Housing (Scotland) Bill
The next item of business is a debate on motion S1M-2000, in the name of Jackie Baillie, which seeks agreement that the Housing (Scotland) Bill be passed.
This Parliament came into being facing Scotland's great housing challenges of the post-Tory era. The imperative is to remake an effective, affordable, high-quality, community-driven housing sector out of the devastated councils and marginalised not-for-profits that the Tories left behind. We are rebuilding homes, yes; rebuilding trust, yes; but also rebuilding organisational and legal frameworks for better housing. In the stage 1 debate, I said that the bill sought to provide a framework that would allow individuals, communities and organisations to work together to that end. We stand on the threshold of changing our legislation and—more important—changing Scotland's housing for the better by delivering the promised framework for action.
By passing the bill we will deliver the best ever package of rights for homeless people and for all tenants in the social rented sector, the first radical rethink of the right to buy since it was introduced two decades ago and modernisation, based on principles of fairness, that balances community and individual aspirations and that respects local strategic concerns. The bill will also deliver further measures to deal with anti-social behaviour, a new regulatory framework to guarantee and to raise standards, a new emphasis on the governance of Scottish housing with a directly accountable executive agency to replace a quango, new strategic and funding roles for local authorities, a new and historic commitment to tackling fuel poverty and new roles for communities in shaping housing provision. We are placing tenants at the heart of the process.
Much of value was added during the stage 2 consideration of the bill by the Social Justice Committee. It is to the committee's credit that I can say that the theme of working together ran throughout much of the committee's work. Committee members made important changes to the bill throughout stage 2 and I am very grateful to the convener Johann Lamont, to committee members and to parliamentary officials for their efforts in helping us to shape this legislation. I would also like to express my thanks to the bill team and the officials from the housing division who are sitting at the back of the chamber. Not only did they burn the midnight oil, but, on some occasions, they worked right through the night to ensure that the bill was robust. I would also like to thank my deputy Margaret Curran, who worked tirelessly throughout in a very good-humoured way.
Throughout the development of the bill, one of the key benefits of having a Scottish Parliament has been evident—the access that the full range of interested individuals and organisations have had to their MSPs and, through them, to ministers and the legislative process. I am grateful to the many organisations and individuals who have given time, effort and expertise to help us ensure that we got the legislation right.
We have spent much of today discussing the detail of the legislation but, as I have said already, the bill, coupled with the substantial expansion of the resources that we are making available over the next three years, is the beginning and not the end of our commitment to improve Scotland's housing. Scotland remains stricken by the blights of homelessness and poor housing stock. We are conscious that, having bound the fractures of the social rented sector with the support of new legislation and significant new resources, we still face the challenge of improving private housing. The chamber will be familiar with the homelessness task force, the rough sleepers initiative, the warm deal, the central heating initiative and the housing improvement task force. We will take those issues forward in the housing improvement task force and publish a report on solutions by the end of 2002.
The bill is another important step in the progress that we are making towards better housing and stronger communities throughout Scotland. The bill is for all Scotland. It focuses on delivery and will make a real, tangible difference to the homeless, tenants and communities. As I said, the bill is a new beginning, not an end.
As a Labour member, I am proud to move,
That the Parliament agrees that the Housing (Scotland) Bill be passed.
Under the timetabling motion, the debate can last until 19.25 and not a minute longer. I will therefore keep members tightly to their times.
The SNP will support the motion, but with some reluctance. As members will have gathered from the stage 2 debate, the bill is flawed in many respects. I hope that there will be urgent action in the areas that we have pointed out.
I would like to thank the clerks and our own staff who have worked on the bill under duress and extreme pressure. It is meant to be a flagship bill, but it was put forward under cover of a general election with amendments at stage 3 to be lodged only on Friday. One of the concerns that we should have about the bill is the tight timetabling between the amendment schedules. I also want to record in the Official Report my support for and thanks to Johann Lamont for her convening of the sessions. She was very fair.
