 The next item of business is consideration of business motion 11906, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a revision to the business programme for this week. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press a request speak button now. I call him Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 11906. No member has asked to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 11906, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. We move now to topical questions. Question 1, Clare Adamson. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government on devolving the power to loud 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in Scottish parliamentary elections. The issue was discussed when the Prime Minister and the First Minister met yesterday. The Prime Minister gave a commitment that the necessary transfer of powers will be undertaken in time to allow the Scottish Parliament to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds for the 2016 elections. Both Governments are now working to develop a section 30 order, which will be required to be agreed by the United Kingdom Parliament by March 2015 to fulfil the commitment and to deliver it as swiftly as possible. Clare Adamson, I thank the Deputy First Minister for his answer. I am sure that we welcome across the chamber the news. The 2014 referendum was exceptional in its public engagement and interest and young people were at the core of that civic engagement, culminating in the fantastic event at the hydro at which my own son was in attendance. What measures will the Scottish Government take to ensure that young people are informed and engaged in the 2016 election, as they have been in the referendum campaign? The events to which Clare Adamson refers of the debate in the hydro involved many thousands of 16 and 17-year-old voters in Scotland, which was viewed pretty objectively to be one of the best and most effective debates of the entire referendum campaign, coupled to the enormous participation by 16 and 17-year-olds in voting in the referendum. I think that it gives us great confidence in the future of Scotland and great confidence in the democratic participation of young people in our country. The Government took steps as a consequence of the consultation exercise that we undertook about encouraging civic participation in the run-up to the referendum, of the importance of ensuring that we supported through the educational system the increased political literacy of young people and exploring ways in which young people could participate in our wider democratic politics. In the programme for government, which we published in December, the Government set out our commitment to learn lessons from the referendum in terms of informing our future planning for further election campaigns, and that is exactly what the Government will do to ensure that, once we have the necessary legislation in place that young people are able to participate in the 2016 elections, that will only happen if we have sufficient legislative time to legislate accordingly and to enable that to happen when the section 30 order agreed by March of next year. Ms Adamson, you are welcome to step forward. It seems to be agreed that it is the right way for 16 and 17-year-olds to have the vote. Is it now incumbent on Westminster to move towards votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in European and Westminster elections? There is no reason why that should not be the case, in my opinion. I think that there will be a number of young people who participated in the referendum last September who will be somewhat disappointed by the fact that they cannot participate in the Westminster election that will take place in May of next year. I do think that the extension of the voting franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds is unanswerable for all election contests, and I would encourage the United Kingdom Government to accede to this request and suggestion. Jackie Baillie. I welcome the commitment given by the UK Government and indeed welcome the comments from the Deputy First Minister. Can he perhaps tell us what planning the electoral registration officers could do now in advance of section 30 order to ensure that we maximise registration for 16 and 17-year-olds? I am conscious that that takes quite a bit of time. First of all, I extend a warm welcome to Jackie Baillie and her role to shadow me in the Parliament in the period ahead. I look forward to working with her as co-operatively as I have always worked with my counterparts in other parties, and I look forward to her contribution. On the substance of her question, it is a matter of record. The information is very timely given the fact that the Electoral Commission has today published its assessment of the operation of the Scottish referendum. The headline of the Electoral Commission's report is that the Scottish referendum is well run and provides lessons for future referendums in the UK. I think that we can take a lot of confidence out of the arrangements that were put in place for the operation of the referendum. 97 per cent of the adult population registered to vote, and in many circumstances, as we all know around the country, the Electoral Registration Service had to go the extra mile to make sure that demand could be satisfied of people wishing to register right up until the last moments of the registration window. I think that we will work very closely with Electoral Registration Officers around the country in taking forward the legislation to ensure that we have all the resources and the steps in place to ensure that everyone that wishes to be registered for the 2016 elections is able to do so, particularly for 16 and 17-year-olds. I would say to Jackie Baillie that the key point for us is the necessity to have adequate time to legislate to do this properly and to enable that to happen. The issue needs to clear the United Kingdom Parliament by March of 2015, and we will work with the United Kingdom Government to enable that to be the case. Annabelle Goldie The agreement by all five parties on the Smith commission to give 16 and 17-year-olds a vote in Scottish parliamentary elections was a very welcome and constructive development. I am glad that the First Minister found her recent meeting with the Prime Minister in this respect also positive and constructive. Can I ask the Deputy First Minister how does the Scottish Government propose to maintain and grow that positive relationship with the United Kingdom Government? The First Minister As Ms Goldie knows, the Scottish Government is nothing but co-operative and helpful to the United Kingdom Government, and we look forward to that approach that is being reciprocated by our counterparts in the UK Government. There is a lot of good inter-governmental work going on, but, as Ms Goldie will know from her participation in the Smith commission, there are also elements of the inter-governmental working system that needs to be improved. I hope that the recommendations of the Smith commission in that respect are taken forward effectively in the way that our early signals on 16 and 17-year-olds give us confidence is going to be the case to make sure that some of the problems and issues that were identified in the Smith commission can be appropriately addressed by the joint working of both administrations. I can say to Ms Goldie on behalf of the Scottish Government that we will do everything in our power to ensure that that is what is achieved as a consequence. Elaine Smith Thank you, Presiding Officer. Further to Claire Adam's first supplementary question, would the cabinet secretary be considering providing material aimed specifically at 16 and 17-year-olds in the event that this might come through and they might be getting the vote? Would that be something that the Scottish Government would be considering just now? Certainly, what we will do and what is important in preparing for any election contest is that we are giving material that can be used for voter education purposes. We have to prepare that very carefully. We have to prepare it in a fashion that meets the highest possible standards for its objectivity, which will be the Government's objective in all of this respect. I am certainly struck from my own experience of talking to 16 and 17-year-olds during the referendum process how much it was valued that some of the process of voting was demystified for young people. The more we can do that, the more we can remove the barriers to participation in our democratic process, the greater democratic participation will be. It is pretty clear from the Electoral Commission's report that the work that was undertaken to ensure that we had properly prepared for the referendum, that people were informed about the process and were able to participate was a significant factor in contributing to the success of the referendum. The Government will want to learn the lessons from that and apply that to future parliamentary contests. