Housing
Three months ago, I confirmed the Executive's intention to publish a draft housing bill next year. I am pleased now to be able to outline some of the key elements of the bill.
Today's statement sets out the future foundations for Scotland's social housing. The statement and the discussion papers that we published earlier this week will provide the basis for a full parliamentary debate early in the new year.
Our housing proposals provide the foundations for a Scotland where everyone matters and where every community offers a range of warm, secure housing options—public and private, rented and owned, starter and sheltered homes. We have opted for a fundamental rethink of Scottish housing, because it is only by a new approach that we can end the situation whereby some Scottish children are born, their parents live and their grandparents die in damp houses. In earlier generations, it was Labour politicians in urban Scotland and Liberal politicians in rural Scotland who argued for a new and better way. That is how it should be in our time also.
In a week in which we have seen shock health statistics about Glasgow, we should remember that it was the first ever Labour health minister, John Wheatley, who set out the legislative framework that led to the building of more than 100,000 new homes. We should be no less bold in finding new solutions for our time.
The choices that we have are not only public versus private housing and security for tenants versus insecurity. The real choices are new investment versus no investment, tenant control versus municipal control and community renewal versus stagnation.
This statement lays the groundwork for new solutions, which start with tenants. Scotland should no longer tolerate second-class social tenancies, rights or landlords. Earlier this week, we laid out in a discussion document our plans for a single social tenancy. We are offering Scottish tenants the best tenants' rights package ever. It offers new rights to succession, particularly for carers, new rights of consultation for tenants about decisions that affect their homes and discussion of new rights to exchange. By creating one common tenancy, we remove at a stroke the anxieties of all those who fear that community ownership might affect their tenancy rights. The right to buy will continue to be part of that new single social tenancy, but we know that changes are needed, and we shall make them.
The starting point is to understand and accept what most Scots want. In 1965, less than 20 per cent of Scottish households were looking to buy their own home. Now, well over 80 per cent of households aspire to own their own home. We will reform the right to buy to make it right for the next century. We will introduce a factoring scheme for former right-to-buy tenants, we will protect more special needs housing from sale and we will cap discounts at £30,000.
The discussion paper sets out our proposals in detail, but I would like to dwell on one important point that has come out of our work. Some commentators have expressed concern at the loss of socially rented houses in some rural areas through the right to buy. It is clear, however, that the underlying problem is the differences in availability of socially rented housing across Scotland: just 14 per cent of houses are available for social rent in Orkney, whereas 50 per cent are available in Glasgow.
The shortage of socially rented housing in some areas, including rural areas, reflects the historic lack of investment in those areas, rather than the effect of the right to buy itself. I have asked Scottish Homes to review its expenditure in rural areas and to make proposals to help redress the imbalance. In the short term, I have also asked Scottish Homes to increase the resources available for investment in rural areas when it draws up its programme for next year. Over the longer term, a reordering of development priorities is required.
Let me make clear to the chamber the opportunity that lies before us. What would it take to ensure that one in four homes in Orkney, the Western Isles, Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Perth and Kinross, Argyll and Bute, Moray, Highland and Scottish Borders was for rent? The answer is that it would take only 14,000 new rented homes. We have pledged to build 18,000 new homes over the next three years. Of course, not all those homes will be in rural areas— there are other priorities in urban areas, such as community care and homelessness—but the aspiration of a vibrant socially rented sector in all parts of Scotland is achievable.
All social tenants deserve consistently high standards from housing management, so we will legislate for a single system of statutory regulation for all social landlords. The landlord functions of local authorities will also be subject to the same performance standards as apply to registered housing associations, and they will be regulated by the same body.
We are committed to a more strategic role for
local authorities. We will put local authorities in the lead in developing single housing plans for their areas. Local authorities should also have a greater say in the allocation of resources to other housing providers in their areas. Once the existing housing stock has been transferred—if that is what tenants choose—and there is no question of an in-built bias towards expenditure on their own stock, we believe that local authorities should be responsible for determining the priorities for all funding of housing in their areas.
Local authorities will therefore have a much more direct involvement than at present in decisions on the £200 million of development funding resources currently made available through Scottish Homes. Those resources will be part of a transparent and identified budget for housing purposes, which will be designed to achieve the housing policy objectives of the Executive and of local authorities. Obviously, there will have to be a process of adjustment. We plan a range of checks and balances, and Scottish Homes has a vital monitoring role in that.