The SNP has concerns about the bill—we have articulated them in the previous hours—but a number of the bill's sections are SNP policy. We came to the Parliament on that policy, as outlined in our manifesto. Valuable homelessness legislation, a single social tenancy, increasing tenant participation, a single regulatory framework, the abolition of Scottish Homes, strategic powers for local authorities, cross tenure and improvement grants for pensioners are all in the SNP manifesto. I am very pleased that the Executive has taken up those issues.
My concern is that the bill could have been a very good, historic bill—one that we could celebrate. Unfortunately, we cannot. The bill does not provide the mechanism to deliver stock transfer. That comes from the 1987 Conservative legislation. The bill has been corrupted by considering aspects that facilitate stock transfer—in particular, I refer to the extension of the right to buy and to schedule 8.
We want improvements to Scottish housing. Robert Brown made the important point that housing is not improved just by legislation. The Executive should bear that in mind and consider housing policy and investment—the policy of wholesale stock transfer and the investment that is not reaching tenants. The Executive is failing on those issues.
I support the bill because much of it will take housing forward. We have needed such a bill for decades. However, I will add a note of caution. If we expect Scottish people to look to this Parliament to deliver on housing, policy and investment are needed, as well as legislation. The Opposition will certainly pursue the Executive on those matters in the months and years to come.
The Conservative party does not intend to divide the chamber over the motion. We should congratulate the minister on some parts of the bill and condemn her in respect of other sections. I was very impressed by the commitment that she made to take action to clear up the debris of the Labour councils that have presided over Glasgow's and Scotland's housing decline for many years.
She has sought to take action that will undoubtedly improve the situation. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that housing stock transfer, which was resisted so vehemently in the late 1990s, would be enacted in legislation before a Scottish Parliament. That demonstrates just how political thinking has changed over the past 10 years.
Naturally, we are disappointed that the Executive did not see fit to incorporate some of our amendments—in particular, our proposals for dealing with anti-social tenants and for providing safeguards for housing associations. Nevertheless, we recognise that there is much in the bill that is good. We welcome the increase in tenant participation and the moves to give so many more people the ability to purchase their own house. That is indeed progress.
I thank the clerk to the committee, who was particularly helpful during what has been a fairly hard process. Lee Bridges performed his tasks with indefatigable good humour—which is more than can be said for the bulk of the committee members, myself included. The Social Justice Committee can claim to have done a good job on the bill. I congratulate my colleagues on that committee for the positive contributions that they made—in particular, over the latter part of the stage 2 process.
The Housing (Scotland) Bill has been the most complex piece of legislation that the Parliament has dealt with to date. Most of us have found it an exhaustive and exhausting process. However, we can rest content that we have done a reasonable job. Although we have some caveats and disappointments, the bill will benefit the people of Scotland.
I will take up Bill Aitken's point about the size and complexity of the bill. It will be the biggest and most complex bill that we will pass in this parliamentary session. The bill will have significant effects on the housing position in Scotland. It is a tribute to the committee system of the Parliament that the bill went through its stages in the way that it did. It is right that I add my personal thanks to Lee Bridges and his colleagues for the support that they have given us. Quite often we asked for their support at inopportune times, with deadlines and late on in the day. The good humour, knowledge and expertise that Lee Bridges and his colleagues brought to the matter have assisted the committee greatly.
I also pay tribute to the ministers. There has been a creative tension—perhaps that is the right way to put it—between me and them as the bill has gone through Parliament. The tension comes from this new situation in which, as the bill goes through committee, ministers are not entirely sure exactly how the votes will fall. I have had contact with colleagues in the House of Commons—where amendments are usually not passed—who find that an unusual and different experience. The process has been a learning experience for the Social Justice Committee and for the Parliament and has been beneficial. I hope that, now that they have seen what has happened to the Housing (Scotland) Bill, ministers will in future be a little more relaxed about the process.
The bill has been closely scrutinised by the Social Justice Committee. That scrutiny has been well worth while, effective and significant. If I may blow my own trumpet, I point out that I have identified 15 fairly significant changes resulting from that scrutiny, in terms of proposals introduced by the committee and questions responded to by ministers. That is the key point. We have been engaged in a deliberative process during which we have seen changes made.
