Homelessness
The next item of business is a debate on homelessness.
Two years ago, Parliament passed the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003. At that time, we committed ourselves to ending what was seen as an artificial distinction between people in priority need and those who were not, and to ending what was seen as unfair rationing of access to permanent, secure and safe accommodation among different groups of people. I am sure that we all want to create a fair and equal Scotland with rights and opportunities for all. We recognised, therefore, that discrimination against single homeless people, particularly men, was unjust and should be tackled. Today we meet to discuss how to deliver the 2012 commitment and the challenges that we face in doing so.
We have every right to be proud of our homelessness legislation, which is widely regarded as being the most progressive in Europe. In our devolved Scotland, effectively preventing and tackling homelessness is a top priority and we believe that everybody has the right to a safe and permanent secure home—there is no place for homelessness in Scotland.
The 2003 act provides for the abolition of priority need by 2012. We remain committed to that policy, which will ensure that every unintentionally homeless person is entitled to permanent accommodation. That fits with our objective to deliver good-quality, warm, sustainable and affordable housing for all. The abolition of priority need by 2012 is a challenging target, but in supporting its establishment, Parliament recognised that the target is about social justice.
Many of us have concerns about the implications of abolishing priority need. We have an opportunity to discuss those concerns today, to explore the implications and to find out whether they can be addressed. Today also provides an opportunity for me to reiterate the Executive's commitment to ensuring that we find positive solutions to the problems that homeless people face.
Homelessness remains a challenging agenda, but that does not mean that we should put it in the box marked "too difficult". I trust that the debate will reflect the real challenges and tensions within the policy, which we need to recognise. We owe that to our communities and to the people who are affected by homelessness. Parliament and the Government are committed to the wider aims of eradicating poverty, tackling social exclusion and changing Scotland for the better. Tackling homelessness and providing the fundamental right to a home are bound to those ideals.
Our policy approach to homelessness is based on addressing the causes of homelessness and meeting the needs of individual households. That marks a move away from pigeonholing homeless people and rationing resources in an artificial manner. We know that homelessness is experienced in different ways by different individuals. The situation is often different within urban areas and within and between rural areas. We acknowledge that, for some people who find themselves in the most difficult circumstances, their experience of homelessness will be solved not so much by bricks and mortar as through other important areas of policy to which the Executive is committed.
Notwithstanding the validity of the minister's final comment, is not it the case that one of the fundamental underlying causes of homelessness is the lack of supply of housing at the affordable end of the market? Are ministers really convinced that they are programming in enough construction to meet people's needs by 2012?
That is part of the cause in certain places. In some cities, however, there are both homelessness and surplus housing. We must reflect on that in our policy, as well as recognise the issues of supply in other places that are caused by prosperity rather than by decline. We need to acknowledge the complexity of the situation. It is precisely because of our understanding of that need for supply at the affordable end of the market that huge amounts of money have been identified for supporting the development of an affordable housing programme. We are committed to providing sustainable housing outcomes for all homeless people.
It is worth considering who homeless people actually are. Often, homeless people are stigmatised by society and are regarded as being undeserving or undesirable. The reality is that any one of us could become homeless through unexpected circumstances. We might know members of our own families, acquaintances or other people who have ended up homeless through reasons of employment, health, the cost of food and utilities or a lack of security in their family relationships.
When dealing with those issues, we must remember that the homeless are not just people out there on the streets; they are people who we might all be if our circumstances were different. They require different solutions and different assistance to find ways out of their situations. We need to work hard to ensure that homeless people are seen as individuals and as part of their communities, rather than apart from them. Each homelessness application is from a real person who has a unique set of circumstances and difficulties. Each of them is a person with potential. We need to ensure that they are not written off and that they are able to fulfil their potential within their communities.
To return to something to which the minister alluded earlier, does she have any plans to look into intentional homelessness?
We are currently considering abolishing priority need for intentionally homeless people. We need to move stage by stage on such questions, and we must explore whatever issues are raised with us by people who experience homelessness in different ways.
We have already made real progress in delivering the wider homelessness agenda. Much has been achieved by local authorities and voluntary bodies working in partnership to deliver the recommendations of the two homelessness task force reports, which have helped to shape the blueprint for our national policy. We have already reformed the legislative framework to ensure that every homeless person is entitled to a minimum of temporary accommodation with advice and assistance. That has helped to expose hidden homelessness and has encouraged people who previously had no housing rights to come forward and receive assistance.
We have made huge strides in tackling rough sleeping and repeat homelessness. All local authorities have homelessness strategies in place, and they are working closely with health boards, housing associations and others to combat homelessness in their areas. We now have better information about the scale and nature of the problem and we have been working with local authorities to ensure that that is fully reflected in the wider context of housing need and in the forward planning of housing stock. Our approach has always emphasised partnership. We have a challenging target, and we recognise the need to work with partners who are involved in delivery of services. As in so many other areas, national policy must be informed and shaped by people who know the situation on the ground and who know what does and does not work. The 2003 act requires ministers to make a statement before the end of this year, setting out the steps that ministers and local authorities have taken, are taking and will take to ensure that our vision for 2012 becomes reality.
The legislation is implicit in its acknowledgement of local authorities as the main deliverers, and we have been working closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and individual councils in developing the policy. Local authorities' homelessness role is challenging and requires support from the Executive and other partners. I acknowledge the additional challenges that have been set for local authorities and extend my thanks for the hard work that has been undertaken. I am confident that continued close partnership working between all the relevant partners and sectors will lead to effective delivery of our ambitious homelessness legislation.
It is vital that the priority need statement is based on up-to-date and accurate information. We have worked with local authorities and COSLA to gather detailed local information. All the available data will be considered in order to project housing need levels when priority need is abolished by 2012. Support needs and wider housing needs will also be covered. That data-gathering exercise is the start of a process to plan for the move to 2012. The information provides initial estimates that will be refined over time as more data become available. We will work closely with local authorities on that process.
We acknowledge that major changes cannot take place overnight and that we need to be realistic about the deliverability of our policy. There is no point in expanding homeless people's rights beyond the capacity of local authorities to meet those rights, which is why the 2003 act provides the power to make changes over time. We made it clear during the passage of the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill that change would not take place unless the additional burdens that were placed on councils were manageable and sustainable. That remains our position.
The minister says that extra demands will not be met unless they are manageable and sustainable. The words that have been missed out are "properly resourced". Will she give Scotland's local authorities a commitment that they will be properly resourced to meet the extra burdens that the 2003 act places on them?
A manageable and sustainable activity must be resourced. Of course, we have continuing dialogue at all times with all sorts of bodies and organisations about resource need. The statement on priority and the work that has been done with COSLA are intended to identify the resource needs and how progress will be made. I am content to say that. I recognise that resource is not the only factor; other elements include how we work together and the timescales for delivery.
The abolition of priority need raises questions about local authorities' ability to cope with the additional demands that will be placed on homelessness and housing services. Delivery of the target depends on an adequate supply of affordable housing in the right areas. Availability of social and other affordable housing is a crucial part of the equation.
It is important that a full range of housing solutions is available because we know that a social let may not be the best solution for every household. I appreciate that concern is felt that abolishing priority need will mean that social housing is made available only to homeless households, but that is not the desired outcome. We do not intend to displace housing need from one group to another. Work to examine the current situation and potential future scenarios has focused on the percentage of lets to homeless households. That will continue to be an important indicator in how we move towards 2012, but it will not be the only one.
Given the immediate housing needs of homeless households, it is entirely legitimate that a high proportion of social lets should go to them. However, I recognise the need to balance that with the housing need of others and to ensure fairness and opportunity for all. That task is not easy, but we intend to consider it closely in preparation for the statement.
What percentage of housing would be fair and reasonable to meet the needs of homeless people rather than other people? What factors might influence that in different local authority areas?
I say with respect that the conversations and dialogue that we have with local authorities are about precisely that. They know how the policies will be expressed locally. If the current proposal cannot meet the balance, we must have evidence about that and about how to redress the balance. The situation will be different in different places. We know that people in some places are being displaced into social rented housing from the property market because the property market is hot, for example. That is different from the situation in areas where decline has taken place because we have not invested in communities as a result of other difficulties.
