The next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on response to the housing emergency. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions.
14:26
Housing has an essential part to play in delivering the First Minister’s four key priorities for Scotland, most notably those on eradicating child poverty and growing Scotland’s economy. Housing is both a social and an economic good. It is critical to supporting health, wellbeing, life chances, job prospects and tackling child poverty. We know that more people must be able to access good, affordable homes, but the drivers of the housing emergency are long standing, complex and interconnected. A broad span of ownership and co-operation is therefore required to deliver comprehensive solutions, which is why, over the past year, we have built a strong collaboration with a range of key partners spanning the Scottish Government, local government, housing representative bodies, developers, investors, third sector organisations and tenant groups.
I will take a moment to summarise some of the key activities and outputs from this year’s delivery. This year, the Scottish Government is investing £768 million to support the delivery of 8,000 homes for social and mid-market rent and low-cost home ownership. We have also announced £4 million of homelessness prevention funding and £2 million to increase the scale and pace of privately owned empty homes being returned to use. We remain committed to working closely with the private sector to support economic growth, including through regional economic partnerships.
Yesterday, the Minister for Housing attended an event in Annan in the south of Scotland organised by Prosper, exploring opportunities for housing and its role in supporting the economy across the region. I am pleased that, as part of our commitment, the housing investment task force, in addition to the work that it has done with Government over the past year, provided its report to ministers, which will be published in the next few weeks.
We are now focused on long-term plans for implementing those recommendations to unlock new investment opportunities across all tenures. Optimising the impact of investment is essential if we are to bring further private investment into the housing sector. One clear example of how we aim to amplify increasing institutional investment is the £100 million funding that was committed last year, which is intended to grow to at least £500 million to fund construction of 2,800 mid-market rent homes. The procurement for market testing of that is now live.
We have also invested £46 million in charitable bonds, supporting the delivery of around 325 homes. That will generate £13.8 million in charitable donations to help to fund future affordable housing projects. To home in on the areas in most need, we have adopted a targeted approach. We introduced a new £80 million voids and acquisitions fund, with 80 per cent of that resource being directed towards the five local authorities that face the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures. We have already seen marked positive impacts, with the City of Edinburgh Council’s management information showing us that void levels have been cut by more than 50 per cent since June 2023.
That approach has brought more than 1,000 properties into use as affordable homes, helping to reduce the number of homeless households spending long periods in temporary accommodation. A further reflection of our determination to focus our efforts on the people who are most in need is our work with local authorities to directly support increased family housing capacity.
Our investment of £3.7 million in the Scottish empty homes partnership and network of empty homes officers is also delivering real results, with more than 11,000 homes being returned to active use since 2010, including 1,875 in one year alone, as per the latest analysis.
Our work on planning is demonstrating the activist, supportive government approach that will take Scotland through and beyond the housing emergency. We have progressed the 23 actions that are set out in the Government’s “Planning and the Housing Emergency—Delivery Plan” and we have worked at pace and in close collaboration with housing providers and local government on removing barriers to stalled housing sites. Through strategic actions and direct intervention, we are supporting the delivery of up to 20,000 new homes. The stalled sites work that has been undertaken since the autumn is another example of the required partnership working, where Government and business are working together to identify the problems and deliver solutions.
We have also progressed our programme for government commitment on strategic sites by confirming £15 million in funding to unlock the opportunities for more than 800 affordable net zero homes at the Granton strategic site, supporting our approach to place-based intervention. Alongside that, we have been working intensively with local authority partners to better understand the local drivers of homelessness and temporary accommodation, which is helping partners to develop plans for impactful, purposeful spend, while sharing best practice and pursuing economies-of-scale opportunities.
I turn to our action on homelessness. Temporary accommodation is an important safety net for those who need it, but we want far fewer households, especially those with children, to be in temporary accommodation. Focused partnership action helped an estimated 2,669 households with children into affordable housing in the year ending December 2024. Our most recent statistics show that 20 councils have reduced the number of children who are in temporary accommodation. We take two lessons from that: we are encouraged that we can make a positive difference, and it also is confirmation that there is still more to do.
Our Housing (Scotland) Bill is currently undergoing stage 2 scrutiny. If passed by the Parliament, it will deliver new homelessness prevention duties and create new tenants’ rights, including long-term rent controls for the private rented sector. Those provisions will ensure that people can stay in their homes and avoid becoming homeless. The new prevention duties are seen by many as a game changer. That is why we have included an additional £4 million in the ending homelessness together budget for 2025-26 in order to help local authorities, front-line services and relevant partners to prepare for the new prevention measures and to help them to respond to the housing emergency by preventing homelessness before it occurs. Where possible, we are taking a cross-party approach to ensure the legislation will effectively strengthen tenants’ rights and protections so that people can have safe and warm homes.
