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Sure. It will not be the managers, the chief executive and the board members, but the porters, the auxiliaries and the district nurses—the ordinary staff—who get stung.

I should declare an interest because I have a property, which used to be my home, that has been rented out since my wife passed away. As a matter of principle, all private landlords should maintain their properties. Plainly that is the case, and I suspect that most of them do. However, those who do not do that create an extremely difficult problem for tenants. As I know from my constituency work, the situation can be extremely difficult where landlords are recalcitrant and very often just refuse to do anything at all. Therefore, some powers of compulsion are necessary, and the question is whether the existing quality standards meet that need. As Mr Golden said, the answer from the Scottish Government is that it is lodging an amendment to the housing bill. The matter is very live and it will be debated further by the Parliament.

The approach that has been taken in England seems to be logical, although I do not think that it has yet been implemented. The ministerial response that the committee received on 8 May said that the approach in England would start to be implemented from October this year, starting with damp and mould. This is a serious problem that requires to be dealt with. It is just not acceptable that tenants are sitting powerless in properties and suffering the effects of damp while landlords refuse to do anything. We have all seen photographs of what this is like, often for children and people with diseases and conditions such as asthma, who are inhaling mould spores. We have all seen this in our constituency work and, from time to time, we see heart-rending cases. I am absolutely satisfied that the law needs to be tightened up in this area, so it is just a question of getting it right by working together across the parties.

Perish the thought that I would stoop so low as to abuse the Parliament’s time.

My other point is a more practical one. This might be more for a local authority spokesperson to answer, but in the practical application of the process, is a distinction made so that a higher standard of care, rigour and diligence is required for grade A buildings than for grade B ones, and do grade Cs not require quite the same rigorous standard of diligence when it comes to the quality of expert advice that has to be given before a demolition order can be made? Putting it bluntly, is it easier to get on with quickly demolishing a grade C building than it is with a grade B building, or are they all treated the same way? I do not know the answer to that, because it did not really sing out from the petitioner’s submission.

I agree, and following what Mr Torrance said at the end of his remarks, I make the point that, if the petition had been brought at the beginning of this parliamentary session, I very much doubt that we would be closing it today. It is only because there is relatively little time left, and because the Scottish Government has given specific undertakings to carry out work that perhaps could not reasonably be expected to be done between now and the end of this parliamentary session, that it would seem that the petitioner is not losing anything by the petition being closed today. I just wanted to emphasise to the petitioner that the approach is dictated by the parliamentary schedule, rather than the merits of the issue, which is, of course, extremely serious.

We could come back to that suggestion, though, if we do not get a satisfactory answer—

—because we have not had a satisfactory response over three years now.

Indeed.

I think that I ate the sweets so quickly that I probably did not notice.

This is the other petition that has received my detailed attention. The minister’s response was fairly positive, but it is now almost a year old. It stated that work was to commence in early course, but the programme for government contains no reference to that legislation, as the convener said, and it is not clear whether the work has commenced or is to be commenced.

I therefore suggest that we do two things. First, we should write to the minister to seek an update on the submission of 29 July 2024 and, in particular, clarity on whether the work that is referred to in the last paragraph of the letter has commenced. It stated that the Government intended

“to commence this engagement in early course.”

Secondly, the petitioner’s response of 30 July 2024 recognised the minister’s concern and thanked her for her helpfulness to the committee, but it raised a very interesting point about whether victims are able to apply for an extension of a non-harassment order.

I gather that non-harassment orders are normally granted for a specific period in time. It therefore seems to be an extension of natural justice that, if the victim feels that there is a reason why that time period should be extended, they should have the opportunity to apply to court for an extension thereof. I would therefore be grateful if, in writing to the minister, we could inquire of him whether it is the case that the current law—which I think is, from memory, the Act of Adjournal (Criminal Procedure Rules Amendment No 2) (Non-harassment order) 1997—allows the victim to make such an application, and, if not, whether that would be part of the legislation that the minister is considering bringing in and considering in early course.

I do not oppose that, because a lot of progress has been made and a lot of the points that the petitioner raised have been answered. However, I note the fact that, in the petitioner’s response of 5 May, which is hot off the press, he sets out very clearly his response on each point. Some of the points that he makes certainly have substance, and others may do. I do not think that we can do much more with the petition in the remaining time that is available to us this session.

I commend the petitioner for his forensic focus on the defects in the code. To be fair, the responses have been relevant, but the petitioner may wish to come back to the Parliament in the next session, after he has reflected further on the changes.