Housing Needs
Good morning. The first item of business is a Labour Party debate on motion S3M-1848, in the name of Johann Lamont, on meeting Scotland's housing needs.
As ever, it is a privilege for me to open the debate on behalf of the Labour Party. It follows on from last week's woeful performance by members on the Government front and back benches. That housing debate was marked by their refusal to answer any of the key questions or to give any indication that they had any awareness of the range and importance of the issues that need to be addressed. [Laughter.] If the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change finds that amusing, I suspect that he will not find anybody from the housing sector to join him.
The lack of time for that previous debate allowed ministers to equivocate. It was evident to us that the Government was unwilling to address the issues. It would not even provide any time to debate the matter, despite the empty, stretching prairie of time—peppered by stopgap debates and marginal issues—that forms the Government's business programme.
We have had three Government debates or statements on housing. On 21 June 2007, the announcement of the housing supply task force came with a huge fanfare, only for us to discover later that the body will not report; that it was not being consulted on the budget; that, remarkably, it would not even shape planning policy, which is designed to address the relationship between planning and the provision of affordable housing; and that it was not being consulted on the revision of Scottish planning policy 3.
On 26 September 2007, a debate on the Glasgow Housing Association was initiated and important issues about the inspection report were addressed. The Government indicated that it would progress second-stage transfer. Nicola Sturgeon said that ministers would
"review the current suite of grant agreements that are in place".—[Official Report, 26 September 2007; c 2089.]
Will the minister say, in summing up, when we will get a report on that?
Will Johann Lamont join me in welcoming the fact that, after one year of this Scottish National Party Government, there has been more progress towards second-stage transfer than there was during the entire time when she was housing minister?
I hope that the cabinet secretary does not live to regret that. The issue is really difficult.
I do not support the SNP amendment—although I will be interested to hear the Minister for Communities and Sport speak to it—but I welcome its commitment to scrutinise the Mazars report using an independent process. I urge that that should be done by people with expertise in valuation and adjudication in order for confidence to be restored. I am delighted that rent-a-quote Alex Neil's notion of a black hole is refuted by the report. It is incumbent on ministers to ensure that such issues are scrutinised properly.
On 31 October 2007, we had the spectacle of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing being refused the option of sharing with the Parliament her approach on "Firm Foundations" because, unhappily, she had already shared it with the press. That has been the Government's approach in a nutshell. It overclaims and underdelivers; it seeks headlines rather than solutions; and, rather than engaging in consensus building on the big issues, it settles for either silence or playing games.
It is impossible for me to cover the huge number of issues that have been raised, but I will touch on some that I think are significant. I thank all those people who have taken the time to treat the debate on this subject sufficiently seriously and to provide us with briefings, particularly on the issues around the specialist provision of housing, which I believe merit a debate on their own.
The motion seeks to capture the challenge of any strategy on housing. Indeed, it could have included more on energy efficiency and building standards. For me, however, the key lesson that even laying out those issues confirms is that, although housing policy must be about bricks and mortar, it cannot only be about that. That is why many people are anxious about the Government's approach. In effect, the Government has boiled down its aspirations to building 35,000 houses without thinking through the range of needs that must be met, with no target for social renting and not even a commitment to build as many homes as we did in the past eight years; with no thought on how to sustain that investment by putting in place and supporting community regeneration; with nothing to say about meeting housing need in a way that goes beyond the house itself—with support for the elderly in the community, for people leaving care, and for those who wish to move on from women's refuges; and with nothing to say about funding decisions, which creates uncertainty at best for those who wish to support, for example, adults with learning disabilities to live independently.
Our history tells us that, although national house building programmes might provide houses, they do not necessarily do the rest. How will the Government support the delivery of the homelessness target? How will it protect programmes to prevent homelessness? What expectations does the Minister for Communities and Sport have of the single outcome agreements? Are there any compulsory elements in meeting special and particular housing needs and in supporting progress towards the homelessness target? How will the Government act if there is evidence that supported accommodation, such as that for adults with disabilities, has to end because of the end of ring fencing for supporting people?
Oh!
I only ask the question. The minister has said in the past that, if there were problems, we could always resume ring fencing. How is that being monitored? What action will he take?
We understand the pressure to support first-time buyers, although we are no clearer about what support will be available. What does the minister have to say not just about new build, but about the raising of standards through the Scottish housing quality standard? What does he have to say about the need to support people who might face repossession and about emphasising the target for social rent? What does he have to say about programmes such as ours that were introduced for mortgage to rent? How will the Government support councils with high levels of debt, which will not be able to take advantage of their tiny share of the tiny £25 million for council house building?
The figure for the money that is being released through stock transfer to housing associations is staggering. The GHA's investment programme for 2006-07 was £137 million, which is about one third of the total affordable investment programme that the SNP projects for the whole of Scotland for the year ahead. The provision of GHA new build—6,000 new homes over the next five years—makes a stark comparison with Ms Sturgeon's announcement, which would mean at most 50 houses for Glasgow in the next five years.
In addition.
The money is top-sliced off housing association grant, so it is not additional.
It takes a particular kind of cowardice and recklessness for people to encourage others to vote against their own interests when they do not have to live with the consequences. That is compounded by a Government that refuses to accept its responsibility to find solutions. For the absence of doubt, the Stewart Maxwell solution is to raise rents, sell off assets and seek efficiencies, which could be the very expenditure that protects effective housing management.
I urge the minister to look to his Cabinet colleague John Swinney for guidance on how he should fulfil his responsibilities. John Swinney, in discussing his decision to be pragmatic in relation to the collection of rates in the context of local loop unbundling—members really do not want to know the detail—said that ministers were operating within a framework in which the Government was constrained in the policy areas that it was able to take forward. He explained that his pragmatism was justified, because the Government's priority is to maximise the resources that are available to local authorities for delivering front-line services. How much pragmatism should we expect from the Government in acting creatively to access the funding that stock transfer would deliver, when the only other option on offer to tenants is a shrug of the ministerial shoulders?
The Government's only big idea, "Firm Foundations", is significantly flawed, and the objections to it—as argued by a range of organisations—are not so easily silenced as by deleting part of a parliamentary motion. I urge the minister not to dig himself into a trench on the issue. There are genuine anxieties that the only real outcome of his approach will be to bring to an end the very things that made our housing policy so effective. [Laughter.] Does that reaction mean that ministers are mocking the housing associations' record? They might be interested to know that. Such an outcome would put at risk the innovative approaches in estate management, the support for tenants and the specialist provision that has been developed by those who need it. It must be an anxiety for the Government that equality groups did not even respond to its consultation.
The problem with "Firm Foundations" is compounded by the consultation document, "Better value from Housing Association Grant". The documents reveal a lack of understanding about effective housing provision going beyond build; they lack evidence on efficiencies; and they are predicated on a process that will squeeze out community-based housing associations to the advantage of the asset-rich big boys. They are also predicated on rent rises, a claim that the minister has denied in the past, although his own documents indicate that the policy depends on rent increases at the level of the retail prices index plus 1 per cent every year for the next 30 years, and that the private finance factor in development must increase from 18.14 per cent to 21.76 per cent, which is a push to the private market at a time of credit crunch. That is further compounded by the flat-lining of funding on wider action that might support tenants as they go into training or provide money advice, and by the flat-lining of—if not a cut in—community regeneration funding.
It is significant that there was overwhelming support for a national specialist housing function to provide expert support on the range of housing needs. The peremptory decision to abolish Communities Scotland to meet other political commitments seems to have been counterintuitive and against the addressing of housing need.
On "Firm Foundations", I urge the minister to have the grace to listen to those who understand what needs to be done. On stock transfer, I urge the minister to stop being in denial and instead to be creative in how that money can be released to transform local communities. On meeting homelessness and housing needs, I urge him to take responsibility. The minister should stop outsourcing his responsibilities and tell us what he will do to ensure that the target is met and that the resources are available, not just to ensure supply but to provide the kind of softer-end supports that prevent homelessness in the first place—the kind of things that support people when they come out of care or are in crisis. Above all, I urge the minister to shift from his year-zero approach and to acknowledge the significance of what has already been achieved—not by the previous Executive alone, but by it being willing to work with people in our communities and in the housing sector who understand how one can transform communities and make real change.
I seek support to secure continuing investment in change—rather than settling for the easy headline that will make no difference to the lives of people across Scotland who deserve to have their needs met. That should be part of a serious debate on housing and a broader housing strategy. Last week, we heard the reiteration of marginal, tokenistic—symbolic perhaps for some members—and dishonest claims about what the Government is doing in respect of council housing and right to buy. Now is the time for the Government to take responsibility and work with members throughout the chamber and beyond to develop a proper housing policy that will bring about change rather than simply make headlines.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises the broad range of issues that must be tackled in meeting the diverse housing needs of people across Scotland; confirms that the Scottish Government must act to address these issues, including continued work to prevent and reduce homelessness, the further development of housing to meet particular and specialist need, dealing with the blockages to the supply of housing, providing affordable housing to buy and within the socially rented sector, ensuring higher quality and better managed housing for rent in the private sector, seeking solutions to the problems facing local authorities where tenants voted against stock transfer and recognising the distinctive challenges in rural areas, regeneration areas and areas of high demand; notes that the consultation responses to the Firm Foundations document exposed significant flaws in the Scottish Government's approach; urges the Scottish Government to address these flaws and bring forward a coherent strategy for all of Scotland's housing needs and, in particular, agrees that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing should ensure that the Mazars report into second stage transfer issues in Glasgow Housing Association is subject to open, transparent and independent scrutiny.
The speech that we have just heard typifies why Labour is in the mess it is currently in. It was one long moan that had nothing constructive to say. I welcome the invitation at the end of the speech for us to engage in constructive dialogue. However, after 11 or 12 minutes of nothing but moaning, perhaps Labour members should look to themselves when it comes to constructive dialogue in the chamber.
That said, I am grateful to debate once again the challenge that we face on housing, and the difficult legacy that was left to us by the previous Administration. As the Labour motion states, housing takes in a large number of substantial issues that affect the wellbeing of families and individuals across the country. There is, therefore, much in the motion with which the Government can agree. I regret that the motion's generally constructive tone is marred somewhat by the partisan references to the "Firm Foundations" consultation exercise, which make it impossible for us to support the motion as it stands.
I will return in a moment to the wider challenge that faces housing, but first I wish to say something about the references to GHA and the Mazars report. I welcome the progress on SST that continues to be made. For the first time since the transfer to GHA, there is a realistic prospect of tenant balance within the next 12 months. Whatever else we agree today, I hope that we say or do nothing that will threaten or halt that progress. The Government takes the Mazars report seriously. Ensuring that all tenants are getting a fair deal is crucially important to us. That is why we have asked the Scottish Housing Regulator to provide us with an independent assessment of the report. In the interests of transparency, we intend to publish that assessment by the end of the month.
Will the minister give way?
No.
I hope that that will help to reassure tenants and other stakeholders that we take the matter and their concerns on it seriously. I am doing everything I can to encourage GHA to discuss the report with the parties to it. I hope that they will strive to reach a common understanding of its findings. That would be the best possible outcome for tenants, as it would enable the progress that has been made with SST to be maintained. Everyone's priority must be to maintain that progress. As our amendment makes clear, the Government stands ready to help GHA and the housing organisations to continue with the transfer process in a manner that serves the interests of all tenants.
The minister's scrutiny process has been welcomed in the report. What expertise could be provided by Communities Scotland in terms of the regulatory function that he has mentioned? That is a technical issue to do with the valuation differences that are identified in the Mazars report.
Clearly, the independent regulator is the expert in the area. In the past, as part of Communities Scotland, the regulator produced detailed reports on the registered social landlord sector—
Will the minister take an intervention?
I am responding to a previous intervention. Perhaps you should sit down for a moment and listen.
