Official Report 875KB pdf
Social Justice and Housing
I ask members who are leaving the chamber—and people who are leaving the public gallery—to do so as quickly and quietly as possible, as we move on to the next item of business, which is portfolio questions. The portfolio on this occasion is social justice and housing. Any member who wishes to ask a supplementary question should press their request-to-speak button during the relevant question.
Affordable Housing Supply Programme (North Ayrshire)
To ask the Scottish Government how many affordable homes it anticipates will be built in North Ayrshire between 2025 and 2032 as part of its affordable housing supply programme. (S6O-05315)
North Ayrshire Council’s current strategic housing investment plan—SHIP—sets out a target to deliver 1,643 new affordable homes over the period from 2025 to 2030, supported through the Scottish Government’s affordable housing supply programme. Following recent additions to its programme, the council has enhanced this target to 1,666 homes. The SHIP covers the period from 2025 to 2030, and the council has not published an updated estimate extending delivery projections to 2032.
I thank the cabinet secretary for that helpful answer. Labour has slashed London’s affordable housing target from 35 per cent to 20 per cent of new completions, with fewer than 4,000 new homes of all tenures built between January and June despite a target of 88,000 a year. In Wales, the number of new home consents in quarter 2 of this year is the lowest on record at only 28 per cent of the 10-year quarterly average.
Does the cabinet secretary agree with Professor Janice Morphet of University College London who said:
“This could have long-term implications for the provision of affordable housing in London and could have a ripple effect around the country”?
Is the cabinet secretary concerned that Labour’s rowing back on its affordable housing ambitions could impact Scotland’s funding?
Robust targets for the provision of affordable housing are essential. It is worth looking back and seeing that, between 1999 and 2007, an average of 5,448 affordable homes were delivered by Scottish Labour per annum compared to this Government’s record between 2007 and 2025, when an average per annum of 7,734 homes were delivered. That is an average of 40 per cent more per head than in the period when Labour was last in government. Indeed, in the last four years of the Labour-led Government in Scotland, only six new council houses were built compared to the past four years under this Government, when 8,572 new council homes were built.
As we are talking about house building, let us look at the final house building statistics for 2025, which were published this week. All sector new house building completions are down. Private sector new house building completions are down. Social sector new house building completions are down. Affordable house building approvals, starts and completions are down.
How confident is the cabinet secretary of completing 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, or is it the case that the Government has completely given up on that target? By the looks of its statistics, it is not hitting its house building targets.
I am very proud of the Government’s record on the delivery of affordable homes, which, as we heard in First Minister’s questions, has resulted in the Government delivering some 141,000 affordable homes, more than 100,000 of which have been for the most affordable social rents. However, there is no doubt that, as reflected in the statistics that were published this week, the past few years have been exceptionally difficult. I urge Meghan Gallacher to reflect on the extent to which the hardest of Brexits, which her party pursued, and the economic carnage that her former Prime Minister Liz Truss ushered in have resulted in those economic pressures, not the least of which is the inflation figure for construction costs reaching 24 per cent in the summer of 2022. I ask her to reflect on the impact that that has had on house building.
The number of new homes that North Ayrshire Council plans to build has not increased by a single house since the Scottish National Party took control of the council from Labour in 2022. Will the cabinet secretary advise whether that is the result of a lack of ambition on the part of the current North Ayrshire administration or due to cuts in funding for affordable housing by the Scottish Government?
There is £808 million in the affordable housing supply programme this year. In the housing emergency action plan that the Government released in September, we committed to up to £4.9 billion of expenditure over the next four years. That is a considerable uptick and provides greater certainty. As I said in my opening response to Mr Gibson, the council’s SHIP sets out a target of 1,643 homes and that has just been revised to 1,666.
Temporary Accommodation (Support for Children over Christmas)
Presiding Officer, I extend to you and all colleagues my best wishes for a happy Christmas and a good new year.
