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There are two key points to consider in that regard, one of which goes back to the point that Mr Griffin made. I want to make it clear that we have no intention of using the powers to narrow the scope of the definition. A duty is built in for ministers to consult on proportionate modifications, and I hope that that provides reassurance.

I am happy to engage with Mr Balfour on that particular point.

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to update the committee on our wide-ranging work in response to the housing emergency.

I acknowledge that 2024 was a challenging year for housing delivery. However, by declaring and addressing the housing emergency, we have acted decisively to support individuals and families across Scotland, who remain at the heart of our action. Our vision is clear: it is for everyone to have a safe, good-quality and affordable home that meets their needs in the place that they want to be. The proposed increase in funding for the affordable housing supply programme in the next financial year further strengthens our commitment to delivery.

The housing emergency requires a responsive and bold approach to ensure the best outcomes. There is no one definition of the emergency, as the pressures in the system are complex and have different impacts in different parts of Scotland. As I outlined in my letter to the committee last month, we have prioritised a regional approach to deliver the impact that we wish to make by working most urgently with the five local authorities that are experiencing the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures.

Ministers and officials are engaging intensively with those local authorities to advance a range of activity, including the targeted use of £40 million to acquire additional homes and bring social voids into use. For example, in Fife, 25 properties were recently acquired and will soon be available for people to move into, while a further 12 acquisitions are approved and in progress. In 2025, we plan to make record funding of £15 billion available to councils for services, including homelessness services, alongside £97 million for discretionary housing payments and £4 million to support local authorities and front-line homelessness prevention services.

We have taken an activist approach to working with stakeholders on our emergency response and refocused our external housing to 2040 governance board to drive action on the housing emergency. We strengthened the board last week by welcoming new members from Shelter, Crisis, Homeless Network Scotland and the Wheatley Group, thereby fostering collaboration to deliver practical solutions to address the housing emergency. Their input on impactful funding, potential risks and new ideas was incredibly valuable as we planned our next steps together.

Among the promising early initiatives that the board is considering are further efforts to bring privately owned empty homes back into use. That is supported by the £2 million allocation for empty homes that was announced in the draft budget. We will continue to ask our partners to join us with the urgency and innovation that is needed to accelerate progress.

In rural Scotland, more than 12,400 affordable homes were delivered between April 2016 and March 2024. At the annual summit on the rural and island housing action plan in October, I highlighted successes such as the rural and islands housing fund, which recently supported an award-winning regeneration project. Joint funding with the Nationwide Foundation is helping community organisations to build capacity and deliver affordable homes. Our demand-led key worker fund, which has up to £25 million available until 2028, has already supported projects in Orkney, Highland, Moray and North Ayrshire.

In 2024, we also faced the impact of hugely reduced capital budgets across Government, driven by United Kingdom Government cuts. Despite that, we unlocked further funding throughout the year, including £40 million for acquisitions.

We also invested £22 million as part of our charitable bond programme. That generated a further £7 million in charitable donations, which, in addition to our investment through the affordable housing supply programme, will be used to deliver more homes. In 2023-24, we used more than £71 million of charitable bond donations to supplement our affordable housing supply programme investment, which will support the delivery of more than 600 housing association social rented homes. I am very pleased that the proposed budget for our affordable housing supply programme in 2025-26 will involve an increase of more than £200 million compared to the published budget for 2024-25. Subject to the budget being passed by the Parliament in the coming months, we will focus on ensuring the most impactful use of those funds.

In pursuit of that objective, last week ministers asked the housing to 2040 board to consider proposals that will reduce the number of families with children that are in temporary accommodation. We are also working with local authorities to develop innovative plans to maximise housing delivery. Where the Scottish Government can use its powers to do even more, we are committed to doing so.

I hope that this update has provided a clear overview. We are resolute in our determination to tackle the housing emergency and, together with our partners and communities, we will continue to make progress.

My immediate focus will be on planning the effective allocation of the significant funding that will be forthcoming if the budget is agreed. I look forward to updating you on that in the coming months.

I will go on to talk about progress, but on the areas that you queried, the record level of funding is £15 billion available to councils, £97 million for discretionary housing payments, and £4 million to support local authorities and front-line services. The board members who joined us last week were from Shelter, Crisis, the Wheatley Group and Homeless Network Scotland.

Coming back to progress, I have a number of points. At the start of the meeting, I said that this is a complex area. We have taken a number of actions, focusing on delivery. One of the key actions concerns planning—which you will have heard about from Ivan McKee—and the creation of the housing planning hub. We did that through extensive discussions with Homes for Scotland, for example.