The fact is that the independent regulator is the independent body to examine those issues. That will be welcomed by people who are interested in the area, particularly in Glasgow. I will publish that information and advice as soon as it is available, and certainly by the end of May.
From the first days in power, the Government has recognised the scale of the challenge facing Scotland's housing system. Last June, in a statement to the Parliament, I described that challenge and drew attention to two particular problems. The first of those problems was the failure over many years to build enough houses across all tenures, which had left thousands of families in temporary accommodation and many more unable to find affordable housing that met their needs. The second problem was the arrangements for subsidising new social housing, which were unsustainable and in desperate need of reform. Those were and are huge challenges, but we moved quickly to address them. After only one month in office, I announced the creation of a housing supply task force to tackle obstacles to more homes being built in urban and rural areas, such as land supply and planning issues that hamper the delivery of more housing.
In October 2007 we launched "Firm Foundations", which proposed a radical and ambitious package of reforms intended to improve how every part of our housing system operates. At the heart of "Firm Foundations" was our recognition that supply across all tenures must be increased substantially and, on the back of that, our proposal for a step change in the rate of house building from the inadequate rate of 25,000 houses a year to at least 35,000 a year by the middle of the next decade. Set against the backdrop of that reform of the planning system is the action of a Government that is determined to address the recent undersupply of housing, which we must tackle to allow our economy to flourish.
The household projections that are published today, which show increasing numbers of households over the next 25 years, simply underline the vital importance of our housing supply objectives. Crucially, for a Government that is committed to sustainable growth, the ambition to improve supply was cast clearly in terms of all new building being of a higher design and environmental standard.
We have proposed launching a sustainable communities initiative to encourage the development of new sustainable developments that are sympathetic to Scotland's landscape and environment. We recognise the central role of home ownership and the difficulties that face those who wish to buy their own home. At a strategic level, increased housing supply in line with our ambitions will act to improve affordability for house buyers—from those who are entering the market for the first time to families that are moving to meet changing circumstances.
We are committed to providing affordable housing to buy directly through our investment programmes. Our low-cost initiative for first-time buyers does exactly that. Among other initiatives, LIFT includes shared equity schemes that deliver value for taxpayers' money and grants for rural areas, in recognition of the unique circumstances that rural home buyers often face.
At the same time, we took full account of the need for a thriving social sector that can adapt to changing demand and offer more choice to those who cannot afford—or who do not wish—to buy. That included a new and positive role for local authorities as landlords, with a proposal to offer them a financial incentive to build new houses; a proposal to safeguard all new social housing by removing it from the scope of right to buy; proposals for getting better value for our social housing subsidies; and proposals for modernising regulation to ensure that it is more sharply focused on serving the interests of existing and future tenants.
We envisaged a greater role for the private rented sector—encouraging it to flourish and play a full role in meeting housing needs in urban and rural areas and offering choice and flexibility to those who are in housing need. As "Firm Foundations" made clear, that included improving standards in the private rented sector through measures such as the mandatory private landlord registration scheme, and the new repairing standard. The latest figures show that the Government has achieved a 500 per cent increase in the rate of application approvals for the landlord registration scheme in the past 12 months, with the national approval figure now standing at 75 per cent. That is against an increase of 25 per cent in the number of applications received since last May. "A long-overdue success" was how one commentator in The Herald last week hailed the progress that the SNP has made in delivering the scheme.
Last week I launched Landlord Accreditation Scotland, a new company owned by the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association and the Scottish Association of Landlords. With start-up funding from the Government, the company will deliver the national voluntary landlord accreditation scheme, which aims to recognise and reward those landlords who are already maintaining their properties to good standards and thus providing tenants with peace of mind.
Will the minister take an intervention?
As a whole, "Firm Foundations" constituted a thoroughgoing blueprint for reforming housing policy and making it fit for the 21st century.
Oh, sit down.
On you go then.
You are on record as saying that you recognise the role of the housing associations. Do you recognise that it is not partisan to reflect their concerns about the implications of "Firm Foundations" for community-based housing associations?
Before the minister answers, I point out that too many members on all sides are using the word "you" when they should not be. As I have said many a time, the only you in here is me.
Clearly, we are negotiating with and consulting the housing association movement through the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. I note that the SFHA's parliamentary briefing welcomes the Scottish Government's commitment to the many proposals listed and welcomes the fact that we are keen to consult on several others. That sounds to me like we are taking matters forward in the proper way, rather than in the way that Johann Lamont claims.
The claim in the Labour motion that the responses to "Firm Foundations" expose significant flaws in our approach is less than fair and is, indeed, inaccurate. The responses demonstrated a huge measure of support for the thrust of our policies. For example, on housing supply, 230 of the 260 who commented—that is 89 per cent—endorsed the proposal to set a national target to provide 35,000 new houses a year by the middle of the next decade. Our proposals to assist first-time buyers, in particular through new-build shared-equity schemes, were widely supported. Our proposal to end the right to buy on new-build social housing attracted near universal support, with 94 per cent endorsement from those who responded on the issue. Not far behind, the proposal for Government subsidies to build new council houses attracted 81 per cent support. There was also strong support for modernising how social housing is regulated.
I do not want to suggest that support for our proposals was universal or always uncritical or unqualified. Many of the respondents offered comments on the detail of how we might take forward our proposals. We welcome those comments, which are being taken into account in developing the policy. Of course, I would be the first to admit that, in some areas, respondents expressed more serious concerns, on which we will need to reflect carefully, but those various concerns should not be misrepresented as pointing to significant flaws.
Would it not be appropriate for the minister to give us a flavour of the concerns that were raised by those who responded to the consultation?
The responses to the consultation have been published and are freely available. If Mr McAveety is unable to find them, I can send him the web link so that he can access them. We received encouraging responses across the board. Our proposals were widely welcomed—although that seems to annoy the Opposition—and received huge support right across the sector.
It would be surprising if such a radical and wide-ranging set of proposals did not generate a variety of views. I am delighted that they attracted such a broad measure of support. We intend to build on that support as we rise to the challenge that we all agree exists.
I am encouraged that there is a shared view of the housing problems that we face and, I hope, a shared determination to tackle them. I am also encouraged by the progress that we have made in dealing with those problems and by the support that we have received for our policies. We look forward to coming back to the Parliament shortly to describe how we will take forward those policies in light of the responses to "Firm Foundations".
In the meantime, it gives me great pleasure to move amendment S3M-1848.2, to leave out from "notes" to end and insert:
"calls on the Scottish Government to facilitate discussion and mediation between Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) and the relevant local housing organisations to ensure that second stage transfers proceed speedily and equitably in the interests of all tenants and urges the Scottish Government to bring forward a coherent strategy for all of Scotland's housing needs and, in particular, agrees that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing should ensure that the Mazars report into second stage transfer issues in GHA is subject to open, transparent and independent scrutiny."
Another week, another housing debate. The Scottish Conservatives are always pleased to talk about such a key domestic issue, so we welcome the fact that Labour is using its parliamentary time in this way. We agree with the broad thrust of the Labour motion, although our proposed solutions to the problems might differ from Labour's and from those that are emerging from the SNP Government.
All members recognise that one of the biggest issues is the need for more affordable housing in communities throughout Scotland, but do ministers realise that the private sector is ready and willing to engage with Government to achieve delivery of affordable homes on the ground? Given the range of practical and innovative ideas and models for increasing the number of such homes, I urge ministers to do more to engage with and co-operate with the private house building sector. The Government has already recognised the role that the private sector can play in providing affordable rented housing through the rural homes for rent scheme, but it must go further and be bolder.
The demand for affordable houses to buy simply will not decrease. As "Firm Foundations" points out, the vast majority of tenants in housing associations aspire to own their own home. The Scottish Conservatives are proud to believe that Government should enable every family that wants to exercise its right to be a home owner to do so.
Proper partnership and engagement with the private sector is the only way in which the Government stands a chance of meeting its target of building 35,000 new homes each year by the middle of the next decade—up from the 23,000 to 24,000 built each year since 2000—yet the barriers that face the private house building sector are horrendous and are getting worse all the time. One reason for that is that, in this country, the infrastructure providers enjoy a quasi-monopoly status. For mains water and sewerage, there is only one provider—I will give members three guesses as to its name. The situation with electricity is much the same. Therefore, the Scottish Government must ensure that the Water Industry Commission for Scotland and the other regulators do their job by ensuring that such quasi-monopolies do not hold builders and developers to ransom and thereby deprive families of affordable housing or, for that matter, any other kind of housing.
Another quasi-monopoly that is proving a barrier is planning. In the Highlands, I am told, it now takes eight months to get a building warrant. I do not know whether that is because the council has cut down on the number of employees or simply cannot get employees, but I know that such delays are holding up housing developments of all kinds. That must be a very bad thing.
The number of empty properties in Scotland is an issue that I highlighted in last week's debate, but I make no apology for returning to the subject. Of the 87,000 vacant residential properties in Scotland, 55 per cent are in the private sector and 22,500 of those have been empty for more than six months. That is a massive waste of resources by anybody's standards. Do ministers agree that the approach that local housing strategies take to empty homes is very patchy? Argyll and Bute Council in my area is taking the lead on developing a local strategy on empty homes and should be commended. All of us want empty properties to be brought back into use. Again, we look to the Government to come up with a firm policy initiative to tackle the problem. We need more delivery and fewer words.
Social housing for rent is, we believe, best delivered by housing associations, which have a track record of positive engagement with their tenants. The SNP's appeasement of its left-wing supporters by suggesting that councils should once again take the lead in building homes for rent is plain wrong. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations has warned that the Government's proposals on housing association grants will decrease the supply of affordable rented housing and push up existing rents. What is the minister's response to that extremely worrying claim from one of the key bodies that will be expected to help to deliver the Government's 35,000 houses per year target? In addition, will the minister confirm whether private bodies will be given the chance to be part of building control?
Last week, my colleague David McLetchie spoke passionately about the benefits of stock transfer, on which we have also lodged an amendment today as we have such a powerful argument. Audit Scotland's 2006 report "Council housing transfers" rightly stated that tenants benefit from the better service, new investment and greater local control that such transfers deliver. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations—which has a lot of experience through the role that its members have played—has correctly highlighted that stock transfer allows rental income to be spent on higher maintenance standards rather than on repaying historic debt. In addition, the new landlords can successfully access private funding for investment and new development. Given that Scotland's housing debt stands at more than £2.2 billion, the SNP Government simply has no excuses for not encouraging the transfer of council housing stock where tenants wish it. To ignore the pile of money that is on the table from Her Majesty's Treasury would be criminal.
As we said last week, the SNP campaigned along with the Scottish Socialist Party for a no vote on such transfers, but the SNP Government now says that it is neutral. Today's SNP amendment calls on the SNP Government to ensure that second-stage transfer proceeds speedily in the interests of all tenants. If the SNP likes second-stage transfers in Glasgow, what was wrong with first-stage transfers in other areas? In areas where council tenants voted no, there was a failure to explain to tenants why their best interests would be served by stock transfer. Surely the challenge for the Government is to reverse those earlier decisions, which have lost Scotland so much money. There must be a way of doing that. We are certainly investigating possibilities, which we will bring back to the chamber in due course.
Today's debate is welcome. "Firm Foundations" showed up the failings of the SNP Government's approach on housing. The SNP has identified the problems that we face—that is the easy part—but it seems to have no coherent approach on how to face those problems. The Scottish Conservatives recognise that we need a multifaceted approach involving effective planning reform so that houses can be delivered where they are required.
We need to tackle development constraint and to co-operate with the private sector, which has a huge role to play, not least in creating a dynamic rented sector. We need successful shared equity schemes and to bring back into use the tens of thousands of empty properties that exist. We should work through housing associations and transfer social housing stock from local authorities, where tenants vote for it. I hope that this evening members will support the amendment in my name.
