Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, April 27, 2023

Official Report 1029KB pdf

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Community-led Housing Supporting a Sustainable Future

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-08476, in the name of Ariane Burgess, on community-led housing supporting a sustainable future. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament recognises what it sees as the vital role of community-led housing in tackling what it considers is the rural and island housing crisis, and in supporting those communities towards a sustainable future; believes that there are diverse and significant challenges facing rural and island communities in providing housing and the varied implications this has for sustaining the rural population; recognises what it considers as the enabling role of community housing trusts and organisations, such as South of Scotland Community Housing, Communities Housing Trust and Rural Housing Scotland, which support communities through what it understands can be a burdensome and long process; notes the belief that more can be done to facilitate community-led housing and remove barriers to locally-based projects; further notes the view that there is a need to support community-led affordable housing as a priority, and that the upcoming Land Reform and Community Wealth Building bills have the potential to do so; congratulates those organisations that have accomplished community housing projects and utilised available funds, such as the Rural and Island Housing Fund; considers that there is a need to learn from these organisations and continually improve, and congratulates what it sees as trailblazing projects that are testing alternative models, such as rented cohousing in the Hope CoHousing project in Orkney, and creating place-based communities through models such as Stòras Uibhist and Rural Housing Scotland’s Smart Clachan project.

12:51  

It is said that 1,000 affordable homes across the north and west of the Highlands would have a more positive impact than adding 1,000 houses to the urban sprawl of Inverness or tacking them on to Nairn. I first heard that from Ailsa Raeburn of Community Land Scotland. I heard it again when talking to Ewen McLachlan of the Assynt Development Trust in relation to the trust’s ambitious community-led housing and place-making project in Lochinver, and I have heard it from others. Building four or six new homes in a village can be transformational.

We have a commitment to build 11,000 new and affordable rural homes by 2032. All too often, our rural and island communities are low on the priority list. Let us not leave it until 2028 to turbocharge that effort. We have what we need in place to deliver the experience and effort in all parts of rural and island Scotland, but we need input from the Government to streamline funding and delivery processes, and we need public bodies to work constructively with communities, recognising that their needs are different from those of private developers.

The remote, rural and islands housing action plan is due imminently and should acknowledge that we have the necessary know-how and local commitment, as well as a history of constructive partnership working. With the commitment of £25 million to help councils to buy affordable homes for key workers in rural communities, the First Minister has recognised that something must be done.

There is a range of measures in place, or being developed, to ensure that we steer housing away from the extraction model and towards one that will lay the foundations of a wellbeing economy and will build community wealth. Those measures include regulation of the short-term lets market and a consultation on council tax on second and empty homes, but we still need to get on with building new homes in places where nothing is available. Young people and families are crucial to ensuring the long-term future of our communities, but, if they cannot find affordable homes, they cannot stay or settle in a place.

Communities in the Highlands and Islands have been leading the way and are ready to do more. The rural and islands housing fund and the Scottish land fund are game changers. With Greens in the Government, both funds have been secured, with a commitment to increase them. Greens have also secured a commitment to ensure that community housing trusts are adequately funded to support the delivery of our enhanced rural homebuilding plans. Those trusts are crucial in helping communities to find confidence and build capacity to take on their homebuilding and place-making projects.

The people at the heart of those organisations have been working on this for long enough to understand the hurdles that communities must overcome. They can help with building design, financial packages and the mix of tenures, and they can bring together constructive partnerships. In my region, the work that the Communities Housing Trust has undertaken is not only about housing. The trust supports communities in relation to place making and community wealth building by ensuring that income-generation elements go beyond housing.

In the Highlands, along with providing 25 houses, the Gairloch and Loch Ewe Action Forum has developed a tourist information hub, shops and training facilities. On Skye, the Staffin community trust, as well as providing new homes, workshops and business units, rents a purpose-built health centre to NHS Highland, which makes much-needed medical services more accessible for people. In Moray, the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Development Trust has recently handed over 12 eco-homes to new residents and is developing a bunkhouse.

Pipeline projects include those by Assynt Development Trust, the Invergarry Development Trust and Woodland Trust Scotland. They all have housing in their plans, along with other amenities including woodland crofts, path networks, enterprise work units, and education and training facilities.

