist to protect and enhance the beauty of Edinburgh and for everybody who loves Edinburgh. So we've got an Edinburgh focus, and we are opposed to the proposed delay, and that reflects a number of things. Basically, the question of why we need to regulate the industry has been settled. It's an industry that is self-proclaimed a disruptor and has substantially disrupted communities within Edinburgh and the networks that they operate within. The Parliament has already agreed that regulation is necessary for reasonable grounds. There's also saying about safety, fire safety, gas safety, that properties should be window watertight, that we should know how many there should be a maximum number of people who can be staying in property and so on. All entirely reasonable propositions for any regulatory body. So the question really is why, if we know that we need to regulate this, we've agreed that. If it's right to do it next year, why is it right to do it now? Why delay? The implications of the delay, I think, should be seen to pick at gaps that haven't been covered already. We've already had a long process of consultation on this general issue. March 2018, virtually five years ago, the Coburn ran a half-day conference on the issue of short-term lets, which we invited a broad spectrum of people, including people from the industry as speakers. At that stage, it was very clear that there was a serious issue to be addressed. That was 2018. There was then a consultation that followed in 2019. The Scottish Government reported in October 2019 that it came forward with proposals in January 2020. There was then a further consultation in December 2020 on those proposals, and that led to, finally, legislation in January 2022 that came into effect essentially in April of that year. So we've had a long period of consultation, which many community groups have engaged in in good faith. What it now appears to them is that their arguments have been set aside in relation to more powerful lobbying by commercial interests. That itself creates a distrust of the consultation process. That should be recognised that if we go down this step, anybody outside those lobbying is going to see this as some kind of caving in. That is really negative in terms of the confidence in the Parliament and accountability. Also, I think the implications of a delay are that it just further delays action on moving some of these properties that were taken out of availability for local people and workers, taking these out of the short-term let market and putting them back into long-term residential occupation. That reflects the scale of properties that we lost in Edinburgh. It's literally in the thousands in a city where there's already pressure on housing. The other concern is that this is being called a one-off, but the cost of living crisis isn't going to be something that's resolved by October, I'm afraid. Similarly, I can only see the same kind of arguments then being used again for a further delay or to try to unpick the basic legislation. Finally, I'm conscious that I think festivals, Edinburgh has given evidence, I've seen stuff in the Scotsman on this. I don't think it's the role of this committee to decide how the festivals should organise themselves in a way that meets the changing situation externally. However, what I would say, and I'd happily expand on it later, is that I think that you should look carefully at the kind of data that's being presented there, because I would question some of the impacts that are being predicted. Thank you very much to everyone for a very good beginning of this conversation. I think that the next question I will direct to you, Rob. What evidence, if any, is that short-term lets licensing the regime is adversely affecting Scotland's tourist economy, or is it too early to tell? I think that it's probably too early to tell. I wonder if I may make a wider observation just about regulation and the introduction of regulation. We've heard quite a large amount from the business sector, not just tourism, but more broadly about the introduction of regulation and the complexity of doing that at a time when the cost of doing business is particularly challenging. I think that it follows on quite logically from Professor Hayes' point about the length of consultation and the length of consideration that the Parliament gave. My understanding is that in this specific instance, once the guidance was produced, councils in March last year had the guidance available, and then between about March and the 1st of October had to produce their policies and implement those policies. The reality is that in that time period, and I say this having worked in local authorities for 20 years, the reality is that in that time period it coincided with local government elections. It was a period when councils had to observe a pre-election period, and therefore difficulty with public consultation about what their policies might be and even discussion with local businesses about what the policy might be—an inevitable turnover in counsellors, which presents difficulties for officers in doing the work that is necessary. I think that the impact of that we now see in some of the inconsistencies in council policies, and I want to be quite clear. It is entirely right that each council makes a decision on their own policy. However, what we have seen is some interpretation of the guidance, which suggests that other policy areas have been used to define the short-let licensing policies—for example, houses in multiple occupation and others—and that there are some points of detail here that perhaps emerge from lack of clarity in the guidance or perhaps because of misunderstanding with councils. I think that it can be addressed in the delay period in order to try and make sure that the ease with which the legislation can be used and the benefits that the legislation brings that has been referred to can be realised. There is some complexity in that and some detail in that. I apologise, but I genuinely think that it is too early to say presently what the overall impact will be. The Highland numbers have been quoted. My understanding is that, in Edinburgh, there are 40 applications currently in. We know as Visit Scotland that, within our own quality assurance scheme, we have 539 businesses registered, so that is less than 10 per cent registered. The numbers that are beyond that are routinely referred to as being thousands. It is too early to say what is beyond out, as has been the case, that there are additional costs for businesses in this. That is reasonable, because the Parliament has decided that this will be an area that is regulated. I do not think that there is anything unreasonable in that. However, what needs to be done is that the guidance and the implementation of this is as smooth as possible in order to make it easier for councils and applicants for licences. Thank you very much for that. Did anyone else want to come in on the impact on the tourist economy? No. We are going to move on to, and just to say, Rob, I really appreciate complexity in detail and those examples are really helpful, because I think that we need to get that understanding. Willie, you would like to come in. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to everyone on the panel. Two of the issues that have cropped up during our consideration of this are the potential impact that the licensing scheme might have on the availability of homes to buy our rent long-term lets and so on and so forth, and the whole issue of anti-social behaviour, whether it will be improved, reduced or increased or otherwise. Do you have any evidence at the moment to offer the committee of any signs or any movement in these two areas? Startway Gillian and Gary from the two councils and Professor Hague led on that a moment ago in one of those aspects, but firstly I wonder if I could ask Gillian and Gary for a comment on that if you have any evidence to support those claims at all. Thank you very much for your question. I do not have any evidence at the present time in relation to those two aspects, the availability of homes and the anti-social behaviour. Just given the impuncy of the licensing regime just from the first of October, I certainly have no evidence or data to feed back to committee today on that. Gary from the Highland, is there any movement or trends that you can observe up there? It is too early to draw any firm conclusions. We do not have enough data available at the moment. Professor Hegel, you mentioned that a moment ago about the potential impact in some of the concerns that you expressed very well. It has been there since 2018 in the series of events and processes that you were part of in some of those concerns. Is it fair to ask you about how you would anticipate the impact of the licensing scheme on those two issues from any conversations that you have had with colleagues? We do not collect systematic data and one difficulty with this industry is that particularly Airbnb is very difficult to get regular data from. You usually have to do some sort of data scrape to get figures. What we do have, we share the civic forum which meets quarterly. Pretty regularly, the issue of short-term lets comes up in that with people with anecdotal evidence—I cannot say more than that—of the impact, particularly obviously, on tenement stairs. All this, in a sense, has been agreed. There is no doubt that the presence of party flats and so forth can be very disruptive on a stair. It is particularly upsetting to older people who are concerned about the presence of strangers in the stair and the constant turnover, etc. Similarly, we have taken around in 2019-19 to start with Covid. Our unique city, which was a sort of platform in relation to City Plan 2030, is trying to look at the future of Edinburgh. We have some community meetings around that. Again, at every one of those, the issue came up and the stories were interchangeable. There is no doubt that the one benefit of the legislation being implemented now will be that it begins to normalise what became a very abnormal situation across much of Edinburgh, not just the city centre, but has spread out into other areas of the city. What was the first bit? It was really about whether you anticipate that there will be a change in those two areas, whether it will impact the long-term lets and properties rents to buy and so on. We will literally have an impact in there because that is very much being raised at the committee during our process. The anti-social behaviour issue has been very much in the heart of that debate, and whether it will be moving either way in both of those key areas. The legislation clearly intends to be a long-term change. That is one of the points of bringing it in. It is not necessary to abolish the industry because the point that has not been made is that people can at the moment get a temporary exemption during this period after April. The long-term pattern has to be particularly those lets, which are whole property, potentially three, six or five days a year, to return those properties into living spaces for people who live and work in the city. Ailsa, do you have any additional perspective on those two issues that you could offer us? I think that when you look at a lot of surveys, the high survey of my life in the highlands and islands, which was done in the last 12 months, 75% of respondents said that there are not enough houses at a reasonable price, 78% in our garland and 63% overall. There are too many houses used as short-term lets and second homes. There was a recent insight report into the housing needs of businesses on Skye and Lockhouse that was due last year, where between 1,300 and 1,700 positions were difficult to fill because of a lack of accommodation, because of the huge change in housing moving over to short-term lets. We have seen in places like Plockton a third of the dwellings now in Plockton and District are used as short-term lets and second homes. On the main street, for any of you that know it, Harbour Street in Plockton, 51% of houses are now used as short-term lets and second homes. Bade Knock and Straths Bay have lost 17% of their housing stock to this type of accommodation. The figures, particularly in rural areas—I will let Cliff speak about Edinburgh—are really, really stark the loss of housing stock to this type of use, which means that you cannot get nurses, teachers or care workers. These communities are literally dying because you cannot retain the key services required to make a community work because people cannot get homes. Without young families wanting to move back, because the vast majority of the housing stock—a huge proportion of the housing stock in places like Tyree—is 46%. The figures are equally stark on Mull. They have moved over to this type of use and have been lost to full-time residential use. I wonder if I could ask a secondary question to Rob. Rob, you were talking a moment ago about whether the licensing scheme, as other parts of legislation have been used and applied in the delay, might give local authorities more time to clarify and consolidate their understanding of all that. How well do you think that the licensing scheme proposals are understood by accommodation providers and is this delay period going to help to fully make it clear and understood across the sector? I think that the operators of the properties, the applicants for the licenses, have varying degrees of knowledge. I think that