I move amendment S3M-1848.1, to insert at end:
"regrets the failure of the Scottish Government to actively promote housing stock transfer by local authorities to community-based housing associations, with the approval of tenants, and urges the Scottish Government to co-operate with HM Treasury and councils to achieve the substantial debt write-offs of over £2 billion which are available and thereby facilitate new investment in social housing."
Opposition members may be forgiven for having a feeling of déjà vu in this debate. After all, did we not debate housing very recently? As has been outlined this morning, just last week the Conservative group brought forward a debate on housing.
However, my feeling of déjà vu comes not because we are debating the same subject two weeks in a row but from the fact that last week the Government failed yet again properly to answer any of the important questions relating to people's fundamental right to good-quality, affordable housing. I wish that I could be confident that the Government will answer our questions this time, but again I have that feeling of déjà vu.
If it were not such a serious subject the Government's responses—especially those of Stewart Maxwell—would be laughable. If members—particularly those on the Government benches—do not believe me, here is a quick history lesson. In last week's debate, Stewart Maxwell stated:
"I will give Johann Lamont an exact figure for the number of houses: it will be exactly a hell of a lot more than six."—[Official Report, 1 May 2008; c 8109.]
If that is the minister's idea of exacting, what about this one? On 29 January, I submitted a parliamentary question to the Government asking the minister
"how many affordable homes for rent it will build from 2008 to 2011."
Stewart Maxwell gave a totally inept answer, when he replied that the Government
"expects that the … budget … will deliver more new affordable homes … than planned for 2005-08."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 4 March 2008; S3W-9149.]
I do not know how Mr Salmond—far less Ms Sturgeon—has any confidence left in Mr Maxwell.
The Labour motion that is before us may be a bit detailed, but the Government must demonstrate some knowledge—some understanding—of detail if it is to convince anyone in Scotland that it has a real understanding of the subject. The Liberal Democrat amendment, in my name, seeks further clarification from the Government. It also gives the Government more time to do the sums that will allow it to give the chamber a detailed answer to my PQ of 29 January.
The Government sets much store by "Firm Foundations", which would be fine if the document addressed many of the key points relating to housing in Scotland today. Unfortunately, and rather disappointingly, it fails to do so.
I take the example of catering for people with disabilities. Only one small section of the document—barely half a dozen lines on page 15—remotely mentions the subject. Even then, it provides no insight into how elderly and disabled people can be helped to continue to live in their own homes. Inclusion Scotland helpfully points out:
"It can be impossible to take up employment, educational or social and recreational opportunities if you can't get in and out of your own home or if the living environment is so difficult and hostile that it takes all your time and energy just to do the basics, like bathing, washing and eating".
Figures from the former Disability Rights Commission indicate that 19 per cent of people in Scotland are disabled and that the figure will rise to 23 per cent by 2025. How can the Government so blatantly ignore more than a fifth of Scottish residents in its key document on the future of housing in Scotland?
There is significant pressure on the social rented housing sector. In some areas, that pressure is so acute that some people will do whatever they can to move up the housing list—even make themselves homeless. The Government and all parties represented in the Parliament are committed to meeting the 2012 homelessness targets. The Parliament is committed to abolishing unintentional homelessness by 2012 and to meeting interim targets in 2009. As Shelter has outlined recently, progress towards meeting the 2009 targets is "patchy", and most local authorities are well behind where they should be at this stage.
"Firm Foundations" focuses on increasing housing supply and development in the run-up to 2012 as the solution. Although that approach is to be supported, at least in general, unfortunately the paper does not discuss the importance of guarding against managing demand for homelessness services. Although local authorities should continue to do all they can to meet the housing need of individuals in Scotland, more steps must be taken to try to prevent homelessness. For example, more support should be given to tenants to stop them becoming homeless by restoring supporting people funding to an acceptable level, adapting homes to meet people's needs and conducting mediation between conflicting parties. The drive to reduce the number of homeless people should not be target driven but should be based on the circumstances of the individuals involved.
In fairness to the Government, I note that there is a much higher level of commitment to energy efficiency throughout "Firm Foundations". Increased energy efficiency affects existing owners and tenants and both old and new houses; it also helps to safeguard the future of our planet. However, the Government has no clear focus on energy efficiency and how to improve it. It requires a number of spend-to-save investments, including, for existing properties, a greater focus on helping organisations such as Energy Action Scotland to meet the 2016 fuel poverty targets. For new build, the Liberal Democrats are committed from 2010 to having in all properties microgeneration that generates at least one fifth of the building's energy needs.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the opportunity to debate this subject. We welcome the fact that Labour has put together a detailed motion; we also welcome the Conservative amendment, which is similar to the motion that we supported last week. I hope that members from all parties will accept the additional points that are included in my amendment. More than that, I hope that the Government will accept that the majority of members and groups in the Scottish Parliament are concerned about the Government's drive and commitment to solving the housing crisis in Scotland. It needs to listen to and learn from the people of Scotland, through their elected representatives. If it fails to do that, I and many others will get that déjà vu feeling again and again.
I move amendment S3M-1848.3, to insert at end:
"regrets that after two parliamentary debates on the subject since the budget was passed, the Scottish Government has still failed to come forward with clear figures on its housing plans across all sector and tenure types including the number of affordable rented houses to be built from 2008 to 2011, and has further failed to produce a clear trajectory for how it intends to meet its commitment to abolish unintentional homelessness by 2012; calls for improved energy efficiency to be a key objective in plans for new housing, and opposes the Scottish Government's proposals for large scale procurement put forward in Firm Foundations."
A number of members who, I am led to believe, wish to take part in the debate have not yet pressed their request-to-speak buttons. It would be helpful if they could do so.
Among other things, it is disappointing that so little of the Government's focus is on the wider issue of regeneration. "Firm Foundations" seems to lean heavily in favour of new-build housing and fails to recognise the opportunities that exist for recycling existing stock. Some of that stock may be of poor quality or its size may no longer meet the requirements of today's households, but there are ways of changing that. Several of the housing associations in my constituency and other areas have regenerated communities by restructuring housing stock to provide a better range of house type, size and tenure. The Government does not seem to acknowledge that way forward, although it provides one answer to the problem of land supply that the Government correctly cites as an issue.
Land supply is critical, but the minister must accept that many brownfield sites are expensive to regenerate, perhaps because they are undermined or contaminated. Remediation costs money. One idea that the minister might like to consider is having a specific funding mechanism to deal with the issue, especially for priority sites. Such a mechanism could help housing providers to unblock sites for development and reduce the cost burden on housing subsidy. It would also help to reduce the demand for land in the green belt to be released for house building.
I assume that the member is aware of the vacant and derelict land fund. That money was in two separate funds under the previous Administration, but we have brought it together in a single fund. The fund is to be distributed for the purpose that the member suggests, so I am not sure what point she is trying to make.
I am quite familiar with the fund, because it was set up by the previous Executive, but it does not tackle all the problems that we face. For example, housing associations need to be able to access it, so that they can expand into brownfield sites.
Bringing brownfield sites back into use is surely one of the most sustainable things that we can do. It was laudable that the Government took on the issue of energy efficiency in "Firm Foundations", but it did not set out a clear commitment on the housing sector's contribution to the economy's wider goal of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Indeed, as we see from the consultation responses, there are fears that even the commitments that the Government has made will not be met, because they are incompatible with its proposals for significant cost and subsidy reductions.
We all share the aspiration of providing a tenure mix in neighbourhoods to help retain residents within a community and to encourage the sustainability of communities in the longer term. However, housing associations in my constituency have told me that they find the tone of the chapter on social housing in "Firm Foundations" unduly negative. They also said that no account has been taken of the diversity of provision or of the many successes that the housing association movement and local authority sector have achieved.
Over the years, the housing association movement has been innovative and has built an excellent track record of delivery. Why, then, is the Government determined to introduce competition and, possibly, a reduction in the number of organisations that can compete to deliver houses? In October last year, the Government made a statement on housing. I raised with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing my concerns about the lead developer model. Again, I ask the Minister for Communities and Sport to think about how the proposal will affect the geographically based housing associations that have built up trust and confidence in an area and housing associations that deal with specific client groups, including those with particular needs.
The wider actions of housing associations in my area have been extremely innovative. For example, Queens Cross Housing Association has built workshop units to help small businesses get started. Mr Harvie and I have been the beneficiaries of that policy at various times. Maryhill Housing Association has supported local people in a successful self-build project, and North Glasgow Housing Association has built some of the best wheelchair-accessible housing that I have seen. Matters such as that are important. Given that around £14 million is spent annually in Glasgow alone on adapting existing houses for disabled people, surely it is more sensible for a proportion of new-build houses to be designed to be barrier free.
On the Glasgow Housing Association, I am pleased that the cabinet secretary recognised the significance of the Mazars report and the fact that it requires to be transparently and independently scrutinised. I heard what the minister said this morning on the Housing Regulator, but that is not the right route to go down. The scrutiny process must be believable and trustworthy for everyone to have confidence in it. As we know, the Housing Regulator has signed off GHA's documents. I ask the minister to think again on that proposal. I also ask him to commit to establishing a clear process and a definitive timetable that will allow Glasgow to move forward and have the kind of community ownership that so many people in the city voted for and want to be part of.
Surely the Government must realise that, although the housing policies of the Opposition may differ, we agree on at least three things: that housing is one of the most important issues that we must tackle; that the Government's approach is flawed; and that, collectively, we will continue to hold the Government to account.
I believe that housing, along with health and education, must be up there at the top of the list of priorities for the Government and Parliament. Indeed, a successful housing policy is a prerequisite of achieving our objectives in health and education policy.
From the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 19th century to today, no Government has broken the back of the housing problem in Scotland. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, when up to 50,000 new houses were being built, Governments may have achieved the numbers, but they did not achieve the quality of build. Today—50 years later—we are still grappling with the lack of quality in much of that housing. We have inherited multistorey buildings and damp housing. Much of the blight that afflicts housing today is the result of a dash for numbers and not quality housing. We need to reconcile the need for a substantial increase in the number of houses that can be made available with the need for a dramatic improvement in housing quality that includes energy efficiency.
Does Alex Neil accept that that reinforces Patricia Ferguson's point about the wider regeneration aspect of housing policy? Surely regeneration should be a significant element of any Government's housing programme.
Absolutely. It is a significant part of this Government's policy, as outlined in its regeneration strategy and housing policy.
Will the member give way?
I need to continue.
I welcome the Government's commitment to increase the house building rate in Scotland by 40 per cent over the next few years. In many of the areas that I represent, including North Lanarkshire, the chances of someone getting a house are slim, particularly if they have special needs. People are in despair. It is almost impossible to guarantee that the many people who are desperately in need of a house will be able to get one.
In Scotland, up to 230,000 people are on the waiting list for rented housing and yet we are building only 24,000 new houses. Even allowing for Patricia Ferguson's valid point about the need to make more use of existing property, the reality is that current supply is nowhere near to meeting the level of demand. I welcome the fact that a central plank of the Government's strategy is to increase substantially the number of new houses that are to be built in Scotland for sale and social housing.
I note what the member says about the dash for numbers and I agree with him on that. However, one of our main criticisms of Government housing policy is that, in setting a target of 35,000, it may get the numbers but not meet the needs that have been identified. Does the member agree that the minister should indicate his target for social rented housing within the overall target of 35,000 to ensure that the Government does not get into the position that the member described of having built the houses but not met the need?
I agree that there is a need to ensure that we meet the demand for social housing, and the minister intends to do that. The obsession with targets is a problem: very often, targets are used to distort policy. The key thing for the Government to do is to provide the level of social housing for first-time buyers and the rented sector that is required to meet social and economic demand. The strategy that the minister has outlined, both in "Firm Foundations" and in his speech this morning, satisfies that requirement.
Over a number of years, I have—undoubtedly and rightly—stated my belief about the financial black hole in the funding of second-stage transfer. In reports that were commissioned by GHA and the previous Executive, independent consultants have estimated the shortfall to be anywhere between £200 million and £500 million. The major debate between GHA and the housing associations in Glasgow on the methodologies that they are employing to estimate the real cost of second-stage transfer is clear to see.