That brings me to the future of Scottish Homes. Over the past 10 years, Scottish Homes has achieved a great deal, developing the housing association movement in Scotland, attracting around £1.3 billion of new private investment into social housing and empowering its own tenants by successfully transferring most of its stock to new social landlords. I pay tribute to the commitment, skills and expertise of its board members and staff over the past decade. They have nurtured community ownership, and their leadership has demonstrated that non-profit-making community- controlled local landlords across Scotland can both build homes for rent and access new investment.
Scottish Homes has done pioneering work by demonstrating that housing is about more than bricks and mortar. It has supported the development of roles for local housing associations, which place them at the heart of their communities, whether through credit unions and services to older tenants or by providing workspaces.
The new agenda for Scottish housing means a new organisational structure for Scottish Homes. We have concluded that Scottish Homes should cease to be a quango and should be converted into an executive agency of the Scottish Executive. In future, the chief executive will have a direct reporting line to ministers and, through that, accountability to this Parliament. The work of Scottish Homes will be steered by a management board, including two or three non-executive directors. The board will be led by the chief executive and will operate within a framework set by ministers.
In that new challenging role, Scottish Homes will assume responsibility for the regulation and monitoring of all registered social landlords— whose number will be much swollen by community ownership—and also of the landlord functions of local authorities.
There is a clear opportunity to broaden further the community regeneration role of Scottish Homes as a housing and communities agency, liaising with social inclusion partnerships and other local regeneration initiatives. The real expertise in using housing as an enabler of community regeneration lies within the existing regional structure of Scottish Homes.
Scottish Homes will continue to be responsible for development funding until such time as local authorities cease to be major landlords in their own right and take over that budget.
We want to implement those changes in a way that builds on the valuable work that has been done by Scottish Homes and which enables its staff to prosper in the new structure. I anticipate that the vast majority of Scottish Homes staff who transfer to the Scottish Executive will work in the new executive agency. However, some staff who undertake policy and related work in the headquarters of Scottish Homes could move directly into other parts of the Scottish Executive, to help to strengthen its policy capabilities.
I want to make it clear that the decision has been taken for good housing and social inclusion policy reasons. It is not part of a broadside at quangos in general and, in practice, the vast majority of the staff of Scottish Homes will continue to do much the same type of work as at present, but in a different governance framework. I am today writing personally to all Scottish Homes staff to reassure them about that.
We have had a number of debates in the chamber on other areas, notably on the scourge of homelessness and the policy and new resources required to tackle it. I have asked the homelessness task force to recommend its legislative priorities early in the new year and I will make a further announcement on those elements of the proposed housing bill in due course.
Our ambition is to create strong and supportive communities across Scotland. We will deliver a radical housing bill, which will lay the firm foundations for creating a Scotland where everyone matters, whether they are tenants, owner-occupiers or people sleeping rough. Our vision for Scottish housing is one that any modern nation could be proud of.
I commend the statement to members.
I thank the minister for her statement and for the prospect of a
full debate in the new year.
The abolition of the board of Scottish Homes was in the Scottish National party's manifesto— interestingly, it was not in the Labour party's manifesto. Yet again, the minister plagiarises SNP policy. So much for the bonfire of the quangos— only Scottish Homes is affected. After two and a half years, I am pleased to note that the Minister for Communities has held to Labour's pre-election commitments, but does she agree that it is a pity that her colleagues have forgotten those commitments? It is a bit like having Guy Fawkes night in December.
The minister said that abolishing Scottish Homes as a quango
"is not . . . a broadside at quangos in general".
Does that mean that the bonfire has fizzled out?
On the other details in the minister's statement, does she agree that the single regulatory framework was in the SNP manifesto and not in the Labour party's? Does she further agree that the same performance standards on cross-tenure were in the SNP manifesto and not in the Labour party's? I am glad to see that she is coming round to the SNP's way of thinking.
On a more constructive note on the right to buy, the minister did not specify how the proposals will affect smaller housing associations or what her plans are for compensating them. Can she confirm that there is no new money and that the 18,000 houses that she mentioned will come from a redirection of existing funds, so that there will be losers in some areas where planned houses will not be built?
Members may know that the price of property that is bought under the right to buy can often be less than half the cost of building the same property. That could have a devastating impact on housing associations' investment programmes. Does the minister agree that, if she granted rights to one section of the community at the expense of another, she would be defeating what she is trying to achieve?
Finally, is the minister aware that the finances in the feasibility study for the Glasgow transfer were calculated on diminishing the right to buy rather than extending it? What action is she taking to ensure that her prize stock transfer proposals will not collapse around her ears as lenders get cold feet because of her proposals?
Where should I begin? Fiona Hyslop raised six points.