there is a range of organisations that have worked incredibly hard, including councils, but others in the tourism sector, particularly organisations relating to the sector, have worked incredibly hard to explain what the purpose of the licensing is, to explain the processes around the licensing and to explain some of the intricacies between particularly planning and the licence application process. That work has been highly beneficial, but I still think that there is a considerable amount to be done to make sure that all those operating in the market understand what they need to understand or in a position to apply for a licence correctly and be granted a licence if that is what the council decides to do. I think that that work is incomplete. I am sure that the months that are being given by the delay will allow the situation to improve, but I do not think that that of itself is a valid reason for the extension. I think that there are other reasons as to why the extension has been granted or is being considered, sorry, and maybe granted by the Parliament. I think that some of the benefits that have been accru from that have already been said. I would not underestimate how challenging this has been, particularly for operators with properties in different council areas because they are operating with different policies and different schemes. That is entirely appropriate. Individual councils can make those decisions, but, as I said earlier, there are some points of detail around matters pertaining, for example, to floor plans and the standards that are being drawn from a range of different PC legislation that are complicated. I do not profess to understand all the detail myself, but we have certainly seen a plethora of examples from operators and applicants as to where some of this complexity sits. Further explanation, further guidance and education will be helpful and clearly Visit Scotland will continue to play our part in trying to do that to improve the understanding in the sector. Thank you. I know the issue about the floor plans is coming up later, so I will wait a little more for a colleague to ask that question. Thanks very much to everybody. That is the point where we want more detail on that. Just a quick supplementary on that in terms of the understanding for accommodation providers, would you say that MSPs are probably getting emails about that from people? Should we direct them to Visit Scotland to get assistance and support, or should we direct them to somewhere within the local authority? It depends on what the question is, to be honest. If it is specific to the policy of a council, the council is the best organisation to provide the answer on that detail. If it is a more generic one about the overall scheme and the details and processes, VisitScolon.org, our business pages on the website are able to provide good levels of information and support. The Government site itself has good information as well, so there is a range of online help and support that is available and some special support behind that. Just another one. Ailsa talked about the challenges for communities that are being hollowed out in a way—my words, not hers—by the fact that they can find housing for teachers or nurses in the public sector services. I am also aware of being a Hans and Alice MSP, but there is a challenge for accommodation for people, ironically, who work in the hospitality sector. Do you recognise that that is an ironic issue? On one hand, there is the short term let's industry, but on the other hand, there are other hospitality services that the people who come to stay in short term let's might want to avail themselves of, who then can't actually get a meal at a hotel because they can't accommodate their staff. I absolutely recognise that and the criticality of that issue. I think that the issue of housing in many parts of Scotland but particularly in the more rural areas in the north and in the south is now perhaps the most critical factor in terms of our economy. As a director of Visit Scotland, I attend the Convention of the South of Scotland and the Convention of the Highlands and Islands. Both the Deputy First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, in providing evidence, I think, to the finance committee on the budget a matter of weeks ago, summarised what he had heard at the conventions of the Highlands and Islands pertaining to housing. I would not demure from a word of what he said or what was said at the convention meeting. That is a significant issue that requires considerable thought. I know that at the next meeting of the convention, the Highlands and Islands are dedicating a lot of time to discuss that. I absolutely recognise the issues. The issues are experienced in different ways by different sectors. It is probably not a point that I need to expand on here, but I absolutely recognise what is being said. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I am not going to bring in Paul MacLennan. Can you almost touch on this? It is almost asking question and about. Is the licensing regime acting as a barrier to new entrants into the short-term letting market? If this is a problem, how could it be tackled? I know that we are kind of touching that. I may be coming to yourself and maybe a quick after that, but I think that you have kind of touched on that. I do not feel any else to add on that. Is it a barrier to new entrants? Yes. There is the short-term licensing and the short-term control areas, which are kind of different but related. It is my big time to be that nuanced kind of question as well in that regard, the difference between the control area and the licensing. With the exception perhaps of Edinburgh, most local authorities are waiting to the licensing scheme as implemented before they then think about planning. From a community's perspective, we were really keen to see the over-provision policy included in the original legislation, and it was obviously removed because that would give communities control, or at least to say in saying, right, well, in our community of Plotton, or Tyree, or Mull, or Tobiallic or whatever, actually we think there should be a maximum of 20% of our housing stock for this use because that then enables our community to stay vibrant and stay viable. We have got housing, et cetera. In that respect, yes, if you have only got a limited number of potential licences available, that would potentially stop new entrants until a licence did become available. I am not convinced that that is a particular issue. I think that the issues are more on actually how do we make more affordable housing stock available, not how do we make more self-catering nets available because I think we have seen that the market is fairly saturated. I think from what you see from some of the industry, the numbers are really down, they haven't got the bookings, et cetera. Is that an argument? Actually the market is saturated and a lot of these properties are sitting empty when actually they should be in full-time residential use to support the sustainability of those communities. I know people who have made the applications for short-term lets and it is a straightforward process. The form is really straightforward, it is really clear. It is bringing it to a parity with private residential tenancies in terms of safety requirements because previously, to operate a short-term let, there was very little that you were required to do in terms of safety and security for your customers. I don't think that that is a particular issue. You can apply, people are applying, there are new applications. I don't think that there is a barrier, but as I say, I don't think that that is the issue. I think that the issue is much broader. Clif, just on that one and obviously your context in Edinburgh, what your thoughts are on that one because obviously we've got the control area, we're looking at the license as well in terms of that. I suppose some of the feedback that I've had is in terms of how complex some of the application process has been in Edinburgh. I don't know what your experience of that is and I suppose the key thing is coming back to evidence-based, you mentioned about previous discussions that are going on in terms of what Edinburgh's position is, where you think that that's been based on evidence that they've had taken over the number of years about what their current approach is in terms of licensing and control area? It's a virtue of the legislation that was passed that it actually did devolve things down to local governments because that allows them to define what they think is appropriate for their area because one of the features of Scotland clearly, as in most countries, is that there's differential market pressures across different regions. So in a sense, a one-size-fits-all wouldn't be totally appropriate and if an authority really wants to go for short-term lets as a way to develop their local economy, I don't see this legislation stopping them doing that. They don't need to declare a control area or anything like that. They can have a very relaxed process. I think more widely, and picking up perhaps just from an earlier question, I think this issue about the availability of accommodation for other low-key workers who are relatively low-paid is certainly an issue in Edinburgh as well. That also has some environmental implications. The more that we push people further out of the city to find affordable accommodation, the more it creates congestion coming into the city, the more it undermines the net zero aspirations of the city as well. This runs out in a number of directions. I also think that it's important to recognise that the industries of health and education along with financial services really are the key employers in Edinburgh. I'm not putting down the tourist industry. It is significant, but we can overestimate it at times. The real bedrock of the Edinburgh economy are those services, many of which have got quite low-income people working within them. To sustain the quality of life of citizens and the quality of those services and the hierarchy of expertise that there is in those areas, from janitors to research scientists, from people pushing trolleys to surgeons, we actually need to have that supply of housing there. I think that this links into the Government's aspirations on community wealth building. One difficulty with the existing model is, yes, we know that historically it was somebody sleeping on your couch that was the short-term let. We also know that there have been a lot of investors, as Rob was saying. People may own properties in several authorities. That isn't community wealth building. That is community wealth extraction, because that money doesn't circulate in that local economy, but it goes into the bank account of the property owner. There is a range of factors here. If you begin to really analyse the economic impact, it becomes more complex than just pulling figures out of the air and saying, oh, this is going to be a hit to the economy. We really should be looking to build much more sustainable long-term economies. I don't really see that the existing model of relatively unregulated short-term lets contributes to that. I think that delaying the introduction says really the wrong message out to people. I don't know if Gillian O'Garry wants to add that from a council point of view. Do you have any thoughts on that at all, whether you have seen any applications? I know that it is slightly out with your bailiwick, but I don't know if you have picked that up with other council colleagues. No, thank you. On whether it is a barrier to new entrants to the short-term let market, again, it is still very early days as to whether the wider implications could have. What I can say is that, practically speaking, especially over the past couple of weeks, we have had a lot of inquiries from prospective new hosts who have not yet completed their purchase of a short-term let property. We could be in the process of purchasing that. We have had a number of inquiries and discussions with prospective purchasers, prospective sellers, lenders and relationship managers for high-street lenders and brokers. They have raised grievances because, although a purchaser of a property can still technically apply if they have control over the use of the property that they are purchasing, practically they have said that they have difficulty complying with all of the mandatory conditions until they are the owner of the property. In particular, prospective new hosts who are funding their purchase with loan funds from a lender have reported that the lenders will not release loan funds until they have an STL license in place. Therefore, the knock-on effect is that they cannot include an unconditional contract with their purchase until they can guarantee having loan funds in place, which has a knock-on effect to when they are able to exercise control over the property. There is a chicken and egg scenario going on there. Local authorities cannot give provisional licence numbers to new hosts under the terms of the STL legislation. STL licences are not transferable, and we have received, as I said, a number of inquiries because we are moving towards the spring season, where we typically have a number of, and again, this is mostly anecdotal evidence, where we know that properties are typically bought and sold at this time of year in the winter so that they can start to operate again into the spring season. We