I am aware that many members have worries about the balance of communities in their areas. There is no question but that some homeless households have extreme support needs and can display challenging behaviour. However, most people who are in housing need or who are homeless are not antisocial. We should be careful not to create further stigma by inferring the general from the specific. One reason why I welcomed action against antisocial behaviour is that when such behaviour was not addressed in my constituency, it created homelessness when people had to flee harassment from others, or created housing need because an area became undesirable—a place where people did not want to live. Houses were empty because we did not address antisocial behaviour.
So far, I have talked about homelessness and access to housing, but as I said earlier, meeting the 2012 target is about far more than providing bricks and mortar. In order to meet the target, we must work in partnership with local government and the voluntary sector to deliver the broader homelessness agenda. Members will know that the homelessness task force placed a strong emphasis on prevention activity, which is a key factor as we move towards 2012. We want to make such activity a clear focus as we progress. As I have said, that makes obvious economic sense and is essential in reduction of social costs. Early action to prevent circumstances in which eviction is necessary also makes sense. That is not to say that we should ignore problems in our communities; we should act early, prevent problems where we can and deal with them where we cannot.
In conclusion, I look forward to the debate and to hearing the views of members from all parties on the delivery of a key social justice policy. The debate will play its part in shaping the statement and the statement will shape action in the years ahead to deliver a shared commitment and to tackle poverty and disadvantage. We are committed to working in partnership to deliver the right to permanent, safe and secure accommodation to all unintentionally homeless households by 2012. Local authorities are our key partners and main deliverers, so our priority is to work with them. We must remember that our priority is to provide together safe and secure homes for all Scotland's people.
The Scottish National Party whole-heartedly supported the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill, which the Scottish Executive introduced. The legislation that was passed is the most far-reaching homelessness legislation in Europe and has been widely praised—the Executive has rightly received accolades for it. By 2012, it will sweep away the artificial distinction between people who are homeless and people who are homeless and in priority need.
However, as Linda Fabiani said at the time, the Labour-Liberal Executive must deliver: it must put in place the resources and structures that will allow the legislation to be fully implemented, otherwise the legislation will remain a worthy aspiration, but worthless and a betrayal of the many people who could have benefited from it.
I had expected the minister to make a statement today—the legislation requires the minister to make a statement by the end of the year—on how he expects the target to be met by 2012. That no such statement will be given today illustrates the difficulties the Executive is in.
It is desirable that I make it absolutely clear at the start of the debate that there will be a statement before the end of this year and that this debate is part of the process that will feed into the statement.
I fully accept that there will be a statement by the end of this year, but I point out that the legislation requires the minister to come to Parliament by the end of the year to make such a statement.
Many warnings were given throughout the passage of the bill. The Executive must make it clear in its statement how the legislation will be implemented in full because we are a long way from ensuring that everyone has decent and affordable accommodation in which to live. The Government does not have a responsibility to build every house, but it has a responsibility to ensure that the resources and structures are in place to ensure that houses are built. The Labour Party has been in power since 1997 and the Labour-Liberal Executive has had responsibility for housing in Scotland since 1999, but people are still sleeping on streets and on friends' settees and are still spending nights in hostels for the homeless in Scotland in the 21st century. Young people and families are living in overcrowded conditions with relatives because they cannot afford to buy a house and cannot get a council house, while council houses are lying empty because councils cannot afford to renovate them.
I have had many discussions with housing organisations, individuals and councillors in the past few weeks and I must tell the ministers that few people to whom I have spoken believe that the target of housing all the people who are homeless can be met by 2012 unless the Executive gets to grips with the situation now. Those who think that the target can be met believe that it will be met only at the expense of people who are not homeless. In other words, those who are homeless and in acute housing need will be set against those who are not homeless but still need a home of their own, and those who need a home of their own will in turn present as homeless because their circumstances will change and their need for a home of their own will result in acute housing need. Councils and other social landlords will not be able to deliver. Time is starting to run out.
Homelessness is not caused by people being inadequate or feckless; homelessness is a direct result of a failure to deliver housing that meets need. Unless the affordability, the supply and the condition of housing in Scotland are tackled, we will always have homelessness. We need to build more houses, for which the land must be made available; however, we have a planning white paper that barely acknowledges the need for housing. Scottish Water is currently putting a stop on new housing development because it cannot or will not supply the infrastructure. Where is the ministerial direction? Councils are demolishing structurally sound houses because they cannot afford to renovate them and are then selling the ground to private developers to build houses that cost more than £100,000, which people who are on the minimum or an average wage, or who are on council waiting lists, cannot afford to buy.
The supporting people fund, which supports vulnerable people in the community and helps them to sustain tenancies, has been cut in real terms by 12 per cent this year. There will be a further cut in the years to come, as the minister acknowledged at the Communities Committee yesterday. The target of ensuring that we do not have repeat homelessness will not be met and the Executive will fail in its objective. I would like the minister to say something more about the supporting people fund, which is absolutely crucial in giving the housing support and advice that the minister has said is needed to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Malcolm Chisholm's first ministerial duty in 1997 was to attend a Shelter conference that I organised. There was great anticipation in the housing world, and there was great hope that at long last housing would be given priority. In 2004, not one local authority house in Scotland was built. Last year, fewer houses for social rent were built than under the Conservative Government in 1997. Yes—we have had a raft of housing legislation, which has found SNP support; however, passing legislation is the easy part. The role of Government is to deliver, and the Executive must by the end of the year set out clearly how it intends to do so and how it intends to meet the target for 2012. It must make absolutely sure that it will not fail to meet the targets that it has set because of its inaction so far.
I welcome the debate and the post-enactment legislative scrutiny that will be undertaken by the Communities Committee. I apologise in advance for the fact that I will be unable to be here for the minister's winding-up speech.
I am sure that every MSP who holds regular surgeries has his or her own homeless list. In the past month, I have worked to help a man who is sleeping out in the Ness islands in Inverness but who was not considered a homelessness priority; a man who was sleeping in a friend's garden shed, who was lucky enough to be given bed and breakfast accommodation; other men who have been sleeping on friends' sofas; a single mum who was worried about turning down a house because she did not want to live in an area but thought she would be put to the bottom of the list; mental health patients; and people who are recovering from drug problems and alcohol addiction. Probably the biggest group of homeless people are single men who have left their family homes to their wives and children and who subsequently cannot have their children over to stay with them because they are in one-bedroom and temporary accommodation. There are many others.
My speech is based largely on the current experience in the Highlands and in Argyll and Bute. We should be listening closely to what the councils have to say there as they struggle to cope with the legislation. Argyll and Bute Council has said that the 2012 target is unachievable unless massive additional investment is given to it. In Highland Council's region, four out of eight areas will not be able to meet the 2012 target.
Housing is not just about allocating homes to homelessness applicants although, in some authorities, that sometimes seems to be the case. Argyll and Bute Council allocates 80 per cent of its lets to people who are designated as homeless. In its briefing, the council states:
"This is causing a great deal of anger from those on the main housing waiting lists who are aware that their opportunity of being allocated a house is remote, and has reduced greatly since the legislation came in."
The council further states that
"This legislation is not going to help us create balanced communities."
I will come back to that point later.
I find that many elderly single people live in three-bedroom accommodation and I wonder how often councils and housing associations write to all their tenants to ask whether their accommodation is still appropriate for their needs. Given the aging population, some forward planning might be done by considering more types of sheltered accommodation and more appropriate accommodation, particularly for single men.
The Bank of Scotland recently stated that there are 87,000 empty homes throughout Scotland. More than 10,000 of them are in Glasgow, almost 9,000 are in Edinburgh and 7,000 are in Aberdeen. Of course, they are not always in areas for which there is high demand, but if we are serious about homelessness, surely an analysis of how to improve the viability of those empty homes would be a first step.
