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Jeremy Balfour will be aware that, at the moment, we put about £80 million into discretionary housing budgets. More than £60 million of that is to mitigate the bedroom tax. Would he therefore agree that it would be better if the UK Government scrapped the bedroom tax, so that we could use that more than £60 million for other homelessness services? Would that be a good use of funding?

The Parliament should be proud of the progressive housing rights that it has introduced for people who experience, or are at risk of experiencing, homelessness. That has been the result of a concerted effort across the chamber. The right to access to permanent accommodation and other rights that the Parliament has already enshrined in Scots law are some of the strongest in the world.

“The Homelessness Monitor: Scotland 2021”, which was commissioned by Crisis, found that rates of the most severe forms of homelessness are substantially lower in Scotland than they are in England and Wales. However, to reach our ambition of ensuring that everyone has a safe and warm place to call home, we want to end rough sleeping and to transform temporary accommodation, so there is more to be done.

Yesterday, we published our latest homelessness statistics. Although in 24 local authority areas use of temporary accommodation has gone down since September 2020, the statistics show that, overall, far too many households are in temporary accommodation. That is not good enough. We must learn from the areas that are making progress and share their good practice. We will continue to work with our partners to use all the powers that we have and to take the action that is needed to reduce the time that people spend in temporary accommodation, to improve the quality of accommodation that is available and to tackle rough sleeping. We must also do more to prevent people from entering the homelessness system in the first place.

Will Tess White give way on that point?

Yes—a brief one.

Local authority budgets have been set out in the draft budget, including the addition of £120 million. If Jeremy Balfour thinks that more money needs to be allocated to local authorities, his party should come forward and tell us where that money should come from. I look forward to hearing those constructive proposals.

We know that finding and keeping accommodation after a period spent in an institution can be difficult. We propose that action be taken much earlier, so that people are not faced with homelessness when they leave hospital or prison. This is bold new territory for homelessness legislation in Scotland, and is the right thing to do for individuals, families and communities, in order to prevent the trauma and disruption to lives that is caused by homelessness.

Our proposals are informed by three principles: that there should be a shared public responsibility to prevent homelessness; that there should be earlier intervention across the whole system to prevent homelessness; and that we must allow greater choice and control for those who are at risk of homelessness. That last point about choice was emphasised by people with lived experience of homelessness, who helped to inform the proposals; we will continue that vital engagement with people who have experienced homelessness.

The proposals aim to drive a whole-system change. We will need legislation and other policy changes if we are to meet our ambitions. There have been good examples of partnership working to prevent homelessness through the adoption of a more person-centred housing options approach to prevention in recent years and, more recently, through joint working between homelessness and other services in response to the pandemic.

An array of important prevention activity has been, and continues to be, implemented through the hard work of local authorities, landlords and other organisations. The consultation proposals seek to improve practice around joint working on prevention in order to ensure consistency of delivery while recognising local circumstances and decision making.

Effective prevention means helping people who are at risk of homelessness before they reach crisis point. It also means considering people’s circumstances in the widest sense, including their mental wellbeing, physical health and other needs. The proposed prevention duties are far reaching and include proposals to address the issues that are faced by those who experience more complex needs, including addiction. That includes new approaches to case co-ordination for people with more complex needs who experience homelessness, and an increased role for health services in provision of supported accommodation.

Improving outcomes for those who have the most complex needs will remain central to our drive to end homelessness. The housing first approach is an important part of our rapid rehousing approach, and offers settled accommodation and wraparound support to people with multiple and complex needs. It was good to see in the homelessness statistics the rise in the number of people getting settled accommodation. Our housing first pathfinder programme, which is the largest of its kind in the UK, has created more than 540 tenancies since 2019, and 84 per cent of those have been sustained.

Understandably, much of our focus in recent years has been on addressing rough sleeping, which is the most extreme form of homelessness. We have concentrated on reducing the use of, and time spent in, temporary accommodation through the adoption of the rapid rehousing approach. Of course, that was thrown into sharper focus by the pandemic; having a robust homelessness strategy meant that we were able to respond quickly to put measures in place to protect people at risk. All 32 councils have been implementing their rapid rehousing transition plans for the past three years. We have recently committed an extra £16 million of funding to councils over the next two years, thereby bringing the total investment in rapid rehousing and housing first to £53.5 million.

The ending homelessness together action plan and the proposed homelessness prevention duties are part of the wider picture, as outlined in “Housing to 2040”. We are consulting until the end of March. Consultation views will inform our final proposals, and our intention is to introduce legislative requirements on prevention of homelessness in the proposed housing bill, which will also cover proposals for our new deal for tenants.

I look forward to hearing what members have to say about the proposals.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the joint Scottish Government and COSLA consultation on Prevention of Homelessness duties, which seeks views on ambitious plans to strengthen the rights of people experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, homelessness in Scotland; supports the principles as informed by the final report of the Prevention Review Group, which include a shared public responsibility to prevent homelessness; notes that the package of measures in the consultation includes the introduction of new legal duties on public bodies and landlords to “ask and act” on any risk of homelessness, changes to existing homelessness legislation to prioritise early intervention, and maximising the housing options available to people; recognises that approaches to preventing homelessness should be person centred and trauma informed, and agrees that this approach will support the implementation of the human right of an adequate home for all.

I will reiterate what I said to Miles Briggs: the proposals will strengthen the range of homelessness rights, and they do not change any existing rights to housing. It is about strengthening, not weakening.

Rhoda Grant has raised the issue of short-term lets. As Emma Roddick pointed out, legislation to control short-term lets was important. Will Rhoda Grant say how Labour voted on the short-terms lets legislation just a few weeks ago?

Will the member take an intervention on that point?

The consultation on the matter runs until the end of March. We want to ensure that we get it right, and we want to prevent more homelessness at an earlier stage, so that people do not have to face the trauma and disruption that it brings to their lives. The proposals will strengthen the range of homelessness rights and will not change any existing rights to housing. The proposal on suitable and stable housing is about widening the range of housing options that are available to people who are at risk of homelessness.

I am happy to write to Miles Briggs with more detail about that, but the consultation is open. We are having the consultation to ensure that we get it right.

The prevention review group that we established in late 2019 provided a thoughtful set of recommendations last year. The full package of recommendations informed the proposals in the joint Scottish Government and Convention of Scottish Local Authorities consultation that was published in December.

Strengthening existing powers and changing the way that we work in order to prevent homelessness before it occurs are key to addressing the challenges in the future and will make us a leader in the United Kingdom in homelessness prevention duties. The right to permanent accommodation for people who are homeless in Scotland provides the strong foundation on which we can build. Our commitment is not to change established rights but to provide legislative change that helps to create a society in which fewer people become homeless in the first place.

We propose introducing new duties on public bodies to “ask and act” to prevent homelessness, so that prevention of homelessness is no longer the sole responsibility of local authority housing departments. We know, for example, that there is often increased engagement with health services before a person becomes homeless. We must get better at identifying such crisis points to ensure that every single risk of homelessness that can be prevented is prevented. That reflects the move to a “no wrong door” approach, so that the risk of homelessness is acted on regardless of the service that is first approached.

There are also new duties proposed for landlords, including in relation to domestic abuse, which continues to be the main reason for homelessness among women.

The proposals do not stop there. They also aim to make changes to existing homelessness legislation to ensure that local authority housing departments are able to act sooner—up to six months before homelessness might occur.

I remind Miles Briggs that we have doubled our ending homelessness together fund from £50 million to £100 million, but we recognise that some local authorities have particular issues around homelessness—relating to refugees and asylum seekers, for example, in Edinburgh—so I am happy to continue those discussions about local needs.