have seen a number of inquiries and quite a bit of frustration from prospective new hosts who have said that they cannot complete the purchase of the property. Conversely, we have seen it from sellers of properties. They are saying that we cannot sell a STL property because the buyer or the buyer's lender have raised issues with that. That is a practical point. That is one of the things that has impacted us in the immediate future—more than longer-term policy points that others have raised. However, as I said in the practical point of view, that is a point of frustration that we are having raised with us on a very regular basis. I have received similar feedback to that myself in terms of that. Gillian Nales, on that same question. Glasgow Licensing does not have any evidence in relation to saying that the short-term license and regime is a barrier to short-term lets being available or on the coming into the system. It is too early, but you stated that perhaps it does not actually sit with licens to assess that, but we have no evidence to date. Thank you for joining us today. I want to ask a couple of different questions. I will start with regard to temporary exemptions. I wonder whether you think the system governing temporary exemptions from the licensing regime for major events is working, as it was expected. I believe that Edinburgh City Council had looked to create a specific scheme originally around the festivals, so I just wondered where we are today with the legislation and how you think that is working. I think that others have commented that it is probably too early to say. One of the difficulties that we have here is that we have very limited numbers of applicants and therefore very limited numbers of licences granted and processes being completed. I think that the intention to have short term exemptions is sound, particularly pertaining to events. Inevitably, the festivals in Edinburgh have been highlighted because of their profile and the significance in terms of the numbers, but there are plenty other events around Scotland. Open golf championship is one that does not occur every year but is another example. The notion of doing that is sound on how the process is going to operate and whether it facilitates the volumes of accommodation to be released that would traditionally have been released and that festival organisers, major event organisers, would want to see released is just too early to say at the moment. Thank you for that. Do you think that when looking at large-scale events, for example, the whole bidding process recently around Eurovision and where that would go, that this is impacting on Scotland's potential to host these events and have accommodation available for such large-scale, sometimes one-off events like that? I don't think that it's impacting as yet and I think that we would need to wait and see how the process flows and how it operates to see whether those people who would be interested in allowing their property to be used as temporary short-term accommodation would follow the process, get the exemption that they need, whether they think that that's straightforward enough for a single short-term let. Different people do that in different ways. Someone might do it a couple of times a year, somebody in Edinburgh might just do it for the purpose of the festival, somebody doing it for the open golf in a particular venue, we'd only be doing it once every six, seven, eight years perhaps. I think that it's very difficult to judge presently whether what we've got would work or not. Thank you. As we've heard already this morning, the committee's been hearing how the licensing scheme is being applied inconsistently across Scotland. I know both in terms of Highland and Glasgow City Council they are requesting proof of planning permission or a certificate of law of fullness as part of the licensing requirement rather than deferring to planning departments to consider this on a case-by-case basis. I understand from my own local authority that they are only requiring evidence of planning or planning control for a planning control area. I wonder if you could comment on that, both Gary and Gillian, in terms of consistency of applying the legislation. Thank you very much for that question. In relation to the planning permission in Glasgow, yes, it is a requirement as part of the licensing application. The planning positioning in Glasgow has been there for several years, so in relation to what we're asking in terms of the licensing, we're making sure that the planning side of it has been, if it's been in place for many years, is being complied with before they submit their application. The planning is nothing new in relation to what is expected and what is currently required for people that are currently operating a short-term let in Glasgow. Gary, do you have anything else you want to add or a same rationale? Just effectively that there is no requirement or when we are processing applications, there's no requirement for an applicant to provide us with evidence of planning permission as part of their initial short-term license and application. Indeed, we advise that planning permission, and whether that's required for your specific property, is a separate legislative matter. It's something that we would ask the applicant or the individual making inquiry to pick up with their planning department separately and ask them for it. I don't know if that's misinformation, but we don't ask for proof of planning permission as part of the short-term license, but an applicant may require it under that separate legislative regime. Thank you for that clarity. I wanted to move on to floor plans. I've become our committee's floor plan man on this piece of work, but I wondered whether that's one of the key concerns that have been expressed to us where different local authorities are requiring detailed floor plans of a property to support an application. I just wondered in terms of simplicity and what actually has become a misinterpretation of the legislation, what your understanding is, for example, is a simple hand-drawing plan of a property over a full architect's drawing accepted. I'll maybe bring Gary and Gillian back in on that, if anyone else wants to comment. Thank you very much for that additional question. In relation to the floor plan, there is a requirement in Glasgow that there is a floor plan submitted with an application in the scale of 1 to 50, showing specific things, such as the room sizes, fire escapes and so on. There has been nothing agreed by committee that that floor plan needs to be an architect's drawing. It could be a hand drawing. I know that there has been some concern raised that the requirement for a floor plan does require an architect's drawing, but that is not the case. As the scale of 1 to 50 could be a hand drawn, it should be an architect's drawing. If it was a requirement that there was an architect's drawing, that does raise additional costs for an applicant, but there is no requirement that it has to be an architect's drawing in Glasgow. Yes, a floor plan is required for a hand drawn, as long as it is able to show the room sizes, fire escapes, location of heat smoke alarms, to enable the statutory consultancies to respond to the consultation satisfactory. That is helpful. Thank you. Gary, do you have anything else to add around that guidance? I know that we have been asking individual councils for their view on that as well to find out why that has been the case that someone has been told that they need an architect's drawing. No, our advice on it is that, although every effort should be made to submit professional plans, if they are unable to do it, hand drawn plans will be acceptable, provided that they are reasonably to scale adequately dimensioned. Again, just as Gillian had said, we ask for those to include ideally a scale of 1 to 50, and we have certain things that are required. Again, we have taken a steer on that from our statutory consultees, such as fire escape routes, location of smoke and heat detectors, that type of thing. We adopt a very pragmatic and common sense approach in the Highland Council. We have our STL licensing inbox and have asked a number of applicants to send on what they would propose as their floor plan, and we can check that in advance of them making their application to give them some comfort that is likely to be accepted or likely to be unaccepted in terms of marking that the application is valid. We try to take a common sense, pragmatic approach, bearing in mind the feedback that we have received from our statutory consultees on what they require on the floor plans. That is helpful. Thank you for that. I wanted to add, or ask, with regard to the other legislation impacts. We have recently just completed, and the Parliament has just passed the national planning framework for it. Policy 30E within that states, with regard to the short-term lets, that the loss of residential accommodation where such a loss is not outweighed by demonstrable local economic benefits shouldn't be permitted. I just wondered what your interpretation of MPF4 is also currently overlapping the short-term lets legislation as well. I'll maybe bring Gillian in, then Gary, if you've got anything to add as well. Thank you very much for that. I'd be wary of answering in relation to the planning matters, given them licensing-based. I think probably I can certainly speak to planning colleagues in relation to that specific point that you've raised, but I don't think that it's in my remit licensing-based to give an in-depth answer on that. No problem. Gary, do you have anything? Do you want to add? I'm in the same position as Gillian, and I would have to ask my planning colleagues to revert, though I would just comment that they are separate legislative frameworks, effectively. I would like to dig a little deeper in the scale drawings. Maybe Rob, you could help us out, because you're part of this industry advisory group. I have a sense that you have a bit of an overview. Are all local authorities requiring a scale drawing? I don't know the answers to that. Does anybody know? I think it's fairly standard, but I wouldn't say whether all of them are. When I've been discussing it with people who have made applications, hand-drawn drawings seem to be acceptable in the same way that Gary has said. The cost of getting an architectural drawing can be expensive, but some people will have floor plans if they bought the house from the particulars, etc. It doesn't seem to be an unusually onerous requirement for what is a business. Perhaps we've steered away from this. We joined this conversation, but these are all businesses. People are running them as businesses. If you've got one property or if you've got 100 properties, they are businesses. This is a standard business requirement. I suspect, without knowing too much about it, that if you were going to not require scale drawings or plans of any sort, that would require visits. Therefore, the cost would go up. The approach that councils are taking is very pragmatic and responsible. We don't need to come out to see everybody, but you need to provide us with the same level of information that any other business that is customer-facing providing accommodation would have to supply. The issue of local distinctiveness between authorities is quite right. I suspect that what Gary might require in Highland Council would be very different from what the council would require in Edinburgh. I suspect that local distinctiveness is nuance, not an issue. I'm just going to take my question a little bit further, because what I'm trying to understand is that I'm wondering if it's scale drawing that's creating confusion with people and that that's being interpreted as an architectural drawing, whereas, you know, people could get a piece of grid paper and, you know, use that box and that's their scale. And certainly when Gary said, you know, one to 50 would be nice, but it doesn't sound like exact. And it doesn't sound to me like in the case of Highland Council, certainly. You don't need the, you know, down to the millimetre of the distance of the walls. It's a kind of general sense of the placement of things. Rob, you want to come back in? Yeah, perhaps make a wider point and then come to the details. So the legislation has resulted in guidance being provided by the Government to councils and that guidance forms the basis on which the councils develop their policies and the practical application process. It's also the basis on which applicants look at how they are going to apply for a licence. As I indicated earlier, the time period in which the guidance was developed and councils then developed their policy was relatively short and was during a period when perhaps some of the more detailed discussions, it was during Covid, etc, that might traditionally have taken place, I think probably didn't take place. And the result is that we haven't got here quite the level of specificity relating to this legislation that I would expect to see in the fullness of time, and I would have expected to have seen if trade associations, businesses, councils and Government, perhaps with COSLA in the mix as well, would have got to in developing the guidance. The result of that is that councils understandably have drawn on their existing experience in relation to licensing regimes. They have in particular used HMO processes, housing and multiplication occupation processes. They in particular