Highland Council sent a not-very-brief briefing paper for today's debate and I will highlight some of the issues that it raises. It is important to understand that housing applicants in the Highland Council area who want to be located near their family in Fort William, for example, cannot possibly accept being housed in Wick. They could not visit in one day by using public transport. The numbers on Highland Council's waiting list continue to rise while the number of lets that are being allocated continues to fall. As an increasing number of people are assessed as being homeless, an increasing percentage of lets is going to homeless households.
The year after the legislation, there was a 59 per cent increase in people who were assessed as homeless by Highland Council, with a further 15 per cent increase in 2004-05. The council states that in an area that has no social housing and in which very few registered social landlord properties are being built, the
"stigmatisation and resentment of homeless households (who many perceive to be ‘jumping the queue') is already not uncommon and will be likely to increase."
In my surgery work, I have also become aware of the situation leading to bullying and, in some cases, extreme and persistent antisocial behaviour.
The local connection requirement in homelessness applications will be suspended in 2006. That will surely have an effect on homelessness applications. In places such as Glencoe, Ballachulish, Ardnamurchan and the Kyle of Lochalsh, it will certainly result in far greater resentment. Many local people cannot understand why people who come into the area get a house before someone whose family has lived there for generations gets one. That feeling comes through very strongly from the Highlands and from Argyll and Bute.
For many homelessness applicants, it is vital that a support system for care is in place for their entry into accommodation. I have dealt with many mental health patients and people with drug addictions; if they do not get the support of care in the community, their tenancies fail. They end up back in hospital, or the hostels, and they present as homeless within six months or a year.
Highland Council has stated that, given the severe cuts in the supporting people budget,
"it is almost impossible to develop the services needed to support homeless applicants across the Highlands, many of whom will have housing support needs."
It is a sad cycle in which a lack of support leads to failed tenancies, increased homelessness and rising stigmatisation of homelessness applicants. Even the Salvation Army briefing mentions that people in hostels for the homeless find it impossible to move on because of a lack of community housing. I have heard about bed blocking in hospitals but never in hostels for the homeless, but that is what the Salvation Army calls it.
The number of households with dependent children living in temporary accommodation increased by 18 per cent in the past year—that shows the seriousness of the issue.
The right to buy has helped to increase home ownership in Scotland by more than 30 per cent, with approximately 400,000 tenants exercising that right, but according to Scottish Executive research, 21 per cent of properties that have been sold under the right to buy have subsequently been resold on the open market. People are entitled to do so, given their personal and family circumstances. As a result, the argument that right-to-buy properties are lost as affordable housing when they are sold is totally inaccurate. Rather, they are bought by their tenants, many of whom have lived in them for decades.
Homelessness should not arise in a modern society. After all, we should be able to organise ourselves to prevent such an evil. Broad societal changes can radically alter the demand for housing; indeed, properties in given areas might well become less popular because of certain geographical or local factors. Nevertheless, it should not be beyond people in today's Scotland to cope with and plan for such factors. In that spirit, I welcome the minister's opening remarks.
Where do we stand on the objective? In recent years, the growth of one-person households has stimulated demand for more housing units. It is difficult to say when such demand will peak, but it might well plateau before too long. The Institute for Public Policy Research's report on living alone—which I have not had a chance to digest because it was published only today—might inform how we address issues associated with single-person households, such as the higher costs of running them and, indeed, the people who live in them. According to the demographic profile, such households are made up predominantly of men under 65.
Similarly, the growth in the number of second families has increased demand for bigger social rented houses. From my constituency experience, I know that it can be very hard to find a three or four-bedroom property for partners who have three or four children of different ages, as they obviously cost more to provide.
The Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 has been acclaimed as one of the most progressive pieces of homelessness legislation in Europe. As members have pointed out, it was backed by parties throughout the chamber. Our task now is to implement its provisions. If I can be permitted a party aside, I think that it is worth remembering that the first piece of homelessness legislation was taken through Westminster by the late Stephen Ross, who was for many years the Liberal MP for the Isle of Wight.
The 2003 act's fundamental objective is to ensure that by 2012 all unintentionally homeless people have access to permanent accommodation. I welcome the minister's indication that he will soon report to Parliament on how he will phase out the priority need test. This debate is a contribution to that process.
Four issues are of major importance with regard to homelessness. First, Shelter Scotland reports that there is room for improvement in housing advice services. As the national picture is quite patchy, the minister might consider reviewing such services and, where appropriate, emphasising the desirability of making the services as local as possible. After all, they are clearly important for people who are trying to find accommodation. People who are homeless or who are likely to become homeless have only limited opportunities to travel far to receive the best advice, which is face-to-face advice. Will the minister consider assessing the quality of advice services by commissioning an independent agency to survey people who have used them? Household management advice should also be available, particularly to young people who are entering a property for the first time, to ensure that they do not become unintentionally homeless. Such advice services are critical.
Between 1999 and 2002, the Executive ran an empty homes programme that seemingly brought 1,400 houses back into use. However, the number of empty properties remains too high. I understand that, at any one time, an average of between 22,000 and 23,000 private sector properties have been empty for more than six months. At the Communities Committee yesterday, I suggested to the minister that changes in certain pensions regulations might help to stimulate the private sector. In some areas—especially rural areas—the opportunity to rent is possible only in the private sector. In his closing speech, will the minister say whether, in the light of the Westminster development on pensions, he might consider reviving the initiative, perhaps in a new form?
Local housing strategies are key to ensuring the important local responses to the complexities of shortages, surpluses, special needs and changing demographics. Those strategies need further development, although I appreciate that they are in their infancy. I understand that the right to buy is to be reviewed in 2006. There is an important coincidence there. I believe that the right to buy might be devolved to local housing strategies in due course.
The idea of pressured area status is perhaps not working as well as it might be or, indeed, as it was envisaged. I believe that two councils—Highland Council and South Ayrshire Council—have applied for such status, and another possible application is out for consultation, but as yet no pressured area status has been approved.
We need to ensure that policy is matched to the many and varied local needs around the country. That has not yet been achieved in the local housing strategies. It needs to be if we are to remove homelessness from Scotland.
We now move to the open debate. I intend to keep members to a tight six minutes so that I can call every back bencher who wishes to speak.
When it was passed, the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 was, as others have said, hailed as the most progressive piece of homelessness legislation in western Europe. It was acclaimed for its ambition and for its sense of social justice. The act aimed at nothing less than the eradication of homelessness in Scotland.
The act set out a number of important goals, the most notable of which were the elimination of priority need by 2012 and the creation of provisions to enable local authorities to suspend the local connection test.
Initial progress has been good, with all local authorities now having local homelessness strategies in place. In its recent progress report, the homelessness monitoring group pointed out that the Scottish homelessness and employability network has now been established and that national health and homelessness standards have been introduced to safeguard the health care needs of homeless people. In addition, new regulations limiting the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation for homeless families are now in place—something that lobby groups, including Shelter Scotland, campaigned hard for during the passage of the bill.
However, we must recognise that there are some understandable concerns about the impact of the act on the general housing list. Many councillors are already being approached by constituents who have been on the waiting list for more suitable types of home—in terms of either size or location—for many years. Those people are understandably annoyed that someone who has only just had their name entered on the housing list can, apparently, get those houses without waiting. I must emphasise that the people I have met who have expressed that opinion have also made it clear that they understand that priority should be given to people who are most in need. They accept that homeless people should be given an early opportunity to be housed, but they also say that councils should be able to move them to the house type for which they have been waiting for many years and then use their former house to deal with the homeless person or family. I hope that the minister will confirm that councils have the flexibility to manage their stock in such a way. I understand that North Lanarkshire Council is being told that it cannot do that.
A number of organisations have also raised the question of the resources that are required for the implementation of the act and for increasing house supply. I welcome the increased funding that will result in £1.2 billion being invested by the Scottish Executive over the next three years to create 21,500 affordable homes. However, the minister will be aware of the concerns that I raised with him at yesterday's meeting of the Communities Committee. They are also the concerns of many senior housing professionals, who are saying that the increase in housing will be insufficient to meet the demand resulting from the abolition of priority need by 2012. Will he assure us that he will take those concerns into account during preparations for the next spending review? It is essential that sufficient funding is made available to meet the 2012 target. Equally, it is essential that the Executive works in partnership with local authorities and housing associations to deliver on that important target.