To ask the Scottish Government what support it is providing to the thousands of children who will be living in temporary and unsuitable accommodation over the Christmas period. (S6O-05316)
As Cabinet Secretary for Housing, I assure Paul Sweeney that children who are not in a permanent home—whether they are in local authority temporary accommodation or are among the smaller numbers who are in unsuitable accommodation—are uppermost in my mind at all times of the year but most particularly during the festive period. Although temporary accommodation provides a vital safety net for people when they need it, we want fewer households, especially those with children, to spend long periods in temporary accommodation.
As well as our work to significantly enhance the affordable home supply programme, both with certainty and with more funding than ever before, we are taking action now. That action includes providing an £80 million package as part of the housing emergency action plan that we published in September. The plan asks councils and registered social landlords to buy homes now on the open market, particularly family homes where they are available, in order to help to relieve accommodation pressure, including in relation to accommodation for children. That funding package has been coupled with an ask that people who are in temporary accommodation that, despite being temporary, is otherwise suitable, be given the opportunity to flip it to a permanent home.
I am sure that the cabinet secretary will have noted from Shelter Scotland’s report last week that two in five phone calls to its helpline are related to families who are urgently seeking temporary accommodation. It reported that clients are routinely being denied their right to temporary accommodation or are being placed in housing that is unsuitable according to the law.
Families are being forced to live in hostels or are put in dingy temporary flats that make them ill and leave children traumatised, with potentially lifelong effects on their mental and physical health. It is a national scandal that that is how thousands of children across Scotland are spending yet another Christmas—with precious childhood development being robbed from them because of an inadequate and declining housing supply. Does the Government recognise that this is a public health emergency as much as anything else? What will the cabinet secretary say directly to the families who are facing that housing emergency?
I say to those families that the Government is supporting them. As I said, we are supporting them with a major affordable homes delivery programme for the coming four years, which builds on the success that we have had to date, whereby 141,000 affordable homes have been delivered. I am supporting them with an acquisitions fund from which we are asking councils to buy homes now. I am supporting them with guidance on flipping.
The other thing that I have to bring to Mr Sweeney’s attention is the fact that we are now in the second year of a local housing allowance freeze. That is preventing people from being able to maintain tenancies and pushing them into homelessness. It is a British Labour Party policy, so, although I do not doubt Mr Sweeney’s commitment, particularly to children in Glasgow whose families cannot sustain their tenancies, he really ought to make representations to his leadership in London to scrap the bedroom tax and unfreeze local housing allowance.
We will need slightly shorter questions and also slightly briefer responses.
Refugees and Asylum Seekers (Misinformation)
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address misinformation in relation to refugees and asylum seekers and to promote community cohesion. (S6O-05317)
When our communities are telling us that they feel threatened and are under pressure, we all have a responsibility to listen, to build trust and to reduce tensions. That can help to ensure that misinformation spreads less easily. As part of that, we all need to be mindful of the information that we are sharing and the language that we use.
The Scottish Government is deeply concerned about some of the rhetoric that we are hearing across the United Kingdom, which should have no place in our society. Refugees and people seeking asylum must not be scapegoated for current complex challenges. In September, I set out our approach as part of my “One Scotland, Many Voices” statement to the Parliament. That approach includes an additional £300,000 to support grass-roots projects that are uniting people from different backgrounds, cultures and faiths.
The conflicts that people flee from start not with bullets, but with words. Will the Scottish Government join the Scottish Refugee Council in encouraging all members of the Scottish Parliament to sign up to its pledge, which asks not for any debate to stop, but simply that, when MSPs speak about refugees and people seeking asylum, they do so with dignity and compassion; they avoid language that dehumanises, stereotypes or fosters division; they promote public understanding that is rooted in fact, fairness and empathy; and they uphold the responsibility of political leadership to nurture the development of human rights?