Given the desperate need for affordable housing in my region, I know that Highlands and Islands Enterprise would love to see the CHT’s capacity being doubled. It has told me that we have much employment potential in the region, but, without housing, we will not be able to take full advantage of it. I have heard from communities that want to develop co-housing models, in which housing is designed to include shared common spaces. Hope CoHousing in Orkney, supported by Orkney Islands Council, is establishing the United Kingdom’s first rented tenure co-housing for over-50s. It says that it will involve

“looking out for each other, not looking after each other”.

With the Government’s commitment to a preventative approach, and the rapid closure of care homes in rural Scotland, that model must be urgently explored and invested in—not just for over-50s but for intergenerational housing for families.

I come back to the 1,000 new homes in the Highlands. The CHT and the communities that it is working with propose rolling them out at scale, just as though we were building a housing development in Inverness. That could be done by setting up hubs, which would be staging areas for materials and equipment at key locations so that we would not be starting from scratch every time. Materials could be purchased in bulk for a number of projects, which would reduce costs and carbon emissions from hauling them for long distances and would create local employment. That would utilise the often-overlooked north Highland circular economy and community wealth-building potential.

The model is not just for the Highlands; it could work in other parts of my region and in the south of Scotland. I have focused on rural housing, but we also have beautiful but neglected town centres that are ripe for redevelopment into housing. In the south of Scotland, we have the transformational Midsteeple Quarter in Dumfries, which is supported by South of Scotland Community Housing. It is being keenly studied both nationally and internationally, and Scott Mackay from the project will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming town centre regeneration conference in Moray.

As the minister will know, town centre redevelopment and retrofitting align well with our new national planning framework. Such initiatives should be enabled across Scotland. That process needs to start with a pilot project fund for market towns that would be similar to the rural and islands housing fund.

I welcome the minister’s keenness to understand the need in Scotland’s rural and island places and his intention to make visits. However, communities know what they need, and they have a proven track record and a tremendous network for peer-to-peer learning. Community-led housing enables rural communities to thrive and is an investment in people and place.

Let us support communities to get on with it and follow their lead. Let us deliver on the Bute house agreement commitments, fund the enablers, invest in the set-up of hubs for materials and prioritise a dedicated workforce. Let us start rolling out community-led housing at the scale that will be needed if we are to reach our ambitious commitment to deliver more affordable homes by 2032.

12:58  

Given that Brexit has already made it far more difficult for farmers and rural businesses to recruit people, I am sure that all members will welcome the new housing minister’s creation of a £25 million fund for affordable homes for key workers in rural areas. That comes on top of a commitment to deliver 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, with at least 10 per cent of those being in remote, rural and island areas.

I also welcome the minister’s announcement of a delivery plan to address issues relating to transport, repopulation and economic development. In Balmaha, a rural village in my constituency, a 20-unit project supported by the Communities Housing Trust and the Scottish Government cannot get on to site because no contractors are willing to work in that area. I hope that the minister will consider that urgently in his delivery plan.

Although we welcome the new providers, we should recognise the significant contribution that community-based housing associations and the co-operative movement have made to housing across Scotland. However, the Parliament needs to recognise that the movement is under severe threat from the Scottish Housing Regulator. The regulator was set up to protect the interests of tenants, and it is completely independent of Scottish ministers. It reports to Parliament only once a year, and its decisions, unlike the decisions of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, cannot be appealed to an independent body.

I worked for housing associations for 25 years, but I do not speak only from personal experience. A former director of one housing association said:

“Our tenants did not need protection by the regulator, but they needed protection from it.”

The regulator has intervened in several community-led housing organisations in recent years. That has involved third-party investigations by consultants who are approved by the regulator and are paid £1,000 per day. That has resulted in costs of literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of tenants’ money and in several community-based housing associations merging with larger organisations.

A recent proposal to merge Reidvale Housing Association, one of Glasgow’s most successful community-owned housing associations, prompted the director of one representative body to claim that the regulator

“has an unwritten ‘merger culture’”

that reflects

“an indifference to smaller scale community ownership”.

At the same time, however, the regulator has presided over the failure of Scotland’s second-largest landlord, Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership, which owned 12,000 properties. Following serious Government failings, DGHP concluded that it could not continue as an independent organisation and joined the Wheatley Group.

