Seòmar agus comataidhean

The whole point was that many of the powers in that regard were devolved to local authorities to use as they see fit. I just do not understand why Labour supported the approach in committee but voted against it in the chamber. That does not make sense.

Local authorities sometimes struggle in that area, so I have asked officials to look in more detail at how we could help them in relation to support for people who have very complex needs.

Ruth Maguire talked about affordability; the new deal for tenants has affordability of rent levels at its heart.

Carol Mochan talked about council funding; I will come back to that. The only point that I will make is that we can see from statistics that 24 of the 32 local authorities have made progress on reducing use of temporary accommodation, so there is something to be said for sharing best practice and adopting what works across all local authorities.

Ariane Burgess made the point that prevention pathways are important for those who are at greater risk of homelessness. Emma Roddick gave a very powerful testimony of her own lived experience and spoke about the need for consistent action—for example, on second homes and short-term lets. That is something on which members perhaps need to reflect.

Jeremy Balfour talked about resources; I will talk about resources more generally. In addition to the resources for local government, we have put a huge amount—£100 million—into ending homelessness. In the draft budget, we have maintained the £23.5 million that has been allocated to local authorities annually for homelessness prevention and response measures. We have provided a further £10 million from the ending homelessness together fund for next year.

In addition, we have a discretionary housing payment budget of £80 million, which councils monitor and administer on our behalf, and £68 million of which is for mitigation of the bedroom tax. I am all for political choices, but it is a bit difficult when members come here asking us to make different political choices when political choices that have been made by the UK Government impact directly on our budgets. If we did not have to use £68 million to mitigate the bedroom tax, we could spend that nearly £70 million on other homelessness services. The political choices that we make are important, but so are the political choices that are made by others that impact directly on our budgets. That is, perhaps, something on which the Tories here should reflect.

In addition to all that, we have allocated £831 million for affordable homes this year, which is part of £3.5 billion that will be allocated over this parliamentary session. I make the point that that is head and shoulders above what any other Government in these islands is delivering on affordable housing. Although I accept that there is more to do, there has to be some recognition of the resources that this Government is putting into housing and addressing homelessness.

I will mention a couple of other issues. Jackie Dunbar spoke about voids. There has been an issue with turning voids around because of the pandemic, for all the reasons that we understand. We want, of course, to ensure that local authorities turn voids around as quickly as possible. If members understood it, they would see that the problem is about getting tradespeople and supplies in order that voids can be turned around. Global supply issues are hampering councils’ ability to do that.

Rhoda Grant said that she wants more action to address short-term lets. In my intervention, I made the point that consistency on that issue is important, because we need to give local authorities the basket of powers that they require in order to address it.

Finally, there is a lot of consensus that prevention is better than a cure for homelessness. The earlier we can intervene to prevent homelessness through the measures that we are already taking, as well as the measures that are included in the proposals that we are consulting on, the more we can support people to avoid homelessness in the first place, which I am determined to do.

I welcome the contributions from across the chamber in what has, in the main, been a constructive debate on taking forward the consultation on the proposals. I will refer to as many speeches as I can and will pick up on a couple of issues that were raised.

Miles Briggs was right when he said that it is not just about bricks and mortar. It is also about access to services, whether they are addiction services or support services. That is what the housing first model and the rapid rehousing housing plans are based on.

Mark Griffin talked about the comments of Crisis and the Salvation Army in relation to funding. I make the point that some of those comments predate the announcement of and additional £50 million in the programme for government. I will talk about resources later, because the subject was raised by a number of members.

On Willie Rennie’s point, I say that stakeholders have said that our legislation is world leading. On the language, I point out that housing being “suitable and stable” was a recommendation of people who have lived experience of homelessness. Such housing is an option for those who are at risk of homelessness that can be prevented. Provision of permanent housing is the duty when a person is assessed by a council as being unintentionally homeless. That will not change. It is about choice for people who are at risk of becoming homeless and about options for people who are homeless. We are talking about slightly different things; I hope that that is clear. It is important to recognise the wishes, in relation to language, of people who have lived experience of homelessness.