have used registered social landlord type experiences and have arrived at policies and explanatory notes which are there on individual websites with the best of intentions. However, this is a regime for short-term lets. It is not a regime for houses and multiple occupation, and therefore there are differences. I think that what Gary and Gillian explained very clearly was the purpose of the drawing is to allow the statutory consultees, particularly, I think, probably the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, to see where the necessary fire equipment is, and it's that purpose that will be served by the drawings. We just need to refine the guidance, the explanatory notes, the processes in order that it all operates a little bit more effectively, with a little bit more ease, with a little less cost for everyone concerned, including the councils themselves, in order that it provides a licensing regime, which ultimately is intended, as the Government has said throughout, to be a proportionate risk-based approach. I think that central businesses feel that some of the cost burden is not proportionate and it's not quite as risk-based as it would be. I'm trying very hard not to attribute fault to anybody. I don't think there is a fault to be attributed to anybody. I think that we've had to complete a set of processes in quite a compact time period, and there are improvements that could be made on all sides for the benefits of all. Okay, thanks for that. Although we kind of know that this has been coming for quite a long time as Cliff laid out, he'll see what to come back in and then I'm going to bring in Ruth Gawr. It's just a very quick point. A lot of the discussion we have today to me would seem to be suitable for when we get to the review, so there's to be a review after 12, 18 months, and I think that's the point to consider a lot of these issues as to what's working and what's not working. Obviously, the longer we delay the implementation of the scheme, the longer it will be before we get to the review. I think that a lot of these issues would be much better dealt with, rather than trying to work out that complete fine grain. We know there is a lot of misinformation out there. Work out the fine grain now, actually. Let's get to the review and then see how well it's working and not working. Thank you for that point. I just support that point. What we do know is that floor plans are required. That's part of the legislation. The question that you're looking at is whether those floor plans should be required by 1 April in a licensing system or by 1 October. There's ample opportunity to adapt once we know how the system is working, but the basic requirement is there. If it makes sense to have floor plans in October, it makes sense to have floor plans in April. I'd also just pick at one point that was raised by Miles around the MPF4 and so on and the economic benefit. We see some of the difficulty in what the Festival of Edinburgh is saying. For example, they've said that 700 jobs will be lost, so that's the economic cost of it. How many of those jobs are full-time? How many are temporary? How many are paying above the national minimum wage? Does anybody know what 700 jobs is? This is a percentage of the total number of jobs in Edinburgh. Let me tell you. 0.002%. If you say that 700 jobs are going to go, if you say that 0.02% of the jobs in Edinburgh are going to go so that we can reclaim some housing, it's a different picture. Similarly, the gap between how affordable short-term lets and hotels are, we need to be careful on that, because we know last summer one complaint was that the fringe had become very unaffordable. Accommodation is one part of the cost that people face, but there's also costs of room hire, there's also costs of publicity, of travel subsistence, et cetera, so we mustn't overstate the significance. I just checked yesterday at the moment you can book Holiday Inn Express for six nights in mid-August in Edinburgh for one adult for £1,419, or I could book a one-bedroom flat on Airbnb in central Edinburgh for those same six nights as advertised on Airbnb for £1,345. So there's about £70 difference, £10 a day basically, the difference. So I think we can't assume that just if you reduce the supply of Airbnb, that actually destroys the affordability that's there at the moment. Similarly, I think the fringe argued that they need about 25,000 bed nights during August or that short-term lets provide them, but at 90% occupancy, which is what the hotels achieved the last year we got data before Covid 2019, there was still 10% available at that point, right? That's about 50,000 bed nights. So if you filled the hotels to full capacity, I know this is a bit hypothetical, but I'm just saying you know it's not as that the economic case is not as watertight as it might appear, whether you look at the the scale of the economy, the temporary nature of the events, the alternatives, and really the challenges to find different ways to run these major events that create a peak and look at ways that you can spread that peak through the year, which will sustain lots more businesses in the city than having a pop-up stall that appears in Princess Street Gardens or whatever for four weeks. Thank you for that, Cliff. Ruth. Thank you, convener, and good morning, panel. I appreciate what both Ailsa and Cliff were saying there, particularly in terms of sustainability around jobs and homes. That said, I am going to drill in a bit further on what Rob was talking there about the guidance. My understanding is that the committee has received written evidence arguing that some local authorities are applying conditions to short-term licences outwith the scope of the legislation, so I'd be interested to hear Rob's further reflections on that if he understands that to be correct and what the implications of that are. After that, I'd like to hear from the officers from Highland Council and Glasgow City Council specifically if they've applied any additional conditions and if so, what they are and what they set out to address. I want to re-emphasise the importance of the policies made by each council being appropriate for each council. It's clearly not the case that the policies that would be adopted in Edinburgh would be appropriate, for example in the Scottish Borders. The strength in this legislation is that it is for individual councils to adopt their individual policies and to their best place to understand the nuances of what is required in an individual area. However, there are certainly assertions from operators and from some of the trade bodies within the sector that the scope of the policies have been drawn too widely or are extending beyond the remit of the short-term lets regulations. I'm not a lawyer and I'm probably ill-equipped to say whether that is the case or not, but I think what you can see is a set of issues seeking to be addressed which councils believe are relevant in the context of short-term lets. Whether it falls within the legal remit of the legislation or not, I would leave for lawyers and I guess ultimately the courts to decide. However, the importance of getting that local policy to be framed correctly to be appropriate in local circumstances cannot be overstated. My final point relates to the earlier comments that I made, which is that the guidance and the explanation of how people actually meet the application process and follow that is also important because it needs to be made as straightforward and as easy as possible. As I also said, there are examples of where that has happened, but there are also examples of where applicants have found that the process is quite difficult in relation to what has to be done. Thank you. It's helpful. Convener, if I could go to—forgive me, Gillian, please. Thank you very much. The council does have additional conditions. Those relate to noise, nuisance and littering, and they were drafted in line with the Scottish Government's guidance to licence and authorities. In the consultation that was undertaken in relation to the short-term lets policy, which detailed style additional conditions, there were two conditions that were subsequently removed on the back of the consultation. Those conditions relate to the key safe and to restricting the hours of coming and goings of guests arriving. Those conditions, the key safe and the timings, were removed on the back of the consultation. The other additional conditions, noise, nuisance and littering, as per the Scottish Government's guidance, although I wouldn't say that everybody was happy with them in the consultation, but the majority didn't have too big concerns in relation to those conditions. I suspect that it was because it was in line with the Scottish Government's guidance to licence and authorities. Thank you. Gary, for Highland Council, any additional conditions? Yes. Again, when some of what Gillian said, in line with the Scottish Government's guidance to licence and authorities in following discussions with stakeholders and the Highland Licensing Committee, we included the additional conditions to reflect the practical realities for short-term lets properties and the wider policy objectives of the licensing scheme. Again, our additional conditions are not intended to be onerous for licence holders, and we have not received any specific concerns or complaints regarding those. We have not included prescriptive steps in our additional conditions. For example, there are no prescriptive steps regarding equipment safety or the installation of carpets in place of hard floaring, which is a question that we understand that has been put out there as to whether that is something that has to be done as a prescriptive step. We have instead included conditions that state that a licence holder has to take reasonable steps in terms of privacy and security, littering and waste disposal and the use and maintenance of hot tubs. Again, we have some discretionary additional conditions, which can be applied on the back of noise complaints, etc. They are not applied as standard and only where required, so that we take a very, as I said earlier, but floor plans. We take a pragmatic approach, and our additional licensing conditions are common sense in what a lot of people would be doing anyway, and we also have other additional conditions that you would expect to see, such as if there is a material between the circumstances and reporting certain instances in terms of structural damage or collapse or gas leak fire explosion, etc. We have heard about the impact, occasionally, of those short-term lets. Someone else described them as party flats. Just looking at your condition around noise there, you said that that is not automatically in. What would trigger a condition around noise? What would that look like? I am thinking of the perspective of neighbours perhaps that have one of those properties next to them. We have additional conditions regarding noise and anti-social behaviour, which will apply regardless. The licence order will take reasonable steps to ensure no disturbance or nuisance arises within or from the property, for example by explaining the House rules to the guests to deal effectively with any disturbance or nuisance arising within or from the property as soon as reasonable practical after the licence order is made aware of it, and to ensure that any vehicles belonging to guests are parked lawfully, for example by explaining where any designated parking spaces are found and highlighting any local rules. That applies as a standard additional condition. If there are steps that should be identified following the investigations by the Highland Council's environmental health team, if the use of the condition is deemed appropriate and proportionate for the specific use by enforcement officers who are following the enforcement policy for environmental health, that is where your additional conditions regarding noise could come into play. That could be, for example, the licence order to take steps to ensure that noise monitoring equipment is maintained in full work in order, or that there could be a condition that there cannot be noise between certain decibels between 7am and 11pm, or certain decibels between 11pm and 7am. That could be that the licence order to take reasonable steps to ensure that guests do not use the hot tub after 10pm. Again, that would be applied following the investigation of concerns regarding noise associated with hot tubs, where a hot tub's position and closed proximity are overlooked by neighbouring properties. That is a kind of example. Full details are on our website. I am happy to provide a list of those. However, as I said, we have, effectively, general noise and anti-social behaviour additional conditions, which will apply for every licence. If there were specific case-by-case investigations from the council's environmental health team, those additional conditions regarding noise would be applied. We are coming to our last couple of questions. Mark Griffin is joining us online. Thanks, convener. Have you heard or have you written evidence with concerns that the licence application process can be ungilly complex? Some people have talked about poorly designed online application processes, although I know that Ailsa Waburn in our evidence earlier has said that she is aware of people who have found it fairly simple and easy to complete. However, I wonder if I could come to Gary first and just ask how he would