However, the situation is far worse than that. The January 2020 edition of Scottish Housing News reported “heavy-handed interventions” by the regulator’s staff, with a common theme of bullying. It said:

“the style of work employed by the”

regulator

“is aggressive, over the top and frightening”.

A constituent recently presented me with credible and supported evidence of the regulator’s bullying. That approach resulted in staff feeling suicidal and unable to work. However, when I asked the regulator’s chair to independently investigate those very serious allegations, he refused, saying that the regulator’s board had been assured by staff that all was in order. He also failed to release information to me that I had requested as a member of Parliament.

Members will be aware of the tragic case in England in which a headteacher took her own life following an Ofsted inspection of her school. I am worried that, without an urgent independent investigation into the regulator’s practices, something like that could happen in a Scottish housing association.

It is great that the rural housing organisations that are mentioned in Ariane Burgess’s motion can flourish and innovate, and long may that continue outwith the regulator’s scope of activities.

I remind members that speeches should be about four minutes.

13:03  

I congratulate Ariane Burgess on securing the debate. Before I get into the meat of the subject that she has raised, however, I highlight that what Evelyn Tweed had to say should be taken extremely seriously, and the matter should be investigated by the minister as a matter of urgency and taken forward in some way.

I turn to community-led housing, which is the subject of the debate. I know how passionately Ariane Burgess feels about it, because we both sit on the cross-party group on housing. We recently held a session—in fact, it was our most recent meeting—at which we looked at community-led housing and discussed some of the projects that Ariane Burgess mentioned, including the project in Gairloch, where 25 affordable homes are being built, and the one in Staffin.

It is fair to say that community-led housing is a success story, where it exists in Scotland. It provides an additional supply of homes, it helps the local economy and local industry, it encourages investment in communities and it helps younger people to realise their housing ambitions.

At the meeting that I mentioned, we heard from Ailsa Raeburn, the chair of Community Land Scotland; Ronnie MacRae, from Communities Housing Trust; and Mike Staples, from South of Scotland Community Housing. Following the meeting last month, I, as convener of the cross-party group, wrote to the then Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison, with the following asks. First, we asked the Government to publish the remote, rural and islands action plan; secondly, we asked that it consider forming a Government action group; thirdly, we asked it to commit to funding the activities of intermediary organisations; fourthly, we asked for a review of grant conditions for community-led housing; and, fifthly, we asked for funds to be made available for urban community-led housing, which Ariane Burgess mentioned in her speech, because it is not only rural housing that we are talking about.

Fast-forwarding to the present, we now have a dedicated housing minister who, to his credit, has responded swiftly to the CPG. He sent a letter dated 12 April, which I am happy to share with any member who wishes to see it. It covers most of the things that we addressed in our letter—in some respects, it is quite vague, which is not unusual for a letter from a minister, but at least it is a response. The minister has also offered to meet me—I think that that offer should include Ariane Burgess—and I hope that he will attend a meeting of the cross-party group at which we can discuss this subject, which I recognise that he feels strongly about, too.

This is an example of where Parliament can work together and shows the value of cross-party groups. If we remove party politics from an issue, we can achieve good things.

I thank the minister for his encouraging response and his approach to this issue, and, once again, I thank Ariane Burgess.

13:07  

Before I begin, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am the owner of a private rented property in the North Lanarkshire Council area.

Today’s debate on community-led housing is welcome, particularly as it allows us to discuss the role that that can play in addressing the rural and island housing crisis. I congratulate my colleague from the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee on securing the debating time today.

I am an MSP for Central Scotland, and there are actually many rural villages in my region. People who live in those villages tell us that they feel very distant from Edinburgh, Glasgow and other cities in Scotland. They also tell us that they know best what suits their own area and what does and does not work, which is a sentiment that would be reflected in all of Scotland’s communities. That is a vital reminder for us that a one-size-fits-all policy or decision rarely works for all of Scotland. Even worse, such decisions can sometimes have a negative impact if they lose the buy-in of the communities that they impact in a way that is not desired.

We can all agree that more can and should be done to facilitate community-led housing and remove barriers to locally based projects that rely on local knowledge and local input about what people’s needs are and what local people think are the solutions for their own towns and villages.