It is fair to say that we were knocked off course slightly by the emphasis that had to be given to the right to buy and the implications of that. One of the sad things about that is that it meant that we had to devote a little less time to some of the later sections of the bill than would be desirable in an ideal world.
As I said before, legislation does not change the world. However, it sets in place the structure that will allow us to make progress. This is a good bill. It deals primarily with the social rented sector and lays a framework that will stay in place for some years to come and that will enable us to deal dramatically with the housing aspirations of Scotland, which many members, not least those on the Social Justice Committee, came into politics and stood for election to the Scottish Parliament to do something about.
That is the tone on which I would like to leave the debate today. On behalf of the Liberal Democrat group, I add our support for the Labour minister's motion to pass the bill, which is a product of the whole chamber.
Four members would like to speak in the open debate. I urge them to stick to their time limits.
I cannot support the bill, and in the two and a half minutes that I have I will attempt to explain why.
First, I thank the Social Justice Committee for making me and other members who are not members of the committee as welcome as possible during its deliberations on the bill. Like other members, I thank the clerks, who were of excellent assistance during a sometimes complicated process. I also thank the campaigning, housing and voluntary sector organisations that involved themselves in the bill and tried to point out at crucial times where they thought the Executive was going wrong and suggested a number of amendments to various members. That was vital, so that the bill process was not just part of this Parliament, but was part of Scottish civic society.
I cannot support the bill because although there are laudable elements in it, it lacks ambition, displays poverty of aspiration and is guilty of missing a golden opportunity to tackle substandard, unacceptable housing while eradicating fuel poverty and homelessness and some of the major problems from the overhang of a Thatcherite Government that hated public sector housing with a vengeance and used public sector housing as the first guinea pig in its privatisation programme across society.
I cannot vote for the bill because any bill that extends the Thatcherite principle of the privatisation of public housing does not deserve support. Any bill that paves the way to forcing local authorities to consider not stock transfer driven by local communities, but wholesale stock transfer driven by underinvestment and blackmail from the Scottish Executive, simply does not deserve support. It is from that point of view that, with regret, I will not be able to support the motion.
I believe that this is a good bill and I will celebrate its passage not because we will have more time on our hands but because it provides a good package of measures for those who live in Scotland.
I think Fiona Hyslop had a go at the term flagship legislation and said that the bill should not be described as such, but it is an entirely appropriate description—it is flagship legislation and it will make a huge difference. Once the smoke of the political battle has cleared, I am sure that homeless people in Scotland will thank us for the bill, tenants in Scotland will thank us for the bill and less-well-off people who want to make their homes warmer and better will thank us for the bill.
I will focus on two main issues that received rather less coverage amid the stramash of the right to buy and stock transfer. The first is tenant participation. It is no exaggeration to say that the bill represents, as the minister said earlier, the best ever package of tenants' rights in terms of the right to participation.
Today, neither secure nor assured tenants have any statutory rights to consultation, but when the bill becomes law every social landlord will be required to prepare a participation strategy for Scottish secure tenants. It will not be enough for the strategy to say how tenants' views will be obtained; it will have to say how tenants' views will be acted upon. Tenants and their representative organisations will have to be notified of proposed changes to policies, services, budgets and rents. They will also have the right to be told about any suggested change of landlord. That is real participation and real influence, delivered by Labour and our partners.
Once again we are giving legislative form to our values and goals, by extending the scope of the repair scheme and focusing help on those who need it most. For the first time, repairs and improvement grants will be available for safe electrical wiring, adequate heating and insulation, smoke detectors and fire-retardant doors. The maximum grant will be significantly increased, with more money going to those who are least well off.
This is one of those days when the time and trouble that go into political life and the busy lives that we all lead are worth while. It is one of those days when we can say that what we have done will improve the lives of the people who elected us. There will be homeless people with strengthened rights to a home; tenants with more rights and a right to a say; and more warmer and better-appointed homes. Those are real improvements to real lives. I support the motion.