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent Home Let's report, which indicated that the average monthly rent in Scotland has risen by nearly 12 per cent in the last year. Minister Margaret Burgess. I will start by congratulating Mary Fee in her new position in the shadow cabinet. In response to her question, Home Let reported that average rents in the month of November 2014 was 11.7 per cent higher than in the month of November 2013. Previous Home Let reports which are published every month show wide variations. For example, for the month of October 2014 they reported an annual increase of 2.6 per cent compared with the month of October 2013 and, in September 2014, a decrease of 0.2 per cent compared with the month of September 2013. Therefore, while reporting a rise of almost 12 per cent for Scotland for November 2014, I would be cautious about how much can be read into one month's findings. The recently published Scottish Government statistics show that, since 2010, 16 of the 18 broad rental market areas in Scotland have seen below inflation changes in average rents for two-bedroom properties, the most common size of property in the private rented sector. The Scottish Government is carefully monitoring rent levels and we are already exploring issues relating to rent levels as part of our consultation on the new private tenancy. As the minister is well aware, statistics from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation show that a quarter of Scotland's poorage households are in the private rented sector, up from one in ten a decade ago, and around 23 per cent of household income is spent on housing costs. Can the minister explain why she did not support Scottish Labour's cap on rent rises earlier this year and will the minister look again at this issue and reconsider? What I would say to the member is—and I have explained it several times in this chamber—that the rent was not part of the initial housing bill when it was introduced. It did not come up as part of the consultation nor was it raised with the exception of Harvie and the Green Party. It was not raised with me when I offered to meet with all members of parties, including Mary Fee as shadow housing spokesman. What I did say at the time the bill was introduced when we were looking at the private sector tenancy, we would look at that, we would consult that with stakeholders and with other political parties, and I know that Labour Party has already put in a response to the consultation. We believe that that is the right way to do it, to have as wider consultation as possible in something that is going to have such a significant impact as rents. We are looking at that, and the consultation runs through 26 December and 28 December, and it just would not be appropriate for me to comment on it at this stage. There has been a huge increase in the private rented sector, partly due to the lack of social housing and partly due to the lack of affordable housing. There is a huge disparity across the country in the cost of renting in the private sector from Aberdeen, where it is many, many hundreds of pounds, and in the centre of Edinburgh those figures are the same. Although I have a degree of sympathy with the idea of the market settling the rent and having a equalised rent in an area, there are many, many thousands of people who say that they cannot afford to pay their rent this month, and they also fear that they will not be able to pay their rent in six months' time. We need action on this matter now. We do not need to wait till the end of a consultation. We need the minister to step up and take action now. I think that I say two things. We are addressing it in terms of the supply as well. We are increasing the supply of affordable housing because that is the best way to reduce the rents in the private sector. We are doing that, and we are well aware that there are hotspot areas such as Mary Fee mentioned in Aberdeen. We are looking at ways of working with the local authority and with housing associations to ensure that we can provide houses there for key workers who are struggling at the moment. We believe that we are doing it the right way. It is a bit consultation. We need to get that evidence. I think that Mary Fee referred to earlier and other reports on rent levels. We need to look at the evidence to see exactly what the impact of rent levels are across Scotland before we take action. That is precisely why we are consulting, and if action is required, we will certainly take it. Both Mary Fee and the minister have recognised that the situation with rent levels is not the same in all parts of the country. Does that variation not reinforce the argument that a different policy response on rent levels will be appropriate in different parts of the country? There may well be places where the market without any kind of intervention is ticking along pretty nicely and satisfactorily, and other areas where it is deeply, deeply damaging to people's wellbeing both economically and the knock-on effect on their health. Surely a rental policy that recognises the regional variations is the way in which we should be going. I will say again what I said. That is precisely why we are consulting, and that is precisely what the evidence is now showing, is that there are parts of the country where the increases are much greater than other areas of the country. That is part of what we are consulting on just now. It very well may be what Patrick Harvie is suggesting could be the outcome, however, until we have the evidence in and all of the responses to the consultation, I would not want to make any firm position on that. Alex Johnstone The minister would agree with me that the private rented sector provides a vital contribution to the housing of many people across Scotland. Although other people have acknowledged already the significant differences that exist, it would be irresponsible for us to prejudge the consultation in such a way as to frighten the private rented sector and stimulate a contraction in that industry just when we need it most. Alex Johnstone I certainly agree that the private sector is a vital part of our housing system, and it is one that the Scottish Government is keen to grow. We have certainly funded the building of the private rented sector champion to do just that, to grow the private rented sector. In response to my previous question, I am not going to pre-empt the result of the consultation other than to say that it is taking place and we will look very closely at the evidence in that consultation to see how we take things forward. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 11877, in the name of Margaret Burgess on the welfare fund Scotland Bill. Members who wish to take part in the debate should press a request to speak button now.