In November last year, I visited the Western Isles to learn about the severe housing crisis there and the impact of the cost of living crisis that people faced. That was at the start of a devastating winter that would leave 80 per cent of residents in fuel poverty. They felt badly let down by the UK Government’s energy support scheme because their heating oil and solid fuel had not been capped. Residents, the council and local organisations said that they felt let down by the Scottish Government, too. Tighean Innse Gall, or TIG, which is the organisation tasked with delivering the area-based scheme for the council, cited a lack of rural proofing in the PAS 2035/2030 retrofit standards as the reason for the closure of its insulation department, with the loss of 14 jobs and the loss of that service.

The Hebridean Housing Partnership told me about its maintenance regime. Maintaining its stock is absolutely crucial considering that that stock bears the brunt of the Atlantic weather. The partnership talked about how a potential social sector rent freeze might impact on its ability to do that good work.

I also heard about the huge variations in the costs of building housing in the Western Isles. It costs tens of thousands of pounds more to build on Barra than on Lewis. Most decision makers in Edinburgh would consider the Western Isles to be one homogeneous area, but, in fact, there are real differences there.

We debated Scotland’s national housing emergency yesterday. However, as Ariane Burgess’s motion points out, for rural and island communities, the emergency is compounded by the diverse and significant challenges that they face, with the implications that that has for sustaining their populations. Ferries, fuel poverty, the increased costs of just about everything, the ability to access healthcare and education and poor digital connectivity all interact with the housing crisis and make island and rural life extremely challenging.

Local people will say that they know best what does and does not work for them. We should trust them to tackle their own local housing emergency. They know best, and we should give them the tools to do that.

13:12  

Since I was elected to represent Orkney, back in 2007, challenges around housing have rarely been off the radar, but I cannot recall a time when demand for housing has been so out of kilter with supply and the need for new investment, new thinking and new approaches has been so obvious and, indeed, urgent. Therefore, I thank Ariane Burgess for allowing members this brief opportunity to debate at least some of the issues, concerns and potential solutions in the area.

The motion focuses specifically on community-led housing, which is entirely reasonable, but it is worth acknowledging that that is only one element—albeit an important one—of a wider debate.

I welcome the specific rural target that is now set within the Government’s overall commitment to building 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. That is helpful, but we are off the pace in meeting both the overall and the rural-specific targets.

That underlines the urgency of the minister coming forward with the remote, rural and islands housing plan that was originally promised for spring this year. Indeed, it would be helpful if the minister could spell out what role he expects community-led housing to play in that plan, including co-housing, which is not mentioned at all in the Government’s vision in “Housing to 2040”. However, whatever is in the plan will need to go hand in hand with a commitment to adequate funding. Without question, funding gaps remain the single biggest issue highlighted by all the stakeholders to whom I have spoken in Orkney, including all those involved in community-led housing initiatives.

The sources of the costs are many and various. Acquiring land and planning permission can be costly and time consuming. That is often the obstacle at which community-led housing projects fall. Projects often compete for land with private developers who have easier access to funds. Material costs are high and getting higher and, in the pre-construction phase, the cost of getting surveyors’ reports, building warrants and legal advice can run into six figures, even for quite modest developments.

There is often a relative shortage of contractors and indeed professional support in rural and island communities, particularly when there is a lot of building going on. That is certainly the case in my Orkney constituency. Looking further ahead, the introduction of the welcome higher standards in relation to Passivhaus will inevitably increase costs further. Those high and increasing costs are not being matched at the moment by increasing commitments to funding. The value of the funding that is currently available is being inflated away, so the Government needs to address this particular issue—and, as Mark Griffin said, there will be variability within island groups and within rural areas.

In the time remaining to me, I would like to particularly welcome the reference in Ariane Burgess’s motion to the Hope CoHousing project in Orkney. It was not recognised in the “Housing to 2040” strategy; I hope that that will now be addressed. It is an initiative that builds a community of homes with shared functions and amenities, bringing together groups of private individuals who are looking out for—rather than looking after—each other. It provides collective living and is mutually supportive. It has particular benefits for older members of the population, as it addresses issues of social isolation and loneliness through joint activities and interactions and, in turn, it keeps individuals engaged within the wider community, strengthening those communities as well. The Hope CoHousing model is slightly different in that it is a rental model rather than the leaseholder model that has been more traditionally pursued.

