Meeting of the Parliament 26 April 2023
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests.
I thank Mark Griffin for his kind words. Mark and I met yesterday, and I am keen to work with him, Mr Briggs and the other Opposition parties going forward.
The Government’s ambition is for everyone to have a warm, energy-efficient and affordable home that meets their needs. That is why, since 2007, we have prioritised housing, and we will continue to do so. It is a key part of our interdependent missions, as published last week, through our mission to prioritise our public services and focus on equality and opportunity.
We are proud of having now delivered 118,124 affordable homes since 2007, over 83,000 of which are for social rent, including 21,313 council homes. That is a first in a generation. To put it in context, that compares with the building of just six council homes by the previous Labour and Liberal coalition Government.
Across the four years between 2018 and 2022, Scotland delivered 59 per cent more affordable homes per head of population than England, 72 per cent more than Labour-controlled Wales and 24 per cent more than Northern Ireland. Over that period, we also delivered nine times more social rented homes per head of population than England. That is the context. However, we need to do more. I acknowledge that, and I will address it later in my speech.
We are working hard alongside our housing partners to deliver on our next target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which at least 70 per cent will be available for social rent and 10 per cent will be in our remote, rural and island communities. I am keen, as I mentioned before in the members’ business debate, to go out and visit rural and island communities in the summer.
That is backed by more than £3.5 billion over the current parliamentary session. That figure has not changed. The Labour motion mentions a reduction in the budget, but the £3.5 billion commitment is still there. Affordable housing commitments need to run over a number of years, which is why we have provided local authorities with resource planning assumptions for future years, and why we set out our medium-term investment plans in the multiyear capital spending review through to 2025-26.
We know that there are challenges ahead. The impacts of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have increased prices. Alongside the United Kingdom Government’s disastrous mismanagement of the economy, that has led to spiralling energy costs and soaring inflation. Alongside the impacts on labour supply and trade due to a hard Brexit, inflation is having a significant impact on our spending power.