I welcome the minister's announcement that he is asking the independent regulator to assess the Mazars report. I say to him that, once that assessment is available, he should take a page out of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing's book and appoint an independent scrutiny panel, as she did in resolving the issues around the closure of the accident and emergency units.
Once we have the regulator's report, the logical next step will be to have the equivalent of an independent scrutiny panel. We need a panel that will listen to both sides, examine professionally the methodologies that both sides applied and come up with a set of firm recommendations for the way forward. I appeal to both sides—GHA and the housing associations—to agree to accept the recommendations of such a panel. GHA was a costly mistake, but we are where we are and we are all keen to move forward to second-stage transfer, so the minister should consider now how we should act on the report from the independent regulator, with a view to reaching a firm and satisfactory conclusion to an on-going problem.
I am glad that we have moved on to a slightly more reflective vein.
If legitimate criticisms have been made in housing debates of Labour's record on issues such as the achievability of its homelessness policy, the unintended consequences of that policy and of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 on existing tenants, especially older people with a long-term commitment to living in rented housing, and the sufficiency of the financial headroom to achieve second-stage transfer in Glasgow, surely the onus is on the new Administration to address those issues and to begin to debate how to progress them. Despite the flood of documents from the Government and the minister's repeated statements in the chamber, he has not begun to address any of the real issues; he has not given specifics. When he does give figures—for example, the £25 million for building council houses—their effects are hyped way above the actual impact that they will have. We are talking about 200 houses over three years; that is the substance of what the minister proposes.
Last year, the Executive provided £500 million for house building in Scotland. The minister has yet to announce his HAG allocations; they are three months late. Will he match the previous Executive's figure plus an inflationary increase? He should do so if he is to increase the number of social rented houses. Alternatively, are we facing a reduction in funding? Is that the reality? Brave new words have been spoken about the number of new houses that will be built, but the reality is that we will end up with less social rented housing.
Second-stage transfer has been long delayed. However, the minister has yet to say what he is saying to Shettleston Housing Association, what progress is being made with Govanhill Housing Association, where we are going with the Gorbals, what the issues are with Queens Cross Housing Association, and whether tenant-controlled housing has a future as part of the second-stage transfer process. The minister has given no specifics. Probably the most important fact is that no specifics are being given on tenants who will remain with GHA. Nearly 50 per cent of those who currently live in rented housing in Glasgow have an interest in the future of GHA. It does not make sense for the minister to seek to batter into that association when so many people in Glasgow depend on its having a viable financial future. There are issues to do with the second-stage transfer and the housing associations that the minister needs to progress, but he must take a balanced approach. Alex Neil has an interesting view on that, but he needs to ask the minister exactly what he is going to do.
Let me take things closer to home for the minister. The minister represents the West of Scotland regional constituency. Professor Glen Bramley has said that Bearsden and Milngavie, which I represent, have the highest level of unmet housing need in Scotland. Constituents of mine, many of whom have disabilities, have no chance of getting a home in the area that they have lived in for many years. There is no prospect of new council housing in the area. What will the minister do to ensure that the unmet need in Bearsden and Milngavie will be met for the people who live there through the housing association or council housing route?
The minister represents Clydebank, which is also in my constituency. A substantial amount of housing in Clydebank is long past its usefulness. Substantial numbers of homes in high-rise buildings require to be refurbished, where that is possible, or replaced. GHA has taken such an agenda forward in Glasgow. The previous Administration invested substantial amounts of money to try to meet the housing needs of an area in which there was a lot of housing on which a substantial amount of work needed to be done. I want to see the same kind of investment in Clydebank and the same urgent addressing of people's real needs that has taken place in Glasgow. We look across the border at Glasgow and ask, "Why can't we have some of that investment?"
What is the minister going to do for his and my constituents who want to live in decent housing conditions? They deserve to have the benefits that substantial housing investment brings. I freely acknowledge that they are suffering because there has been underinvestment in the past, but the issue for the Government is what we will do for them in the future. We represent them and they should be at the forefront of our thoughts. They do not deserve to live in damp or inadequate houses or houses that are falling down, or to be next-door neighbours of people who cause them serious social problems. What are the minister's policies on housing investment, a housing allocation strategy, and linking that strategy with an antisocial behaviour strategy? How will he progress matters on my constituents' behalf? That is what they want to hear.
A number of important issues have rightly been raised in the debate. However, I want to concentrate on the second-stage stock transfer.
Thirty years ago, there were 186,000 council houses in Glasgow, many of which were of poor quality—they were badly maintained and managed in an unresponsive and insensitive way. The dead hand of municipal socialism weighed heavily on the genuine aspirations of Glasgow's council house tenants.
Things had to change. The engine for that change was the genuine realisation by all serious politicians that people must be given a greater say in their housing conditions. The facts cannot be denied. People respond positively when they are given responsibility for their own housing lot. The Conservative Government introduced the right-to-buy legislation—we are not debating that today, however—and the housing association movement was formed and grew. That movement has been a tremendous—indeed, an outstanding—success.
When the Parliament was established, we sought to build on those successes by implementing the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, which was a positive piece of legislation. I freely acknowledge that many Labour members had to show courage and imagination to go down that route. I had one caveat when the Housing (Scotland) Bill was being debated. Basically, I thought that we should have taken a whole step and passed responsibility from Glasgow City Council to smaller, manageable housing associations—Margaret Curran, who was heavily involved in the bill, would confirm that. I allowed myself to be persuaded that the median step of setting up GHA was necessary. However, I now regret that I allowed myself to be so easily persuaded. GHA was to be a facilitator, but it has turned out to be an impediment.
We must look closely at how we can break the log-jam. First, we must consider how housing associations' purchase applications are being processed. I cannot overstress how impressed I have been by the commitment of the dedicated staff of housing associations and tenant and management representatives to make things succeed. A lot of time and effort have been spent on doing so, but a lot of time and effort have also been wasted because GHA has not been responsive. I am not an estate agent or a quantity surveyor, but I know that some of the prices that GHA has quoted for potential purchases do not make sense. They do not do so for several reasons, which the Mazars report highlights well. GHA has fixed pricing and there has been complete inconsistency throughout the process.
The treatment of central costs that arise from stock loss from demolitions and right-to-buy transactions is totally inconsistent with the approach to stock loss through secondary stock transfer. The interest cost savings that have resulted from a lower than forecast level of borrowing are being used to fund non-SST projects. If those funds had been used to facilitate SST, we would be a great deal further down the road. There is a take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards the costs involved.
Should there not be some form of negotiation? Should people not be speaking to one another? Should the Scottish Government not be telling GHA to speak to potential purchasers to find out whether a satisfactory outcome can be reached? The present situation cannot be allowed to continue. It would be the ultimate irony if those people who find themselves stymied in their genuine aspiration to buy their own homes had to resort to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, another piece of legislation that the Scottish Parliament passed, not without controversy, which was famously described as the Mugabe land grab—
By you.
Yes, by me.
That is a possibility, so the situation must be addressed.
What progress has been made? The minister acknowledged that the Mazars report has raised issues that must be resolved. I welcome the initial—albeit faltering—steps that he has taken. However, it must be said that the invited involvement in the process of a regulator whose attitude in the past has been that GHA's valuation methodology is appropriate is extremely worrying, because clearly that methodology is not appropriate. Neutrality has been seriously prejudiced.
The present situation cannot be allowed to continue; it must be resolved. Once that has happened, it will make an immeasurable difference to the housing ambitions and the housing stock of the city of Glasgow.
Last week, I welcomed the opportunity that the Conservatives' motion afforded us to debate housing. I welcome the fact that we have another opportunity to debate housing this morning. Last week, I had to temper my welcome by highlighting that I could find little in the Tory motion with which I could agree. Although I can agree with more of today's Labour motion, I still find myself in disagreement with much of it.
Stewart Maxwell stated where his opposition to the wording of the motion lies. My opposition, too, relates principally to the part of it that attempts to spin the responses to the Government's "Firm Foundations" document as negative. On the contrary, as the minister set out, it received a positive response. The 387 responses, which came from local authorities, tenants groups, housing associations and other organisations and individuals, were independently assessed and that independent assessment indicated that, far from "Firm Foundations" receiving a negative response, there was strong support for the Government's proposals.
Support was strongest in relation to an issue that the Labour Party has not dared to mention, either in its amendment last week or in today's motion—the right to buy. Bill Aitken suggested that the right to buy is not for debate today, but I beg to differ—consideration of the right to buy is fundamental to determining how we move forward with our housing policy.
It might be helpful if the member clarified his understanding of his party's policy. How many houses will be affected by the change to the right to buy? If his party's hostility to right to buy is so strong, why does his minister not advocate its total abolition?
The policy is easy to understand: I would have thought that even Johann Lamont could understand it. The policy will eradicate the right to buy for all new-build social housing, which will remove the disincentive for local authorities to build new council homes. Already, proposals have been made to build far more council houses than have been built over the past few years.
At least the Tories had the guts to nail their colours to the mast in last week's motion—although they seem more silent on the matter this week. I totally disagree with their position on the Government's proposals on the right to buy, but at least I know where they stand. What is Labour's position on the right to buy? Does it support the continuation of a Thatcher-inspired policy that has led to a chronic shortage of council housing or does it support the SNP Government's proposal to restrict it—which, incidentally, received wide support from respondees to the consultation on "Firm Foundations"? As Stewart Maxwell mentioned, 94 per cent of those who responded to the Government's consultation support that proposal.
We need to know what Labour's stance is on the proposal. When it was first mooted, Wendy Alexander seemed to support it but, as recent days have shown, she is not beyond making the odd U-turn now and then. Perhaps we will be enlightened about Labour's position in the course of the debate, but I will not hold my breath.
I turn to the other issue to which the motion refers—housing stock transfer and, in particular, second-stage transfer in Glasgow. I hope that Labour members have the good grace to acknowledge that Stewart Maxwell's amendment offers the Government's support for the suggestion that the Mazars report should be
"subject to open, transparent and independent scrutiny."
That is what the Labour Party calls for in its motion, and the minister's amendment agrees to precisely that. There should be no suggestion that this Government is afraid of
"open, transparent and independent scrutiny."
However, Labour members might yet live to regret the call that they have made. After all, their handling of the Glasgow housing stock transfer, and second-stage transfer in particular, was a complete mess. Mazars has already found serious flaws in the process that worked against the interests of tenants in Glasgow. The SNP Administration is having to iron out those flaws and clean up that mess.
That brings me to the wider issue of stock transfer in general and the Tory amendment. It seems that the Conservatives are staying true to the position that they adopted last week. They seem to have bought Gordon Brown's stock transfer bribe hook, line and sinker. Last week, the Conservatives told us that we should meekly accept the rules on Scotland's housing debt as they stand, whereby the Treasury will service that debt only if it goes hand in hand with housing stock transfer. The Conservatives told us that those rules were the only game in town. The Tories' acquiescence with the rules of the game as set by Gordon Brown hardly counts as standing up for Scotland's council tenants. Why must we accept those rules?
I repeat what I said last week: if the Treasury has the money to take on Scotland's council housing debts, it should do so unconditionally, rather than hold a proverbial gun to the head of Scottish council tenants. We should stand up for that principle. If we do anything less, it will be a sad failure to stick up for Scotland's council tenants.
Much remains to be done to address Scotland's housing needs. Too many people languish on homelessness registers. We must ensure that their fundamental human right to shelter and a home to call their own is upheld. We might disagree on how to get there, but I hope and trust that that goal is common to us all. I welcome the Scottish Government's efforts thus far, and I look forward to more progress being made in the coming years.
I am grateful that we are debating housing again, and I speak in support of the motion in the name of Johann Lamont.
