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We are building on the essential statutory foundations that we put in place to rapidly address the risks associated with combustible cladding. We expect all building owners to take appropriate steps, and we are encouraging them and supporting them practically to do so.

In late March, we launched a new single open call, backed with £10 million of funding for statutory assessments. As of 5 June, we had received 83 expressions of interest, of which 36 were from registered social landlords. By the end of this month, we will move into stage 2, offering support for necessary mitigation and remediation works that are based on the assessments, and increasing their pace and breadth.

The estimates that were published on Thursday highlight again that the problem of combustible cladding on Scotland’s buildings is substantial. With the tools in place, we can now successfully respond.

I will take up Mr Macpherson’s point about LBTT with the appropriate minister and respond to him in due course.

I disagree with Mr Balfour’s points. It was essential that the new legislation that we introduced could deal with our unique tenure system and with the challenges that we have that do not exist elsewhere in the UK. Commencement of the provisions in the 2024 act has allowed us to rapidly increase the pace. For buildings for which the Scottish Government is responsible, we have taken urgent action wherever that has been recommended by a fire engineer. I mentioned the launch of the single open call, which has proven to be very successful in identifying buildings that were not known to us via any other source.

We have also concluded an exercise with local authorities and confirmed that a substantial proportion of them have appropriate mitigation measures in place. We have made substantial progress with a universal exercise across registered social landlords and are supporting RSLs to make progress with statutory assessment.

It is not appropriate to compare Scotland with other parts of the UK—it was simply not possible to make the necessary progress prior to introducing the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which gave us the necessary backstop powers to address Scotland’s unique tenure issues.

Mr Balfour will be aware that UK lending is a reserved matter. We have had discussions with UK Finance on the issue and, along with the Welsh Government, we continue to press that point with the UK Government and UK Finance. I am happy to take up individual issues, but it is a reserved matter at the moment.

Increasing affordable housing supply is the best way to reduce time in temporary accommodation. We have provided £80 million through our voids and acquisitions fund last year and this year to increase the supply of social and affordable homes. Eighty per cent of that funding has been targeted to the five local authorities facing the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures.

An estimated 2,669 households with children have been helped into affordable housing in the year ending December 2024. The most recent statistics show that 20 councils have reduced the number of children in temporary accommodation.

There are a number of points to make. First, I mentioned the £80 million of funding this year and last year. That included £14 million in Foysol Choudhury’s region last year and £14 million this year.

We have also taken other actions, such as taking a targeted approach in five local authority areas, including Edinburgh. Edinburgh has seen a 50 per cent reduction in voids, and I thank the City of Edinburgh Council for its work on that. We are working with the local authority on the issue.

It is also important to consider the prevention duties under the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which Mr Balfour mentioned. Only last week, the cabinet secretary and I met registered social landlords to talk about their role in that.

We are taking a number of actions to reduce the numbers. As I said, the most recent statistics show that 20 local authorities have reduced the number of children who are in temporary accommodation.

The procurement exercise to appoint the grant fund manager for the homelessness prevention pilots is under way. The contract is due to be awarded by 1 July 2025, and we expect the fund to open for bids shortly after that. Relevant bodies and their consortia partners that wish to participate in prevention pilots will be encouraged to apply.

I do not share Mr Balfour’s view. It is important to remember that this is a £4 million investment by the Scottish Government. The pilots are very important for the success of the duties under the bill, so we would rather take our time and get it right. We have worked very closely—as has Mr Balfour—with Crisis and other stakeholders on that point. How we shape the development of the pilots is important, and the expected outcomes will be important, too. Obviously, there will be learning throughout the duration of the pilots, and we will continue to learn as we develop the bill.

There are a number of points to make. We are undertaking work with Homes for Scotland on stalled sites, as well as on issues that have been mentioned previously, such as water and so on. We are working very closely with it and local authorities on that issue.

We are also working with the Royal Town Planning Institute and local authorities to recruit more planners into the system. Our approach is targeted at five local authorities, including those in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which are under pressure in relation to that particular issue.

We are also taking other actions. This morning, I visited a five-bedroom empty home in Glasgow, and we are looking at getting people into it as soon as possible. Investment of £3.7 million has brought 11,000 homes back into use, and an additional £2 million has been invested this year. We have also extended the rural housing fund, which we talked about yesterday. Yesterday, the cabinet secretary and I met registered social landlords to talk about their role in the matter, and the housing investment task force, which looks to bring more finance into the sector, will publish its report very soon.

I am happy to engage with Mr Simpson on any of the issues that he has raised.

I am happy to pick up with Beatrice Wishart the concerns of her constituent. We work with local authorities, which have a duty to provide affordable housing, and, importantly, the heating of such housing must be affordable. I am happy to pick up the specific constituent point that she has raised.

I have engaged with the UK Government consistently for support in addressing the issue of RAAC, including through making available new capital funds to allow any action that may be required. I will continue to press the UK Government to provide funding. So far, it has refused, and the latest response from the UK Government has made it clear that it does not intend to provide any funding. I will write to the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer ahead of the spending review to ask the UK Government to reconsider its position and make available a national fund, as RAAC is a UK-wide issue.