If the greatest criticism that the SNP has to offer is that we are doing the right thing, I am happy to accept that criticism. The real difference is that we put an extra £50 million into the communities budget to help to deliver on our promises. I am not sure that I want to address the issue of the black hole in the SNP's budget today, but that black hole is still there and Fiona Hyslop's response begs the question whether the SNP would have had the resources to deliver this programme, however committed to it that party is in principle.
On the commitment to build new homes, one of the characteristics of the Government is its commitment to clarity on what it will deliver with the resources that it spends. We have made it clear that we will deliver 6,000 new houses a year, and I am confident that we will achieve that. There will not be a devastating effect. We have made it clear that giving all tenants in Scotland the same set of rights might lead to up to 800 or 850 additional sales a year, balanced against six times as many houses being built a year. That begs the question whether the SNP thinks that we should continue with the divisive, two-tier tenancy system in which some tenancies have contractual rights and others have secure rights.
What is the SNP's position on secure tenancies? We believe that a single housing plan and a single budget must be matched with a single tenancy for everybody, which would be secured in law and would ensure that there were no second-class citizens. We have had enough of second-class citizens in Scottish tenancies in the past.
Fiona Hyslop asked whether the proposals would affect the financial viability of housing associations. The figures in the research document, which are for the whole of Scotland, illustrate that, if the average value of a house is assumed to be £40,000, and people receive a discount of 55 per cent on that, which is the average discount, the end result is a receipt of £17,000. Partly because all those housing association houses were built with 70 per cent housing association grant, on average, there will probably be only £6,000 of debt to clear. When the receipt that housing associations get is offset against the lost rental income, the housing associations will build balances as a result of our proposals today. Their financial viability will not be undermined.
It might be suggested that one housing association somewhere might face some difficulty. If it did, we would talk to it, as would Scottish Homes. There is in excess of £200 million in the development programme. Should we, for the sake one housing association—out of the hundreds in Scotland—that might experience a difficulty, deprive all Scottish tenants of a single set of secure tenancy rights? That was the choice that we faced, and I am convinced that we made the right decision.
The same argument on the finances—I shall not run through them—generally applies to Glasgow.
The suggestion that lenders believe that the right to buy will make it more difficult to finance the Glasgow stock transfer is simply not true. The view of lenders is that the right to buy will do nothing to undermine the financial viability of the options that are under consideration by the city.
I remind members that this is not a debate, but a question-and-answer session. Many members want to speak, but will have no opportunity to do so if we have long questions and answers.
The Conservatives generally welcome the statement. In many respects, it seeks to build on the achievements of the previous Conservative Government. As the minister said, Labour and Liberal politicians argued for a new and better way, but Conservative politicians implemented that better way and increased home ownership in Scotland from 38 per cent to 62 per cent.
There are, however, several unanswered questions and we Conservatives need to reserve our position on some issues. Does the minister agree that the homelessness figures—which are a matter for general and genuine concern—might be improved if there was a compulsory local authority strategy for coping with the problem? Does she further agree that many of the proposals for dealing with anti-social tenants are already in place, and that there has been a lack of resolve on the part of local authorities in implementing them? Does she agree that the need to impose a single regulatory framework is, in itself, a condemnation of the Labour-controlled local authorities?
Does the minister agree that Scottish Homes has performed an extremely valuable role and, accordingly, that any change in its management structure must ensure that the organisation is still able to draw in the private sector's involvement? That sector's involvement has been a particularly successful aspect of Scottish Homes' operations. Are not Ms Alexander's plans for housing in rural areas an extension of the rural housing strategy that was so ably and far-sightedly introduced by my friend, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton?
I am tempted to ask the Tories why, if they had a better way, they have spent most of the past six months apologising to the people of Scotland for what they did in the past. There is a serious point to be made—no one political party in this chamber should try to claim that the benefits of community ownership are as a result of its policies, and are therefore party political.
On Tuesday, I visited Calvay Housing Association in Easterhouse in Glasgow, which has three types of tenant—secure tenants, assured tenants with the right to buy and assured tenants without the right to buy. The thicket of mixed-up tenancies that the Tories left as their legacy to us had to go. Tomorrow Donald Dewar is attending the 25th anniversary celebration of a Glasgow community-based housing association. I am happy to say that none of us owns that movement—it resulted from community activists saying that there was a better way in which to manage and to govern our houses. It is to their credit that politicians are prepared to support tenants who organise themselves in that way.
There is an important point to be made about homelessness. I was in Sighthill in Glasgow yesterday and talked to the people there about homelessness figures. Glasgow has one eighth of the housing in Scotland and one third of applications for housing from homeless people. All the housing managers I spoke to were quite sure that there has been an increase in the figures partly because of representations from people who have chaotic lifestyles because of drugs, and from people who have repeated relationship breakdowns—which is also sometimes tied to substance abuse. The figures do not tell us how many people send in repeat applications, but Jackie Baillie's homelessness task force is examining that.
