Meeting of the Parliament 13 November 2024
I hope that that is in the budget. For the past six months, the cabinet secretary and the minister have talked about me, as a Labour spokesperson, lobbying an incoming Government to provide additional funds. The UK Government has delivered. The Scottish Government talked about housing being its number 1 priority before it got extra money. Now that the extra money has come, it does not seem to be quite as high a priority as it once was.
We find ourselves in a situation that is not entirely surprising. Scotland is being run by a Government of wasted opportunity. We have a national care service bill that fails to deliver care, a land reform bill that does not reform land ownership, and a human rights bill that has disappeared and does not exist any more. Now, we have a housing bill that will not build a single house. The Scottish Government seems to have forgotten what it is here for, but Scottish Labour has not.
I move amendment S6M-15401.2, to insert at end:
“; calls on the Scottish Government to recognise the housing emergency in the redrafted legislation, and further calls on it to include the requirement for the Scottish Ministers to produce a strategy for the increased supply of houses in Scotland, and to report annually on its progress.”
16:16Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.