respond to concerns that the application process is ungilly complex and reflect on how he would view the process in comparison to other application processes in the authority for other licensing functions? Yes, thank you Mark. The Highland Council spent a significant time and resource putting in place staff, training and processes that were necessary to deal with the anticipated number of applications and inquiries from prospective applicants. With that in mind, we developed an online process that allows applicants to answer the questions and only effectively asks them the follow-up questions that are relevant to their application. It has branch questions, so we are only asking the questions that are relevant, and we are not asking irrelevant questions. We have received, in the event that the applicant does not have online access, we offer digital assistance by way of attending one of our council service centres and one of our admin or licensing officers can effectively assist in that regard. We have received mostly positive feedback today on our online application form, and I have got to say at the other end of it, from our staff, we are processing the application forms and that appears to be working well and efficiently. We have used that as an opportunity to get our online system up and running for it and we are, as I say, using that online system to process the applications. The number that we have, which I said was 809, and the way in which we are processing those today, has allowed us to get up and running so that now, when we get what we are anticipating as the big remaining flood of applications over the next short while, we have got the good processes in place and we are effectively ready for those applications to come in. I am pleased with how our processes are running and, as I say, we do receive mostly positive feedback on that. Gillian Rennie, do you have any comments on the Glasgow perspective on any concerns around the application process? Thank you very much for your question. In relation to the licensing process for short-term lets in Glasgow, similar to Highlands, we have an online application form and it does trigger by what your answers are, whether other questions may appear or may not appear. In relation to the feedback, we do get for a variety of licence applications in Glasgow. People are very open and honest if they are finding an application form difficult and will try and take the feedback and adapt the form within reason where we can. For short-term lets, we have not had any concerns raised about the online form from the applications that have been received to date or people that have potentially looked at it. It is an application form that you can save as you go along, so you do not have to complete it in one go. From Glasgow's perspective, so far it has been a positive experience in relation to the application process. My second question was about concerns that we have heard from local authorities and public sector partners who are involved in the application process, such as Scottish Fire and Rescue, about them not having the necessary resources to process applications quickly enough. I know, Gary, that you touched on the profiling of spend-on-staff, perhaps being out of sync with a potential six-month delay. I wonder again how your authorities are managing to cover costs just now and whether the Government should be looking at if it plans to implement a six-month delay that has a knock-on impact on the income that you would expect to receive to cover those costs? In relation to the costs for the implementation, when Glasgow City Council looked at the proposed fees that went out for a public consultation, the fees were determined in line with the business and regulatory impact assessment from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Government guidance. On a cost recovery basis, the fees were set. From Glasgow's perspective, the fees are set. I do not foresee any difficulty with the fees that are set in relation to any proposed extension that is possibly given here. In relation to the processing, Glasgow City Council paid money for a system, an online system for the applications. However, the resources in relation to staff are currently absorbed within the licence and section anyway. We have not taken on additional staff for the processing of short-term lets. As I think that we had detailed in our written submission of the committee, we have taken on quite a number of staff in order to process the STL licence and applications, and I think that I detailed those earlier, both in our legal team and in our environmental health team. Those roles were appointed on the basis of the existing deadlines within the short-term legislation. Indeed, we have put quite a bit of time and resources into having our processes ready and up and running on the basis of those existing timelines. I earlier mentioned the fixed term nature of some of the appointments and the implication that that will have. The other impact is that the proposed delays already led staff who are on the fixed term contracts to raise concerns regarding the impact that has on their immediate employment. While we have sought to reassure them of their current position on the basis of the number of applications that we have received to date and in which we continue to receive, we completely appreciate why the employees are raising those concerns, and, due to the material reduction and projected income, we share their concerns. The proposed extension has significant resource implications for the Highland Council. As I said in our written submission, we would request that the local government housing and planning committee provide funding to cover the financial burden that we will now incur as a direct impact of the proposed delay. That will enable us to address the resource implications and, for example, allow us to fund an extension of those fixed-term appointments so that we have those members of staff in place. Effectively, we need to process and deal with the bulk of applications when we need them the most. Thank you very much, Mark. Just to let you know, the committee does not have a budget to provide you, but we totally take on board the significant resource implications that you had done a good job to set up in the timescale that had been outlined. It was tremendous work done there, and I am so definitely taking note of that. I think that we have come to the end of our questioning for this morning. I apologise for running a bit over, but that was the direction of travel that we went in. I would like to thank the witnesses this morning for the evidence, and I now suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses. For our second panel today, we are joined in person by Julia Amour, who is the director of festivals Edinburgh, and online we are joined by Fiona Campbell, chief executive of the Association of Scotland's self-caters. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting, and I am going to open with questions. I will direct this to you, Julia. You know that it is coming to you first. The regulations under consideration provide for a six-month delay to the date by which existing hosts must have submitted an application for a short-term lit licence. Could you set out your view of this delay and its potential implications? Yes, thank you for inviting us to give evidence this morning. I represent festivals Edinburgh, which is the 11 major international festival organisations in the main charities that underpin the organisation of festivals in Edinburgh. There is also, as members of the committee will know, a whole kind of hinterland of individual festival organisers behind that. You have also had some evidence from some of the major venues in the city that make up the whole landscape of the fringe and the other festivals that happen in peak season and beyond. My evidence is based on the views of the directors of festivals Edinburgh Ltd. In that respect, we have been talking about short-term lets and supporting the existence of regulation for short-term lets in the city since 2018. In cognisance of the fact that there are some areas of high concentration and then there are some neighbourhood amenity issues that need to be addressed. The committee has heard this morning that it has been a very long process, but it has also been a complex process and a disrupted process, not only by the local authority elections last year that Rob from Visit Scotland referred to, but also by Covid and by all of the contingencies of Covid. The festivals have not emerged from that unscased at all, so the festivals are 75 per cent of the scale in 2022 that they were in 2019. That is an example of the kind of cost of living pressures, post-Covid pressures that mean that we welcome this delay to the implementation of the legislation on licensing, because it gives time for that clarity to emerge that has been talked about already this morning. That clarity for people using the legislation and that clarity across local authorities about how the interpretation and the implementation of the legislation has gone. If a blanket approach is taken, it would really damage jobs and livelihoods without achieving some of the policy's key aims. We do not want the licensing scheme to be gone, but we want to put beyond doubt that brief periods of stays in residents' personal private homes for major festival events should be out of scope. That could be done with a national exclusion, as is done elsewhere in the legislation for homestay students who have an arrangement with an educational institution. That is the key point of interpretation of the legislation that we want to bring forward to say that, surely, that is a relatively uncontrofercial point that, personally, primary letting is different from secondary letting and that there should be a balanced approach to these two parts. It is not all of the story and you have heard that from the fringe venues and you will hear that from the self-caterers association, I am sure, but surely that is a point where there could be relatively clear agreement and clarity established to improve the implementation of these legislation requirements. Secondly, we think that extra time is needed for all local authorities to have that proper evidence and impact assessment to model both the positive and negative effects of regulation for all types of short-term lets because the implementation of the policies will have very wide-ranging consequences. Those will differ across the country, so it is quite right that different local authorities have the ability to act in different ways. We are happy to expand further on those and other points, but those are the two key points that we are coming forward with today. Primary personal letting is different and it needs to be clarified that the short brief periods in people's own homes can be lightened up and that impact assessment and evidence is really important to be in place before wide-ranging decisions are taken about all sorts of aspects of the short-term letting system. Good morning. Thank you so much indeed for bringing us the opportunity to join you this morning and we absolutely welcome this additional scrutiny because it is very much required. Apologies that I am not with you. I am actually on holiday and I am in a hotel, so apologies in advance if there is any untoward noise. I have tried to get away from as much as possible. Just a general observation that I would like to make in the interim. I am slightly disappointed that the conversation this morning has been hugely conflated between housing pressure and licensing, which is about the safety of an activity. I was under the impression that this is about the licensing of the Civic Government Act 1982, rather than the planning situation, which, as Gillian McNaught quite rightly said, is a very different thing. I would just like to make that observation in the first instance, but going back to the question and the delay, it is absolutely critical that there is a delay at this point because fundamentally, as our evidence has shown, the legislation as it has been laid is flawed and it is hugely damaging to a sector in Scotland. The self-catering sector alone represents £867 million to the Scottish economy. In addition to that, you have got bed and breakfast, guest houses and so on and so forth, that is hugely affecting. However, it is not just affecting our premises and our properties and our incomes and our legitimate livelihoods, it is also affecting attractions, hospitality sector widely, which we spend an awful lot of money in all over the country. It is having an impact on investment organisations. It is having a huge impact on brokers. People cannot buy, people cannot sell. I think that we have given absolute evidence as to why this is not working and we absolutely can find a solution. I think that this is a great opportunity to do that, but this delay is incredibly welcome and incredibly necessary in order to find that right solution. Just to highlight that, when the letter came from the cabinet secretary on 7 December, people stopped applying and opened their calendars. It is just really important that we all reflect on the fact that calendars are now open and that that will have an effect on whether or not we can honour those bookings. I would also like to reflect on the point that the committee members have said that short-term lets are party flats. We are not party flats, we are professional, legitimate businesses