We continue to support local authorities to transition to a rapid rehousing approach, with a commitment of £8 million this financial year to deliver initiatives that prevent homelessness where possible, and when homelessness does occur, to minimise the time that is spent in temporary accommodation. The activity that I have set out is enhanced by our partnership with private, public and third sector partners. The housing to 2040 board has been central to our collaborative approach, bringing together private developers, Shelter, Crisis, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and national Government to provide a forum to work collectively, share best practice and to stress test delivery plans. There have been welcome and valuable contributions from across the partnership. One example of many is the sustained constructive input from Homes for Scotland colleagues.
In June last year, following the declaration of a housing emergency, some members of the board formed a coalition of partners to set out a range of actions in response. The coalition made 17 asks, and I am pleased to say that we assess that our action to date has resulted in almost 90 per cent of those asks being met, in part or in full. In addition to the asks that were set out by the coalition, last week, the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee published its housing inquiry report. It sets out a range of recommendations for the Scottish Government to consider as we continue our work to respond to the housing emergency. I thank the committee for its report, and we will give it close and serious attention before responding to the committee.
I have set out the work that the Scottish Government has undertaken in the past 12 months. We are making progress, but we know there is much more to do as we move into the next phase of our response.
That is why the latest programme for government reiterated our commitment to the delivery of the 110,000 affordable homes target by 2032. We will remove barriers to stalled sites, support people to access secure tenancies, double to £20 million our funding for housing adaptations for disabled tenants, and make available £97 million in discretionary housing payments, which mitigates the bedroom tax and the benefit cap. We have also extended the rural and island housing fund to March 2028 to deliver more affordable homes in rural and island communities.
The Scottish Government will continue to make progress, applying all available powers and resources to the challenge. We will, of course, continue to work at pace alongside local authority and housing coalition partners to support a co-ordinated response.
However, there remain a number of legacy issues, outstanding challenges and inhibitors that continue to present a challenge to delivery. The action that was taken in December 2022 by the UK Government to streamline the asylum decision-making process means that it will be challenging to reduce the numbers in temporary accommodation in the short to medium term, particularly in Glasgow and Edinburgh. I was deeply disappointed that UK ministers did not join a recent round-table discussion that was convened by the Scottish Refugee Council to discuss refugee homelessness in Glasgow, but participation by Scottish ministers in the work of Glasgow City Council shows that we are serious about working collaboratively on solutions.
Other factors driving the increase in homelessness lie beyond the Scottish Government’s control. Crisis has previously stated that we cannot ignore the essential role that local housing allowance rates play in preventing and ending homelessness, which is why the LHA rate should cover the bottom 30 per cent of rents in a given area as an absolute minimum. That is an issue that I have repeatedly raised with the UK Government’s child poverty task force, as such a policy would provide vital protection to those living in the private rented sector.
The Scottish Government’s interventionist approach is making a positive difference. Although the situation remains difficult, we are determined to maintain our focus and work with our partners to continue to rise to the challenges. That is the formula for moving Scotland through and past the current emergency.
The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which we will move on to the next item of business. Members who wish to put a question should press their request-to-speak buttons now.
I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement.
A year ago, the Scottish Government was forced to admit that Scotland has a housing emergency. Sir Tom Hunter has said that Scotland’s housing shortage could be resolved “tomorrow” if the Government listened to the sector. He said that he knows of developers who are choosing to take build-to-rent projects to Birmingham and Manchester because of Scottish National Party rent controls. Yet, here we are, progressing a bill to bring in permanent rent controls that is bad for investment and will not result in one home being built. Sir Tom Hunter is right, is he not? We need to “build, baby, build”.
Instead of continuing with plans to push damaging rent controls, will the Government focus on building more affordable housing? Is the cabinet secretary confident that the Government will reach its target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, considering that it is miles off its target and that today’s statement did not mention the word “build” once? Finally, will the cabinet secretary confirm today that the Scottish Government will not cut the affordable housing supply budget next year, given that it has already been cut by £218 million in real terms since 2021?
As I said in my statement, the Government is absolutely committed to the 110,000 target.
I am slightly confused about the outrage about rent controls that Ms Gallacher is portraying today, given that, at stage 2 of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, she joined Labour and the Greens to extend rent controls into other areas of the housing sector. Last week, I wrote to investors to reassure them that the Scottish Government will, if necessary, introduce amendments at stage 3 to ensure that rent controls are not extended. That addresses one of the main concerns that I have heard from investors recently.