There is no doubt that there is, and will continue to be, strong demand for good-quality affordable housing in Scotland. Local authorities and housing associations must continue to play a vital role in delivering more low-cost, high-quality rented accommodation, but the private sector must also play its part. That issue must be addressed through the Housing (Scotland) Bill and the forthcoming planning bill. It is important that decent private sector landlords are supported and that the small number of rogue landlords, who only exacerbate homelessness problems, are eliminated. We must also use the opportunity that will be presented by the change in our planning laws to create more affordable houses for sale in locations where they will help to support economic development.
Strong support measures need to be put in place so that we can help those who are in danger of becoming homeless. Although such measures can be relatively expensive in the short term, in the long term they will help society to avoid much of the social and financial costs that are a consequence of homelessness.
Interestingly, the antisocial behaviour measures that were passed by this Parliament can also help to alleviate homelessness. I do not suggest that the majority of homelessness applications are made by people who exhibit antisocial behaviour, but anecdotal evidence from North Lanarkshire Council's antisocial task force suggests that being tough on antisocial behaviour at an early stage—for instance, through the use of an antisocial behaviour order or interim ASBO—can help to change the person's antisocial behaviour so that they avoid being evicted. The Executive must support such measures.
I know that several organisations have called for further reform of the right to buy. I do not agree with that. We need to give the modernised right to buy an opportunity to bed in.
I am pleased that ministers have set out the Executive's plan for ensuring the full implementation of the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 and I look forward to a further ministerial statement before Christmas. I believe that it is right that we should strive to eliminate priority need from homelessness applications by 2012. It is not right that we should have different categories of homelessness, with some homeless people being more deserving than others—they are all equal.
It is vital that we continue to have sufficient development of social rented housing stock in Scotland so that we can ensure that families who have waited on housing lists for many years have a realistic opportunity of moving to more suitable house types. I hope that the minister will ensure that funding is made available to achieve that reasonable goal.
Euan Robson opened his speech with a very simple statement. It was perhaps slightly lost in the hubbub at the time, so let me repeat it: homelessness is a phenomenon that should not occur in a modern society. We should reflect on that, as it is quite a powerful thing to say. I repeat: homelessness should not occur in a modern society.
As Karen Whitefield mentioned, the aspirations of the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 were substantial. It sought to abolish homelessness and to ensure that homelessness does not occur in this modernised society. That is a tough call that does not come easy or cheap. I defy any member to say that any party would have declined the opportunity to abolish homelessness if it were easy or cheap to do so.
I share Tricia Marwick's keenness for the ministerial statement, but I accept that it will come. I also share the aspirations that exist among the many organisations that have sent us briefings. The Scottish Council for Single Homeless has stated that the 2012 target
"is not only the right approach, but also achievable and practical."
That does not mean that the target will be cheap or easy, but it is achievable and practical if the political will exists.
Johann Lamont described the requirement to abolish priority need as being about creating a fair and equal Scotland. We should agree not only that the measure is worth while, but that the Executive is right not to avoid it—as Johann Lamont said, we should not put it into the box marked "too difficult". In the context of the Executive's wider work on poverty—for example, on child poverty—we need to recognise that poverty among single adults is on the increase, and homelessness is part of that picture. Obviously, there must be a balance between meeting the needs of homeless people and meeting other people's needs. As other members have observed, if we are to be able eventually to meet everyone's housing needs, supply is a crucial issue.
I will make a couple of quick comments about the right to buy. Increasingly, members accept that, although the right to buy may have had a positive impact on some individuals and their families and households, it has had a profoundly negative impact on society as a whole. The case not only for reviewing the right to buy, but for allowing that review to lead to its abolition, is growing in strength.
Some people have suggested that the need for more new-build social rented housing is an argument for closing the door on a third-party right of appeal in the planning process. I want to make a quick point about that. It is not a planning point, but a point about the status of social rented housing. Let us accept—as I think members are beginning to do—that there has been a shift towards owner occupation and an increase in its status, that there is an increasing perception that the aspiration to owner occupation is the only valid one and that the right to buy is part of that shift. If we allow social rented housing to be classed with all the most unpopular planning developments in Scotland and to be pushed through in the same way as opencast coal mines, landfill sites and other unpopular developments, do we not underline its low status in society? If we want to change that status, should we not accept that we need to provide leadership in the communities where objections may be raised, to prevent those objections from being raised and to tackle them head on, rather than simply allowing them not to have any impact on decisions in the planning system?
I want quickly to mention support services. A while ago, 7:84 brought a theatre group to the Parliament and gave a performance, which several members who are in the chamber attended. Two themes were highlighted by the group of homeless and ex-homeless people who took part in it. The first was the fact that is very easy for people to become homeless. Homeless people are not some alien group—in different circumstances, any of us could find ourselves in that situation. I was glad that Johann Lamont made that point in her opening speech. Secondly, homeless people have on-going and complex support needs. It is a question not just of providing places to live, but of providing support to people so that they can carry on living there.
It is not only the role of government to provide on-going support—there is a huge amount that voluntary organisations and social enterprises can do. I encourage members to reflect on the value of my favourite, The Big Issue in Scotland. It is not just a magazine that has my ugly mug in it every week. A huge amount of work is being done in the organisation to support homeless people and people who are coming out of homelessness.
It is a fine aspiration, to which we can all subscribe, to end homelessness in so far as that is possible by 2012. That is a challenge, but I regret to say that I do not think it can be met.
I will tell members why. I have been looking at the statistics for the south of Scotland, especially East Lothian, Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders, which I represent. Comparing the figures for 2002-03 with the most recent figures for 2003-04, Shelter advises that there has been a 6 per cent increase in households applying for homeless status in East Lothian, only a 1 per cent drop in Dumfries and Galloway—that is a minimal figure—and a 40 per cent increase in the Scottish Borders. Although percentages are important, they mask the misery of families and individuals who are caught in the homelessness trap. The figures for homeless households are: 887 for East Lothian; 1,568 for Dumfries and Galloway; and 817 for the Scottish Borders. They are all people—individuals or families.
The effect on rural areas is particularly bad, as so many homeless people in those areas have to be moved into temporary accommodation. Statistics show that in rural areas people are likely to spend longer in temporary accommodation and that the available temporary accommodation is often far-flung from people's work, school or community. That exacerbates families' misery. I know that there are similarities between rural and urban homelessness, but there are specific rural aspects that exacerbate the problem, and I have mentioned just one.
Notwithstanding what Mary Scanlon said, the right to buy, which other members mentioned, has undoubtedly depleted affordable rented housing stock, particularly in scenic areas. Indeed, research has shown that ex-council properties are not just bought by local people—they are also often bought thereafter as second or holiday homes. I will come to that later.
There has been no new build. A parliamentary answer to a question asked by my colleague Stewart Stevenson revealed that in 1990 the total number of properties built, whether by private builders, local authorities or housing associations, was 3,901. By 2004, the most recent date for which figures are available, the figure had fallen to 3,483. That has driven some local authorities to purchase privately at cost—ironically, sometimes they have even bought previously discounted former council houses at full market value.
Does the member agree that it may be wrong to say that there has been no new build? In my area of Callander and in other areas, the Rural Stirling Housing Association has built new social housing, although that might not have kept pace with demand.
That is my point. The figures that I gave were from a parliamentary answer on all types of new build taking place in that period. New build was not even keeping pace with need in 1990.
The effect of second or holiday homes has caused crisis hotspots to emerge across rural Scotland. The number of such houses has grown from 19,756 20 years ago to 29,229 in 2001, the most recent year for which we have figures. Some interesting points are made in the chapter "The impact of second and holiday homes on rural communities in Scotland" in a paper called "Precis" by Communities Scotland, which states:
"The more remote rural areas had the greatest concentrations of second homes."
