Meeting of the Parliament 13 November 2024
We see the toll on people who are homeless or desperate for a new house. They live with it all day, every day, all night and all year round. They are drained, anxious and unwell. They are arguing in the family and they are desperate for a change. We members do not know what that is like, because we are living in a different world from the one that they are living in.
That needs to come home in the priorities of this Government, because the Government knows that it has made a mistake. It has made a mistake over a number of years, and that is why it is changing its policy now. We might debate whether the policy changes are right, but the fact that the Government is changing policy now is an indication that it had got it wrong. In many local authorities, including the housing minister’s, there is a stark housing emergency. It is stark across the country, and, as we have talked about, 10,000 children are in temporary accommodation, so their lives are in limbo.
When it was clear that a housing crisis was coming, what was most depressing was that the Government cut the affordable housing supply programme by a large degree. The Government says that it was somebody else’s fault, but its budget decisions led to that situation and made the emergency even worse.
To give the Government credit, I think that it is taking steps in the right direction. The changes to the planning system that were announced yesterday were an improvement, because they will remove the infrastructure levy, increase the capacity and expertise in planning departments, and create a best practice hub in the centre. Those measures might lead to some pragmatic improvements. I still have concerns about access to land supply in areas that are viable, however, and I hope that the minister will look at that issue.
The changes that were announced yesterday were a step in the right direction. I remain sceptical about rent control as a whole, but the previous week’s rent control decisions on CPI plus 1 per cent and, crucially, excluding mid-market rent and build to rent were a good signal to investors that they should look to invest in the sector. It is about restoring confidence in the industry, because its confidence was at rock bottom.
I attended the Homes for Scotland conference just a few weeks ago, and the house builders were desperate to build new homes. We cannot do it without those people. We might not like them, but we cannot do it without them, because they build houses. We are not going to do it all through the Government, councils or housing associations; we need the builders to make it work. Therefore, we need to build confidence in those people, and the steps that the Government has taken are a move in the right direction.
I urge the minister to consider the language around energy performance, which we have discussed previously. Specifically, the use of the term “Passivhaus” strikes fear into the hearts of some people, who believe that a specific standard is being required when, in fact, we should be aiming for a high energy efficiency standard overall. We need houses to be built at volume and quickly, to a really good standard, but specifying “Passivhaus” would be a mistake.