Meeting of the Parliament 15 May 2024
I am sorry, but I am really short on time and I have a lot to cover.
That constituent’s household includes people with key roles in social care, the local medical practice and the school. They also volunteer as coastguards and firefighters. The community in Tiree can ill afford to lose young islanders in that way, but, in just a few weeks, those people will have no option but to move to the mainland. There are 10 applicants for every social let in Tiree and neighbouring Coll.
There are key issues that councils cannot address alone and that require a national approach. The per-metre build cost is too high. Specifying the use of home-grown Scottish timber and a new microhousing building standard are part of the solution.
Across the country, planning departments see consented sites stalled. There needs to be momentum behind developers, so requiring annual progress reports is part of the solution.
There is a lack of small and medium-sized construction companies. Capacity needs to be built. Part of the solution involves moving to off-site construction, with regional factories for new builds, and incentivising retrofit start-ups.
Empty buildings that could be homes scar our town centres, so more needs to be done to transform them into places to live. Part of the solution involves building on best practice by providing a clear route for local authorities and communities to invest in town centre living, with at-scale support from the Scottish National Investment Bank.
Tens of thousands of empty homes could be brought back into use. Part of the solution involves using all our taxation and enforcement tools to incentivise the reuse of such homes, as well as increasing funding for empty homes officers.
However, even when we take all those actions, we will still face Scotland’s long-term challenges, such as lack of land. The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill must provide ways to bring forward appropriate land and buildings for housing. There is a proposed power for estates to be broken up at the point of sale, but we cannot wait for estates to come on the market. What about inheritance? What about urban land reform? We need a secure and appropriate supply of land for housing now.
As we have seen with the low numbers of properties supplied under the affordable housing for key workers schemes—all four of which are in Orkney—bringing empty homes back into use takes time. Creating new homes from scratch is even more expensive and challenging, especially in rural communities, where land and building costs are high and available skilled workers are few and far between.
In February, the then First Minister told the chamber that
“to reform and modernise the compulsory purchase order process is vital”.—[Official Report, 8 February 2024; c 23.]
It would be good to hear progress on that issue as well as on the case for compulsory sales orders and compulsory leasing.
At the UK level, we must address VAT thresholds, reverse the near 9 per cent cut in the Scottish budget and reconsider the freeze on local housing allowance rates. We cannot continue to peddle the fantasy that we can invest in rebuilding the country after nearly two decades of austerity and stagnation—