Almost half of all Scotland's second homes—47 per cent—were in those very remote areas. People were being displaced; they had to travel not just 10 or 20 miles but 50 or 100 miles to get accommodation. That takes them well out of their communities. Rural areas have commuters, retirees and people who want a lifestyle change; all put housing pressure on scenic areas. Indeed, there are more than 1,000 holiday homes in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders in the south of Scotland. I cannot believe for a moment that that is a good thing for the provision of accommodation in those areas.
At the meeting of the Communities Committee yesterday, the minister repeated the target of 21,500 new approvals by 2008. However, the most recent figures show that there are 54,829 homeless households, so that target is simply insufficient, especially given that the figures across Scotland are rising.
The statistics do not show everything; they do not show the poor housing, the cramped accommodation or the effects of homelessness on the family unit, on health and on employability. The cost to individuals is high; the cost to society is also high, but in a different way.
Yesterday, I asked the minister what data are available on the savings to other ministerial budgets, but particularly the health budget, through improved housing. If I recall correctly, those data were not available—they should be.
In addition to abolishing the right to buy, perhaps we could use planning regulations to inhibit the purchase of second and holiday homes and to deal with retirement investments in such homes—I am not satisfied that such investments will not impact on rural areas. I also suggest that some money from the health budget would be better spent in the housing budget. That would not be bad for the Minister for Communities, who moved from the health portfolio. I ask that some health money follow him.
A serious issue is involved, which is that the Executive could not make a better investment in its interventions to prevent ill health than in providing good-quality, affordable, warm housing.
As members have said, when we discussed the issue of homelessness in 2002, there was consensus across the chamber that homelessness was unacceptable in the 21st century. Homelessness is not a natural product of society; it is a man-made product that can be unmade.
I am reminded of my reading of correspondence involving the first council houses that were built in the inter-war period, following the end of the first world war and the successful rent strikes against private landlords who sought to exploit the war situation. I remember reading about the discussions around the targets that were set. Hundreds of thousands of council homes were to be built within five-year periods, and they were delivered on time. If members visit the Knightswood and Mosspark areas of Glasgow, they will see that the houses that were built in the inter-war period are still standing. Many of them have been purchased because of the quality of the building work. If we could build so many good-quality homes to deal with the problems of overcrowding and homelessness in our society in the inter-war period, why was it that, in 2002, we set a 13-year target for extinguishing homelessness in Scotland? I felt then that the period was too long, but the consensus in Parliament was to go for that target. My worry is that there is clear evidence that we may not even reach the 2012 target.
All the briefings that MSPs have received in the run-up to this debate clearly show that all the organisations involved in campaigning on housing issues are making the same points over and over again. For example, they make the point that the issue is not just about dealing with homelessness but about trying to prevent homelessness from occurring.
Does the member accept that all the organisations to which he alluded also say that the target should not be abandoned or put back in any way but that it must be stuck to and that it is achievable if the political will is there?
Absolutely. I hope in his summation that the minister will take the opportunity to give a categorical assurance that the 2012 target is still the target that we as a Parliament are aiming for. I also hope that he will give an assurance that the target will be resourced, as there is no way that it will be met without sufficient resources. COSLA and other organisations have made the point that we must recognise that supporting people budgets across local authorities are important not just for preventing homelessness but for trying to support homeless individuals to move to and to maintain a let—in other words, to have a successful tenancy. Why has there been a 12 per cent cut in real terms in supporting people budgets across Scotland? That is unacceptable. If we want to prevent homelessness and get more people to maintain their own tenancies, it is illogical to cut the essential budget that facilitates that process. I ask the minister to comment on whether he believes that that particular cut should be reversed.
I also want the minister to comment on whether we can intervene more proactively on issues such as the rate of evictions and legal actions throughout the country. Unfortunately, many housing associations are only too ready to seek legal remedies when someone gets into arrears. Does the minister agree that when an arrears case involves an application for housing benefit, no legal action should be allowed until the application has been dealt with? Throughout the country, there are still cases in which it takes up to 100 days for housing benefit applications to be worked out. In the meantime, arrears accumulate, which leads to local authorities and, in particular, housing associations taking legal action. Does the minister believe that we should take action to deal with such situations?
Does the minister also believe that we should be more proactively involved in identifying the 22,500 private sector homes in Scotland that have been lying empty for more than six months? Now that English local authorities have the power to make those homes compulsorily available for letting, does he believe that we should seek such a power? That would enable us to use the 22,500 homes that should be available but which are lying empty.
Finally, does the minister accept that it is impossible to solve homelessness without new, warm, affordable homes? If we are going to build those homes, can we afford to keep losing them through the right to buy? Is not the nub of the problem that we have to put a plug in the bath to stop losing that supply of housing? Does he agree that it is time to get rid of the right-to-buy legislation in favour of a right to rent for every citizen in Scotland?
Margaret Curran and I were the ministers when the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 was put through. The legislation represents a number of significant steps forward. Perhaps it does not deserve all the accolades that it has received but definite achievements have come from it and the work that has been done. The legislation deals with the rough sleepers issue and we have provided more hostels and more accommodation for homeless people who are in the direst need. More equal treatment has been given to homeless people and strategies for dealing with homelessness have been created that involve health authorities and other agencies in addition to local authorities. Those are all benefits that have been achieved through the legislation. However, it is reasonable for us to review the experience so far to examine the extent to which we are on course and to consider whether the act fits with other legislation and other actions on the part of the Executive.
The issues that have arisen concern not only resources. There is an issue about the balance of interests and about the balance of obligations that should rest on local authorities and others. It seems to me that one of the problems with the legislation is that it has dramatically boosted the number of houses that are allocated to homeless applicants. I am not saying that those homeless applicants should not have got houses, but in the context of a limited number of houses that increase can have been achieved only at the expense of other people who might feel that they had a legitimate entitlement to those houses. There is a fundamental issue of fairness, because if we are dealing with homeless people in a way that is to the disadvantage of other people who also have a right to expect decent treatment from us—
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
No. Tommy Sheridan has had his shot.
If that is so, to some extent we are not dealing with those people—who are already in the rented sector—as fairly as we need to do.
Would Des McNulty emphasise the point that many people who are on waiting lists have acute and urgent needs? For example, they may suffer from overcrowding or they may be pensioners in inappropriate upstairs housing. Such people should be treated almost as if they are homeless.
I wonder whether the way in which we have expanded the category of homeless people, so that it has become a basis on which people can access resource, is right, because the resource claim has expanded and comes at the expense of other legitimate resource claims from other people. There is a genuine and probably correct effect on the rights and entitlements of other people. However, if we looked at the broader needs, rather than confined our gaze to the rights of homeless people in isolation, we would have to consider how the interests might be balanced. There is a real issue about whether it is fair for us to proceed further, for example by abolishing priority need testing, until we address issues such as the volume of housing and how we align the different entitlements that people should have.
I will not take any more interventions, as I have already taken one and I have two other points to make.
Another issue is how well homelessness legislation fits with antisocial behaviour legislation. Those who implement the different aspects of legislation are, in legal terms, the same—by and large, local authorities have to deal with those two aspects. If antisocial behaviour by people who are moved into accommodation affects other residents, there must be a mechanism through which we can respond without being crippled by a further obligation. Last week, I dealt with four old ladies who live on a single floor of a tower block in my constituency. The local authority has moved in two individuals who have caused considerable problems for those ladies, linked with family break-up and drugs and alcohol dependency. The women, who have lived there for 20 or 25 years, are terrified. The local authority is doing what it can to deal with the problems and to provide support for the elderly people, but the support is not sufficient to deal with the impact on them.
Looking round the chamber, I am sure that hardly any members live in rented accommodation. We cannot solve Scotland's homelessness problems at the expense of elderly ladies who live in rented accommodation—that is unacceptable. We must ensure that, as we expand the entitlement of homeless people—which we should do—and deal with the needs of people who display antisocial behaviour and the rights of other people, we strike a balance. We cannot consider only the rights of individuals; we must consider the collective rights of people who live on landings or who rent and ensure that a proper view is taken.
I draw attention to my entry in the register of members' interests.