with legitimate livelihoods and those livelihoods need to be protected. I am really happy to work with the committee to find a way through that. I think that the purpose of the evidence that we are taking today is to look at the delay and we are not looking at changing the legislation in any way, shape or form. I will start with you, Julia. What evidence is there if you are aware of it that the short-term licensing regime is adversely affecting Scotland's tourist economy or do you think that it is too early to tell? Obviously, because we have not got close to the deadline yet, there is not firm evidence about what the behaviour of the industry will be. However, you will have received evidence from some of the major fringe venues on a survey that was done in Edinburgh last autumn, where, I think, more than 300 operators of properties that they use replied. The result of that survey suggested that under 10 per cent of those accommodation providers expected to be able to make their accommodation available under the current coming regime that the City of Edinburgh Council is looking at, on both licensing and planning fronts. That is something that one of the previous witnesses noted. In Edinburgh, the planning provisions are planned to come in on stream at the same time as the licensing provisions, so it is difficult to disentangle the effects that those two things are having. The fringe society, which is the small charity that coordinates the wishes of individual arts companies and venues to perform at the fringe, took a slightly more benign view, a slightly more conservative view, that perhaps 50 per cent of activity might be prevented by people being unable to get accommodation. It is the biggest single thing that people say to us as a barrier to coming to Edinburgh in August as the accommodation cost. Even if it is only 50 per cent of reduction in supply for that peak season where you need a surge of temporary supply, that amounts to a third of the fringe's programme. In addition to the programme being smaller in 2022 and having bounced back very successfully but at a smaller scale post Covid, that could result in a further drop of 30 to 50 per cent in the scale of what is able to happen in Edinburgh in August. There might be some people who feel that it could be an attractive idea for the fringe to resize. However, that is not a managed consolidation, it is an economic shock. That economic shock would not simply have the effect of reducing the numbers of shows and the numbers of workers. Cliff might feel that that isolated figure of 700 jobs is not a large figure, but it is the start of a downward spiral. The spiral is the fewer shows, the fewer reviewers, the fewer bookers of work, the fewer audiences. In a few small years Scotland has lost a unique part of its intangible cultural heritage. I do not think that that is simply an Edinburgh issue. I think that the impacts, although they are not able to be fully known yet, are at the leading indicators that are showing that that is a real risk. One of the largest venues on the fringe assembly has said that producers are bringing about 50 per cent of the work that they were bringing previously. The leading indicators are not simply false flags. The effect is starting to happen. Do you have a sense of the impact? Yes, absolutely. I have helped with the comments about the wider impact on the economy and so on, which we will not know until further down the line, but this is having an impact on small businesses and accommodation provided right now. We are talking about additional costs associated with licensing. Yes, we already complied with the existing health and safety legislation, but additional requirements have been added, such as the requirements for EICRs and pat testing. That requires people to go out and do those for you, as we have already heard today. People are finding that incredibly difficult, specifically in island and rural locations, to find service providers and tradesmen. The cost of living crisis, the difference in behaviour of guests at the moment, people are not booking in the same way that they did previously. Bookings are patchy. We do not have the income to pay for this front-loaded expenditure. We have also heard a lot about layout plans, which I am very happy to go into detail about, because it is a really significant issue. They cost a lot of money. You cannot just do it on a piece of graph paper. There is a planning consideration that has been shoehorned in at schedule 3, section 13, which is a real issue and is causing huge amounts of concern to small operators, where it has never been there before. You have got these extraordinary fees across Scotland, which do not fit within the breers aspirations of £214 to £436. There are huge amounts of uncertainty. The additional conditions in some areas are absolutely extraordinary and ultra-viries to the legislation. All of this is meaning that it is incredibly difficult, incredibly damaging and stressful for small accommodations. It is disproportionate and it has gone beyond the scope of the legislation. People are realistically, in real time, giving up their businesses and their livelihoods. Small B&Bs that have operated for decades are closing because it is too much. It is too much and it is unnecessary. We are seeing it left, right and centre. People are leaving the sector in droves. Self-caterers are selling their businesses and they are being bought by second-home owners. This is going to exacerbate the second-home problem. This is not going to help housing. Okay. I think that you stopped there rather than got cut off. All right. Thank you very much for that. I am going to bring in Willie Coffey with a few questions. Yeah, thanks very much, convener. My questions were really for Fiona, but we are kind of touching on the issues at the moment. Fiona, it was to give you an opportunity on the record to share with the committee what you felt were the unintended consequences of the licensing scheme. You have touched on a few that you have mentioned. I wonder if you could just complete that offering so that we get it on the record. What are the other areas of concern that you might have in relation to unintended consequences of the scheme? Thanks very much, convener. I am not going to repeat a rather substantive evidence that we have already submitted as written evidence because that exemplifies all of the detail. The unintended consequences include anything from the wide range of discrepancies across local authority areas, whether you are in the western isles or the borders. They are completely different requirements. You have got the ultraviaries policies in some places, the additional conditions around carpeting, around the requirement for additional cutlery space in Dundee City, and in Orgal and Bute and Aberdeenshire, they have added an additional condition around boat and bike hire, which has nothing to do with the provision of accommodation. Then you have got the planning considerations. Those are the really big unintended consequences. If you look at the committee session from South Ayrshire on 15 December, the complication additional consideration around planning has confused licensing authorities. As Gillian says, there are two completely different regimes that are being inflated, and one regime is being used to confuse another regime. It is not working and it is causing a huge amount of stress. The planning element is probably one of the biggest threats in amongst all of this, and licensing authorities clearly do not understand the requirement. I will refer you to that 15 December meeting in South Ayrshire. The really big block is the investment barrier. Lenders will not lend on the basis of this licensing legislation. They simply will not do that. We have had that in writing from two of the biggest lenders in the country. It is also affecting small local brokers that depend on that for their own livelihoods. They simply cannot find the lending in order to support people. Whether that is by new properties or whether it is investing in your properties, if you need a new roof, for example, people are not going to lend to you, you then cannot sell your property under the current regime either. You have got a complete barrier to both sell and buy, and therefore you cannot even exit the sector now. That is a huge problem. Then, of course, is the booking problem. People are not booking, because why would you book a property if the owner will not necessarily be able to honour that booking? Lots of people in our sector book up a year and a half in advance. If I am not sure that you are going to be able to honour that booking on the basis of a licensing application, you are not going to book, you are going to go elsewhere. That is really happening. People are moving and going to Sten England instead. We do not want that as a nation, do we? I will not go into the detail. It is in our written evidence, but I am happy to expand on any of those points. I wonder if you heard the previous session that my learned colleague on floor plans sitting beside me asked the question, but Glasgow and Highland said that hand drawings and layout plans are acceptable, and we talked about a scale of 1 to 50. What did he say to that, evidence that he provided and bearing in mind what he just said himself, that these could cost a lot of money and you cannot do it on a piece of graph paper? There seems to be two different points of view there. Absolutely. If you think that it is difficult to pull the legislation together, and I have done so, the requirement for plans is to evidence maximum occupancy, nothing more, nothing less. It is to say that if you have a five-bedroom house, you sleep 10. If I say that I have a five-bedroom house and I sleep 42, you might want to give me a call and ask how that happens, but the requirement for plans was simply for the maximum occupancy element of the licensing. It is not for fire provision. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service does not require plans. They simply do not require it. Nobody else needs plans. Highland Council is asking for a site plan. That is planning. That is not licensing. It is not about the health and safety of the activity. That is why you do not need the layout plans. The statutory consultees do not require it as per this legislation. They would require it for licensing act 2005. Yes, they may require something else for HMO licensing, but the problem that we are finding is that different local authorities are pulling in different legislative regimes and completing them all and goalplating it and asking for all sorts of things that simply are not required. I go back to the realities of what it costs. Officials again said that we were possibly overstating that it costs £600 plus VAT to deliver a plan to £1 to £50. Unfortunately, that is true because I have the invoice. I have paid it. That is what it costs. You cannot do that to scale realistically appropriately. If we go back to the beginning, that is about maximum occupancy. If you have a five bedroom house and you sleep 10, that should be adequate. Thank you very much for putting all that on the record. Julia, do you have any comments to throw into the mix on that subject of unintended consequences? It would be good to come back on unintended consequences. I think that that comes to the heart of the point about temporary exemptions for up to six weeks and how that was written into the legislation as a mechanism to account for the surged amount that you need to put in place if you are going to be Scotland the perfect stage, if you are going to stage major events, whether in Edinburgh, in peak seasons or in other bits of the country, as Rob was referring to. The way that that provision has been drawn up has been interpreted differently across the country. Although the cabinet secretary has said that it was not intended that that provision should lead to mandatory and additional conditions necessarily being required for people who are letting out in different circumstances, including homestays and going on holiday and letting out their house for short periods of time, that is what has happened in Edinburgh, is that almost all of the same conditions with the same costs are being required of people who simply want a very short-term ability to let their home out, which they would be able to do if they were hosting an exchange student, for example, or which they would be able to do if they were hosting a longer term lodger. That is an unintended consequence that I think the longer lead time into people making their applications is required to get further clarity on that from the national level about what was the policy intention of that and how can that properly be enacted. Thank you both for that. I just have another question that is probably only for Fiona Ewing. You are saying in your submission that you would like to see a review of the licensing scheme immediately now rather than wait until the system is perhaps fully embedded perhaps in 12, 18 months time, I think, was mentioned during the initial session. Why would you be calling for the review immediately at this stage before the scheme has had a chance to bid in? This is an opportunity to review it from the ground up because it is clearly not working and we have evidenced that. This is a different meaning of review. This is not what has happened. We are already saying that this is not working. How can we review it to make it better so that it is