There are only 17,000 priority need applications in Scotland each year—less than the number of void and hard-to-let houses that local authorities currently have. If we are to find an answer to homelessness, there must be new investment in housing to make those void and hard-to-let houses lettable.
I am happy to agree that what we have done about anti-social behaviour is part of a continuum. It is important that we introduce yellow cards before the red card of eviction, so that there are a number of steps that local authorities can take without putting people on the streets, but which also protect the majority who are good tenants and who do not want to live with bad neighbours.
Finally, I am happy to agree with Bill Aitken about the valuable role that Scottish Homes has played, but I would rather regard Calum MacDonald as the parent of the increase in resources for rural housing than Lord James. However, that could be a matter for dispute.
I also welcome the minister's announcements and her support for Liberal achievements in housing in the past.
Does the minister recognise that those achievements are not limited to rural housing, but include the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 and the achievement by the partnership Executive of the reforms to Scottish Homes that she has announced today? Does she recognise that many of us have reservations about the right to buy? Is
she satisfied that it is valid to base policy on generalised national statistics? Is she aware, for example, that the so-called rural areas include Kilmarnock, Stirling, Inverness and Dumfries and that extra houses in Stirling will not make up for even small sales of stock in Stirlingshire villages? Will she elaborate on the research that showed that 850 houses a year would be bought when over 1,300 houses a year are currently being sold from housing association and Scottish Homes stock?
Finally, will the minister undertake to leave open the possibility of a full review of the right-to-buy proposals in the light of detailed representations by the housing organisations and local housing associations, which she praised earlier but which are mostly opposed on pragmatic grounds to any extension of the right to buy, as they see it as damaging to a realistic housing strategy?
I am happy to welcome the contribution made by both sides of the partnership in developing our housing policy. That contribution can be seen in several areas: our response to dampness, rural housing, housing tribunals, the role of housing associations, community empowerment and other areas.
I am happy to share with the member the extensive research on right to buy. Throughout the history of right to buy, sales have been 2 per cent a year in local authorities, with a slight blip in 1989, and 1 per cent in housing associations; a third of housing association tenants in Scotland already have the right to buy. Therefore, there is a high degree of predictability on sales. As well as being based on that history, the estimates are based on complex algorithmic models that I would be happy to share with the member—but not now. The estimates have also been broken down authority by authority. We estimate that 120 sales will be in rural areas.
We are firm in our proposal that all Scottish tenants should have the best ever tenants' rights, including the right to buy. There are technical issues over retrospectivity on which we are happy to consult the organisations, and we will do so, but our vision is clear.
I do not welcome the statement—I am sure that the Minister for Communities is not surprised to hear that. The proposals are ill thought out, riddled with contradictions and ideologically driven. The Tories have made it clear that they would have been very happy to make this statement.
The minister parades tenant involvement like a mantra—tenant control instead of municipal control—but for a year in Glasgow we have had a feasibility study without tenant involvement; we now have an interim steering committee to take forward the result of the feasibility study, again without tenant involvement. Will the minister say why there is no tenant involvement in the proposal to sell off every single council house in Glasgow?
The minister is talking about sending a letter to Scottish Homes staff to reassure them that their jobs are safe in the subsuming of quangos, rather than the bonfire that was promised. Will the minister send a similar letter to all housing association staff in Scotland, who work hard to deliver the type of community housing that has been described today as a model for housing arrangements, but whose jobs are now threatened by the extension of right to buy?
My third question is on the letter of consent, which will be issued to local authorities for the next financial year. Will the minister today give a commitment—a commitment that should have been given two and a half years ago—to remove the capital receipt payback regulations? I know how much Glasgow has lost in terms of potential investment because of the minister's decision to stick with those Tory regulations—£60 million- worth of investment in the past three years. I have the figures here, but can the minister tell the chamber how much that great policy has undermined rent increases in Glasgow in each of those years, while denying the investment to which I referred?
It is rather bizarre for Tommy Sheridan to accuse me of being ideologically driven when I thought that he was a revolutionary Marxist, but there we go.
I am.
I will deal with the question of tenant involvement first. As the member may know, over the past year tenant neighbourhood forums have been set up in every part of the city of Glasgow. Indeed, only yesterday I was talking to members of the tenants forum in Ruchazie and Sighthill about what was planned for the city. Glasgow City Council, as the body that is devising the proposal jointly with us, has in the past month written to all its tenants to tell them what is under consideration.