I very much recognise Elena Whitham’s experience and knowledge of the need to work upstream, her input to the work of the prevention review group before coming to Parliament as an MSP and her highlighting of the needs of domestic abuse victims.

Tess White talked about Dundee. I think that, in many respects, I understand more fully than anybody else in the chamber the issues of mental ill health and drug deaths in the city, and how important it is to resolve them and to move forward. On her comment about housing first, Dundee City Council has gone quite far on closure of hostels, which is what we want. It was one of the pathfinders for housing first and is using organisations including Scottish Women’s Aid to provide specialist services to people who need such services in the city. I think that her portrayal of housing first was not wholly fair.

Our world-leading homelessness legislation has been recognised by many organisations. However, what matters is that we ensure that it is used, that the policy is implemented and that we are able to eradicate homelessness entirely. That will take time; this debate is the next stage of that process.

In 2018, the experts on our homelessness and rough sleeping action group presented us with solutions and we adopted their recommendations in full. Our ending homelessness together action plan, which was based on those recommendations, was refreshed in 2020-21. Stakeholders have universally welcomed the plan, which includes a shift towards rapid rehousing, a reduction in use of temporary accommodation and new homelessness prevention duties. It is the right plan. Those are mutually reinforcing activities: making progress in homelessness prevention improves our chances of progress in the other areas.

Our plans are backed by investment of £100 million pounds from 2018-19 to 2025-26. It is now time to take the next steps on the journey towards ending homelessness through our commitment to introducing new legal duties to prevent homelessness.

Language is important. It is really important to distinguish between the Israeli people and the actions of a Government. It is legitimate to criticise the actions of Governments across the world but not to apply that criticism to a people, because that is wrong. Language matters. I hope that that helps to answer Jamie Greene’s point.

Professor Joe Goldblatt recently reminded us that

“Holocaust Memorial Day is critically important for current as well as future generations because, through their enlightenment, there remains the hope that future holocausts and genocides will be less likely to occur.”

That is why the Scottish Government continues to support the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to promote and support the memorial day in Scotland. The Government also continues to support the Holocaust Educational Trust’s lessons from Auschwitz project, which has been delivered as a bespoke online educational programme throughout the pandemic.

We have heard from members across the chamber about some of the ways in which the theme of “one day” can be interpreted. Sadly, the one day of liberation of Auschwitz that many were waiting for did not bring an end to the suffering that the world witnessed during that period. As time has passed, hatred and intolerance have continued to blight the lives of many people across the world, with more lives lost to those pernicious forces in places such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. Sadly, millions of people across the world today are forced to flee horrendous violence and the threat of being killed, yearning for one day free from such unimaginable strife.

Days such as today remind us that our work is not yet done. Indeed, Scotland has a long history of welcoming people from all nationalities and faiths, including those seeking refuge and asylum from war and terror elsewhere. That includes Henry Wuga, who fled to Glasgow from Nuremberg on the Kindertransport, leaving his family behind. Henry will never forget his newly adopted home, where he settled with his wife, Ingrid, and had a family of his own.

Focusing on “one day” allows us to recognise and reflect on all the individual journeys, challenges and feelings of displacement and loss, which are hugely personal and unique. That highlights the importance of putting lived experience, equality, inclusion and human rights at the heart of our policy making in Parliament.

Holocaust memorial day not only allows us to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides but reinforces our on-going collective duty in the present to counter all forms of bigotry and prejudice. Hate must always be confronted and condemned, and the humanity of each individual must be recognised and celebrated. Those are the foundations of a decent society, and I have no doubt that that unites every one of us in the chamber.