Only last week, I also heard from investors that they need certainty. We have had differences of opinion in the Parliament about rent controls, but the Government is moving forward with them. We have made changes at stage 2 to provide certainty for investors in the build-to-rent and purpose-built student accommodation markets. The Government is determined to provide that certainty. I hope that Ms Gallacher will join me at stage 3 in voting for amendments that are needed to rectify any potential challenges that have been brought about by earlier voting at stage 2.
What the Government has brought before us is not a plan for ending the housing emergency, but, as Shelter says, “a programme for homelessness”. Freedom of information responses show that the Government runs the risk of missing every single housing target that it has set.
We have a housing budget that is lower in real terms than it was two years ago. Rates of affordable new homes are falling, which is somehow being packaged as a success. The promise of 8,000 homes in the statement is a lower number than we have had in previous years. All of that is happening in the face of 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation.
Can the cabinet secretary point to the part of her statement that will end the housing emergency, instead of allowing more children to wake up in awful hotels? Not a single individual or organisation outside the Government believes that it will end it.
I point to the Government’s strong track record delivering on affordable homes. The Government has delivered 136,000 affordable homes, which is 47 per cent more per head of population than in England and 70 per cent more per head of population than in Wales. That is a strong record that I am proud of, but I know that we need to go further. That is exactly why, as I said in my statement, we have taken a range of actions, on voids, acquisitions, affordable homes and assisting private developers.
The work that we have undertaken has been shaped by the 17 asks of the coalition, which I mentioned in my statement. Those organisations came forward with asks at the start of the housing emergency, and those asks have shaped our work on it. The coalition asked for a full reversal of the cut to the affordable housing supply budget, and that has been delivered. It asked for prioritisation of funding for larger homes and those in areas of specific pressure, and that has been delivered. It asked for specific work to be done with energy suppliers to assist with voids, and that work has been delivered, and indeed it is on-going.
We are absolutely determined to rise to the remaining challenges. I know that we have made progress, but I also know that there is more to do.
It is vital that we continue to press forward with action to tackle homelessness and ensure that everyone has a safe and secure place to call home. Can the cabinet secretary provide an update on the steps that the Scottish Government is taking to support local authorities and front-line services to prevent homelessness, and what difference the upstream homelessness prevention fund is expected to make for people who are at risk?
The project that Emma Roddick mentioned, the upstream homelessness prevention fund, was an ask by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations as a response from the housing sector on how to deal with the housing emergency. I am delighted that the Government is able to support that fund.
Homelessness prevention is vital as part of tackling the housing emergency, and it will continue to be vital once we have moved out of the housing emergency. That is why, as I mentioned in my statement, we have put an additional £4 million into the ending homelessness together budget to assist people to prepare for the new preventative powers that will come in through the housing budget. When that is put together with the more than £30 million for homelessness prevention activity that is given to local authorities and the money to mitigate the bedroom tax, which assists more than 94,000 households to safeguard their tenancies and prevent homelessness, it is clear that the prevention work that Emma Roddick rightly focuses on is integral to the work that the Government will be doing to tackle the housing emergency.
The City of Edinburgh Council pays out millions of pounds of public funds to private businesses to provide unsuitable temporary accommodation in which people do not feel safe. Does the cabinet secretary agree with the recommendation of the 36 organisations that are represented by Everyone Home that that money would be better spent creating
“a Challenge Fund for councils, housing associations and/or the third sector to replace unsuitable temporary accommodation”?
Jeremy Balfour has raised an important point about the money in the system that is used for temporary accommodation or, indeed, unsuitable temporary accommodation. Part of the focused work that the Scottish Government has undertaken in our reaction to the housing emergency is to deliver learning to all local authorities about good practice elsewhere. For example, the local authorities that are using money that could be spent otherwise on temporary accommodation should turn that money into permanent homes. That type of practice is happening more in some areas of the country than in others.
Regardless of whether that is a local authority responsibility, there is an onus on the Government to use its facilitation and convening powers to share that best practice with Edinburgh and other councils to assist in the reduction of unsuitable temporary accommodation usage.
As the Scottish Government has emphasised, the drivers of the housing emergency are long-standing, complex, interconnected and strongly related to inequality. Although build-to-rent accommodation has a role, it is not a panacea. There are many measures to take, and the cabinet secretary has mentioned some of the measures that the Scottish Government is taking in Edinburgh—where the emergency is most acute—such as the £80 million investment to realise voids and for acquisitions, and the investment in Granton as a strategic site.