I thank Ruth Maguire for highlighting the principles in that pledge. I am pleased to note that dozens of MSPs have already signed the Scottish Refugee Council’s pledge. As of 10 December, more than 40 MSPs had signed the cross-party pledge, although no Conservative colleagues had done so—I wonder which of the principles in that pledge they feel unable to uphold. I urge them to join their colleagues across the parties of the Scottish Parliament in upholding the responsibility of political leadership to nurture the development of human rights, to stick to facts and fairness, and to avoid language that dehumanises and stereotypes. I am sure that they can join us in signing that pledge.
Will the minister join me in utterly condemning the individuals who gathered on the steps of Kirkcaldy town house with raised right hands and a flag with Nazi symbolism on it? Locals have reported that those individuals were a group of teenagers. Although there has been one arrest, about 40 people attended the gathering. In work to promote community cohesion, what focus has been placed on tackling the radicalisation of young men in our communities?
I condemn any behaviour that raises tensions and creates division in our societies—there is no place at all for that. It is perfectly possible to have the right to free speech, but we need to be mindful that there is clear hate crime legislation. There are strands in the equally safe strategy that directly address work on the radicalisation of people, particularly young people and young men.
During a radio interview this week, the Cabinet Secretary for Housing appeared to call for refugees and asylum seekers to remain in hotels for longer, to ease Scotland’s housing crisis. Will the minister clarify and confirm whether it is now the Scottish Government’s position that hotels should be a long-term solution for housing asylum seekers and refugees? Will she also ensure that the priority need and local connection loopholes are closed, so that our cities are not disproportionately affected?
I, too, listened to the interview, and I think that that question is a total mischaracterisation of what the cabinet secretary said.
Housing Investment (Pension Funds)
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the housing secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding arrangements for accessing pension funds as a source of investment to build affordable and social housing. (S6O-05318)
I have discussed with ministerial colleagues the work of the housing investment task force, which included the utilisation of pension funds, along with other sources of finance, to increase investment in affordable housing. I have also had direct discussions with pension funds and the Scottish National Investment Bank on how we can build on what has been done to date. That includes significant direct investment in registered social landlords, in partnership with the Scottish Government.
That is a heartening response, because it is estimated that there is currently some £250 billion of investment funding available from institutional investors across the United Kingdom, some of which could be available for investment in social housing. For example, pension funds require a return of about 6 or 7 per cent and, of course, security in their investments. That could be provided by social and affordable housing. The cabinet secretary has met with all those people, but will she meet with me to discuss a firm proposal that would involve—but not necessarily require—Scottish bonds as a vehicle for taking the matter forward in 2026?
The Government is on track to issue our first bonds next year, which is a reflection of the strength of Scotland’s economy. It is also a step in building the institutions that we need for a prosperous future in which we make our own decisions and reap the benefits of them. The proceeds of those bonds will be used to fund capital investment in key infrastructure, including housing. I would be glad to meet with Christine Grahame to discuss those matters.
With recent statistics showing that the number of house building completions is at its lowest level since 18 September, it is clear that companies need more support to build the homes that Scotland requires. What action is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that the funding and regulatory certainty that those companies require is being addressed in order to tackle the housing crisis?
One of the points that is most often put to me in relation to creating policy and regulatory certainty is that we should offer a long-term direction of travel on the policy that the Government will adopt and the funding that will be available. The housing emergency action plan that we set out in September sought to do that. Over the coming four years, we are providing the greatest level of multi-annual certainty on the affordable housing supply programme that we have ever been able to provide. We have accompanied that with more money than has ever been put behind the programme. We have also set a new all-tenure target of 10 per cent growth in the next three years. In those ways and more, we are giving absolute certainty on the direction of travel of Government policy and accompanying that with greater investment.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Housebuilders (Support)
I refer members to my entry regarding construction in the register of members’ interests.
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support small and medium-sized enterprise house builders. (S6O-05319)
As well as discussing the needs of SME house builders at the Homes for Scotland board, which the First Minister and I attend, I have held subsequent bespoke discussions with the SME sector, to listen to its views and ideas. We have reflected many of those discussions in our emergency action plan, with specific cross-Government intervention to better support SME builders and Scotland’s housing sector, including lending by the Scottish National Investment Bank, investment of up to £4.9 billion and, as I mentioned, the introduction of that new all-tenure target. In September, the minister with responsibility for planning and I wrote to planning authorities across Scotland, setting out our expectation of proportionality when dealing with SMEs.