Housing is essential for everyone. Too many people face a dismal future if this Government does not produce a housing strategy. Housing was a high priority for the previous Government, and if the present Government does not build on the legacy that it inherited, it risks losing the good work that was done. The Labour motion is wide-ranging. The fact that it covers a great many housing issues shows the complexity of the problem. I will address one or two of those issues.
I have the privilege of representing one of the most beautiful parts of the world, but its beauty has a knock-on effect on housing. Houses for sale on the open market are attractive to people from outside the area, either as a second home or as a base to move to in a prime area for a change of lifestyle. Those people tend to have finance from property or savings that allows them to outbid locals easily. On the other hand, locals tend to have several jobs, some of which are seasonal or temporary, which means that they do not have the security or amount of income to allow them to compete. That leads to many people living with their families in substandard accommodation or caravans.
We need to tackle the market imbalance that is created by second home ownership by developing two different markets: one for second homes and one for those who live and work in an area. That has been done successfully in other areas. By creating two markets, we can ensure that the needs and aspirations of both communities are met. Locals will not be outpriced by people moving into the area and will be able to own or rent their own homes. However, we do not want to prevent communities benefiting from the economic boost that comes via second home and holiday home ownership.
Building affordable houses for rent or purchase has its challenges in rural areas, because there are no economies of scale. Because of their size, villages need only one or two houses, which prove expensive to build due to the small size of the development. Additional costs are incurred when securing services in rural areas: telephone and electricity connection costs can be horrendous, and access to water and sewerage services can be non-existent. Many small villages have access only to private water supplies that cannot be easily upgraded to supply new properties, and the same applies to sewerage systems.
Housing associations that are grounded in their communities are more likely to reach solutions and create developments that are sympathetic to their surroundings. For example, Albyn Housing Society has ensured that its house designs fit with local properties and take on the character of the local village. The association is aware of the additional costs and challenges of building in rural areas.
Fuel poverty can be a big problem in rural areas. There are few alternatives to electricity, which can be expensive. The cost of electricity means that people of all ages can be reluctant to heat their homes. Housing associations are thinking imaginatively about those problems, and some have developed community heating schemes. Others, such as Lochalsh and Skye Housing Association, are installing renewable heat sources—heat pumps—in new properties. They are also investigating heat capture schemes for existing housing. They are not cheap to install, but they help tenants and owners to access affordable power, and thus tackle fuel poverty.
The Government's rhetoric does little to encourage housing associations—it devalues them. The Government lumps them together with the private sector and ignores their social remit and benefit.
The Government boasts of investing £25 million in housing, but that amount is derisory when compared with the £160 million debt write-off that was available to Highland Council for its housing debt. That money could have come to the Highlands had it not been for the SNP-led campaign to reject the investment.
Highland Council tenants now face an inflation-busting rent increase of 5.3 per cent, while the council freezes council tax for the laird. This is Robin Hood in reverse: taking from the poor and giving to the rich. On top of its £160 million debt, Highland Council must now find money to fund a £247 million investment to meet the Scottish housing quality standard. How small its share of the lauded £25 million appears in comparison. Highland tenants must rue the day that they were so badly misled.
Does the member agree that a housing stock transfer vote in which tenants are told that they must vote yes or the council's housing debt will not be written off is UK Government blackmail, and that the Government should be prepared to write off the debt no matter what?
I will come to that point. However, I must point out to the member that tenants in the Highlands look across the Minch to the Western Isles and see that a debt of £38 million has been written off there, that upgrading is not just a dream, and that there is the promise of new houses and a £12.5 million investment. The same is happening in Argyll and Bute. How Highland Council tenants must rue the day.
Community ownership can never be privatisation. How can the SNP look both ways by supporting community ownership under land reform and opposing it under housing stock transfer? What is the difference? The previous speaker and the member who intervened have told us what the difference is: it is the manufactured fight with Westminster. Again, we see the SNP's constitutional ambitions being put ahead of the needs of the poorest in our communities. That is shocking and wrong. The Government has a moral obligation to put the situation right for the people of the Highlands.
I will devote my remarks, which I hope will be constructive, primarily to the thorny issue of Glasgow Housing Association. Other people, of course, did not support stock transfer from the beginning, and it is sometimes forgotten that the SNP organisations in Glasgow were split on the matter. I supported community empowerment and stock transfer from the beginning, because I believed it was right that tenants should be genuinely and effectively empowered with regard to their homes and environment. I did so also because of the scale of the failure of the large municipal model in Glasgow, the crippling effect of the accumulated debt and the genuine potential for a new beginning. Finally, I did so because I had seen the huge, life-changing success of community-based housing associations in transforming local communities.
GHA was always intended to be an interim body. I concur with Bill Aitken's comments in that regard and with his tribute to the work that is done by many housing professionals and people in the housing field in the area. I do not always agree with Bill Aitken, but he made a splendid speech that was a model of casting light on the issue.
As I said, GHA was intended to be an interim body, pending the move to second-stage transfer. Unfortunately, it has since morphed into a body that clearly regards itself as a permanent feature of the housing landscape in Glasgow. It was, of course, given a poor report on its performance by Communities Scotland. However, above all, its progress towards second-stage transfers and genuine community empowerment has, in reality, been negligible. The suggestion that Communities Scotland should be the scrutiny body made my heart sink, because Communities Scotland was involved, took sides and backed GHA's view of the world and the valuation arrangements that it suggested. That has done much damage to the potential for Communities Scotland to be regarded as an independent player in this operation.
The central issue is the fair value for which GHA will agree to convey houses to local housing bodies. This apparently technical question has caused huge uproar and anger across the sector. I do not pretend to understand the finer points of the calculations, but we have the Mazars report to help us, which lays out the detail in ways that even I can understand. In a nutshell, the report states that if GHA conveyed every house to local housing bodies, the result would be an organisation with no houses, a large headquarters operation and staff, and many hundreds of millions of pounds of resource. Even in the mysterious world of stock transfer finance, that must be nuts.
Mazars has analysed the essence of the principle of financial neutrality, which is the basis of GHA's approach to valuation. The report states that the principle is not fair to tenants who transfer, and that GHA's price requirement is 6.4 times the security value that a lender would be prepared to consider, therefore there is a huge gap between GHA's valuation and what local housing organisations can afford to pay. Mazars states that GHA's valuation methodology fails to disaggregate entire cost categories, such as Glasgow gold and the tenant participation budget, and contingency, management and central overhead costs. It proceeds on the assumption that each stock transfer is treated as a first and only transaction, ignoring the fact that it is part of a process.
For example, business case submissions have been made for 39 LHO areas totalling 27,243 housing units, which is about a third of the stock. However, almost 50 per cent of all the costs for those housing units is deemed to be retained by GHA. On the other hand, 100 per cent of costs is disaggregated if a house is sold under the right to buy or is demolished. GHA cannot have its cake and eat it on those calculations.
The report also highlights the amazing information that GHA's staff costs increased by 32 per cent from 2004 to 2007, whereas the number of houses went down by 14 per cent. The result is an increase in staff costs per unit of 53 per cent. The associated report by Housing Regeneration Consultants Ltd suggests that, even if GHA were to transfer all its stock, 83 per cent of central employee costs would remain.
There are two ways forward. The first is to accept GHA's own analysis, chuck community empowerment in the bin and accept that most social housing in Glasgow be run for the indefinite future by an unelected body that is not effectively accountable to ministers, councillors or tenants. That, with a few presentational glosses, appeared to be the position adopted hitherto by ministers. The second way forward is for ministers to tackle the valuation issue, commit unequivocally to second-stage transfer and do what is necessary to deliver. The minister has a huge advantage here. He comes to the issue fresh, with clean hands. He did not set up GHA or agree to the figures or the methodology. He is not committed to GHA's preconceptions on the matter. He will have the support of every member if he can cut the Gordian knot and realise the original vision.
I welcome the minister's commitment and his intention to engage with the valuation issue—that is a big move forward. However, the process must be open, truly independent and pursued with conviction. I have serious reservations about the Communities Scotland situation. When knowledgeable people such as Bill Aitken, Johann Lamont, Patricia Ferguson and Alex Neil express reservations about it, the minister should also have reservations. There needs to be an independent scrutiny process. Alex Neil's suggestion of an independent scrutiny panel is useful and helpful, and could be taken forward. There could also be some advantage in the minister drawing together a number of those of us who represent Glasgow and have an interest in and modest knowledge of the issues, to establish whether there are other ways in which we can tackle the matter. It is important that we go forward collectively. Glasgow's housing challenge is the most significant in Scotland. Successful stock transfer is in all our interests, but particularly those of hard-pressed tenants. We are at a crucial point that will determine the way forward for a generation. A lot depends on the minister getting the process right. If he does so, he will have the Liberal Democrats' support.
I, too, will focus on the parts of the motion that relate to housing stock transfer in Glasgow. Like other members, I have read the Mazars report, which was commissioned by the Glasgow and west of Scotland forum of housing associations. It makes compelling reading, and raises serious doubts about how GHA has arrived at its figures on the valuation of housing for second-stage transfer.
As members have said, GHA was always supposed to be a transitional organisation—a stepping stone to community ownership by local housing associations. However, the Mazars report points to GHA unfairly pricing community-based housing associations out of taking control of the very housing stock that stock transfer was supposed to give them in the first place. The price that housing associations pay for GHA stock is supposed to be underpinned by the principle of financial neutrality. That is to say, no tenant should be worse off as a result of any second-stage transfer—a principle that I am sure we all support and the Mazars report accepts.
Mazars identified a weakness in GHA's valuation process. GHA estimates that it needs to keep certain central financial reserves for its 70,000 houses. However, it estimates that it needs the same amount for managing 50,000 houses, 40,000 houses and 20,000 houses; indeed, if it had only one house, it would keep the same central reserves. Mazars considered GHA's finances and identified a series of GHA central costs that one might reasonably assume would be reduced if it managed less stock. However, that is not the case, because GHA uses a highly questionable approach to housing stock transfer known as first and only. In other words, if only one housing association went to transfer, the reduction in costs would, at best, be marginal. The problem for GHA is that although there are 39 known business cases, totalling more than 20,000 units—or 38 per cent—of GHA stock, it does not anticipate any costs savings, except at the margins.
DTZ, GHA's independent valuers, valued the stock proposed for transfer at £46.1 million, yet GHA intends to charge almost £300 million. Taken with the flawed first and only methodology employed by GHA, the Mazars study points not to a gap in funds that are needed to achieve second-stage transfer but to a potential artificially created black hole which, if costs were disaggregated appropriately, could easily be plugged. For example, GHA has not disaggregated £163 million for employee costs and support services. According to GHA's logic, even with 27,000 fewer units, those central costs remain undiminished—not one less computer operator, not one less telephonist or legal adviser, and not even one less cleaner in GHA's shiny offices in the Trongate in Glasgow city centre.
Even £9 million that was set aside for tenant participation has not been disaggregated, despite there potentially being tens of thousands fewer tenants. I say to GHA that £9 million is a lot of glossy leaflets through the door of the poor last tenant who remains with GHA come second-stage transfer. They may be the most consulted tenant in social housing history.
I appreciate what Bob Doris is saying about the challenge that the Mazars report presents: it provides compelling evidence, which should be studied. Will he join me in urging the minister to ensure that people can have confidence that there will be an independent scrutiny process? That process ought not to go to the regulator, but he knows as well as I do that some people are in despair that that might be where it goes. Will he work to find a process by which there can be genuine independent scrutiny of the challenging issues that he has raised?
I appreciate the tone of Johann Lamont's intervention and ask her to be patient, because I will deal with the issues she raises later.
The Mazars report represents to me the possibility that second-stage transfer is structured by GHA in a way that puts unfair financial barriers before community-based housing associations and undermines the principle of financial neutrality. According to Mazars, at the end of a 30-year period, the planned cash reserve per GHA household is £550. If 20,000 households go to SST, the financial reserve would increase to £763 per unit, despite there being 40 per cent less stock. That is not financial neutrality; it is a massive cash windfall for GHA at the expense of those of its tenants who democratically decide to transfer.