It offers older people the opportunity to live somewhere between independent living and care homes and formal retirement housing, reducing care costs and maintaining that sense of independence and agency. However, there are challenges. There is no obvious source of funding for the pre-construction phase, and, in the case of Hope CoHousing, that cost amounted to over £150,000, so the Government needs to look at that particular aspect as well as at making it easier for community-led housing projects to acquire land and to be facilitated through the planning process.

Housing—community-led housing, in particular—is crucial to sustaining and building resilience in our rural and island communities and I very much hope that the Government will embrace that and take on board some of the ideas that have been referred to in this debate. The Government would certainly get my support in those endeavours.

13:17  

I thank the member for the Highlands and Islands, Ms Burgess, for her members’ business motion today.

Community-controlled housing associations are vitally important to the prosperity of communities across Scotland. In recent years, we have seen more and more of them being swallowed up by larger, locally unaccountable housing associations, many with head offices outwith Scotland. That is a great shame, because the whole purpose of social housing in Scotland is to ensure that there is a social element to the basic commodity of housing. There is a rich history of success in the community-controlled housing sector. It is not—or, at least, it should not be—a method for wealth extraction or the stripping of assets that are currently owned and managed in the community; it should not be a corporate game of boardroom Monopoly with no get-out-of-jail-free card for tenants when the big boys fail to deliver; and it should not be a lever by which to control finance, remove democratic power and exert unwelcome external influence.

If we go back to the original pioneering days of the Glasgow Corporation slum clearances and the first community housing association that was set up to save those tenement districts in Glasgow, we see that it was done on the basis that those taking control of the assets were management committees of committed volunteers, elected by local people, who were rooted in their communities and knew what was best for the local people who lived and worked there. That was the very genesis of community-controlled housing associations and, sadly, I fear that we are swiftly departing from that stated aim.

Let me just put on the record that not all large housing associations are bad. In some instances, they are actually very good, and there is undoubtedly a role for them to play in this sector. However, we are now seeing community-controlled housing associations that are financially robust, solvent and providing great services to their tenants being taken over at board level and railroaded into mergers, with promises of a land of milk and honey.

There is no better example of that than Reidvale Housing Association in the east end of Glasgow, as the member for Stirling pointed out earlier. It was set up in 1975 as one of the first community-run housing associations in the UK. It acquired a swathe of tenement properties in Dennistoun and prevented the evisceration of that community. Since then, it has refurbished its 900 properties and brought its community back to life through the introduction of traffic-calming measures in a densely populated part of Glasgow. Indeed, it is one of the most attractive communities to live in in the city today.

Reidvale Housing Association is financially robust, solvent and able to easily provide the services that its tenants and the wider community require. Yet, it has been earmarked for what is being dubbed as a transfer but is in reality a takeover. The housing association that is looking to acquire Reidvale’s assets and stock has named itself Places for People Scotland, yet in reality it is a massive England-based parent company called Places for People, which operates in Scotland as Castle Rock Edinvar Housing Association—some of our Edinburgh colleagues may be aware of it. They may also be aware that the parent company appoints Castle Rock Edinvar Housing Association’s board and that it can remove members at will, as well as placing its own staff on the board. Currently, the Reidvale board is elected annually at its annual general meeting by tenants and other service users, and the board members are free and able to stand for election. That is a democratic right that will be ripped away if Places for People and Castle Rock Edinvar get their way.

To entice current Reidvale residents, the company is offering a five-year rent freeze guarantee, despite the housing regulator’s website showing that Places for People’s rents elsewhere in the country are up to 26 per cent higher than the Scottish average. Let us have a quick look at its performance compared to Reidvale’s: the average rent that is charged by Reidvale for a three-bedroom flat is £69 per week; Places for People charges £98 per week. Reidvale has a current overall satisfaction rate of 95 per cent; PFP has a satisfaction rate of 81 per cent. Eighty-nine per cent of Reidvale’s stock meets the Scottish housing quality standard; quite shockingly, only 3 per cent of PFP’s stock meets those standards. Reidvale’s average response time for emergency repairs is three hours; PFP takes 14 hours on average, which is more than four times slower. For non-emergency repairs, Reidvale takes one day on average; PFP takes 17 days, which is 17 times slower.

The whole thing stinks, and it begs the question: why? Why would a housing association that is predominantly based in England with an outpost in Edinburgh want to acquire a Glasgow-based housing association? I think that the answer is quite straightforward: profit. It knows that it would be incredibly profitable in the long term, due to the area in which Reidvale sits, and it knows that it will be incredibly profitable because Reidvale is a profitable organisation with zero debt.