In Johann Lamont's opening speech, she said two, three or possibly four times that the matter is not just about bricks and mortar. That is absolutely true, but almost every member who has spoken from whatever party has returned to the point that, in large measure, the matter is about bricks and mortar. When, as a councillor, I first encountered the problem of homelessness—in prosperous urban areas—it quickly became clear to me, as I dealt with case after case that arose from a range of specific causes and related to specific individuals, that the deep underlying cause of homelessness is simply that not enough houses are available for people who cannot access the supply that exists. The existing housing supply is predominantly in the market sector—people have to buy. However, an awful lot of people cannot afford that and need to rent, and there are not enough houses to rent. That is a simple and irrefutable fact.
If we consider the history, we find that the problem—which Tommy Sheridan came close to describing—is that a decision was taken in 1975 that meant that in 1976 volume council house building came to an end almost overnight and apparently for ever. Although the subsequent Government began a programme of funding housing associations to develop housing for rent, it never put in the necessary resources. The Shelter briefing to which Tricia Marwick alluded points out that even though the Executive seeks to step up the amount of building, the proposed volume only approaches the inadequate levels that existed during the lifetime of the previous Administration.
If the Executive chooses not to listen to Tricia Marwick because of where she is coming from, it should listen to Karen Whitefield and consider where she is coming from. Karen Whitefield has spoken to the same housing organisations and lobby groups and has heard the same message that Des McNulty, John Home Robertson and all of us have heard. The targets are probably not capable of being met by 2012. We lack the land supply, the drainage capacity, the contractor capacity and—in the housing associations—the development capacity to build the houses even if the Executive turned the tap on at full pressure tomorrow, which it will not do.
The minister should not take it from me that the targets will not be met; he should take it from the Executive's own research, which he and his predecessor have spoken about in the Parliament. The Bramley research has informed to a significant extent the amount that the Executive is building. I accept that the Executive is approaching the number of units per year that Bramley said needed to be built, but he made it clear that his calculation, which was done on a net need basis—in other words, need was aggregated across local authorities—did not take account of the lack of building in the past and the need to tackle what was, in effect, a hidden homelessness problem. He made it clear that he was measuring only the need that would arise from new, emergent households and was not talking about regeneration.
It is proper that the Government is allocating a great deal of resources to regeneration and is building many new houses. However, if one strips away the regeneration programme in those local authorities that the Executive's own research said had a surplus of houses, and examines what it is building to meet newly emerging need in those council areas in which there is a deficit, one finds that the Executive is falling thousands of houses short of what its own research showed was necessary. That research did not consider the problem of councils such as Fife Council, which although it might not have an overall shortage in its area still has many communities within that area in which there is severe localised need. St Andrews is an example of such a place, where one must be extremely wealthy to find a house, as was mentioned recently in the national press. In the greater Glasgow housing area, there is now almost no affordable housing in certain communities in East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire.
The truth of the matter is that there will still be homelessness and long waiting lists in 2012. There will still be people on housing waiting lists whose temporary accommodation falls through or whose temporary arrangements no longer work, for whatever reason, and they will do what thousands of our fellow Scots do every year—they will present themselves as homeless and the supply will not be there to address their situation.
If there is any aspect of the Executive's work in which I wish it well and hope that it will succeed in its objectives, it is the aspect that we are discussing, which has affected me in my public life as a councillor and as an MSP as nothing else has done. The test of the Administration's sincerity and competence on homelessness will be not whether it meets its targets by 2012—I do not think that anyone believes that it can do that—but whether it listens to the voices of members of all parties and to all quarters of the housing lobby and puts in place the research that is needed. That research, which should include the local authorities, should consider housing need assessments, local plans and land supply in an effort to identify what can be done to increase the financial and physical resources so that the targets can be achieved as soon as is practically, politically and humanly possible.
I wish the ministers well in that, but I ask them not to go around saying that the solution is not just a matter of bricks and mortar. Although that is true, bricks and mortar are very much part of the solution that is needed.
I am pleased to have worked with the Scottish Executive over the past five or six years to consider the needs of residents, tenants, owners, homeless people and, indeed, neighbourhoods.
People find themselves homeless for all sorts of reasons. Having a roof over our head is a basic human right. I would be ashamed, as I am sure other members would be, to live in a developed country that did not tackle this issue head on.
Extensive research on the subject shows the reasons that lead to people becoming homeless. We need to continue to tackle the root causes of the problem by giving people a more secure home environment and alleviating the need for them to become homeless in the first place and time and time again.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Scotland has taken some groundbreaking steps in implementing a variety of housing and community legislation, including on the issue of homelessness. Many people consider Scotland to be leading the way on housing policy not only in Europe, as other members have said, but internationally.
We have never pretended that the problem would be an easy one to tackle, nor are we under any illusion about there being overnight fixes to find. I want to ensure that we meet the 2012 target. I say to the minister, as a number of members have done today, that, as things stand, we have a lot of work to do if we are to reach it. To do so, we must provide a supply of affordable housing. That is easy to say—it is not new thinking, as members around the chamber have said, and it is apparent to everyone.
People on the transfer waiting list aspire to move to a larger or a smaller house to accommodate their family needs. The homelessness legislation is causing friction in some local communities because waiting list applicants see homeless applicants being housed before them. People feel aggrieved not because they see the homeless person as someone who is any less deserving of a house than they are, but because there are not enough affordable houses to go round.
I have been involved in housing debates since the early 1980s. Things have changed a lot since that time. The quality of most of the housing stock has improved and more people nowadays want to buy and are buying their homes. The involvement of tenants in decision making about their homes has changed almost beyond recognition. However, at least one thing has remained constant: demand for housing far outstrips supply. If we are to make a difference and if we agree and accept that all of us have the right to a decent and affordable home, we must ensure that we deliver on the policies.
The quality of housing did not improve without Government intervention or without it recognising that the conditions in which we live have an impact on many different aspects of our lives. During the 1980s and the early 1990s, councils struggled to invest in their housing stock. There was fierce competition among councils and housing associations for the little investment cash that the Government made available. Thankfully, in electing a Government with a goal of lifting housing high up the political agenda, conditions have improved and continue to improve.
By working together, local authorities and the Scottish Executive have brought about remarkable developmental and economic regeneration, which have led to vast improvements in the quality and choice of local authority and housing association housing.
Private housing is now being built in areas that private developers have never considered before. We need only look at some of the peripheral housing estates in our major cities to see that young people and families who want to buy their house but also live in their own community can do so and add value to the community when houses are built at the right price and with the assistance of Government-funded schemes.
Does the member remember, as I do, the prophecy that was made in the early 1980s that the right-to-buy policy would give us a huge housing problem 20 years down the line? I agree that much improvement has been made in much of the housing stock since I was the director of Shelter Scotland, but does the member also agree that there is a bigger division now between the housing stock that is considered desirable and the housing stock in which nobody wants to live?
I do not agree with Margo MacDonald that the right to buy is a problem and I do not have time to answer all her points.
In my constituency, we have built houses in areas where people said that we would never sell them and local people have snapped them up. We must have a mixture of housing, be it for rent or to buy.
Everyone who spoke in the debate today mentioned resources. Resources can mean different things to different people. When I talk about them, I am not talking about employing more housing officers or giving more money to Shelter or other housing organisations; I say to the minister that when I talk about resources, I mean bricks and mortar. We need to build more houses to meet the demand. I know that that is the case in my constituency. We rely on local authorities to implement legislation and my local authority is working hard. The Scottish Executive needs to continue what it is doing, but it needs to work harder and to do more to encourage local authorities and housing providers to build more houses for the people in their communities.
Three more members want to speak. I ask them to stick to five minutes if possible.
We have heard some incredibly powerful speeches and there has been remarkable agreement in the chamber. The minister must listen to our expression of frustration and to the desire of every MSP to resolve the homelessness situation.
For as long as I have been an MSP, housing and homelessness have been dominant issues in my postbag. Other issues have come and gone, but homelessness has always been there. As we know, the problem is growing throughout Scotland with 30,000 homelessness assessments carried out in 1992-93, increasing to 40,000 in 2003-04.