Who is on the steering group from the tenants?
I want to talk about the big issue. Tommy Sheridan talks about the need to invest in Glasgow housing. Let us talk about John Wheatley. When he was elected, he did not say, "Let's do things the way they've always been done." Rather, he said, "We need to do things differently. We need to build £8 cottages and we are going to go and talk about how we access the investment to do that." I believe that, 90 years on from his election to the city council in Glasgow, we need to show the same vision. The essential
difference between—[Interruption.]
Mr Sheridan, you have asked a question and you must listen to the answer without interrupting.
I am waiting for the answer.
Let me come to the main point. The essential difference between Tommy Sheridan and me is that his ambition extends to only one thing—that this Executive and this Parliament should take on the housing debt of the city of Glasgow and that the rents should be used to invest in houses. I have no problem with saying that the whole of Scotland should take more responsibility for outstanding housing debt, but my vision is more ambitious than Tommy Sheridan's. I do not want to say that the best that we can do is invest the rental income. If I think that I can use that income to access literally hundreds of millions of pounds to change the living conditions of people in Glasgow in co-operation with landlords who, to a person, are non-profit-making, I will do that.
I note that the proposals include new measures to prevent and mitigate anti-social behaviour by tenants and look forward to studying them in more detail. The minister will be aware of the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and of the fact that several local authorities do not use the powers that were given to them in the act. How does she propose to ensure that housing authorities will be able to use the powers and exercise the responsibilities that might be conferred on them under the new proposals?
As members know, it is less than a year since we introduced anti-social behaviour orders. Within 12 months, we expect to receive reports on how they are operating. As Dr Murray suggests, the reason that those orders are a major step forward is that we no longer require individuals to act against anti-social neighbours. We have vested that power in local authorities, which avoids some of the problems of intimidation that we have experienced in the past.
Anti-social behaviour orders help us, for the first time, to move the debate beyond seeing this simply as a tenant problem. Anti-social behaviour happens in every section of the community, and the orders give us the opportunity to act against owner-occupiers who become neighbours from hell. Local authorities need help and support to develop that function and we are happy to provide it.
First, I say to the minister that she is no John Wheatley.
Is the minister aware that in the past 20 years rental income from local authority housing has increased from 44 per cent of total local authority housing department income to 92 per cent, of which 56 per cent comes from housing benefit? In the light of the forthcoming review of the housing benefit system, is she putting all her eggs in one basket? What are the implications of the review of housing benefit for the policy that she announced this morning?
One difference between Alex Neil and me is that I do not think that we measure our success in terms of how much money I manage to lever out of Jack McConnell. As the success of Scottish Homes suggests, the joy of the community ownership model is its ability to leverage huge amounts of private investment into socially rented housing. That is the challenge which we face.
We are, of course, closely in touch with colleagues as proposals on housing benefit emerge. We have always acknowledged that they are part of the welfare reform programme that is being pursued by the UK Government. Obviously, housing benefit affects housing subsidy, but it also affects incomes and the welfare reform proposals. We must stay closely in touch with on-going matters.
Given that local authorities that transfer their housing stock will be rewarded with a share of Scottish Homes' £200 million development funding, what guarantee is there for local authorities such as Dundee that the large outstanding debt that is associated with their stock will transfer to the Scottish Executive? Unless such a guarantee is forthcoming, there will be no stock transfers in Dundee, which could find itself as the only local authority in Tayside that is unable to get access to that development funding. Such a situation will only further disadvantage Dundee in relation to Perth and Angus, and will make impossible a coherent regional housing strategy for Tayside.
Allowing local authorities to have responsibility for housing resources in their areas, including for development funding, is not a reward. It simply recognises the fact that it is difficult to expect somebody who is a direct housing provider to be completely impartial in providing resources to third parties in the area.
On Dundee, I am aware of the exciting proposals that the community in Ardler has developed, and of its desire to make that new housing partnership a success. Some of the difficulties surrounding debt in Ardler have demonstrated why the way forward is for whole communities to decide as tenants whether they want to go down the community ownership route. As soon as there are partial transfers, it becomes difficult to say what portion of the historic debt can be assigned to communities.
am comfortable with the principle that this Executive and this Parliament should shoulder some of the burden for council houses that are long demolished. That principle distinguishes us whole-heartedly from the previous Conservative Administration, which, if it had ever thought of pursuing this policy, would undoubtedly not have started in Glasgow, which has the worst problems of damp; nor would the Conservative Administration have started in cities such as Dundee.
In spite of my allowing an extra five minutes for questions, there are still eight members who wanted to speak.