Hansard

We have already had numbers of conversations with the island communities and the Minister for Transport and Islands about how we address fuel poverty and the need for energy-efficient homes in those areas. That is why we have a rural fuel poverty initiative, and the rural housing fund that will be launched will take such issues into account. We recognise that there are differences in rural and island communities.

We are working collaboratively across the private and public sectors to stimulate a major pipeline of new housing supply across all rented tenures, including by making best use of our United Kingdom financial transactions resource. We are leading the way in the groundbreaking use of that type of funding, which must be paid back to Her Majesty’s Treasury. The Scottish Government’s approach to innovative financing is leaving no stone unturned in exploring new and better ways of attracting funding into the affordable housing sector.

We are approaching 4,000 new affordable home approvals through a range of innovative financing mechanisms, with hundreds more in the pipeline. We are the first—and remain the only—national Government in the UK and public sector body in Scotland to invest in charitable bonds. By 2016, we will have invested £37 million in those bonds, creating loan finance to fund affordable housing in Scotland and generating charitable donations of £1.4 million for regeneration charities and around £7 million for social housing. That could support the delivery of up to 600 new affordable homes.

The recently announced LAR—or local affordable rented—Housing Trust is a pioneering affordable housing model that will deliver up to 1,000 homes for mid-market rent. The trust is supported by a £55 million loan from the Scottish Government and is expected to attract matching private investment. Moreover, the national housing trust initiative, which was the first guarantee-based scheme for housing in the UK, has seen the completion of more than 1,000 homes and is on track to deliver more than 2,000 homes for mid-market rent across the country.

We are also supporting pension funds to invest in affordable housing. The Falkirk local government pension scheme fund has agreed a £30 million investment to deliver around 300 affordable homes, and the Scottish Government’s support for that trailblazer project is an initial investment of over £6 million towards 126 social homes in Falkirk and Clackmannanshire. If other pension funds can be attracted to invest, the investment fund has the potential to expand and deliver more than 1,000 homes. We continue to outperform other parts of the UK with 79 new-build social sector completions per 100,000 population compared to 52 in England and Wales.

However, although new housing supply is one aspect of what is important, we need to ensure that existing homes are of good quality and that people can afford to heat them. Since 2009, we have allocated over £0.5 billion to fuel poverty and energy efficiency programmes, and that commitment is now paying dividends, with over a third of all Scottish dwellings now having a good energy efficiency rating of B and C. That is an increase of 56 per cent since 2010.

Access to good housing has the ability to create the right environment to allow our citizens to fulfil their potential with regard to their health, education and social interactions in their communities, and good housing goes right to the heart of the fairer and stronger Scotland that this Government is working to deliver. The Scottish Government’s ambitions for affordable housing are clear. We have demonstrated that we can deliver on our commitments and, working together with our partners, we will meet the new 50,000 affordable homes target that this Government has set for housing in Scotland.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises that housing helps promote social justice, strengthens communities and tackles inequality as well as being good for the economy; welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to providing access to good quality housing and recognises that it is a high priority for the current administration; commends the Scottish Government for being on course to exceed its five-year target of delivering 30,000 affordable homes by March 2016, including 20,000 social rented homes; acknowledges this achievement being made despite the drastic reduction in capital budgets as a result of the UK Government’s spending cuts; further recognises that the Scottish Government started a new generation of council house building, has abolished the right to buy and is leading the way in the UK in financial innovation for housing; notes that Scotland continues to outperform other parts of the UK in housing completions, and welcomes the Scottish Government’s future ambition to build a further 50,000 affordable homes for people across Scotland.