Meeting of the Parliament 13 September 2017
I absolutely agree with Mr Wightman and I will come to that point later in my speech.
What is important in our triangulation of the issue is that we first answer the needs of those who are adrift of the housing market by recognising the yawning gulf between the demand for social rented housing and its availability. We must also recognise that young people, in particular, might be facing a perfect storm of low economic activity, prohibitive private rental markets and the inability to access housing benefit, while those who are in work and seeking to start a family cannot hope to own a home and must wait for considerably longer than their parents had to.
This Parliament is vested with the powers to answer much of that challenge; we lack only the political will to do so, although today’s debate is a start. I talk about needing political will, because we need to talk about a fundamental redesign of our approach to housing and development in this country.
At present, my constituency, Edinburgh Western, is a microcosm for all that is wrong with planning and housing growth. While huge tracts of brownfield land lie fallow in more industrial areas of the city, the picturesque greenbelt surrounding areas such as Cammo and South Scotstoun is eyed for development, not because of the fantastic roads infrastructure, the capacity of its schools or its doctors’ surgeries—all of which are woefully inadequate—but because developers know that they can expect to charge the highest property prices in the country for their output. To address Mr Wightman’s point, such is the ambient house price in those communities that the affordable stock provision in new developments is still crushingly out of reach for even the most well-heeled of first-time buyers.
All too often, developers such as AMA (New Town) Ltd, which built the Brighouse Park development in my constituency, pull out of commitments to planning gain, as with AMA’s promise to build a pavilion and sports field on the old Cramond campus, only to leave it as meadow and wasteland. That is another example of a developer throwing up houses but leaving no element of community in its wake. We in this place need to start thinking like place makers, recognising the housing shortage but never losing sight of the community shortage.
The outlook is also deteriorating in the teeth of Brexit. Economists know that inflation and job insecurity are only going to get worse as we leave the European Union, but skilled house builders are already leaving this country, and the exodus will continue throughout the Brexit process. Who will build our homes when they are gone?
Bold and radical action is vital to tackling the housing crisis. Successive Scottish and UK Governments have been aware that they were under-building but did nothing about it. As we have heard, Shelter Scotland says that we need 60,000 homes by the end of this session, and yet this Government’s target is a full 10,000 homes adrift of that. We need to lift our ambitions at least enough to answer the call of the experts in the field. As we grow new settlements in Scotland, we need to ensure that in each of those ventures we are building communities that have health services, schools and transport infrastructure in place before residents start to take occupancy.
I will conclude, Presiding Officer. If we get affordability right, we can build a society where young people at the margins and professionals alike can either rent or buy a home, with the stability that that affords, because adequate housing is the key to social mobility.
I move amendment S5M-07613.1, to leave out from “a national housing” to second “infrastructure” and insert:
“this should have a particular emphasis on building new homes for social rent, with increased targets to re-establish it as a valid long-term option for people; considers that, alongside an increase in housing supply, changes to social security are required to improve options and security, such as returning housing benefit to young people; recognises that the aspiration to build new properties and transform hundreds of thousands of existing properties into sustainable warm homes is dependent on the availability of skilled labour; believes that college cuts and the UK Government’s policies in relation to Brexit and immigration jeopardise the ability to find this”.
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.
- S5M-07613.1 Housing Motion