Meeting of the Parliament 31 October 2023
I will make some progress and perhaps take an intervention later.
Against what the minister has just said about the Government working with the private sector, it is key that we take forward the actions that we take away from rural organisations such as the Scottish Association of Landlords and Scottish Land & Estates, which have provided a briefing for the debate. It is important that we work with them and that we listen to the voices of the people who are integral to providing houses in the private rented sector. They have argued strongly that arbitrary rent freezes and eviction bans harm landlords and tenants.
That is important because, alongside making it harder to solve Scotland’s housing crisis, there is a huge impact from the red tape and bureaucracy. We have seen a £12 million underspend in rural and islands housing funds. We have also seen repeated failures to meet targets for building affordable homes, with approval rates at their lowest level in 10 years. We have seen a 25 per cent reduction in the delivery of social housing and a staggering 48,000 empty homes across the country, which the minister addressed in his response to my intervention. In my constituency in the Borders, 1,000 properties have been empty for over a year. That does not go unnoticed by my constituents. They cannot understand why those properties cannot be brought back for integral homes for them and their families in the next generation.