On behalf of the Labour members of the Social Justice Committee, I thank all those who assisted us with the passage of the bill. I pay tribute to Lee Bridges, Mary Dinsdale and Rodger Evans, the committee's clerks, who somehow managed to ensure that each of the more than 500 amendments that were lodged at stage 2 were presented to the committee in an ordered and timeous way. At times, that task must have seemed impossible; it also stands as testimony to the fact that the bill was not bulldozed through the Parliament, as the SNP suggested.
I thank other parliamentary staff, including those from catering, the official report and not least those from security, who had to intervene at times. I also thank all the organisations that participated in the bill's creation, including Shelter Scotland, the Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland, COSLA, Energy Action Scotland and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. Their detailed understanding of each section of the bill ensured that proper scrutiny took place.
The bill will address many of the key problems that face social housing in Scotland. Its measures to combat homelessness were developed after extensive consultation. I am especially pleased that Fiona Hyslop's misguided and ill-informed amendment 93, which was agreed to at stage 2, has today been wiped from the bill. That amendment failed to gain support from any significant housing organisation. Perhaps Tricia Marwick, with her connections to Shelter, should make Linda Fabiani and Fiona Hyslop sit up and listen to what Shelter had to say on the subject.
The bill is significant not because it is the largest or most detailed that the Parliament has considered but because it will have a positive impact on the lives of many people. Ultimately, the bill will be judged not on the ideological arguments that Tommy Sheridan made, but on whether, in 10 years' time, Scottish tenants live in warm comfortable homes that actively contribute to the enhancement of our communities.
The bill will be judged on whether tenants feel able to influence and shape the service that they receive from their landlords. It will be judged on whether those who are made homeless feel that they have a system that works for them and not against them. For all those reasons, I believe that the bill will deliver for the people of Scotland.
The fourth member who had asked to speak has withdrawn her name, so I call the deputy minister to wind up.
Today has been very important and tiring for the Parliament, so I do not intend to take too long with my speech. [Applause.] It is nice to have applause from the SNP from time to time. I repeat the thanks that everyone else gave to Lee Bridges and his team, and many others. I thank others from outside the Parliament for their interest, submissions, dialogue and contributions. I also thank Jackie Baillie. I will try not to create a mutual admiration society, but she has been the most impressive minister to work with and most generous in her support. I am grateful for that.
I will move on to discuss some of the politics of the bill. The bill is substantial. The housing brief demands much attention. It is proper that our first focus has been on the social rented sector. I re-emphasise that we are committed to a vibrant social rented sector and are taking the means to create it. Housing is one of our most fundamental requirements and speaks loudly about the character of our society. As Jackie Baillie said, the bill is an important chapter in the work of the Parliament and we can rightly be proud of its being passed.
I can announce that, in addition to the £27 million that has been earmarked for homelessness provision and the £4.5 million that has been provided for tenant participation, we have earmarked £10 million for local authorities and RSLs, to be spent over three years. That will help them to implement the bill and will particularly help to cover the costs of implementing the new Scottish secure tenancy.
However, the real testament to our effort will be delivered by the work that will follow the passing of the bill. The value of our actions today will be in the benefits that we bring to the most vulnerable members of our society, particularly the homeless people who will no longer have to sleep rough.
The bill will be measured by the benefits that we achieve across the social rented sector, in the enhanced rights that are afforded by the new Scottish secure tenancy and by our new regulatory framework and regulator, which will act to drive up standards throughout the sector.
The bill will be measured by the collective benefits such measures will bring to everybody in Scotland—safer and stronger communities.
I commend the bill to the Parliament.
There are no Parliamentary Bureau motions to be put to the Parliament today.
Before we come to decision time, I would like to echo what has been said in the chamber: I thank the Parliament staff for a major piece of work in pushing through the bill and on behalf of my two colleagues I thank all the members who have taken part today in a long and solid day's work.
The good news is that because we have overrun, the Scottish Parliament and business exchange annual general meeting has been proceeding without us. Those who care to join us in committee room 1 will be going straight to the reception. Members might feel like it.