Hansard

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I am the owner of a rented property in the North Lanarkshire Council area.

Yesterday, I joked with the Minister for Housing that not many of his colleagues would be welcomed to their posts in an Opposition motion. However, we and organisations such as Shelter and Homes for Scotland have been calling for a dedicated housing minister for months, and we hope that he will bring a long-overdue and renewed focus on tackling our housing emergency. I appreciated his candour and expertise when we worked together in committee, and I hope that he will take that approach into Government.

Although we welcome the change in personnel, we also need a change in Government direction, because the task is urgent. Since our previous debate on the topic, the housing emergency has, as predicted, become worse. The new homes pipeline has continued to dry up; the rent freeze has failed, with rents increasing at their highest pace in a decade; some 10,000 children are in temporary accommodation, which is a record high; and at least 125 social tenants have been evicted from their homes under the so-called eviction ban.

In addition, the Government’s temporary accommodation task and finish group has confirmed what we already knew—that the ambition of the “Ending Homelessness Together” action plan has not matched realities on the ground. Furthermore, the Scottish Housing Regulator now reports that

“there is an emerging risk of systemic failure in ... homelessness services.”

In advance of today’s debate, Crisis in Scotland has shared with me—and many other members, I am sure—cases of households that it has been supporting. One family is trapped in local authority temporary accommodation that is infested with mice and rats. As a result of damp and mould, children are experiencing recurring viral illnesses, with their general practitioner recommending strongly that they leave those premises.

In another case, Tracy, a woman in her 40s with Crohn’s disease and Asperger’s, has spent more than four years in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh. She was left with no hot water for 18 months. However, it was not the lack of hot water but the severe damp and mould that rotted her wheelchair, which led to her being isolated, and destroyed old family photographs, school reports and treasured memories of her children’s time as youngsters. In Scotland in 2023, it took Tracy appearing on the STV programme “Scotland Tonight” for her to be offered a new home.

A homeless person in Midlothian faces a 96-week wait for their homelessness application to be closed. Across the country, the average wait is more than six months. Worse still—this is a national scandal—is the fact that at least 157 homeless Scots died in the past year, seemingly without Government response or reaction.

Labour’s motion lays down the task at hand for the new minister. If we want to end the homelessness emergency and the crisis in temporary accommodation, we need more homes. We need new social and private homes, and we need empty homes to be brought back into the social sector for living in.

I echo the key recommendation of the temporary accommodation task and finish group report. The Government must set an interim target of delivering 38,500 social homes by 2026. That number has not been plucked out of thin air but is from independent academic research that was commissioned by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Shelter and the Chartered Institute of Housing, which have demonstrated clearly that that would reduce housing need.

Shelter points out that social approvals are at their worst level since 2013 and starts are at their worst level since 2016. Both are down by 20 per cent. That means that we are seeing progress being rolled back. At the current rate, there is a real fear that the 2032 target will not be met.

We are absolutely clear that targets in themselves will not build a single home. However, they sharpen minds, such as those of the ministers who are appointed to build the homes that we need. Because the wider housing crisis continues, we need an all-tenure target, too. Success in the supply programme cannot be separated from success in supply in the wider market.

Homes for Scotland points to the Government’s research that shows that, in 2019, developer contributions were worth more than £30,000 for each private home that was built. Its survey found that three in 10 affordable homes were delivered because of the building of private homes.

That is why we are calling on Parliament to back Homes for Scotland’s call to return to the target of building 25,000 homes annually in order to start making progress on catching up on the homes that should have been built over the past five years.

We cannot support the Government’s amendment because it avoids a commitment to supporting the recommendations that are contained in its own group’s report. I am sure that the Minister for Housing, having spent time, with me, on the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, would not expect me to accept the Government’s claim that it is delivering investment in local government core funding—not when the vice-president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities was at the committee yesterday talking about the £1 billion shortfall, and not when Scottish National Party presidents and resource spokespersons at COSLA echo the same call.

The fact that no local authority has been able to fulfil all the rapid rehousing aims shows that, without proper Government support, the rapid rehousing transitions that are envisaged by the Government are impossible. During January’s debate, the minister’s predecessor repeatedly referred to the work of the group that the Government had rightly set up. Now that it has been given a chance to respond to that group, the Government has all but dismissed the very recommendations that it has made.

That is no fresh start. It is just a long list of rehashed promises—