fit for purpose? Rather than looking at it, there is no point in waiting to see how many people have left the sector because it has been hugely damaging. Reflecting on that, we need to protect businesses. As the First Minister said at the business and parliament section on Thursday, it is incumbent on the Scottish Government to protect and support businesses through this incredibly difficult time. This legislation is damaging it hugely. Again, I will say that this is legitimate businesses. This is people's livelihoods. This is not Airbnb. This is not party flats. This is legitimate businesses that are really causing a huge amount of pain to. It seems to me that this is a fantastic opportunity during this delay to look at this even if it is the guidance to make sure that it becomes fit for purpose. Those trains are going off track. We need to get them back on track as soon as possible, because this is impacting people today. People are leaving the sector today. Thank you very much. Julia, do you have anything to add to the sense of whether we should review now, later, abandon and continue with the scheme? It is evident that we will not find out the full scope of this until further down the track, but we also have to take account of some leading indicators. I do think that the opportunity of more time to see the implementation of the legislation done in a consistent and smooth way and to look at whether there are aspects that are not having the effect that was intended is really, really important. I do not have the policy prescription as to whether that is a review or keeping the timing under review until all of these anomalies have been properly discussed and sorted out. It has indeed been a long time in the gestation, but it is also very complex and wide-ranging legislation that has national aspects and local aspects and affects a sector that accounts for, I think, between tourism and creative industries. It is about 12 per cent of employment across Scotland and it is the same across Edinburgh. I do not dispute what the Coburn Association says about health and education being very important sectors in Edinburgh, but arts and recreation and the visitor economy between them account for 44,000 workers in the city, which is more than finance and more than education. It is a very important sector that we need to look carefully at big changes. I thank you both very much for your contributions. I thank you, Willie. I am not going to bring in Paul MacLennan. The question is really for yourself. I think that you have mentioned about highlighting concerns about the system that governs temporary exemptions. At this stage, we have heard the impact that we would have on the festival and we have obviously seen your evidence that has come forward. I just want to give a little bit more on how you think that could be overcome in terms of your own opinion. I suppose that the other issue is just slightly related to what another question is talking about home sharing. At that particular time, which is an element during the festival, I do not know if you can just comment on those two points. Of course. Home sharing and home letting is part of that intangible cultural heritage. It has been since 1947, when the festivals started up. The fact that there was a mingling between Scottish culture and world cultures and that people hosted people in their homes is part of what makes Edinburgh so special on a global scale at that time of year. I think that it would be very damaging if that was deterred. I think that there is evidence—not quantitative evidence but plenty of anecdotal evidence—that people who choose to do that for a few weeks, not every year when it suits them, would be deterred by a scheme that expects them to tick all the same boxes as a scheme for where people are letting out all year round. We have certainly heard plenty of people who have said that they would not be continuing that under those circumstances. There is also a local wealth-building aspect to that as well. The further we get into the cost of living crisis, the more people are looking to afford their own homes in a way that might have become unaffordable to them. We spoke to the Syrenians, the local homeless charity, about that. They agreed that home letting and home sharing was a good way for people to be able to maybe manage their costs in an inexpensive city like Edinburgh. It is an important part of the culture, but it has a resonance beyond Edinburgh because Edinburgh's festivals is something that Scotland is known for around the world and is a cornerstone of our whole visitor economy. It is important to get that right. At the moment, there is a mismatch between what the legislation was designed to do in terms of temporary exemptions, which was designed to be able to let people do that kind of very temporary house sharing or house letting without as heavy a touch as 365 days a year. That is not the way in which it is working in practice. To me, the simplest thing—I am not the policy maker, but to me the simplest thing would be to look to the exclusion that is already in the act, which is an exclusion for homestay students for educational purposes and whether there could be clarification that that kind of exclusion can also be adapted for major festivals and events. I mean I am using the Scottish Open thankfully every year. The Home Shares and the House Letting is an issue that comes up every year in the East London. Thank you for that. I suppose that an abroader is opening up to yourself and Fiona's in terms of when you look at the licensing scheme, you have talked about being a barrier onto the short-term letting market. You have already touched on that one. I don't know if you want to come in on that one a bit more. You have already touched on the licensing scheme being byddai gweld ni gweithio iawn, a'i felch hwn. Felly,fuona wedi gydig i'ch gydigr countlessio i'ch gydig i'ch gael gwheithio, swyeddu ar gyfer phaith nid, dyfodol yn ei gydig i'ch gweld mynd i'ch gweld, mae hi'n gweld yn ei gydig i'ch gweld. Ffiona y ffiownau nid yn hwn, byddai'ch gydig i'ch gweld i'ch gweld. Ffiona? Mae'n cael pethau i fyllfaenau. Mae'n bwysig i'ch gweld mennydd uhl a'r pethau ym innor is incredibly critical to our nation, but a lot of this is a very Edinburgh-centric conversation, and we've got to remember that this covers the whole of Scotland, our rural areas, our islands and so on and so forth. None of the conversations that we're having today really helped my 87-year-old member that's been a self-cater of 43 years with no problems that lives in Sutherland and is going to have to get a taxi to Inverness in order to complete his online application because there's no paper equivalent. It's also not going to affect my 47-year-old member who is suffering in a degenerative disease in Edinburgh and has had to sell their property because they're simply not going to be able to get planning or a licence due to the rebuttable presumption. It's not going to help the 60-year-old member from Cumbrae, who's been a carer for 10 years and a husband very sadly just died. She doesn't know what to do because she doesn't think that she's going to be able to get through these licensing hoops. We've got to remember that this is real people and real people's livelihoods, and it's also absolutely right. People in the middle of a cost of living crisis want to use their properties, their asset, their property in order to get some augmented income to cover the mortgage fees. They're not going to be able to jump through these hoops and the additional conditions, especially in Edinburgh, due to the cost associated with that. For example, in Glasgow, you're talking about fees. In Glasgow, you're right, they have kept their fees relatively low. They're not going to give very many licences out because they're simply not going to meet the conditions of planning and licensing in Glasgow. If you look at the fees across the board, Perthyn Kim Ross goes up to £1,600. Dundee City goes up to £3,100. Edinburgh goes up to £5,869 for a one-year licence for the larger properties. That is not insignificant amounts of money. If you go back to this morning's evidence and Elsa Raban said that it was great because there is a parity with PRT, there is no parity with PRT here. If you have parity with PRT, which covers exactly the same health and safety legislation, that costs £68 for the landlord plus £14 per property for a three-year private PRT registration. That's under £100. I would ask the committee if they think that it's appropriate that if you're a private landlord it's going to cost you £100, but if you're a self-caterer and you're being assessed on exactly the same health and safety criteria, it would cost you any more than £100. It doesn't seem to make any sense. Fiona, just one point. I'm going to the type. You mentioned, obviously, before about discussions about being conflated between control areas and the licensing. I don't know if you want to add any more on that. Can you touch on that in your introduction or in the first question? I don't know if you want to touch any more on that because I think, again, evidence that I've probably seen from constituents is in terms of that. It's almost like its planning is being completed as well as its licensing issues. I don't know if you want to say any more on that. You're absolutely right. Planning has become one of the biggest threats now to our sector. In schedule 3 of legislation 0.13, the planning permission, where the premises is in a short-term let control area for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning Act, the hold of the licence must, where the use of the premises for a short-term let requires, planning permission, ensure that they do so or they will have. If you then go to South Ayrshire, for example, the licence condition is that people will have to clarify either whether they do not require planning permission or they do require it and have the permission to do so as part of that licensing consideration. That's not what the legislation says, but that's how the local authority is interpreted today. You've got this disparity between different local authorities, Argyll and Bute is not asking for planning permission unless there is a planning control area or there has been a material change of use. Clearly, where there is a material change of use, you will always require planning permission, but we have to be very careful that we're not looking at applying retrospective planning permission requirements to businesses that have invested heavily for a number of years, whether that's two years, five years, 10 years or 20 years, because it's suddenly being conflated with the licensing scheme. They're two completely different regimes and they need to be looked at with completely different eyes, but that's impossible given point 13 of schedule 3. Thanks, Fiona. Thanks, convener. Thanks very much, Paul. I'm going to bring in Miles. Thank you, convener. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Sorry for disturbing your holiday as well, Fiona. I was wondering where that painting was maybe in the highlands behind you, to be honest, but I wanted to ask a couple of questions which we've touched upon already, but I raised earlier with regards to the national planning framework and specifically guidance, because I think this is another piece of legislation that we will want to look at how guidance then filters down to councils and how it's interpreted. So I just wondered where your understanding of policy 30e is being interpreted. I'll maybe bring you in fair now, and then, Julia, if you've got anything to add. Thanks, Miles. You're absolutely right. When we submitted our consultation application to the MPF for consultation, we referenced 30e because it has a real problem. It's an overarching policy that feeds into different planning policies and local development plans, and while some local authorities will not use it and they will just shelve it and it's not relevant, which we welcome, other local authorities such as Edinburgh will start using it immediately. The issue is that that particular policy says that you will have to evidence that the benefit of being a short-term let outweighs any residential benefit. That becomes incredibly, incredibly subjective. City of Edinburgh Council planning authority has already written to every single outstanding planning application of which there are several hundred that they have waited for MPF to come out, perhaps, allegedly, possibly, to say that applicants will now need to evidence that benefit. That has an on-going effect on all sorts of rural businesses, particularly agriturism businesses, because part of that policy is also that you need to evidence that you've got good transport links. We've all been to rural parts of the Highlands. They do not have good transport links, so does that mean that we would not get planning permission? We've just got to be really careful that MPF 4 isn't yet another layer of unintended consequences waiting to happen to the damages sector that we really need to support. The Scottish Government has committed to supporting that. I will not surprise you to know that I am not an expert on MPF 4, but I do think that this question of it being hard to evidence the economic benefit of change of use, outweighing the economic benefit of residential use. To me, there is a sort of analogue with something that the City of Edinburgh Council has said to us, which is that it's not proposed