Action needed to be taken and changes have been made. The Parliament voted to pass the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003, which received cross-party support. The act made a range of amendments to the legislation that governed the way in which homelessness was tackled. It is probably too early to foresee the impact of those changes on the reality of homelessness in Scotland. However, the issue is not rocket science. Murray Tosh is right—purely and simply there are not enough homes available at an affordable rent. Until we fix that, we will not fix the problem. For example, on just one day recently in Perth and Kinross, 45 properties were available to let and 4,500 people were on the waiting list. Housing staff are dealing with 300 homelessness cases at any one time. The small size of rural communities exacerbates the problem and leads to greater social dislocation because of the distances about which Christine Grahame spoke.
Waiting lists do not even show the true extent of the problem. People are not daft—they know how long their friends and relatives sit on waiting lists so they do not even bother to apply for housing. Many members have already mentioned the particular problem for young single men.
It is unfortunate that we are not debating a motion today because that inevitably means that the debate will have no definitive outcome. Action is needed. We need the minister to give us assurances, on the record, that resources will be provided. That call comes not just from the Opposition, but from COSLA as well.
Everyone who contacted MSPs about today's debate focused on the intention to abolish priority need by 2012. The aim had widespread support when the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 was passed, but we need a commitment to ensure that councils are in a position to implement it. As it stands, I understand that seven councils, including Perth and Kinross Council, will not be able to do so. Throughout Scotland, 28 per cent of all lets go to homeless people; in Perth and Kinross, the figure is 53 per cent. It will not be long before people who are not homeless will cease to be considered in Perth and Kinross. There is a danger that that will mean a drift from rural areas in Perthshire to urban areas, which will exacerbate the problem for MSPs who represent those areas.
The councils in such a position, including Perth and Kinross, need additional support if they are to meet the challenges of the 2012 deadline. Shelter recognises that, as do most members here. Today, the minister must recognise that. We need his unvarnished, straightforward commitment to delivering support and we need more houses. Shelter has calculated that, if the communities budget had kept pace with the average growth of the Scottish budget since 1999, another 1,500 homes could have been built. In Perth and Kinross, like in other areas, we have a particular problem because of development restrictions imposed by Scottish Water. There are 25 settlements in Perth and Kinross where 200 desperately needed affordable houses cannot be built because of those restrictions.
We also need to stop losing homes. I echo the concerns that have been expressed about the continuation of the right to buy. I think that it is time to revisit that policy. We need to do so soon to retain rented properties in the public sector.
I will finish by re-emphasising my appeal for support for councils such as Perth and Kinross. However, unusually for me, I will leave the last words—or nearly last—to an Executive minister. Speaking during the stage 3 debate on the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill in 2003, Margaret Curran said:
"It serves no one's interests to implement amendments and not have in place the provision and resources for local authorities and local communities."—[Official Report, 5 March 2003; c 18999.]
She was bang on. It is time to put up.
Last week, it was reported that the main town in my constituency, Coatbridge, had the highest percentage of growth in house prices in the UK last year. That is certainly good news for many home owners in the area. It is also welcome news for a town that, only the week before, had been labelled in Prospect magazine's annual festival of condescension as one of the most dismal places in Scotland.
Property booms do nothing for those who are most in need of housing—the homeless. Increasingly, Coatbridge is facing a housing crisis. The social housing stock has been decimated by 25 years of the Tories' flagship right-to-buy policy, which has reduced the number of homes for rent, creating residual housing of last resort. The housing situation that the Scottish Executive inherited following decades of Tory Government was disastrous. I am proud of the fact that significant action has been taken to try to turn that round. I am particularly supportive of the Executive's stance on homelessness. The Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 undoubtedly moved the agenda forward dramatically, and it has provided some ambitious and progressive goals for us to work towards. We cannot ignore the fact that the act has posed some serious challenges to local authorities. The legislation's impact on housing allocations policy is an issue on which I am regularly approached by councillors, registered tenant organisations and constituents. Karen Whitefield also spoke about this subject. The current shortage of social housing is undermining the legislation's effectiveness. That can work to the detriment of numerous other disadvantaged groups, which other members have mentioned.
North Lanarkshire Council tells me that its current operational requirements dictate that approximately 70 per cent of lets are made to homeless applicants. Anecdotal evidence suggests that inappropriate housing may be used, such as adapted housing. That is to the detriment of those who are on the waiting list because of health or mobility requirements and families living in overcrowded accommodation. Consequently, there is increasingly a perception in my constituency that the only route to a house is through a declaration of homelessness.
The current situation, in which demand drastically outweighs supply, looks set to spiral further. North Lanarkshire Council anticipates that the total effective social stock will decrease by a further 11,000 by 2011. At the same time, the council expects the demand on social housing to rise by more than 30 per cent. I obtained figures on that just before the debate. Between 2003 and 2004, the total social housing stock in Coatbridge decreased by more than 200 homes. At the same time, the council received an increase of more than 1,000 applicants for social housing in the area.
As a former homelessness officer, and having dealt with people who were not in priority need and with the heartbreak of their situations, I feel that we must abolish priority need. As Cathie Craigie said, a house is a basic human right. It is more houses that we need.
Recent research by Shelter shows that the key concern of the majority is affordability, not ownership, as is frequently suggested. The fact that the right-to-buy policy continues to exist against that backdrop is simply incongruous. The Executive has amended that policy, of course, but if it is to ensure that the 2003 act achieves its objectives, it must seriously consider matching its tenacious approach under that legislation with an equally resolute stand next year on the right to buy.
People's aspiration for home ownership is being placed above the absolute need for people to have a house. Margaret Thatcher encouraged the assumption that everyone aspired to own their home because that suited her political ends. The Tories tried to make that happen through the right to buy, which is of course not a right but a tool of housing policy that is designed to sell off a state-owned collective asset to private individuals. That is what it is all about.
As we have heard, local authorities can apply for exemptions through pressured area status, but questions need to be asked about why few are willing to apply for that. Perhaps we need to grasp the nettle nationally. I am confident that the Minister for Communities will consider those issues before he reviews the right to buy, but I impress on him the need for urgent and radical action to stop the rot in our social housing stock.
I would like to discuss residualisation, but I do not have time to.
I recognise the Executive's commitment to dealing with homelessness and affordable housing, but I urge it to be bolder and more confident in its attempts to curtail the right to buy. We should replace that with a right to rent. I return to my initial point about the property boom. It is clear that we need more state homes, not more stately homes.
I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate, even late in the day. I have been struck by how non-party political the debate has been and by speeches from members of all parties. I look forward to the minister's statement and in particular to finding out the extent to which it reflects concerns from throughout the chamber.
I vividly recall my earliest days in the Parliament in 1999. As an innocent country boy from Galloway, I was genuinely taken aback by the number of homeless people who slept rough on the streets of Edinburgh between our old offices on the Mound and my accommodation in the west end. The contrast between that and the signs of robust economic expansion that were obvious in Edinburgh could not have been starker. No one—and certainly not I—would argue that the action that was taken to address that problem was not fully justified. I welcome the fact that that action appears to have paid off in that someone sleeping rough in a doorway is now a much rarer sight.
That is homelessness in its most basic form. The image of someone sleeping rough is what comes into most people's minds when they are asked what homelessness means. However, that is no longer what we, ministers or officials mean when we talk about homelessness.
The first telephone call that I received in my capacity as a constituency member after the 2003 election was from a young couple with three small children who lived in a two-bedroomed housing association house in Castle Douglas. The two older children, who are of different genders, shared one tiny bedroom, while the youngest slept with her parents. If I remember rightly, they were third on the list for transfer and had a high number of overcrowding and medical points.
Three weeks ago, that family contacted me again—they have done so many times. The two eldest children—I remind members that they are a boy and a girl—are now aged 12 and nine. They still share a tiny bedroom, which is against every guideline in the book. The family are no longer third on the list; they are now seventh. They seem to have virtually no hope of securing the transfer that would transform their lives. We are all familiar with such situations.
