Meeting of the Parliament 19 March 2025
I am deeply grateful to Shelter Scotland and the authors of this clear and comprehensive yet heartbreaking report. Just reading it is a harrowing experience. To write it and to listen to those stories must have been much more so. To live those stories—to experience those horrors—and then to retell them for the benefit of others is worthy of the greatest respect and gratitude. Most of all, I thank the children and families who shared their stories with such grace, insight and integrity.
I do not use the word “horrors” lightly. There are some terrible accounts in the report, which are all the more chilling for the matter-of-fact way that they are told. There are accounts of thick black mould not just on bedroom walls but on a child’s bed; of carpets soaked with urine and shared bathrooms smeared with faeces; of heating that does not work in the depths of a Scottish winter; and of a child in hospital with an infection caused by rat infestation. Another child lost two and a half stone as a result of their surroundings. The report talks of exposure to violence, including stabbings and shootings, and of noise through the night so loud that a child repeatedly fell asleep in their classroom.
Those are the stories that shock us, but there are many more—not so dramatic, perhaps, but just as haunting. There are the daily struggles to make a home and the quiet spirals of loss, anxiety and stigma. We read of unsafe accommodation without basic protections such as properly installed fire alarms, functional lighting, window guards or safety gates. We read of unsafe surroundings—of violence, knives, needles and confrontational neighbours—and of there being nowhere safe to play. We read of unhealthy accommodation, often cold and damp, lacking space and facilities, that leads to sleep deprivation, malnutrition, delays in development and long-term, lifetime trauma.
The mental health impacts for children and their parents are often worse than the physical impacts, through worry and anger, shame and secrecy, isolation and a sense of hopelessness. Some of those will stay with children for the rest of their lives. Some of those will make those lives shorter than they would otherwise be.
Every age group suffers. Babies and toddlers are without the space to learn to crawl and walk, with their shouts and cries quickly shushed for fear of the neighbours. Schoolchildren are separated from their family and friends as a result of long journeys to school, with missed opportunities, a loss of concentration and the recognition and sharing of their parents’ sadness. Teenagers, without privacy or a place to study, are ashamed of where they live, lose self-esteem and are susceptible to risky behaviour, with lifelong consequences.
The costs in every sense are far too high—for families, who are charged rent that they cannot afford, with debt in Scotland for temporary accommodation standing at more than £33 million; for essential furniture and appliances that should have been supplied; for storage fees and taxi fares; for running small electric heaters when the radiators do not work, again, for another week; for lost childhoods and chances; for lost agency and control; and for lost toys, with the swing in the old garden never forgotten.
However, it does not have to be like that. We can change this. Children’s rights can be realised, and they must be realised as a matter of moral as well as legal responsibility. The report’s recommendations show us the way forward. There are changes that can and must be made now—changes to provision, services and strategies; changes to legislation and policy; and changes in attitude and priority.
In my closing speech, I will say more about my commitment, which my Green colleagues share, to making a safe, secure and permanent home the reality for children everywhere.
16:21