Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is for the committee, not just for me.

Could you explain the difference between routine and diagnostic visits, please?

I certainly hope so. Does the member agree with me that the impact of Brexit on construction costs and on the availability of construction workers has had an impact on house building throughout the United Kingdom?

Oh!

Will the member take an intervention?

I do not know why that always happens when I stand up.

Scotland’s national housing emergency has numerous causes, some of which were enumerated by Ben Macpherson. When we speak of housing, we are all speaking of having a right to a home. First, I will give some background. Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy helped many former social housing tenants to get onto the housing ladder. It was a good idea at the time, but it destroyed the supply of council houses for rent. That is still having an impact today, although the SNP Scottish Government got rid of the policy.

Scotland’s population has risen from just over 5 million at the start of the 21st century to 5.4 million in 2022. Furthermore, our ageing population means that there are many more single-person households, which is impacting on the number of new houses that are needed. In Scotland, there are at least 2,509,300 single households.

The effects of the 2008 financial crash, exacerbated by the austerity measures that were introduced by the Tory-Liberal coalition Government from 2010, then the Tory Government from 2015, and now being continued by Labour—goodness knows what Rachel Reeves’s budget will say—are having an impact. There is also the impact of Brexit on the cost of construction materials and the supply of workers, which I think Anas Sarwar conceded. Those are some of the economic realities. As a result, the average cost of building a new house in Scotland is nudging towards £200,000, which must impact the Scottish Government’s affordable housing programme. I have been advised that, in the Borders, that estimate can reach £500,000. Smaller rural developments are costly, as Rhoda Grant referenced.

I have local and national suggestions for the Scottish Government. Locally, in the Borders, £8 million was returned to the Scottish Government as the council could not proceed, through housing associations, with new builds within the contractual timescale. Some reasons that were given were costs of materials exceeding original estimates and lack of construction workforce. That £8 million was then not available to renovate some of the 200 houses currently empty in the Borders. Flexibility over the use of that funding would have been good.

Nationally, the Scottish Government has three key priorities: economic growth, eradicating child poverty and tackling climate change. That can be achieved in part by maximising investment in new house building.

The £200 million cut to the Scottish Government’s housing budget that was made in December 2023 should be reversed. I suggest reversing the decision on the active travel budget, which has about the same amount of funding. It is a hard choice to make, but, respectfully, I suggest that the Government puts housing first.

The Scottish Government could authorise and encourage local councils and housing associations to build new houses for sale as well as for rent. The surplus income from sales should then be used to subsidise the costs of building new houses for social rent.

The Scottish Government and, indeed, local authorities could invest some of the £20 billion of available pension funds money in building at least 100,000 houses for rent. I understand that funding mechanisms are already in place in parts of the UK that protect those investments. At the end of the borrowing period, I understand that the ownership of the houses reverts to the Government or local authority without any need for additional payment.

Another issue is the workforce. On 17 May 2024, the Construction Industry Training Board in Scotland published a report stating that an extra 5,220 workers a year will be needed to meet the continued construction growth expected over the next five years. For almost a third of construction employers, as has been mentioned, finding suitably skilled staff remains a key challenge, particularly with more older workers retiring and not being replaced.

There are local and national problems and solutions. If the Scottish Government priority is to eradicate child poverty, where better to start than with affordable homes for rent in the public sector? That is where I started.

As for economic growth, that would go hand in hand with that investment. In Scotland, such a programme could create more than 30,000 new jobs, more than £500 million additional income from construction taxes, more than £1 billion savings to the NHS—because a bad home or no home leads to illness—and £1 billion savings from the reduction in homelessness.

In conclusion—this is quite controversial—transport is considered to be so important that it has a dedicated cabinet secretary. We have a fundamental right to a home. I cannot follow why housing does not have a dedicated seat at the Cabinet table.

Honestly, I understand that. Maybe you are saying that we have a system set up until December 2030 but that, if another payment method was developed sooner, the regulations could just be annulled.

The regulations would be annulled because they would no longer be relevant.

That is all that I wanted to know. I am just trying to get my head around the law.

I wanted to do it in a stream, so that you follow my train of thought.