Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 21 December 2021
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I welcome the consultation with all the relevant parties. I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am a serving councillor in East Lothian, where I own a rental property.
I grew up on a council estate in Dunbar with my mum, dad and sister. It was and still is a close-knit community. I have been a councillor for 15 years in Dunbar, and the most pressing issues over that time—any councillor will tell you this—have been housing related. Members have mentioned the various houses that they have been in; I have been in houses of various sectors that were in various states. It is a much-needed consultation.
In East Lothian, the right-to-buy scheme resulted in the loss of 8,000 council houses, with no means to replace them. Today, we are still trying to recover from that.
How we treat our tenants is key and fundamental to ensure a vibrant housing sector. As the motion states, 1.85 million people live in the rented sector, which accounts for 37 per cent of all housing in Scotland. Those people should have improved quality, standards and rights in the place they call home. They should have the right to more secure and stable tenancies with improved safeguards against eviction, improved regulation and effective national rent controls in the private sector, as the minister said.
Shelter Scotland said:
“This is an ambitious strategy, and it offers the chance to mend many aspects of a housing system that is currently failing thousands.”
The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations said:
“We welcome the Scottish Government’s ambition that all tenants should have access to secure, good quality, affordable homes.”
I want to focus on two main issues in the consultation. The first is the commitment to deliver 110,000 homes. We need to ensure that we have an appropriate tenure mix to ensure deliverability, and we must look at other funding models to support the long-term commitment. As we have heard, the target is for at least 70 per cent of the homes to be for social rent and for 10 per cent to be in our remote, rural and island communities, as Finlay Carson said. That is an issue in East Lothian; the remote and rural issue is an important one and, in a second, I will come on to how we might deliver on that.
We must ensure that the private sector can deliver its commitment, as much of our affordable housing target is dependent on that. It is of course being supported by £3.6 billion of Scottish Government investment.
Housing supply affects affordability and quality across all tenures, but we need the proper tenure mix in that supply so that everyone has access to the housing that they need at a price that they can afford. Local authority local development plans have a key part in that, as they deliver affordable rented accommodation. Local authorities must be brave in their allocations. Mid-market rent has a role to play, along with build to rent, which is a growing sector in Scotland. They all have a key role in ensuring the tenure balance that I talked about.
I am keen for us to explore other funding models. In my constituency, I have seen housing delivered with funding from Co-op pension funds and the LAR Housing Trust through commercial lending. We need to look at ways of scaling up such delivery options to maximise grant funding. The Co-op and LAR Housing Trust have both worked with East Lothian Council on allocations, which is very important.
The second issue is about strengthening and enforcing housing rights. I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to deliver a new human right to adequate housing through the forthcoming human rights bill. On that, Shelter Scotland has stated:
“This is welcome and is a vital step on the journey to ensuring everyone has access to a home that meets their needs. Accompanied with ensuring there is an adequate supply of social housing in the places that need it most, this will help to tackle Scotland’s housing emergency. We welcome the Rented Sector Strategy’s focus on marginalised groups and look forward to more work being done in this area to fix the broken and biased housing system which disproportionately harms people with disabilities, women, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.”
On that issue, a few weeks ago I met Women’s Aid East and Midlothian, which said that housing policies for those fleeing domestic abuse require a different, gender-competent approach. For that reason alone, we must ensure that changes are made.
I look forward to working with Scotland’s housing sector to deliver the basic human right of a house over everyone’s head for them to call home.
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