Is the cabinet secretary aware that, between the late timing of the United Kingdom budget and the traditional Christmas slowdown, house sales have dropped for longer than usual, with some developers pausing work on sites? That will make Tuesday’s statistics on new starts and completions even bleaker.
With the Scottish budget fast approaching, when the cabinet secretary met Homes for Scotland, was she able to support its calls regarding any increased capital consequential funding coming to Scotland to provide support for first-time buyers, to confirm multiyear funding commitments to the affordable housing supply programme, and to provide increases to the planning budget to ensure that resource and capacity are increased?
I meet Homes for Scotland regularly and speak to it in detail about its proposals. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government will set out the content of the budget in due course.
If I am wrong about this, I will speak to Mr Burnett, but I am quite sure that the consequentials that would flow from the investments that are planned by the UK Government are already outstripped by what we propose to invest in the coming four years.
Will the cabinet secretary say a little more about the importance of proportionality in the planning system for SME house builders and, in particular, how the Scottish Government is communicating that to stakeholders?
Proportionality is key, because we are talking about a question of viability. Viability requires regularity, and it requires SMEs to be able to enter the planning system with an expectation of what will be involved and the length of time that it might take. That is exactly what I have been calling for from chief planners. We will continue to work with SME house builders and chief planners to get the balance right between a well-functioning planning system and one that is both regular and predictable.
Temporary Accommodation and Homelessness (Support for Local Authorities)
To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities, such as East Dunbartonshire Council, to reduce the use of temporary accommodation and prevent homelessness. (S6O-05320)
The best way to reduce the need for temporary accommodation is to help people to stay in their homes in the first place; namely, to prevent homelessness in the first place. I have mentioned a number of times the multi-annual funding and the major affordable homes delivery programme that we have launched for the coming four years. I mentioned in response to Paul Sweeney that we are investing more than £100 million in discretionary housing payments, helping to mitigate the local housing allowance freeze and the bedroom tax in Scotland. We will continue to support people, including in East Dunbartonshire, through those funds.
East Dunbartonshire Council is working hard to reduce the use of temporary accommodation, but prevention is the key. Will the cabinet secretary outline how the temporary accommodation standards group is specifically helping local authorities to prepare for their new prevention duties under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025, to ensure that families are supported before they reach crisis point?
Rona Mackay is absolutely right to mention the new prevention duties. I have focused a lot of my answers on the work of the housing emergency action plan, which was published at the start of September, and, of course, the Parliament passed the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 at the end of September. That contained what can be gold-standard homelessness prevention duties, which we have developed alongside experts such as Crisis. To ensure that the duties can have the effect that we know that they can, we are investing an additional £4 million this year in pilots to work out exactly how the prevention duties can best function and can best begin supporting people to avoid homelessness.
The reason why East Dunbartonshire Council is having to put people in hotels or bed and breakfasts is that it has access to only 50 council-owned temporary properties. Shelter Scotland told me that 240 households in that council area alone are at risk of immediate homelessness. I do not know how any of us can go home after Parliament today and tuck into our turkeys next week knowing that there are children in Scotland who will spend Christmas day in a B and B or a hotel room. It is not a housing emergency, minister—it is a personal tragedy. What do you have to say to them?
Always speak through the chair.
What I have to say to them is that every effort that I have made since becoming housing secretary has been put into ending children living in unsuitable accommodation, stopping children spending longer periods of time in temporary accommodation than they ought to, and making sure that there is a sufficiency of affordable homes in Scotland to meet the growing needs of our population.
