Hansard

It is a pleasure to speak in this afternoon’s debate. Four minutes is a short time in which to speak about an incredibly important subject. I was a councillor for 15 years—many other members have been councillors—and housing was the biggest issue that I had to deal with, whether the issue was new homes, homelessness or repairs.

The council housing sell-offs of the Thatcher era proved to be a disaster for Scottish social rented sector stock. East Lothian lost 8,000 houses—8,000—and has been in recovery since then. The Scottish Government was right to act on the right to buy in 2016.

Despite the challenge of the UK Government’s austerity policy, Scotland’s five-year £3.5 billion commitment on the affordable housing programme remains. This has been said, but I will repeat it: the Scottish Government is fully committed to delivering 110,000 affordable houses by 2032. As we heard, 70 per cent of those houses will be available for social rent and 10 per cent will be in rural and island communities.

The previous target of 50,000 affordable homes was met in March 2022, having been delayed due to Covid. It provided warm, safe, high-quality places in which to live.

The cabinet secretary mentioned the 3.4 per cent real-terms reduction in its capital allocation for housing between 2022-23 and 2023-24. Members should be in no doubt that that is the result of decisions that have been taken in Westminster after the disastrous Truss-Kwarteng economic experiment. I have just seen the figures: UK Government borrowing is at an all-time high, with national debt now at £2.5 trillion.

There will always be peaks and troughs in investment towards our goal. The Scottish Government has said that investment of £752 million for 2023 represents progress towards the £3.5 billion pledge.

We have heard that the market is slowing down. I spoke to Homes for Scotland last week, and I have spoken to other house builders. The biggest reason why the market is slowing down is interest rate rises due to Tory Government incompetence. People are not investing, because of the impact of interest rate rises.

Scotland has limited capital borrowing powers compared with small, independent countries that are similar to us in size. My colleagues on the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee know that I would like Scotland to be given more extensive borrowing powers in this area. That could be done within the current devolved set-up and the matter is being discussed in the context of the on-going fiscal framework discussions between the Scottish and UK Governments. I asked the cabinet secretary about that last week. However, Labour and Tory colleagues on those committees will not support the call for those additional borrowing powers. I urge the UK Government to be as flexible as it can be in that regard. Investment in housing will bolster economic growth and provide more jobs.

Another fall-out of the Truss economic disaster is high inflation rates. The UK has the highest rate after Italy among the G7 countries and one of the highest rates among the G20 countries. We have heard about inflationary pressures feeding through to construction costs. Inflation is at 10.5 per cent, but the Homes for Scotland briefing that we received today mentioned that the latest Scottish social housing tender price index puts inflation in construction costs at 22 per cent, not 10.5 per cent.

The Scottish Government remains fully committed to delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, despite rampant inflation. Christine Grahame talked about the impact of Brexit on supply issues, and Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, stated today that, due to Brexit,

“the UK is in the most difficult position of all the major world economies.”

That is a direct quote.

Over the 15 years between 2007-08 and 2021-22, the annual average supply of affordable housing per head of population in Scotland was 13.9 homes per 10,000 of population. I will not repeat Jackie Dunbar’s point on that.

I am a member of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, and we have, like the wider Parliament, been discussing NPF4 and how it would support home building. We will monitor the target of 110,000 affordable homes and will look at the housing need and demand assessment process, the minimum all-tenure housing land requirement, empty homes and other funding models.

On planning, I know that Tom Arthur is engaging with the Royal Town Planning Institute to deliver the 700 planners that are required. The Scottish Government is delivering in extremely difficult circumstances and is working with partners such as Homes for Scotland and RTPI to build as many houses as it can across all tenures.