On the back of that, on 15 November, we convened a group of key stakeholders to work on the issue of stalled sites. There will be a meeting on 17 January to talk about the progress that has been made on that. There has been significant focus on how we remove the barriers around stalled sites. You will have seen that several statements were made about houses that were approved but that have not yet been delivered. We are focusing on sites that have just started or that have not started yet through the planning delivery hub, including through speaking to partners such as Homes for Scotland. I will bring in Lauren McNamara to talk more about what work has been carried out on that.

On the affordable housing supply programme, I mentioned the £40 million fund. When we are talking about the housing emergency, we need to look at it in two ways. First, how do we reduce the number of people in temporary accommodation, particularly children? What can we do to bring homes back into use? We have talked about voids, empty homes and acquisitions

We also need to consider the longer-term sustainable actions that need to be taken, and the £40 million is focused on that. There have been significant reductions in some local authorities. For example, the City of Edinburgh Council has made a significant difference in reducing the number of void properties. That is really important.

Another key issue is the removal of delivery barriers. When I met all the housing conveners at a Convention of Scottish Local Authorities meeting about eight or nine months ago, one of the key things that I was told in relation to voids was about energy and utility companies being able to come in to get properties back into use, so we held a round-table meeting with utility companies to try to increase the turnover of social homes.

We have taken a number of actions. Later, I might talk about the focus on the five key local authorities and the specific actions that we have taken, but that is a general overview of what we have done. Our work is focused on how we can get homes turned around as quickly as possible while increasing the supply of affordable housing, because we need to continue to build houses. We have a good record on that.

That is a general overview of the initial actions that we have taken, and I am happy to go into more detail as we get into more questions.

We monitor that regularly. That is really important, because we cannot just move the problem from one place to another—that would be pointless.

I am responding to that, in terms of what we need to do, and as part of my observations. There is the impact of Brexit and construction inflation. Anecdotally, construction inflation was around 20 to 25 per cent. Nobody estimated that, and we did not have it at the time that the target was set. The cost of living crisis hit us in that regard, too.

We set a target, but things change and there are external pressures—nobody can deny that that is the case. As I have said, there was construction inflation, and we had to increase our benchmarks. Ultimately, the funding that we have to produce as many homes as possible was impacted on. If construction inflation goes up by 20 to 25 per cent, that has an impact on what we can deliver. We set targets, but there are external matters, too. Obviously, in the review, we are discussing what impact they had.

It is a nuanced approach, but we all have to take into consideration what has happened in the past years with construction inflation and the impact of Brexit. The impact of Brexit has been devastating. One of the key things in the construction trade, for example, was the shortage of labour, which was caused by construction workers having to leave. If you speak to any construction company, they will tell you that that is the case. That had an impact on delivery. It was not just about the cost of construction materials going up; labour costs went up, too, because of the impact of Brexit, which we could not have forecast at the time when the target was set.

There have been external matters, and we need to take those into consideration. What did they do? What can we do going forward? How can we maximise funding? That is why I set up the housing investment task force, which looks at how we get investment into Scotland. I would love to be able to go out and borrow on the markets for housing, but we cannot do that, because we do not have that ability. The housing investment task force was set up to consider what we do to maximise investment into Scotland.

Financial transactions are an important aspect in getting another £400 million, and we are looking at mid-market rent, charitable donations and so on. That is all in the review that is happening now.

Again, it comes back to previous promises in that regard that were made by that Government before it got into power. There needs to be a continuing discussion across Parliament on the issue, because the bedroom tax is unfair. It impacts on our ability to reduce homelessness quickly. There have been broader discussions between the Government and UK Government colleagues on the matter, and it could possibly be indicated as part of the spending review, but we will have to wait to see what comes out of that.

At this stage, the indications do not look good for the spending review. The UK Government has indicated that it is looking to make more spending cuts, which will put pressure on the Scottish Government and what it is expected to do. The spending review will, I hope, highlight opportunities to work more closely with the UK Government on reducing homelessness as soon as possible.

We will reach out and see whether there is any specific work that we can do with the council on that.

Yes, I think that it will be.

You will be aware that there are currently land reform discussions in the context of the bill that is going through the Parliament. That is important for how we maximise delivery across Scotland. The Homes England approach has been discussed previously. Our work on regional prioritisation is incredibly important. We have done work through the Edinburgh city region deal—we have talked about how we deliver for the strategic sites, which has included looking at infrastructure, how we deliver the finance and so on. A report has been produced on that. Engaging on a regional basis is important, and we can look to deliver more in that regard. Again, I come back to the housing challenge in the Highlands and the freeport opportunities—how do we maximise those opportunities? A regional approach is very much the best way to take that forward.

With regard to the broader discussions that Meghan Gallacher talked about, those are the sort of things that need to be discussed by the board, because the discussions need to include stakeholders—it is not just for the Government to decide how inclusive we are and how we take forward that particular point. Stakeholders would feed into that wider process, as well.