This evening, I will join others at the UK national Holocaust Memorial Day Trust virtual event. With others, I will light the darkness by lighting a candle in my window at 8 o’clock to remember those who were murdered simply for being who they were. We will never forget. It is their suffering that should ignite in each of us a desire to build a kinder and more just tomorrow—one day, free from hatred, prejudice and intolerance.

Ministers and officials have regular meetings with representatives of all Scottish local authorities, including Stirling Council, to discuss a wide range of issues, as part of our commitment to working in partnership with local government to improve outcomes for the people of Scotland.

A great deal of assistance has been set out during the pandemic to support the types of organisations that Dean Lockhart has outlined. The Scottish Government has worked with partners to try to ensure that that money and support goes to local projects as quickly as possible. From my engagement with third sector organisations, I know that that support has been warmly welcomed and has enabled them to support people in our communities, particularly the most vulnerable.

I thank Jackson Carlaw for lodging his motion and for highlighting the significance of Holocaust memorial day in what was an incredibly powerful speech. I have to say that all the speeches that I have heard have been very moving and powerful, but I think that Mr Carlaw’s was particularly so. His tribute to the life of the late Judith Rosenberg, Scotland’s last Auschwitz survivor, was very fitting and important, and I thank him for it.

With regard to Jackson Carlaw’s reference to the end of living history and how significant and important that is, perhaps I can begin with a personal reflection. My late mum was in a school in Manchester—this would have been at the start of the war—when a number of children arrived on the Kindertransport. None of the children in her school had any idea why these other children were arriving, and there was a real lack of awareness of the absolute horror that was unfolding hundreds of miles away. In the course of getting to know those children, though, my mum’s own awareness was raised of the horror of what was going on, the prejudice, the racism and the antisemitism. It had a profound effect on her life and her views of politics and fairness, and it gave her a real interest in the international community and in things that were going on that should not have been happening. I guess that she passed a bit of that on to me, and I have tried to do the same with my daughter by telling her about some of those powerful lived experiences.

However, as the last of those lives—and that lived experience—unfortunately leave our earth, we have to find ways of capturing that testimony and ensuring that the next generation and the generation after hear that first-hand testimony about what happened. We must continue to remember all those from minority communities who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime and their collaborators. There were, as we have heard, the millions of people from the Jewish community, but there were also disabled people, gay people, Roma and Sinti people and, indeed, anyone else deemed to be different as a result of the othering of people.

While we honour the memories of those who lost their lives, it is also important that we amplify the voices of those who survived the Holocaust. We are fortunate that some of them are still alive today. I was privileged to contribute to the official Scottish national Holocaust memorial ceremony last night, and I remember, in particular, the testimony of Henry Wuga, who remembers the destruction of synagogues and the homes of his Jewish friends and family, with many being taken away to concentration camps, and of Eric Eugene Murangwa, who was protected from being killed during the genocide in Rwanda by his fellow football players. Such testimony is heart wrenching but also inspiring. Henry and Eric, and others like them who have borne witness to the depths of evil, embody extraordinary resilience. They ensure that the horrors of genocide are never erased from our collective memories and remind us of that vital refrain, “Never again”.

It is natural for us to want to consign these painful memories to the past, but a key component of preventing further acts of genocide is sharing the truth of this dark period with each new generation. Our children and our children’s children have to understand where hatred and intolerance can lead when left unchallenged. As time passes, we must do all that we can to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust does not fade, and moments in our Parliament such as this are important.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My apologies—my connection went. I would have voted no.

I do not know whether Willie Rennie heard my first answer, but I said that there is already work under way on the 25 high-priority residential blocks of flats, which were the pilot for the single building assessment, so that we can see what the scale of remediation is likely to be across Scotland. As I said in my initial answer, the inspections are under way, and we expect the first completed report soon.

I would have thought that, when we are getting on and doing something, which other parts of the UK are looking at because it is a good model, that would be welcomed. I am as keen as anyone else in the chamber to make progress, but specific, complex engineering projects have to be undertaken. When we get the completed reports, I will be happy to keep Parliament updated about them.