How is the Scottish Government working with the City of Edinburgh Council to address the emergency and the severe situation with homelessness and temporary accommodation? Could it perhaps consider keeping the local connections regulations under review in places where there is real pressure, such as here? Can the cabinet secretary say more about the difference that changes to the local housing allowance would make?
As I mentioned in my statement, if the UK Government moved on its position on the local housing allowance, it would make a tremendous difference in Edinburgh and elsewhere. At the ask of councils, an analysis has been done of the impact of the change in local connections, which shows that there is a flow of pressure from one council to another and not a particular pressure on one council. However, we will keep an eye on that particular matter. It is an important part of people’s rights that I have no intention of taking away, but we will always look at the impact that it is having.
I mentioned the targeted work that has been done with the five main local authorities with the most pressures on temporary accommodation. Ben Macpherson mentioned the £80 million for voids and acquisitions. Voids are usually part of the day-to-day management of a council but, given the interventionist approach that the Government is keen to take, we have provided funding, which the City of Edinburgh Council and others have taken up.
I welcome the fact that Ben Macpherson got to join the First Minister to mark phase 1 of Granton waterfront and the £16 million that went to it from the housing infrastructure fund. That is another way in which the Government can provide infrastructure funding to unlock sites such as Granton.
I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests. Will the cabinet secretary accept that the £4 million homelessness prevention fund that she announced will not even cover the work that is needed in Edinburgh, never mind across the country? The Everyone Home statement was clear:
“Not enough has been done. The measures taken have been insufficient, the ambition too modest and the urgency lacking.”
In our capital city, people have to wait years to access affordable social housing. Does the cabinet secretary think that that is acceptable? We are talking about tackling homelessness and enabling people to access affordable social housing. Will the cabinet secretary acknowledge that the sector is massively underfunded?
I am sure that Sarah Boyack would recognise that the £4 million is additional funding that has come in to ready local authorities and other partners in public services for the new responsibilities that will befall them if the housing bill goes through the Parliament. It is on top of the funding that is already provided to local authorities, registered social landlords and others to enable them to assist in preventing and tackling homelessness.
With Ben Macpherson and others, I have been through the work that we are undertaking to ensure that money is being spent, particularly in Glasgow, Edinburgh and other areas where there are extreme pressures on temporary accommodation. That targeted funding is now paying dividends. I accept that there is more to do, but improvements are being made that will make an immediate difference, for example, around the voids in the City of Edinburgh Council’s own stock.
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests and to my membership of a local government pension scheme.
Given the scale of the housing emergency, it is clear that delivering the homes that Scotland needs will require innovative and collaborative approaches. Will the cabinet secretary share with us what engagement the Scottish Government has had with public and private sector pension funds to explore how their investment capacity could support new housing delivery, particularly for mid-market rent?
I thank Keith Brown for that question. It raises an important point: as well as looking at the funding that the Scottish Government can deliver, we should also look at innovative ways of bringing additional funding into the sector.
I have heard concerns from various stakeholders about some of the challenges around attracting private investment into the sector and having the right investment structures in place. Keith Brown mentions one of those challenges, which is around pension funds. That is why we are looking at innovative solutions and why the Minister for Housing established the housing investment task force, which will report in the next few weeks. It is also why we are moving on in our work on mid-market rent and institutional investment, which involves a combination of Scottish Government and private sector funding. That will pay dividends and will ensure that we are delivering much more than the public sector could deliver alone; that we are using public funds more effectively; and that we are working out the structures that we need, and can help to put in place, in order to attract higher levels of private investment.
Scottish Government data shows that there are more long-term empty homes than there were homelessness applications last year. I have lodged amendments to the Housing (Scotland) Bill that would see vacant or derelict properties being brought back into use for residential purposes through compulsory sale or lease orders. Those are just some of the measures that we need to implement to ensure that homes are for living in and to help us to prevent homelessness.
Does the cabinet secretary support those proposals to increase the number of existing homes that are actually lived in? Will she ensure a renewed focus, beyond the empty homes partnership, on bringing empty and derelict homes back into use?
I thank Maggie Chapman for the conversations that she and I have been having about the Housing (Scotland) Bill. We have perhaps agreed on some areas more than others, but the conversations have certainly always been useful.
The challenge that Maggie Chapman, rightly, mentions about the use of empty homes is an important one. In my statement, I said that work is being undertaken by empty homes officers across Scotland with Scottish Government funding support. The work that the Scottish Government has undertaken to analyse what is happening in different local authorities in relation to use of the powers that they have at the moment demonstrates that some local authorities are using their current powers much more than others. That is one of the areas where we hope to demonstrate to local authorities that are perhaps not going as far as they could that they should do so.
