3. Like all the other speakers, I want to express our deep concern for all those who are affected by the rail accident near Stonehaven and for the emergency services that are responding, as well as the public health professionals who are working to contain the Aberdeen outbreak.

Children, young people and their families, as well as school staff, have been through a great deal this year and we wish them the very best as schools return, and many thousands of young people have an extra reason to celebrate as an unfair policy is overturned. As the Greens warned for months, far from building back better, the Scottish Qualifications Authority downgrades would have entrenched inequality in our society.

However, that is not the only area in which the Scottish Government’s action has fallen short of its rhetoric of wanting Covid recovery to be a chance for a fairer, greener and more equal society. We have also been warning for a long time that this pandemic would also lead to a housing crisis but, although the First Minister said that no one should be evicted because of the pandemic, she rejected Green proposals that would have protected private tenants and instead worked with the Conservatives to give extra help to landlords. Is she aware that there have been 350 applications for eviction orders during this crisis—that is before we even count illegal or unchallenged evictions—and that hundreds more applications are still outstanding as the First-tier Tribunal resumes its work. How can that be acceptable?

As I know Patrick Harvie is aware, the emergency legislation that we passed in the Parliament in effect halted eviction action for up to six months. He talks about applications, but no people can be evicted. That emergency legislation is currently in place until 30 September and, yesterday, we confirmed that, subject to the agreement of Parliament, it will be extended to March 2021. That underlines the continuing commitment of the Government to do everything that we can to protect tenants and prevent people from becoming homeless as a result of the pandemic. We also want to ensure that we continue our record investments in affordable housing, so that we are building the housing that is needed for this and future generations.

I am always willing to listen to views on where we can and should go further on these matters, but the protection against eviction that I have spoken about is in place right now and, if this Parliament agrees, it will be extended.

The emergency powers that were introduced at the start of this crisis tackled the immediate issue of rough sleeping and prevented evictions until September. However, it is clear now that that is not enough, given the outstanding applications that are already in place and the new applications that have been made. Even if the temporary measure does not end in just a few weeks, there are other evictions that take place without those applications, informally or illegally.

It is clear that every forecast shows that the pandemic will cause long-term economic damage to our most vulnerable communities. Given the timescale of eviction proceedings, those who have already lost their jobs or incomes during the pandemic could still face eviction in the middle of winter, even under the Government’s current plans.

The First Minister will be aware that Andy Wightman proposed a rent freeze and a ban on any evictions as a result of the debt that this crisis has created. If the First Minister still cannot bring herself to back those policies, will she consider other measures to prevent a tidal wave of evictions this winter, or will we again be left looking to fix a crisis after the harm has been done?

The First Minister:

I am genuinely not sure whether I am missing something here, so I am happy to have further discussions on the matter with Patrick Harvie and his colleagues.

With regard to Andy Wightman’s past proposals, I have stood here and explained some of the reasoning behind why we did not accept some of those proposals but instead took other steps that, in some respects, had the same, or a similar, intent.

The ban on evictions that the original Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 put in place is due to expire on 30 September, but the Government wants to extend it to March 2021. I cannot say that that is definitely happening, because it is up to Parliament to vote on it, but if my party and Patrick Harvie’s party vote together, there should be no block to that.

In addition, we took action in the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No 2) Act 2020 that allowed us to create a private landlord pre-action protocol that is similar to what was already in place in the social sector. It sets out specific actions that private landlords must take before they even begin to pursue eviction action. If a landlord fails to engage with the pre-action protocol and applies for an eviction order, a tribunal could refuse that order on the basis that the landlord did not meet the protocol’s requirements.

We continue to work with tenant and landlord stakeholder groups to ensure that those issues are properly explored. Our clear intention is to ensure that nobody is evicted as a result of the crisis that we are living through. That is why we have put in place those measures, and I remain happy to discuss them with members on all sides of the chamber. I know that Pauline McNeill has a question on similar territory later in this question session. We remain happy to work with members across the chamber to see whether we can reasonably take any further steps or action.