An onlooker might say that GHA has come up with a charge to housing associations for SST that suits GHA, which casts it in the light of being an unwilling seller. GHA would claim that its charges are set fairly and independently, but housing associations have commissioned a weighty independent study that cannot just be brushed away. Indeed, the Mazars report's authors are the auditors of Audit Scotland. Mazars claims that the charges for SST are unfair. We have on the one side GHA and on the other the housing associations. GHA needs to respond in a meaningful way to the Mazars study. I welcome the Government's amendment, which offers to facilitate discussions and mediation between GHA and housing associations, and to commit to ensuring that the Mazars study is subject to open, transparent and independent scrutiny. The same should apply to GHA's calculations in relation to SST.
I welcome the fact that the Scottish Housing Regulator will consider the issue. We need a neutral third party—an independent referee, not someone commissioned by GHA or housing associations—to get involved and consider which figures stack up, although that final referee does not need to be the regulator: I am open-minded about who it should be. Much has been made of community-based housing associations taking ownership in their communities. It is now time to deliver.
For the first time ever, I need a microphone. I will try to make it through.
As expected, we have had a political knockabout this morning, in which the minister has described the 30,000 houses that were built and provided as affordable rented housing by the previous Executive as bad news. Only in his world.
I will concentrate on the experience in Inverclyde, and the difference between the minister's stated support for housing associations and his actions. The stock transfer had a real mandate in Inverclyde. There was a 65 per cent turnout—the envy of any politician—and a yes vote of 72 per cent. I have heard it said here and elsewhere that the people who took part in that vote were the victims of blackmail and that they were duped and bribed. That view is an insult to, and a slur on, those who took part and who took their housing needs into their own hands. It was real engagement in and enthusiasm for the transfer.
Will Duncan McNeil give way?
I am having enough difficulty getting through without interventions.
The transfer was power to the people in a real sense. We should be congratulating them on their wise decision because we now know that, if they had not made that choice, their lives would not be changing as they are changing now. The size of the turnout and majority made it impossible for the Government, despite its opposition to housing stock transfer, to do anything other than accept the will of those people.
How has the transfer changed people's lives? After five months, delivery is well under way. Community ownership has allowed a real focus on Inverclyde's housing needs. Where rents were among the highest in the country, affordable rents are now being tackled. Rents are capped by the retail prices index for five years, with the aim of holding them to that for 14 years. Improvements to services, tenant support and neighbourhood relationships, measures to tackle antisocial behaviour, welfare rights and a more responsive repair service are all in place and working. Investment of £83 million is in place for internal and external programmes in one of Scotland's smallest local authorities, and 850 new homes will be built by 2015. Importantly, that will link in with the wider regeneration activity and ambition for the area. It will give people homes, houses and—crucially—areas that they want to live in.
All that potential is denied to people in the Lothians, the Highlands and Renfrewshire on the basis of a political policy and principle. It is easy for somebody who lives in a nice house to be principled about the matter, but we need to get practical. This is about people's lives, which we can change by the decisions we make here. The policy needs to change and we need to get it right.
In Inverclyde, we still have concerns that are not historical. We are concerned about the Government's attitude to housing associations, which might have a direct impact on River Clyde Homes and all that it wants to do. We are concerned about the uncertainty about housing association grant funding that could scupper the policy of affordable rents, force rents up and affect our ambitious development plans. We are concerned about the drive to efficiency, which in everyday language means that cuts hang over our ambitions.
I ask the Government to recognise that housing associations that are managed by their tenants are delivering. The Government should be careful that whatever actions it takes do not harm the progress and delivery that are changing people's lives for the better in my community.
We have heard a lot of nonsense from the Opposition, particularly Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who have raised hand wringing to the level of an Olympic sport and seem to have developed collective amnesia when it comes to their serial failures while in government. However, the Labour motion helpfully sets out where they went wrong. It lists affordable housing, of which they simply did not provide enough; social rented housing, which they almost stopped building; private rented housing, in which rents have gone through the roof; and problems in rural areas, which they did nothing to resolve.
Does Dave Thompson acknowledge the 36,000 housing association houses that were built under the previous Administration? Is that nothing?
I do not believe that there was anything like that number built. Let us consider the number of council houses that were built in the last three years of the Labour Party's reign: it managed to build only six. However, it also has the cheek to mention
"the problems facing local authorities where tenants voted against stock transfer".
How can it, with a straight face, demand that something be done to remedy a problem that it deliberately created by writing off the housing debt of councils where tenants voted for its policy of stock transfer while refusing similar treatment to councils whose tenants preferred to put their trust in local democracy? The thrust of the stock transfer debate was bribery and threat, with tenants being told that, if they voted no, they would get no improvements to their homes.
Will Dave Thompson give way?
Not at the moment.
We saw such bribery and threat clearly in the Highlands, where a veritable army of council staff and a substantial war chest were lined up against a small tenants group with limited resources. Despite that serious imbalance, David beat Goliath once again, and I am proud to say I am a David who played a small part in the democratic rout of those who attempted to abuse their position by resorting to bribery and threats.
If Dave Thompson now takes responsibility for duping and misleading the people in the Highlands, will he work with his Government to ensure that the debt is met and that the inflation-busting rent increases for the people that he has duped are reversed?
I find it amazing that I am accused of duping the tenants in the Highlands. I ask Rhoda Grant to join us in our campaign to get the chancellor to write off the housing debt there and in other council areas. Highland Council tenants exercised their democratic right to stay with the council by 6,060 votes to 4,097. Rather than castigating the best Government that Scotland has ever had, Rhoda Grant and the Opposition should join us in our campaign to get justice for them. However, I do not expect the Liberals, Labour and the Conservatives to support us. That would be too much like doing something, and those parties have elevated inaction to an art form. The Lib-Lab Administration was so inactive that it built only six council houses over the last three years of its reign.
The sad reality is that Scottish local authority housing stock has halved under the tenure of Labour since 1997. From the right to buy to large-scale stock transfer, Labour's record in power has been shambolic, whereas the "Firm Foundations" consultation document is a breath of fresh air for thousands of Scots. Responses are positive, and there has been strong support for many of the document's proposals.
There has been quite a lot of criticism of the SNP's figures, and Dave Thompson challenged the figure of 36,000 housing association houses that Margaret Curran gave. What does he say is the figure for housing association houses?
I am sure that the minister will give Robert Brown that detail in his closing speech.
The consultation responses showed extensive support for the establishment of a target to increase the rate of new housing supply to at least 35,000 houses a year. They showed support for shared-equity schemes and, most of all, they showed extremely strong support for the exemption of new build social housing from the right to buy.
"Firm Foundations" also encourages the private sector to play its part which, despite an expected economic downturn, it appears to be doing. On Tuesday, The Press and Journal ran a story with the headlines, "Developer Spends £30 Million to Snap up Three Sites" and "Inverness Promised 500 Homes by Tulloch." That £30 million investment in land for housing is a good example of how the private sector is rising to the challenge that this ambitious SNP Government has set for tackling the legacy of despair and hopelessness that the previous Administration left.
Housing problems that are traditionally associated with Scotland's big cities have become increasingly prevalent in the Highlands and Islands, following eight years of Labour and the Liberals. Private housing rents have gone through the roof. A quick glance at the property-for-rent pages in The Inverness Courier and the Ross-shire Journal shows that standard two-bedroom flats in Inverness and Ross-shire now cost up to £650 a month, which is near the Edinburgh level. Just the other week, there was an article in The Inverness Courier on the city's housing shortage, with the headline, "Sofa for rent—at £40-a-week"—what a legacy.
I welcome this opportunity to discuss housing issues. I have criticised the topics for debate on a number of recent occasions, partly because there was so much agreement on the subjects that we did not need to have a debate. However, the same cannot be said for housing. There are challenges in the housing market but, having listened to the debate this morning, it seems to me that there is a difference of opinion about what the problem is and how to solve it. Even where the Scottish Government has some ideas, it appears to have no clue about how to put them into action.
I have been an elected representative for 20 years and I have noticed that housing is back at the top of the list of issues about which constituents are contacting me. For once, I agree with Alex Neil: along with health and education, housing is the issue about which people are most concerned.
I will return to specific demand, but I will start on a point of agreement: we need to increase the supply of affordable housing. The SNP criticises the previous Executive's record, but, under the Labour-Liberal Democrat Executive, 200,000 houses were built in Scotland, of which—I say this to Mr Thompson—about 35,000 were social rented or affordable homes.
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing recently visited West Lothian to welcome the announcement that 240 new council houses are to be built. I welcome those houses, too, but we should be clear—the cabinet secretary was not clear—that they will be built using funding that West Lothian Council will raise through prudential borrowing, which has nothing to do with the £25 million that was announced at that time. There is a limit to how much even efficient councils can raise in that way. The SNP West Lothian Council has clearly decided that its colleagues in the Scottish Parliament are not going to help. That is a damning view of the SNP Government.
West Lothian Council has taken the step of increasing rents to pay for new housing. The SNP in the Parliament crows about a council tax freeze, but the SNP West Lothian Council has increased council house rents this year by 6 per cent. Further increases will mean that rents will increase by 20 per cent over four years. There might be cynicism behind the decision to increase rents. A calculation might have been made of how many people are on housing benefit and whether it would matter if the council increased the rents. I have three problems with that. First, what are the current council tenants getting for the increase, particularly those who are having to find a substantial sum? Secondly, the council runs the risk of placing people in a benefits trap, whereby they cannot afford to lose their housing benefit, so employment opportunities are further limited. Thirdly, and more generally, is it right that the burden of building new housing should fall on a limited number of council house tenants, rather than on the general population?
It appears to me that West Lothian Council—perhaps like other councils—is taking such decisions because there is no support from the Scottish Government. What is the Scottish Government's replacement for stock transfer? When the SNP was in opposition, it presented stock transfer as privatisation. It was never privatisation; it provided housing investment, regeneration within communities and community empowerment. How does the minister intend to replace each of those benefits?
Will the member join us in our campaign to get the housing debt written off in councils such as Highland Council?
Instead of making this issue a battle between us and Westminster, the member should accept the situation as it is at the moment and give people in the Highlands the opportunities that people in Inverclyde are clearly getting.
I said earlier that the number of constituents who have been contacting me about housing has increased. I am sure that that applies to other MSPs, too. I will finish by outlining specific problems that the minister and his Government have to tackle.
Homelessness is still an issue, despite investment and legislation from the previous Scottish Executive. Shelter has said that it expects
"to see a high profile given to tackling homelessness in local authority single outcome agreements."
Will that happen? Will the Government achieve the 2012 target or the more immediate 2009 interim target? Homelessness is a particular risk for young people. Their moving on to independent living, whether through choice or by necessity, is challenging and some of them will need support in a new tenancy. Perhaps the minister will tell us how he will offer such support.
Many families might have roofs over their heads, but are unsuitably housed. However, family housing is at a premium. Inclusion Scotland said that
"accessible housing should be considered as a basic human right."
I am sure that we all agree, but barrier-free or adapted housing is not readily available. As the population ages, more people are likely to have problems that need to be addressed. Most people want to stay in their homes. In my constituency, I have seen amazing examples of how technology can enable people to do so, but some simple adaptations are just not available. How will the minister ensure that housing and health services work together to address that need?
I make no apology for challenging the minister to come up with positive action. The SNP has one more seat than Labour in this Parliament. That gave it the right to form a Government, but with that right come responsibilities. The Government cannot continue to blame someone else—the previous Scottish Executive, local authorities or housing associations. Today, the minister needs to start answering the housing questions.
Much as it must seem otherwise to the casual observer, or to anyone listening to the opening speech in this debate, the Local Government and Communities Committee does not disagree on every subject. There is a wide consensus among members of the committee, as elsewhere, that one of the key drivers of our wellbeing as a society is the ability of families and individuals to access good-quality affordable housing.
