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Since declaring a national Housing Emergency in May 2024, I am proud that:

• This year the Affordable Housing Supply Programme will invest £808 million - an increase of more than £251 million on last year’s budget;
• Approvals for affordable housing between July-September are up by 61% compared to last year;
• £120 million targeted through our acquisitions fund is supporting the acquisition of at least 1,200 homes – helping to reduce homeless households in temporary accommodation;
• In 2026-27 we are investing at least £1.3 million towards the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, ensuring that empty homes are brought back into use - building on our record investment of £5.7 million since 2010;
• We have helped an estimated 2,261 households with children into affordable housing in the year to end June 2025;
• Our action to keep rents lower than market rents benefits approximately 140,000 children in poverty each year and we have introduced provisions for a national system of evidence based rent control;
• Our draft budget for 2026/7 commits the single largest funding allocation to affordable housing since our records began in 1989 and our Spending Review, for the first time, offers multi-annual certainty for the coming four years;
• The draft Budget also commits an additional £4 million for action to prevent homelessness. This is in addition to £11.5 million for activities such as rapid rehousing and the Fund to Leave - as well as a further £23.5 million already baselined for Local Government; and
• We have worked to create the optimum conditions for investment including by setting an all-tenure target, developing clear exemptions from rent control for Mid-Market Rent and Build to Rent developments and by seeking an emergency-led approach from Local Authority Heads of Planning.

Together with our partners, so much has been achieved.

However our efforts to tackle the emergency have tested and exposed the limitations of the current housing delivery arrangement in Scotland. Ultimately, we must deliver more high quality, affordable homes, more quickly. We must simplify the landscape to achieve economy of scale savings; increase land and infrastructure support; and enable closer working with the private sector. The root and branch action demanded by this challenge requires us to think, and to act, in a radical way.

The First Minister will today announce the intention of the Scottish Government to create a new agency focused squarely and simply on accelerating housing delivery in Scotland. While extending its reach to all tenures, it will maintain an emphasis on affordable housing.

The agency will bring together housing, land, planning support and delivery expertise to simplify, scale and speed up the delivery of homes. Working with local authorities and Ministers through a joined-up model we will improve capacity, support regeneration and rural housing, and reduce duplication across government.

This tangible Government action in response to the Housing Emergency will take a Scotland wide all-tenure approach and focus on four pillars: affordable housing delivery, rural and island housing, land and development, and investment. It will also ensure we continue to deliver on the objectives set out in the Housing Emergency Action Plan and our Housing to 2040 strategy.

This new agency will help to drive forward the core government priorities of eradicating child poverty and growing our economy. It will also help to support first time buyers by increasing supply.

I will be working with experts across the housing sector, supported by COSLA and the Scottish National Investment Bank, to lead an initial design phase over the next two months to refine the operating model. This will allow us to carefully consider how this new agency optimises delivery while ensuring maximum value for money.

I intend to update Parliament in March, upon conclusion of the design phase but I am pleased to confirm the intention to announce, for simplicity, scale and speed: More Homes Scotland.