I will give serious consideration to Maggie Chapman’s amendments to the bill, but she will know that we will be undertaking a review of compulsory purchase orders, which involves a complex piece of legislation. Regardless of whether we want to go further on that, local authorities could be doing a lot more with the powers that they have at the moment.
Although not as much as I would like, the Government has moved away from some of the damaging policies and rhetoric of the past, which I believe contributed to the housing emergency that we have now, with high levels of temporary accommodation and low levels of new starts and completions. Will the cabinet secretary guarantee that there will be no return to policies that damage investment in housing?
As I mentioned in a previous answer, it is exceptionally important that we not only maximise the public funding that goes into housing but encourage and maximise the private investment that goes into it. I recognise the challenge that Willie Rennie puts to me today, and has put to me in the past, on ensuring that the Government does all that it can to encourage private investment. That allows private development, and, with private development, there are more affordable homes.
I reassure Willie Rennie that the Government has no intention of extending rent controls, for example. We are also working with investors to tackle any challenges that they have. I can give the example of the work that the Minister for Housing is doing on stalled sites to see what more needs to be done; we are giving active consideration to whether there is infrastructure funding that could unlock a number of such sites. I give Willie Rennie those examples to demonstrate that I know that private housing investment is an exceptionally important part of the jigsaw of tackling the housing emergency.
Housing plays a key role in sustaining our rural communities. Will the cabinet secretary provide an update on the action that the Scottish Government is taking to tackle the housing emergency in rural and island communities?
We are determined to deliver on not only the 110,000 affordable homes target but the part of the target that states that at least 10 per cent will be in rural and island communities. That work is supported by the rural and islands housing action plan. I have already mentioned some of the funds that are available for that plan, such as the £30 million rural and islands housing fund, the extension of which to March 2028 we recently announced in the programme for government. There is also the rural affordable homes for key workers fund, which is demand led, so I am keen to encourage colleagues across the chamber and the public sector to ensure that applications come in for the fund. We must encourage the best use of the homes that we have at the moment, as well as developing new homes.
The cabinet secretary’s statement made no reference at all to home builders that are small and medium-sized enterprises, which I found rather odd. The number of active SMEs is down two-thirds since the global financial crash, and more than 500 in Scotland were dissolved in 2023, yet they are vital if we are to build more homes.
This week, the cross-party group on housing heard that up-front costs are too high and the planning system is too slow. One of the biggest barriers that builders face is the cost of electricity connections, with sites across the country stalled because they cannot get on to the grid. When the cabinet secretary looks at the issue of stalled sites, which she referenced in her statement, will she look at that issue? Will she agree to then report back and even to meet members of the cross-party group?
SME developers are exceptionally important—when I mention private developers, they are an important part of that work. The work on stalled sites is also exceptionally important, whether the sites involve a small developer or one of our larger developers. In that work, Scottish Government officials, planning officials and others work with developers to go through specific stalled sites to see exactly why they are stalled and what can be done to unlock each site.
I will check in again on the issues around electricity connections, but I reassure Mr Simpson that the entire point of sitting down and looking at each site specifically is so that each issue that is stalling a site can be discussed. It might not be in the power of the Scottish Government to unlock the site, but we can facilitate discussions with other parts of the public sector or with the private sector.
As I have said in previous statements, we are also looking to see what infrastructure funding can be put in to unlock a private development. In today’s statement, I gave the example of the £16 million for Granton, but smaller sites are also considered as part of that process.
Homelessness is a terrible symptom of the housing emergency, which is actually a people emergency. People who have grown up in poverty, who have already experienced severe disadvantage and discrimination, are the most impacted. I have heard directly from women who have experienced violence in hotel accommodation, including sexual assault. That is trauma upon trauma.
The lack of housing supply is directly causing people to be homeless. Given the seriousness of the situation, will the Scottish Government commit to doing everything that it can to foster innovation and to increase the resources available for both housing supply and support to sustain tenancies, while also supporting our third sector partners to play the huge role that they can play to deliver housing first?
Elena Whitham gives me the opportunity to put on record my thanks to all those in the third sector who provide that type of support. As we work through this housing emergency, it is important to work together—the third sector is an important part of that.
Elena Whitham also mentioned tackling the issue through housing supply and support. That talks to the work that we are doing around the prevention of homelessness, the provision of more homes and the better use of the homes that we have built. I give her the reassurance that I recognise the role of the third sector in providing those services and I thank the sector very much for the work that it does for some of the most vulnerable in our society, every day of the year.
That concludes the ministerial statement. I will allow a few moments for members on the front benches to get organised for the next item of business.
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