For that reason, the Government has published its intentions on housing in "Firm Foundations". Those include delivering across all tenures an increased supply of housing that is built to higher environmental standards and making it possible, once more, for councils to build council houses. As Jamie Hepburn said, despite the attempts of some people to exclude that subject from the debate, there is no doubt that councils' ability to build council houses, thanks to the abolition of the right to buy new social housing, is central to the debate on housing.
I make no apology for not being the first member to point to the stark contrast with the painful achievement of the previous Administration in that respect, which managed to build six council houses in Scotland during its term of office.
Can the member tell us how many social rented and affordable houses were built?
The member has already made the point that social housing was built in Scotland. I do not dispute that. However, the fact remains that only six council houses were built during the previous Government's term in office.
Will the member take an intervention?
No thanks. I have just taken one.
Labour's record of housing failure is no respecter of geography, even though the problems differ in different parts of Scotland. In my island constituency, several hundred people are waiting for affordable houses—a situation that the local housing association is now working to address.
The member will be aware that without stock transfer and the £12.5 million injection of funding into his community, those people would be waiting an awful lot longer for such housing provision.
I am wary about offering Labour advice on referendums in these fevered times, but unlike Rhoda Grant I accept the right of people to have their say in a referendum or local ballot. They should have that right without being told by the Treasury that unless their views are the same views—politically and dogmatically—as the Treasury's, they will be punished for their decision.
The Western Isles is a unique community with housing problems that are different from those of many urban areas, but it is an example of why local authorities need the freedom to find solutions that work for them. For instance, the private rented sector plays a small part in the Western Isles, which means that the abolition of the right to buy new social rented houses will have an even more important role to play there. That was recently welcomed by the Western Isles Council and the Western Isles forum of tenants and residents associations.
Of course, it is not just the residents of rural Scotland who have been failed by the record of the previous Executive—a record that we are now being asked by some members to look back on as the veritable halcyon days of housing policy in Scotland. Right here in this city, the gaps in that former policy are writ large. In Edinburgh alone, an astonishing £300 million of housing debt has resulted in 40p in every £1 of rent being spent not on housing improvements, but merely on servicing that debt. That injustice takes place—
Will the member give way?
I have taken two interventions.
That injustice takes place every day, even though no good reason has yet been given—certainly not in the course of this debate—for why the Treasury can afford to write off debt for authorities whose tenants voted one way in ballots, but cannot do so for authorities where tenants voted another way. In contrast, "Firm Foundations" does much to help people who have housing hopes and aspirations: for example, the 90 per cent of under-35s who wish to own their own homes. There is also much in it to help the people of rural Scotland, who face an uphill struggle, as many members have said, to find an affordable place to live. It does much more to ensure that social housing gets built.
The SNP Government will end the right to buy for all new social housing. That has already kick-started local authorities into building new houses—Midlothian will build 1,000 units by 2010; West Lothian is seeking to build four sites to provide around 240 new homes; and Dundee is planning to build 135 new homes. In other words, three authorities alone will have built 229 times as many council houses as the previous Administration managed to.
Much about Labour's stance these days is puzzling, but one of its strangest positions is its apparent nostalgia for a Thatcherite form of the right-to-buy policy. Whatever that policy's limited benefits may have been, it is, even from the most charitable of viewpoints, past its sell-by date. The SNP will rise to the housing challenge. We have laid the framework to build 35,000 houses a year by 2015 and we have enabled younger people to take the first step on the property ladder; but perhaps most remarkably of all, we have made it realistically possible once more for councils to build council houses.
The debate has been wide ranging, but there is something about it that leaves me, and the Liberal Democrats, somewhat puzzled. The form and substance of a debate undoubtedly have to change over time; we all understand that. A year ago, Government ministers contributed to debates in which they quite rightly pointed out the Government's aims and aspirations. That was perfectly understandable—they took the trouble to tell us what their vision was. One year on, however, we as a Parliament are entitled to expect that the form and the substance of those debates will have changed, and that we will have moved from simply repeating our election promises to explaining the form and substance of those proposals to Parliament in more detail.
It was helpful of Alex Neil to take us back to the earlier part of the industrial revolution in the 19th century; he is probably the only member present who remembers that particular period. His contribution served to point out that we have gone through various phases of housing development. He recalled in particular the rush for numbers, the use of system built housing—much of it very inappropriate for the Scottish climate—and government grants, which somewhat perversely gave more money to increase housing density. That is a quite extraordinary policy.
It is important in a debate such as this to recognise that Governments that seek to deal with those problems, and the subsequent Governments that spent more money, particularly on deprived areas, did so in good faith and according to their particular policy platform. The issue today is not about the previous Administration's having done nothing, either immediately or over time. It is, rather, about what this Government, in detail, proposes to do to take things forward. That is what has disappointed members in the chamber.
With all due respect to David Thompson, who is sitting on my right—
On your left.
Sorry—on my left.
No wonder you are confused.
It was more Mr Thompson's remarks that confused me.
It is not good enough for David Thompson to come along with the morning papers and try to make the point, as Alasdair Allan did, that it is a sterile debate between the private sector and the public sector. It is not helpful to talk on and on about six council houses, as if those were the only houses that were built in the whole of Scotland. You know that that is not true, and it is not constructive in what has been essentially a very constructive debate.
We need to understand how the Government views its own position. Its amendment rather gives the lie to the idea that it has adjusted to being in government. The Minister for Communities and Sport
"calls on the Scottish Government to facilitate discussion";
and
"urges the Scottish Government to bring forward a coherent strategy"
Well—hear, hear! A Government does not require a vote of the Parliament to lodge an administrative amendment that calls on it to bring forward a coherent strategy.
One year on, the Government does not quite seem to know that it is in government. That is not just in jest; there are serious—
Will the member give way?
Certainly.
As the member likes the amendment so much, will he vote for it later today?
You misunderstand me in saying that I like it; I am pointing out the absurdity of a Government calling on itself to bring forward a strategy. The Parliament ought to have been able to get that without our having perpetual Opposition debates to drag it out of the Government. The problem is that one year on, we are still in serious difficulties when it comes to fully understanding the situation.
Let us be clear, minister—we are not arguing with you about aspirations or the need to take forward the perplexing and difficult question of housing, whether that is social housing, rented housing, affordable housing or housing that will deal with homelessness. We have a shared view on those issues; we may disagree about some of the methods, but we do not disagree about the ultimate objective. However, we are entitled to expect the minister to tell us now, one year in, what he will do in greater detail.
It is not so much about numbers, but about the detail of how the minister proposes to achieve a better housing supply, and whether he recognises the issue that Patricia Ferguson raised regarding the important role that regeneration can play. If we examine the numbers, we see that there are so many houses that have been found wanting, for the reasons that Alex Neil pointed out. Problems therefore arise in regard to areas that need not just new housing, but regeneration. We need to know in much more detail what we are going to do, and how we are going to meet the homelessness target. We know that you have signed up—all members of the Parliament have signed up—to the homelessness target, but we do not know what you propose to do on that for the next three years.
Bill Aitken made a helpful and thoughtful contribution on GHA, and he was warmly supported by my colleague Robert Brown. I hope that the minister will not be beguiled into believing that turning the GHA problem over to the Scottish Housing Regulator will be at all appropriate. Alex Neil was correct to say that we need independent scrutiny. The Scottish Housing Regulator cannot be described as independent—it has already made it clear that it has signed up to proposals by GHA to which no Government minister ever instructed it to sign up. That is its position, and therefore some form of arbitration is vital for the situation to be resolved.
The motion that has been lodged, and the amendments in the name of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives make it clear to the Government the sort of direction that we are prepared to support. However, we urgently need the Government to come back to the chamber with detailed proposals. It certainly does not need an amendment in its own name to do so; it should do so as the Government.
I urge members to avoid use of the second person, because—particularly when they address the person who is sitting next to them—the debate can degenerate into a conversation.
In some respects, the debate has been a reprise of last week's Conservative debate on housing, although it is none the worse for that, given the importance of the issues that we address.
As Jamie McGrigor said when he moved the Conservative amendment, we make no apology for returning to the fundamental issue of housing stock transfer, because at stake is a sum in excess of £2 billion, which would wipe out the housing debt of local authorities in Scotland, if they were prepared to transfer the remainder of their housing stock to local housing associations. As we heard from Duncan McNeil and other members, that would facilitate new investment in social housing and transform many parts of our country.
Bill Aitken said that his one regret in supporting GHA was his agreement to the transfer of stock wholesale to a single organisation. If the member is in favour of the policy, does he think that the Treasury should be flexible enough to allow debt to be written off in return for transfer to numerous housing associations?
I believe that that is the Treasury's position, which was confirmed to the Parliament by housing ministers in the previous Executive. I whole-heartedly support that position.
We cannot sit back and idly ignore £2 billion for ideological reasons or because some members place a higher premium on picking fights with Westminster than they do on improving the quality and quantity of our housing stock and changing lives for the better.
During last week's debate, the minister said that any transfer of local authority stock to a housing association should take place on the basis of tenants' approval in a ballot. We agree with him. The Conservatives invented the concept of tenant ballots on housing stock transfers, so we need no lessons or reminders from the minister on that score.
The minister lamented—during last week's debate and today—the Treasury's unwillingness to write off the housing debt of councils that do not want to transfer their stock, which he said penalises tenants who want the council to remain as their landlord. Other SNP members made the same point. However, we all know that one reason for the Treasury's approach is that the Government and the Treasury have little or no confidence in local authorities as landlords—a judgment that is borne out by the evidence over a long period. The Treasury has said that if there is to be a fresh financial start there must be new management, based on housing associations, in which there is significant tenant representation.
The Treasury is absolutely right on that point, but I acknowledge that the SNP takes a contrary view in pursuit of its strategy of sucking up to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. However, the issue is not who is right or wrong but the practical consequences of the Treasury's position. The minister said last week:
"we must live with the Treasury's intransigence—we do not have the powers or resources to do otherwise."—[Official Report, 1 May 2008; c 8018.]
He was absolutely right; he does not have the power or resources to do otherwise. That is not a good reason to stand and girn on the sidelines with Jamie Hepburn and the rest of the SNP, ignoring the £2 billion that is there for the asking and the taking. It is irresponsible to take such a position, given the extent of housing need in Scotland, which many members have mentioned.
Given that so much money is at stake, the SNP Government should be actively discussing the matter with councils and the Treasury, to ascertain whether wholesale or partial stock transfers can be effected, not only in areas where tenants rejected transfers but in other council areas. However, instead of pursuing a policy that could transform social housing in many areas there is a lot of piddling around with a puny, low-budget council house building programme, which flies in the face of the policy pursued by Governments of all persuasions during the past 30 years. SNP policy undermines the leading role of housing associations, which was well described by Patricia Ferguson, Bill Aitken and Robert Brown, and seeks to subvert the whole concept of right to buy.
I am proud to proclaim that the introduction of right to buy was the greatest of the many great achievements of the last Conservative Government. In our 18 years in office, nearly 300,000 tenants exercised their right to buy and I am delighted that under Labour and the Liberals in the years since 1997 the best part of 145,000 homes were sold to their tenants under that Conservative legislation. Those are not "limited benefits", as Alasdair Allan suggested. No party has done more to make housing affordable for working people in this country than the Conservative party did when it passed legislation to enable working people to fulfil their aspirations to own their own homes. We should rejoice in that, but instead a lot of nonsensical propaganda is put out by members who are instinctively hostile to the right to buy, such as Jamie Hepburn, who suggested that, somehow, the policy has been at the expense of building new homes for rent. Rubbish. Quite the contrary.
Will the member give way?
I will give the member the numbers. In 18 years of Conservative government, more than 91,000 new homes for rent were built by councils and registered social landlords, and in the past 10 years approximately 44,000 homes have been built on the same basis. For every three homes sold, one new home for rent has been added to the housing stock and many more have been improved. It is disgraceful that this Government is imposing further restrictions on right to buy. The existing legislation is more than adequate for the purpose.
