Meeting of the Parliament 16 January 2025
It would be remiss of me to provide an exact timescale, and I do not have one before me just now. However, the commitment is to come back as soon as possible.
The report was published in November, which is not that long ago. Nonetheless, I remind Richard Leonard that we were able to have a debate on human rights just a month afterwards, in which some of the issues were reflected.
My point on fuel poverty and the choice between heating and eating is that we should welcome the fact that Scottish Government initiatives, including the Scottish child payment, are keeping tens of thousands of children out of poverty. From next year, we will implement our winter heating payment, which will reverse the removal of the winter fuel payment for 100,000 people across the Highlands and Islands. Again, that was referred to by the Deputy First Minister.
To return to the issue of the right to food, the Government agrees with Rhoda Grant that such a right should be brought into Scots law. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has met Rhoda Grant to discuss those matters and will continue to give them consideration.
Presiding Officer, I think that I am well over my time.
There is much more that I could say, which reflects my earlier point that this is a wide-ranging report to which we will give consideration. I have been unable to touch on many of the issues that I had hoped to touch on—for example, in relation to housing, including our on-going investment in social housing. That is a challenge across the country, particularly in the Highlands and Islands. I reassure Ariane Burgess that the commitment to building social housing—affordable housing, rather—in rural and island communities involves at least 10 per cent of the houses that we will build being in such communities. I emphasise the point that it will be at least 10 per cent.
I thank members for their contributions and I give an assurance to the Parliament that I will consider the report’s contents and come back in due course.