Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee 07 May 2025
Item 3 is consideration of new petitions, of which we have only one this morning. I highlight—as I always do—that, in advance of the committee considering new petitions, we do two things. First, we invite the Scottish Parliament’s independent research body, the Scottish Parliament information centre, to offer us a view on the issues that have been raised in the petition. That information is submitted to members of the committee in advance, with the papers that we receive. We also invite the Scottish Government to give us a preliminary view. We do those two things because, historically, they were the first two things that the committee used to recommend doing, which only delayed the progress and consideration of the petition. So, we come to the petition with those bits of information in front of us.
PE2147, lodged by Laura Jones on behalf of the Scottish Tenants Organisation, seeks to create more women-only homeless accommodation that protects and meets the specific needs of women. It calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to reform homeless services in Scotland, and to ensure that services protect women from sexual assault and exploitation, by increasing funding and supporting the creation of more women-only homeless accommodation.
The petitioner tells us that increasing numbers of women are being placed in unsuitable hotel and bed-and-breakfast emergency accommodation, with little consideration for the specific challenges and risks that that poses for women. The petitioner is concerned in particular about the risk of sexual assault and exploitation that women face when placed in temporary emergency accommodation.
As the SPICe briefing notes, although local authorities have a duty to assess anyone in their area who is applying as homeless and to provide temporary accommodation in certain circumstances, the Scottish Government has a policy to reduce the use of temporary accommodation. The briefing also highlights Scottish Government homelessness statistics for the period between April and September 2024, which indicate that hostels and bed and breakfast accommodation accounted for 24 per cent of temporary homeless accommodation.
10:15In its response to the petition, the Scottish Government recognises that women’s experiences of homelessness are very different to men’s experiences, and the response to women’s housing needs should therefore also be different. The response draws our attention to the temporary accommodation standards framework, which was published in April 2023 and aims
“to ensure that any time spent in temporary accommodation causes minimal harm.”
To achieve that, it aims to ensure that the accommodation is of good quality, safe, warm and affordable, and that standards are consistent across Scotland. The framework includes standards on support to access different types of accommodation, which are allocated based on gender, and provision of single-gender accommodation for households that are experiencing domestic abuse. The Scottish Government response also references the implementation of the equally safe strategy, which is aimed at preventing violence against women and girls and supporting survivors who have experienced such abuse. In the year ahead, the Government will invest £21.6 million in delivering the equally safe funding programme.
Members will also have noted from our papers that issues related to the petition have been raised as part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s inquiry on financial considerations when leaving an abusive relationship.
This is the first time that we have considered the petition and I can see that we are joined in the gallery by those who might have an interest in it. Colleagues, do you have any suggestions as to how we might proceed?