The debate has shown the SNP in its true colours. It has no coherent housing policy and its position is built on distortion, misrepresentation, a wilful disregard for the facts, political tokenism and a preference for picking fights over improving homes. The SNP could and must do a lot better for the sake of tenants and people in Scotland who need affordable housing.
The debate can best be described as exhaustive—other members might call it exhausting. Many important points were made and I will try to address some of them.
I have said this before on the record and I make it clear again that housing associations will continue to be the primary developers and managers of social housing stock. We have made that clear. However, we want there to be other providers, including local authorities.
Will the minister confirm that he will match—plus inflation—the £501 million that the previous Executive provided in housing association grant in its final year?
Our investment in social housing during the next three years will be in excess of £1.5 billion—a 19 per cent increase on the plans of the previous Executive. We will take no lessons on the priority that we give to housing in our budget.
On the Tory amendment, as I said on the record last week, I am not opposed in principle to local tenants voting for stock transfer, if that can be taken forward in a financially neutral way. However, in the four failed ballots £148.4 million—almost £150 million—was wasted in trying to get people to vote for stock transfer. Some 1,900 houses could have been built with that money, but the money was wasted by previous Executives. That is what was lost by the attempt to push stock transfer on areas that did not want it.
The debate began with a long moan from Johann Lamont. She made a number of points about how doomed we all are in the context of housing policy. I point out to her that the HAG consultation is based on the business cases and predictions of the housing association movement, which says that its intention on rent increases is RPI plus 1 per cent. We are matching HAG to the movement's intentions, which is absolutely the correct thing to do.
Prevention of homelessness is one of our main weapons in the attempt to reduce homelessness in our country. The homelessness monitoring group recently reported, and in 2009 there will be the milestone towards the 2012 target. Jim Tolson did not appear to understand the 2012 target, which is to abolish priority need and not what he said that it is. It is clear that he is unaware of the facts of the matter.
Jamie McGrigor talked about stock transfer. As I said, there is no free lunch. The idea that £2 billion is ready to be handed over—in a big brown envelope, I presume—for us to take and use, free of any cost to the Scottish Government, presents a false picture of the stock transfer reality.
We believe in local democracy. SNP policy was not to oppose stock transfer, but we had huge concerns about the vast stock transfers that were proposed in Glasgow. Individual SNP members opposed stock transfer—they had the right to do that. Individual Labour members also opposed mass stock transfer. Different views were held.
Which SNP members supported housing stock transfer in the Highlands?
I have described the SNP policy position, which was that we did not oppose stock transfer. However, we opposed mass stock transfer—members throughout the chamber have spent the past two hours describing what a mess that was in Glasgow. Despite all the complaints about the GHA situation, we are told that it was somehow wrong for us to make such points, which Bill Aitken made in his speech.
Jamie McGrigor mentioned the private sector, with which we are working closely. We have made many important strides forward in working with that sector and particularly with the private rented sector. We also have a close working relationship with the building industry.
Funding for supporting people has not disappeared; it is still there and is part of the local government settlement. The written answer that Jim Tolson quoted says that we intend to build more houses than the previous Administration did. That provides a clear answer to his question.
The pressure on the social housing sector is acute. It did not just magically appear last May; it has been there for years and has built up for many decades. Finally, the Government is trying to deal with the problem.
Patricia Ferguson talked about the housing association sector in detail. We believe that the sector will remain the main supplier of social housing. Housing associations will continue to be able to grow and will gain and manage new stock under our plans. That is absolutely the case and I guarantee that.
Continuing down the previous path would be unsustainable and would mean fewer houses for more money. I make no apology for reiterating that we need value for money in the sector.
Alex Neil talked about pressure, the lack of supply and the complete mismatch between demand and supply in the Scottish housing sector. That has existed for many years and it is unfortunate that it was not dealt with in the radical way that was needed.
Alex Neil also talked about the Housing Regulator. I understand the position of many members, including Robert Brown, on the Housing Regulator, but it is right and proper to give the regulator the opportunity to give advice on the Mazars report. The suggestion of an independent scrutiny panel is interesting and we must consider it, but it is right and proper to await the Housing Regulator's report, which I have said that I will publish before the end of the month. When that is available, we will re-examine the issue.
The minister has partly answered my questions. Will he keep an open mind about the way forward beyond the Housing Regulator's report? Will he think again about whether that is the be-all and end-all of the response, given the lack of confidence in the regulator on the issue?
I hope that Robert Brown accepts that I have just said that I have an open mind on the matter. However, it is right and proper to give the Housing Regulator its place, which is to give advice on the report.
Des McNulty said that we propose to build 200 council houses over three years, but "Firm Foundations" says that we expect to build between 500 and 600 council houses a year. He should go back and read that document before he throws out inaccurate figures.
Des McNulty also said that we are battering into GHA, which is completely inaccurate. I do not know where he gets that from. We understand that a problem exists between the two sides in the argument, which is why we are trying to bring them together to discuss the issue.
I agree with other members that Bill Aitken made a thoughtful speech. On SST, four housing associations have submitted business plans and we hope that they will move forward in the near future. Many in my party shared his concerns about the large-scale stock transfers.
Rhoda Grant said that £25 million of investment in housing was derisory and talked as if that were the only investment in housing, which is absolutely not the case. The real figure for investment is more than £1.5 billion over the next three years. The £25 million is but a small part of our overall investment.
Duncan McNeil and several other members talked about the figures. I will give the Parliament the completion rates for social rented housing in the previous Administration's term. In 2003-04, the figure was 3,654. In following years, the figures were 4,414, 5,074 and 3,325. The total was just over 16,000, which is about 4,000 a year. The figures that others quoted were farcical and incorrect.
I hope that many members will back the momentum behind SST and accept that we are open minded about the process for the way forward. I hope that members recognise that, in "Firm Foundations", we have a policy position that the sector has widely welcomed.
The situation is difficult with the moneys that are available from the Westminster Government—
The minister must conclude.
However, we must drive forward to ensure that we have maximum efficiency from the sector. I commend my amendment to Parliament.
I call Margaret Curran, who has nine minutes.
Oh—nine minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Jim Tolson made an entertaining speech in which he quoted an answer from Stewart Maxwell. Stewart Maxwell gave another woeful performance today and we look forward to more interesting answers when we interrogate his figures.
It is clear to members why we initiated a debate on housing and why—unusually—we went for a longer debate. Members understand that we did that deliberately to interrogate the many complex and challenging housing issues and, as many members have said, because of the minister's persistent refusal to acknowledge key issues and answer significant questions. I give the minister fair warning that we will come back to housing again and again because it is our job to do that and because he is required to provide those answers. I will go through some of the issues, because answers are still needed.
Ross Finnie said that the Government has been in office for one year. We had the first housing debate in June last year. "Firm Foundations" was issued in October. The consultation ended in January and we have published the analysis of consultation responses. We will come to the chamber with detailed proposals for the future of housing policy very soon.
As members behind me have said, there is no rush, minister.
The debate has been good and has allowed us to interrogate in depth significant issues, particularly in relation to GHA, on which we have heard interesting comments. I will say something that I have never said before in the chamber and which I will be shocked to say again: Alex Neil made a useful and interesting speech. I do not intend to say that again. [Interruption.]
Order.
Thank you. Alex Neil's speech was interesting, because we are beginning to see a hint of SNP back benchers pushing the Government a wee bit further and encouraging it to take a more radical stance. I congratulate Alex Neil on that.
The GHA issue is important and I associate myself with the comments of Robert Brown and many others on it. It is only fair to put on record our acknowledgement of GHA's many significant achievements in improving housing standards in Glasgow. That matters to tenants in Glasgow.
I am pleased that we have finally seen the end of the black hole argument, which has been put to bed.
Johann Lamont raised one outstanding question for the minister. Way back in a debate that the SNP introduced, the cabinet secretary promised to consider the suite of Government funding to GHA and extract commitments from that. Perhaps the minister will share that information with the Parliament.
An important point that has emerged in the debate is that concerns are felt throughout the chamber about housing issues. Those concerns are not going away and the Government needs to pursue them. It is deeply disappointing that, any time that a member comes here to raise an issue that is of concern among constituents or stakeholders, it is dismissed as scaremongering or moaning. Frankly, it is beneath the Government to dismiss as scaremongering every issue of concern that is raised with ministers. It is time to put an end to that.
There has been substantial recognition of the achievements of the previous Executive on housing. I hope that people such as Bill Aitken recognise that we tried to move beyond partisan politics to create consensus around housing. Most independent assessors would say that we delivered a strategic and coherent approach to council housing.
The member argues that the previous Executive put forward a strategic plan that was supported. However, it did not deliver on housing, which is why we inherited a housing crisis from that Government.
It is completely disrespectful to the chamber for Tricia Marwick to walk in here at the end of a debate and intervene. That is against all parliamentary practice. Perhaps if she had been here for the debate she would have understood some of the arguments that have been put forward.
The amendments that have been lodged by the Lib Dems and the Tories, as well as the Labour motion, reflect a shared concern across the chamber about the Government's failure to recognise the range and depth of the concerns that are being expressed about housing. It is not acceptable for the minister—who is clearly not listening to me—to dismiss that as moaning and a partisan view. He has refused to acknowledge any criticism of "Firm Foundations". If he will stop having a private conversation and listen to me, I will tell him about some of the concerns that have been raised.
There is concern about the lack of connection to regeneration, which is a serious flaw in his proposals. Real concerns have also been expressed about the lead developer role and about the way in which the minister is managing the efficiencies that he has proposed. For example, as he will know, housing associations are at the cutting edge of driving environmental efficiencies in housing; yet, his efficiencies will squeeze out what is being done to address those real concerns.
The real frustration is the fact that the minister will not engage in proper debate in the chamber. He knows that there is concern throughout Scotland—which we have articulated—about his failure to announce the housing association grant and concern that he will not match the £501 million of funding that we made available in our last year in government, and yet he will not acknowledge those concerns. We all know that he is going to drop the first-time buyers grant because it is—and always was—a daft policy, but he is timing that announcement to suit the SNP rather than to address the needs of Scottish housing. Frankly, that is not acceptable.
The concerns are growing throughout Scotland. As we have heard, in Edinburgh there are real issues around investment, affordability and supply. In the Highlands, Renfrewshire and Stirling the SNP told people to vote against the stock transfer. What does the SNP say to those tenants about their housing needs now? How is the Government going to drive up the housing quality standard? How do we advance and remodel housing for those with specialist housing needs? How do we plan housing for our very old citizens, as Lord Sutherland's report has suggested? How do we respond to Shelter's call for an independent assessment of the homelessness reform programme?
During the debate, the minister—who is still not listening—was specifically asked to address the 2009 target and the call from Shelter to examine that, but he has not. As Ross Finnie entertainingly put it, the minister is calling on himself to produce a coherent policy. Tricia Marwick appears to have left the chamber again, so I cannot address her, but it seems that SNP members realise that they do not have a coherent housing policy if they have to lodge a motion calling on themselves to produce one. Does the minister think that, if the motion is agreed tonight, he will be under some obligation to produce a coherent housing policy?
The SNP has too easily dismissed the achievements of the previous Executive. If the minister is going to be a proper housing minister, he should address the needs of the people of Scotland rather than engage in party-political game plans. He should not stand on the sidelines as he has done. He should lead Scotland, as we did, on issues from homelessness to warm homes; from high levels of investment to the reform of the planning system; from tenant empowerment to meeting aspiration throughout Scotland; and from our islands to our inner cities. Jim Tolson was right: it is déjà vu, and real questions have gone unanswered. What kind of Scotland is Stewart Maxwell bringing us into? What kind of housing policy is he creating? At the back of my mind is the thought—my God!—that Alex Neil would make a better housing minister than Stewart Maxwell.