Specifically on the situation in East Dunbartonshire, I mentioned that we are investing more than £100 million in discretionary housing payments to mitigate the bedroom tax and to help to mitigate the local housing allowance freeze. That includes £901,000 for East Dunbartonshire Council to help people who are struggling with housing costs. East Dunbartonshire Council also receives an annual share of £30.5 million to prevent homelessness, as well as a share of £8 million for rapid rehousing. That alone ought to make a difference in East Dunbartonshire this year.
Women and Children in or Survivors of Prostitution (Investment in Prevention, Housing, Safety and Recovery)
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its equally safe delivery plan, what discussions the Minister for Equalities has had with ministerial colleagues regarding the provision of sustained social and economic investment in prevention, housing, safety and long-term recovery for women and children currently in, or who are survivors of, the commercial sexual exploitation of prostitution. (S6O-05321)
The Scottish ministers regularly discuss the progress that is being made on the actions that are detailed in the equally safe delivery plan, which include work to deliver Scotland’s strategic approach to challenging men’s demand for prostitution. We are working across Government to ensure that all providers of support services, including housing practitioners, are equipped with the skills and knowledge to support victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Our focus remains on supporting recovery and sustainable exit from prostitution and developing a pathway of consistent support, from crisis support through to preparing to exit. We will continue to build on that with stakeholders.
Prostitution generates billions of pounds globally for the sex trade, and it is the world’s third-largest criminal industry after the drugs and arms trades, yet it is the public purse that bears the cost.
In Scotland, prostitution is among the highest-cost forms of gender-based violence. Evidence that I recently shared with the Government shows that violence linked to prostitution alone costs £382 million each year—that is 0.6 per cent of the Scottish budget, or £69 per person—and that lifetime public sector costs reach up to £350,000 per exploited individual. Does the Government agree that it is only by tackling the root cause, through criminal deterrence of sex buying and sustained investment in prevention and trauma-informed support, exit and recovery services, that we can reduce that crisis spending—
We need briefer questions.
—and uphold the Christie commission principles?
I made clear in my original answer the work that we are doing through the equally safe delivery plan. I have already explained, so I do not need to repeat, the methods by which we are making sure that women can exit prostitution and that we challenge men’s demand.
House Building (Impact of Regulations on Construction Costs)
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact that increased regulations have had on the construction costs of house building. (S6O-05322)
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that regulatory changes are introduced following full consideration of their wider implications, including in respect of the construction costs of house building.
Research by Homes for Scotland found that regulations introduced since 2021 have increased the cost of house building by more than £20,000 per home, and those costs are expected to rise over time.
Considering that Scotland’s house building rate is well below the required level, will the cabinet secretary commit to reviewing current and proposed regulations with a view to making it easier and more affordable for the sector to build the homes that Scotland needs?
As I have said a number of times, we have recently set out plans for us to continue our track record on the delivery of affordable homes with a major delivery programme over the coming four years. Of course we are mindful of all the things that have a bearing on the deliverability of that.
However, I am not clear which aspects of, for example, fire safety regulation, accessibility regulation or, indeed, regulation that will ensure that we have warmer, energy-efficient homes Douglas Lumsden thinks are not required. For my part, I believe that they all ought to be taken forward, but I will always be mindful of the impact that that can have on costs.
I will call Emma Harper for a brief supplementary question, but I encourage members at the back of the chamber to cease their conversations.
As the cabinet secretary has touched on, the largest contributor to rising construction costs is the Tories’ botched Brexit.
What nonsense.
Will the cabinet secretary expand on the impact that Brexit, which is now backed by Labour, is continuing to have on the construction industry?
Douglas Lumsden shouted “nonsense” as Emma Harper asked her question, but the people who do business in Scotland do not think that what she said was nonsense.
Brexit has had a profoundly damaging impact on Scotland and continues to harm the United Kingdom economy. Trade barriers are projected to reduce Scotland’s gross domestic product by at least £4 billion in the long term, and that is, of course, being felt in construction.
That concludes portfolio questions. There will be a brief pause before we move to the next item of business, to allow members on front benches to change.
Air ais
First Minister’s Question Time