to carry out economic assessment of the licensing arrangements because the Scottish Government already undertook a business and regulatory impact assessment. Those things are not the same. If there is a keen interest in a proper 360-degree impact assessment, that should be applied before major decisions are being made about what changes the legislation will wrought rather than in retrospect and by trying to aggregate every single individual case, because it doesn't usually work like that. Thank you for that. We have already touched upon planning permissions around existing homes and short-term legs with control areas. From your opinion and given where we are with the new regulations, do you think that there is a way of resolving that to almost tweak the system that has been put in place to make this work? I don't want to just focus on Edinburgh, but as an Edinburgh MSP, I will. There is obviously a very major event issue that the legislation has come up against, which is our festival. Is there a way of developing specific exemptions that you've submitted to the committee to provide for that, but also for the health and safety part of this, which is what the Scottish Government originally said that this was about? Well, I feel that there is a precedent there already on the health and safety, which is that you don't have to have licensing if you are hosting a student, whether that student be of adult age or of school age if they are attending a language school. It is not the case that the legislation thinks that all properties should be regulated and all licensed in all circumstances, and if it is legitimate to host a young language learner for a brief period of time, then I feel that there is no real case for it to be illegitimate to host an adult festival worker, especially when, in other bits of the housing system, you can have a lodger in your house without declaring yourself as a landlord without having to be licensed as a landlord. I do not think that it is that difficult to draw the parallels across the use cases that the committee and the Government have before them. On the other issue of secondary short-term lets, it is a question of getting the best evidence base for what the impacts are, both positive and negative, of making these changes. I do not pretend that that is easy, and that is not something that the festival directors collectively are taking a view on, because we do not think that we are the people who can make that decision. Certainly, the evidence base for that seems to be something that we put something in the public domain that we copied to you as evidence with a bar chart using published information on things such as tourism figures and numbers of Airbnb figures. We know that the figures in there can be interpreted and analysed in different ways. We know that the ASSE has a different analysis of what the whole property is available through Airbnb and similar platforms. However, our point in starting that process is that we believe that the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Government and other national agencies should be helping to improve those estimates and help to understand what the scale of the problem is. If the segments of home letting, home sharing and secondary lets in whole properties that are not currently registered under planning permission are of anything like the magnitude that that bar chart shows, then this is a very significant issue. I think that before bringing in a blanket policy, that picture needs to be understood more carefully. No, you have a specific call for that amendment around for Edinburgh during August as well from what you have put forward. Fiona, do you have anything that you want to add, if not hand back to yourself? Thank you. I think that whilst we believe that temporary exemptions are a good option, suggesting that there would be an exemption from the requirements of the health and safety mandatory conditions for a short period of time would undermine the entire proposed purpose of this legislation, so I can't quite see how it would be okay to let somebody then an unsafe property for six weeks over the summer, whilst the rest of the year is imperative that they need to meet all the mandatory conditions. I think that that is one slightly difficult point. I absolutely concur with Julia that the lack of data that has underpinned this legislation from day one has been deplorable. The first Indigo House report that was published in March 2018 that has been the bedrock on which all of this has been based was fundamentally flawed and we complained to the Scottish Government about it at the time. The numbers that came out of that report, the 32,000 short time lets in Scotland and 12,000 in Edinburgh never existed, was completely incorrect, but that narrative has become a fact and that is what we are basing all of that on. If you look at the actual reality and apologies to the rest of Scotland, I am going to go back to Edinburgh. There are 1,364 self-catering units on non-domestic rates in Edinburgh. There are currently about four and a half thousand entire properties in Edinburgh. Even the planning committee in Edinburgh said in February 2022 that they have a figure of 4,077 Airbnb in Edinburgh. A haste into an Airbnb is not a short term let, is a hoover, a vacuum cleaner, etc. The fact is that we do not have the data. We need data before we make realistic, robust policy and that has been fundamentally flawed all the way through this process, which is regrettable. However, we have time to change that without continuing with all of the unintended consequences, which I think that we have adequately evidenced in our written evidence. I want to direct a question to Fiona. You spoke earlier about the need for the Government to carry out a review, but if the Government does not agree to that in the review, you have also called for an urgent rewrite of the guidance that is in place. If you like the opportunity to put on the record what you feel would be the reasons behind a rewrite and what would you like to see in any potential revised guidance? Thanks, Mark. We welcome that. The first thing that I want to reiterate once again is that the SSC is not against regulations. We have been calling for regulations since 2019. We suggested a registration scheme with mandatory health and safety. It is regrettable that it has been delivered via licensing, which is an authorisation scheme. We still think that a notification scheme would adequately suffice. If you look at private residential landlords, which is delivered by the Antisocial Behaviour Scotland Act 2004, that covers exactly the same health and safety provision and compliance that we are talking about for short-term lets. We absolutely do think that that is so damaging and so badly flawed that we should look at an alternative legislative conduit and not just go ahead with something that really fundamentally cannot be fixed by a few tweaks. The investment barrier will continue, although it is a licensing scheme. We need to go back and look at what the best conduit for the legislation is. If you went back to antisocial behaviour legislation, that would cover your health and safety issues and your antisocial behaviour issues, and then you have also got your planning, which is already in place as part of the planning act 2019. You are covering every single one of the policy objectives and the human interests that the Scottish Government is trying to deal with at this time, without all the damaging unintended consequences. It is also incredibly important that we look at giving grandfather rights to existing businesses. This uncertainty is devastating for businesses. It is impossible to continue working under these conditions. It really is. Whether it is under licensing or planning, we need to grandfather legitimate businesses that have not caused any problems for their communities for all of this time. We have also got to stop blaming holiday accommodation for housing inadequacies. It is absolutely critical that we look at this very, very complex picture with greater vision and greater understanding without these knee-jerk reactions. I just think that this is an amazing opportunity to get this right. For tourism strategy 2030, outlook 2030, we need to grow tourism responsibly and sustainably, but that is not how to do it. I just think that this is an amazing opportunity to be world-leading and not regressive. I am now going to bring in Annie Wells. Hi, good morning, panel. We have heard a lot from both panels today. It was just to see if there is anything else that the committee should know about with the operational short-term lets that we have not already discussed today. If there is anything that we have not touched on, if we would want to tell us any more about it. Thank you for the question. That is a great opportunity to say what is in my head. I am trying to work out what that is. The operation of short-term lets has been happening de facto for the whole history of Edinburgh's festivals. It would not be able to happen the festivals without some degree of surge capacity. The most efficient way for that to happen is to find the routes for people to be able, without undue red tape, to make their homes available. There is the underlying capacity for visitor accommodation across the city, and it is important as we move through the legislation that we maintain a distinction in our minds between those two things. The festivals use underlying capacity, so some of the issues that Fiona wishes to talk to you about on behalf of her association are relevant, but the thing that festivals directors are very keen for me to emphasise is that it is streamlining and making straightforward and clarifying that surge capacity that is a really big issue. It is not about antisocial behaviour when you are talking about festival workers, because festival workers are in the city as cultural workers, and not for party flats. There is a distinction there. It is a mechanism that is considerably—I know that Cliff Hague was talking about six days in a holiday end versus a flat—but one of the unique things about Edinburgh in August is that people come with their work, bring their work to a marketplace and come for two or three weeks. That is a rather different visiting model from visiting short term. The reason that 10 per cent of Edinburgh's capacity is not taken up in the hotel rooms in August is because they are charging north of £500 per night for a room. Anybody who has tried to get a room over Hogmanay will realise that that happens at that part of the season. It is a very complicated dynamic. I know that I am focusing on the capital. We have 500 suppliers across Scotland and we have 1,000 performers across Scotland who come to the capital to meet the world. Although I do not want to overly weight the consideration to one local authority area, it is something that has repercussions across the whole nation. Thank you very much for that, Julia, and Fiona. Thank you very much indeed. I think that the critical point is that we need to revisit what the policy intentions are here. Is it housing, is it health and safety, or is it antisocial behaviour? We need to focus on the mandatory health and safety conditions, which is about the safety of the activity and remind ourselves as to why we are doing this. We can do that by using existing legislation and existing regulations. We should not be duplicating regimes, which is what we are currently doing. We need to use existing planning legislation, which is up-to-date and meaningful. We need to protect existing operators via grandfather rights. It is not fair to take people's businesses and livelihoods away from them. We need to remove the presumption of bad practice. It is absolutely critical that everybody remembers the thousands of incredibly professional and incredible business operators out there that offer wonderful experience throughout the country. All that we are told is that we are puppy farmers, sex traffickers and drug dealers. It is incredibly offensive. Let us remove that presumption of bad practice and celebrate the people who are good operators. We need to remove the overreach, the issues of people getting out of hot-hubs at 10 pm. At what point do you tell anybody in the world that they need to get out of a hot-hub in 10 pm in any other accommodation sector? It is barbaric, it is extraordinary and it is unenforceable. Therefore, it is incompetent. We need to withdraw all of those ultra-viries policies. We just need to go back to the beginning and ask ourselves what is the mischief that we are trying to solve here? At the moment, that is conflated to a point where it is impossible to unpick. To that end, we believe that rather than weakening the guidance or indeed the legislation as it stands, it requires a material rewrite. However, going back to the intention of the meeting and the convener at the beginning of this session said, the delay is absolutely imperative in order to address all the points that we have raised today. I just want to clarify that I did not say at the beginning of the meeting that any delay was imperative. I just noted that I read from Shona Robinson's letter about the so-wasn't-me saying that directly. Thank you very much for joining us today for the evidence. Colleagues, we agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next two items in private so, as that was the last public item on our agenda today, I now close the public part of the meeting.