Hansard

The future of housing in Scotland affects every constituency, every community and every family in the country. In a vibrant, cohesive and forward-looking country such as Scotland, all people should have a safe, secure and affordable place to live.

I begin by acknowledging the scale of the challenges that we face. I was deeply concerned by the statistics on homelessness and housing in Scotland that were published last week. Of course, the scale of the challenge in Scotland is mirrored across the United Kingdom, where we see that the demand for affordable and accessible housing is outstripping supply. We have made significant strides, but we are still grappling with several serious challenges.

First, housing affordability is an issue that is fuelled first by Brexit, then by inflation and the cost of living crisis. In many parts of Scotland, house prices and private rents have risen faster than wages, pushing families like never before.

Secondly, on homelessness, although we have seen progress in reducing homelessness in some areas, the root causes remain.

Thirdly, on housing supply and construction, we have a strong record on affordable housing delivery. Scotland continues to deliver 40 per cent more affordable homes per head of population than England does, and 70 per cent more than Wales. However, there is no denying that house building is challenged by the increased costs of supplies and high interest rates. Those problems have been made in Westminster and have impacted on housing supply of all tenures.

Fourthly, on quality and sustainability, as we push to meet net zero targets, we must not overlook the need for high-quality places to live or the environmental sustainability of our housing.

To tackle those challenges head on, we have significantly stepped up our response. In May, we declared a national housing emergency. In June, I set out a plan to tackle the emergency under three strategic pillars. First, we need more high-quality permanent homes. Secondly, we need to ensure that we have the right homes in the right places. Thirdly, we need everyone to have a settled home, responding to the real challenge of homelessness.

I am pleased to outline the steps that we have taken and the further action that we are taking. However, let me be clear that solutions that are bold, innovative and collaborative rely on all partners to consider how they can best support the delivery of housing for people across Scotland.

I want to talk about investment. Under the first pillar of our housing emergency response, the Government is taking steps to unlock investment to put housing on a sustainable footing for future generations, while noting that short-term decisions taken at Westminster can continue to hamper our ability to deliver. In April this year, I established the housing investment task force to take that work forward. The Scottish Government has committed £100 million as a basis that can grow, with institutional investment, to at least £500 million to support the construction of approximately 2,800 mid-market rent homes.

That approach shows that the Scottish Government is prepared to do things differently in order to deliver more efficiently and to create the structures that are needed to allow institutional investment to flow. Today, I am pleased to announce a further investment of £22 million in affordable housing through our charitable bond programme. Those bonds are issued to affordable housing providers, which then pay interest, which we invest directly in our affordable housing supply programme.

That innovative funding mechanism enabled an additional investment of £71 million of charitable bond donations last year alone. It is an example of how we can make a real difference to people’s lives when we have the levers to do so, by taking bold steps to offset budget cuts and build houses. However, Westminster has cut financial transactions. The funding that we use for that investment has been cut by 62 per cent since 2022. Let me repeat that: there has been a cut of 62 per cent since 2022. The First Minister raised the issue of financial transactions on two occasions with the Deputy Prime Minister when they recently met, and then wrote to her on the topic in August.

We will continue to do everything that we can within our powers to boost delivery, but tackling the housing emergency requires a joint approach between the Scottish Government, the new United Kingdom Labour Government and, of course, local authorities.

I want to talk a little bit more about rural areas. On the second pillar, which is about the right homes in the right places, we know that delivering increased housing supply in rural areas brings additional challenges. However, between April 2016 and March 2023, the Government delivered more than 10,000 affordable homes in rural and island areas. We published a rural and islands housing action plan at the end of 2023, and I have since worked with partners, including rural employers and local authorities, to step up our response.

This year, we will continue to fund community housing trusts jointly with the Nationwide Foundation—through a funding package that is worth almost £1 million—to bring forward community-led housing projects. As recently as 20 September, the Deputy First Minister opened the second phase of an affordable housing development at Kilbeg, which is Skye’s first new village for a century.