I am conscious of the time, but, just before I finish, I will say that the minister and the Government more generally will be wondering why this is a political issue and not something that can just be left to the regulator to sort out. The reality is that, unless we introduce legislation in the Parliament that compels the Scottish Housing Regulator to provide on-going practical support to community-controlled housing associations to ensure that they are not swallowed by poorly performing behemoths, this charade will continue unabated. Organisations that have a proven track record of bringing about regeneration, prosperity and inclusivity to neighbourhoods and communities are being lost. If we are all going to stand here and wonder why that is happening, while allowing it to happen, we are all complicit.

The modus operandi of the big, unaccountable housing associations is to build new soulless schemes. We do not need that, especially not in Glasgow. We need strong, locally-run community controlled housing associations that are rooted in our local areas and are determined to grow and develop, with quality and inclusivity at the forefront of their minds, alongside providing a real influencing role for tenants and volunteers. Let us be clear that, like every other sector in this country, the big players and corporates do not do this out of the goodness of their hearts: they do it because it makes them very rich. They can dress it up all they like with promises that they will not keep, but I can assure them that we and the local community will fight them every step of the way.

I ask colleagues across all parties to seek to agree to the need for legislative and regulatory change urgently in order to preserve and further develop a community-controlled housing model that will continue to serve Scotland’s people well and deliver the real and measurable outcomes for its communities that we sorely need.

13:23  

I refer members to my entry in the register of interests. This is the third housing-related debate within a week, and, as I said yesterday to Mr Griffin and others, I welcome as many housing debates as possible to discuss the issues that have been raised. I thank Ariane Burgess for securing the debate in the chamber in order to highlight the important role that community-led housing plays in rural and island communities, as well as the vital role that organisations play in supporting areas to bring forward their own housing projects to meet people’s needs in their localities.

Housing of the right type and in the right place can have a powerful, intergenerational impact, as we all know, supporting people to access the housing that they need, enabling young people to stay in the communities they grew up in and supporting local businesses to retain and attract employees. Community-led housing plays an important role in our broad approach to deliver more affordable homes in our remote, rural and island communities. To the point that Mr Sweeney made, it is not just in those communities; it is across Scotland in our urban communities, too. I will pick up that issue with the member later, if that is okay.

The Scottish Government wants everyone to have a warm, energy-efficient home that meets their needs. That is why housing is a key part of the interdependent missions that were published this week. We are clear in the “Equality, opportunity, community” document that affordable housing is a key part of our mission to prioritise our public services. The document sets out two important plans for rural areas. The first one is obviously the published rural delivery plan, which focuses on how all parts of the Scottish Government are delivering for rural Scotland, including through our policies in areas such as agriculture, land reform, repopulation, economic development, transport and, of course, housing.

We will also publish a remote, rural and islands housing action plan that will set out our approach to rural housing delivery, including support for community housing projects. When that is published, I want to meet and engage with as many stakeholders as I possibly can. That is open to anybody in the chamber—please invite me to come along and speak to organisations that you think it would be useful for me to speak to in that context.

The plan will include up to £25 million from our affordable homes budget to allow properties, including empty homes, to be purchased or long leased and turned into homes for rural key workers and others who need affordable housing in rural areas.

Although I very much welcome the funding that the minister referred to, I understand that it is targeted through councils and RSLs. That is understandable to some extent, but it excludes development trusts, which can play a pivotal role in the delivery of housing in rural and island communities. Might he reflect on whether routing through development trusts might be added to that funding pot?

Yes, I will look into that and come back to Liam McArthur, if that is okay.

As I said, that is in addition to the £30 million programme through the affordable housing supply programme. That fund plays an important role in offering community organisations and others who are not able to access traditional affordable house funding a way to deliver affordable homes in remote, rural and island areas while complementing delivery through our mainstream programme by councils and housing associations. There is also the point that Mr McArthur made about development trusts.

That programme has been a success. Between 2016 and 2017 and 2021 and 2022, we supported the delivery of 8,000 affordable homes in rural and island areas. We are now working towards our target of 110,000 homes by 2023, 70 per cent of which will be available for social rent and 10,000 of which will be in remote, rural and island communities. That is backed up by £3.5 billion of funding in this parliamentary term.