On homelessness, voids and acquisitions, like all members, I am deeply concerned to read statistics on the number of households who are facing homelessness in Scotland. I do not underestimate the personal impact on every individual who is represented in those statistics. That is why we are scaling up our housing emergency response to deliver help where it is most needed. Despite homelessness pressure, in March last year, local authorities reported more than 9,000 vacant social homes, most of which could be re-let at some point. We are all agreed that those homes need to be brought back into use as a matter of priority.

Local authorities can now take direct action on that, after the Scottish Government allocated an additional £40 million in 2024-25 as part of the overall package of nearly £600 million. We asked the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities for a targeted approach to reflect the criticality of taking decisive action, which has led to 80 per cent of the funds being allocated to the five local authority areas with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures. Those are Edinburgh, Fife, Glasgow, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian. That approach will maximise the use of existing housing stock and minimise turnaround times for vacant social homes.

Under the third pillar of our emergency response, last month’s programme for government committed to providing £2 million in additional support for local authorities to bring properties that are purchased under acquisitions funding into use as quickly as possible. We asked COSLA to target that funding at the local authorities that are facing the most significant and sustained temporary accommodation pressures, in order to accelerate the pace of change. I am pleased that COSLA has agreed and will inform local authorities of their allocations as soon as possible.

In the past year, the number of homelessness applications in Glasgow from those who have been granted refugee status or leave to remain has nearly doubled, from 1,384 to 2,709. Last week, Susan Aitken, the leader of Glasgow City Council, wrote to the UK Home Secretary to say that Glasgow has been “immeasurably enriched” by having refugees in its communities but has not received a single penny in funding from the Home Office to deal with the impact that its decisions are having locally on housing and homelessness services. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has raised that issue directly with the Home Secretary.

Our Housing (Scotland) Bill underpins our entire approach by seeking to introduce new homelessness prevention duties. This morning, I had a meeting to talk about that with Crisis and actual practitioners—that was an important step forward. The bill seeks to ensure that partners act earlier, act together and prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. To ensure that local authorities can prevent homelessness where possible and respond swiftly when it occurs, this year, we have provided more than £130 million to local authorities, in addition to funding for the delivery of homelessness services through the block grant, to support them with their statutory duties.

Discretionary housing payments are also a vital tool to reduce poverty, safeguard tenancies and prevent homelessness. This year alone, we are making more than £90 million available to local authorities to mitigate UK Government policies such as the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, and to meet shortfalls in the local housing allowance rate, which we know is one of the biggest drivers of homelessness risk. That funding could equate to more than 700 new-build social rented homes or more than 1,300 acquisitions under our supply programme.

In progressing our proposals for rent control through the Housing (Scotland) Bill, we will ensure that rents are stabilised in the private sector, helping to support households. To ensure that we have a system of rent control that works for a thriving rented sector in Scotland, we will introduce amendments at stage 2 that will clearly set out how rent increases will be capped in areas where rent controls apply. That will happen in a way that provides certainty for tenants and landlords, while also encouraging investment.

Although the Government pulls out all the stops to tackle the housing emergency, we simply cannot hide the fact that it is hampered by a legacy of disastrous Westminster decisions: a 9 per cent capital budget cut, the bedroom tax, the local housing allowance freeze, inflationary pressures from UK Government budgets driving up mortgages, workforce supply problems driven by Brexit and, of course, asylum backlog pressures driven by Home Office decisions. All of that is forced on Scotland, reducing our capacity to go further.

Just as the Scottish Government has recognised the housing emergency and the responsibility to act, so must the UK Government. In just four weeks’ time, the UK Labour Government will set out its budget. Two decisions in that budget—scrapping the bedroom tax and permanently upgrading local housing allowance—would have an immediate and significant impact on lifting people out of temporary accommodation and preventing homelessness. I call on the UK Government to do the right thing and end those Tory measures.