Alongside that new delivery, it is important that we ensure that local areas have the tools to make use of their existing housing stock. I will come on to that in relation to some of the contributions in a minute or so.

Over the past decade, the growth of online platforms has fuelled the trend for residential homes, particularly in tourist hotspots, to be changed from primary homes to short-term lets or second homes. That can cause problems for local residents and make it harder for local people, particularly young people or those with fewer resources, to find homes to live in. We also remain concerned about the number of empty homes in Scotland that could be brought back into use for people to live in. There is a review of that at the moment, which will be published later this year.

On 17 April, we announced a joint public consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on giving local authorities the power to increase council tax on second and empty homes as well as on considering whether the current non-domestic rates thresholds for self-catering accommodation remain appropriate. That is the first joint consultation with COSLA, recognising that local authorities have an essential role in considering the right balance in their local areas, taking into account local needs.

Every community is different. Although some have experience of delivering housing solutions to meet their own specific housing needs, some do not. Ariane Burgess mentioned South of Scotland Community Housing and Communities Housing Trust among other organisations. Those have been, and continue to be, vital in supporting those communities to realise their housing ambitions.

Opportunity, equality and community are vital to everyone, no matter where they live. However, delivering affordable housing in rural and island areas presents additional challenges. We cannot lose sight of the fact that the delivery of more homes in those communities is vital, with solutions developed collaboratively by partners including community groups, rural housing enablers and local authorities among others to drive projects forward to delivery.

Community-led local development was mentioned, which is key in supporting thriving and resilient rural communities. The community-led local development network of local action groups works across Scotland’s rural and island communities and is important for delivering grassroots projects with local determination, which can address a number of rural development projects.

I will touch on a few of the contributions. Ariane Burgess mentioned construction and employment, which I would be keen to discuss with her. That is important not only in our rural communities but across our delivery programme. I totally agree that community-led housing is an economic enabler in the wider community. It can drive communities.

Mr Griffin mentioned his visit to the Western Isles. I visited South Uist a number of months ago with the Social Justice and Social Security Committee. Housing there would drive forward economic prosperity, which is vitally important.

On the points made by Evelyn Tweed regarding the regulator, the regulator operates independently; it reports directly to the Scottish Parliament. I am happy to take up any issues that she and Paul Sweeney raised in that regard.

Graham Simpson talked about me meeting with the cross-party group. I would be delighted to meet him and the group, and I hope to come along to the next meeting. If I can get the date in the diary, I am more than happy to do that.

Mark Griffin talked about his visit.

I heard the minister say that he is going to look into the concerns that both Mr Sweeney and I raised. I completely understand that the Scottish Housing Regulator is independent of Government. However, if it is operating in a way that is not good for community-led housing associations across Scotland, is it not for the Government to look at that?

As I said, the regulator reports to the Parliament. I will take advice from officials about how we can address it. I am happy to meet Evelyn Tweed and Paul Sweeney, and officials, to discuss the issues that have been raised.

The Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations has been very strident in its concerns about the behaviour of the regulator as well as about the culture of consultancy that has crept in around it. That is a very insidious and potentially corrupt practice that needs to be urgently investigated, and I urge the minister to look into it.

I make that commitment. I will take that on. I am happy to meet Paul Sweeney and Evelyn Tweed in that regard.

The point that Mr Sweeney made about community-controlled housing associations is key. It is about not only our community-led organisations but organisations throughout Scotland. He mentioned in his speech how important that is in some areas in Glasgow.

Mr McArthur mentioned community-led housing and the target, which is incredibly important.

The co-housing model is also worth considering. I worked with a number of extra-care housing groups and set up an extra-care housing task force, which had a parliamentary event and a stall here. That model is key to how we explore rural housing.

I thank members for their contributions. I am delighted that this is the third housing debate that we have had in a week. I am aware of the time, so I will conclude.

I thank Ariane Burgess for bringing the debate forward and all those who took part. I recognise the crucial role that community-led housing plays in our vital rural and island communities. As I said, the offer is there; I am happy to visit any suggested groups that members think it would be worth while for me to go and visit. I am grateful for the work that has been undertaken and that continues to be undertaken by communities and rural housing developers to deliver more affordable homes in our rural and island communities. They deserve that.

That concludes the debate.

13:32 Meeting suspended.  

14:29 On resuming—