Why do such situations arise? It is because every time a suitable house becomes available, people are leapfrogged on the list by someone who is deemed to be of greater need—they may well be—and, more often than not, by someone who qualifies as homeless under the 2003 act. I suggest that the act has led to the situation that John Home Robertson described well in his excellent members' business debate on affordable housing last month. I hope that he will not mind my quoting him—I will do so even if he does mind. He said:
"At present, there is just no hope for people on the waiting list unless they are priority homeless. Sometimes, the only way out of the trap is the degrading and traumatic process of going homeless, whereby families have to be put out of their parents' homes so that they can be housed as homeless people. That is unfair and uncivilised."—[Official Report, 28 September 2005; c 19569.]
Will the member give way?
I am sorry; I would like to give way but I cannot, as I have been asked to reduce my speech.
The situation is unfair and uncivilised and I suggest that it has become slightly dishonest, because many of the homeless people are a million light years away from sleeping rough or matching the traditional concept of homelessness.
Redefining priority need will not solve the homelessness problem, because it will lead to almost every available house being allocated to homelessness referrals. People will therefore be encouraged—even more than now—to present themselves as homeless to obtain a house. If the estimates of Loreburn Housing Association in Dumfries and Galloway are correct, more than 90 per cent of people in Dumfries and Galloway will do so once the new measures are introduced. That is hardly the equitable balance that Des McNulty seeks. As a briefing paper by Scottish Churches Housing Action states,
"Redefining priority need does not add to the supply of affordable housing".
That statement points the way forward for us as we try to tackle a growing problem.
As members have said, we must embrace and involve the private sector. We must provide more affordable housing for renting and buying. Sadly, most estimates show that the Executive's targets are woefully inadequate in that regard. As Mary Scanlon pointed out, the danger is that there will be increasing tensions between homeless applicants and others who are on waiting lists. If the right number of suitable houses is not provided, those tensions will be real.
Regular audits should be undertaken so that people live in housing that suits their needs. There is also room to re-educate young people to benefit from the pleasures of flat sharing for a few years before they get a place on their own. Fewer people are sharing flats, but doing so is a valuable part of people's upbringing.
Most of all, I believe that it is not priority need that should be reassessed; rather, we should seriously consider redefining homelessness because the definition of that status is so wide that there is a danger of its applying to almost anyone who wants a house rather than to people who desperately need and deserve a house. We must focus on the latter. I hope that the minister's statement will reflect that and that the committee will consider that during its post-enactment scrutiny.
I thank the three members for sticking to their five minutes. We now move to winding-up speeches. I point out to members that I will keep them tight to their times.
As Euan Robson and other members have said, homelessness is simply unacceptable in a civilised society. We must therefore do something about it.
I think that all parties are guilty of not making housing a high enough priority. They may say that they do, but in fact all parties go on about four or five things that are all very important—perhaps health, education, employment and the economy, police and safety on the streets, and drugs—before housing. We must put housing higher up in our priorities. That it is becoming less of a priority is shown by the fact that financial investment in housing as a percentage of overall Scottish Government investment has decreased.
Perhaps the position was falsified in the past because there was hidden homelessness and many people did not make applications. We are improving the system to some extent, so more people make applications because they think that there is a chance of getting a house. Members have mentioned the reverse situation—people who are waiting on housing waiting lists are tending to go down the list because other people who are seen as homeless are going above them. We must sort that out.
We need local solutions. Councils—whatever their faults may be—and local communities must sort things out and we must help them to do so. Things should not be sorted out at the centre, although we must provide the resources to build more social rented houses and homes for affordable purchase. There are simply not enough resources. The Executive has increased resources, but not by nearly enough. We simply must find more money for investing in houses. In my view—I am not terribly clear about what my party's view is—the right to buy must be severely reduced, if not removed, until we have sorted things out.
It was made clear at the most recent party conference that we want to end the right to buy for new tenants.
Thank you.
One problem with the Government's system is that people can become too bureaucratic. The Parliament passed housing legislation that included a right for councils to apply for pressured area status, so that they could control the right to buy. However, hard-working and overenthusiastic civil servants have produced so many hoops for councils to jump through before that status can be obtained that, as far as I am aware, nobody has yet gone through all the hoops. It can certainly take a long time to do so. We should examine things on a wide scale and not go mad with bureaucracy. If Parliament says that councils should decide, then councils should decide. If they get it wrong, they can sort that out with their voters.
The planning reforms give us several opportunities. We could put in law what a lot of councils do anyway to ensure that a share of new developments—especially new housing developments—is for affordable purchase or social rent. That would give a real power to the councils. We could also give councils the power to put pressure on the owners of neglected land or business property to use it properly, which might well mean using it for housing. We could put pressure on the owners of empty houses to ensure that they are rented out. We could make it law that councils would have to authorise a change of use before a house could become a second home. There are a lot of things that we could do to reduce the impacts on the supply of houses. We must also sort out the water industry. We may be starting to do that, but it is far too late. There must be serious investment in water and in that context we must boot certain people up the rear.
We must support people whether they are in a house or not. We must support people so that they do not become homeless but are sustained in their tenancy and do not get into problems. The supporting people budget has been cut, which has caused great umbrage. I know that there is an official explanation for that, but it is a bad thing. We need more support for advice-giving bodies such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, as they help not only on housing but on debt advice. A lot of other aspects impinge on housing, including social work, employment, helping people who come out of prison, supporting people who have problems with drugs and booze and providing more carers. We need a team approach to helping people to stay in their houses and not to get into problems.
We must support young tenants, especially. There are some good voluntary organisations that do that, but we need to give them more support. Seventeen and 18-year-olds can have problems in running a tenancy. As Barnardo's suggests, we should keep people in care up to the age of 18, instead of 16. That would help to reduce the number of 16 and 17-year-olds who lose their housing. We also need to sort out the housing benefit system—or get Westminster to sort it out.
Finally, we must create communities or help communities to evolve in which there is an atmosphere that people want to live in and in which people support one another. There would not be all these empty houses because nobody wanted to live there. If we had vibrant, well-managed communities, that would solve a lot of the problems.
This has been one of the most stimulating and interesting debates that I have ever witnessed in the chamber. We have heard speeches made with genuine conviction, and a lot of facts and figures have been thrown around. I would not like to be the minister who has to respond to them all.
In my workload, there has been a shift from most cases involving health to more cases involving issues to do with housing, such as antisocial behaviour and access to housing and the archaic and unfair points system. Many members have talked about that today. I have had such cases right across the region: they have not been unique to any one area or any one type of family. I find scandalous the number of empty houses that we have in Scotland. In Aberdeen, which is the city nearest to where I live, we have 7,000 empty houses. In relation to the population of the city, that is scandalous. It is the result of years of neglect of council housing that was built on the cheap, to which people just do not want to go. One of the best things that Aberdeen City Council could do is sell off some of the sites. I know that developers would love to take that land and support other organisations, such as local housing associations, to invest in new property.
The future demand for housing has been mentioned by several members, but I do not think that any research has been done that all members could accept. That is mentioned in some of the briefing papers. I hope that the minister will do something about that.
The targets that the minister has come up with are excessive unless he is somehow going to stimulate growth in the delivery of housing. I did not hear in the minister's opening speech how we will pull together all the potential providers of housing. We heard about councils and housing associations but we did not hear very much about the private sector and its capabilities, particularly in rural areas. We did not hear much about voluntary organisations and we certainly did not hear what the minister identifies as rural problems of affordable housing to rent and purchase.
One of the biggest problems in rural areas is an archaic planning system that does not recognise that, for example, there are barns in Aberdeenshire that could be converted into six affordable houses; instead permission is given for them to be converted into only one house, for some oil executive. That is nonsense because people have work and they want to live near their work. If people get permission, where is Scottish Water? It cannot supply. People in Laurencekirk who have outline planning permission have come to me because they are being told that there is no water and sewerage supply and that the fact that they have had the planning permission for a while is just tough. We have got to get to grips with all this.
Tricia Marwick said that the minister's statement was obviously aspirational. I would be fairer than that and say that I think that the minister is fishing for ideas. I hope that I am wrong, but if that is the case, we will have a long wait before we get any solutions.
In fact I said that the legislation was extremely worthy but that unless the Executive gets to grips with it, the target of 2012 is merely an aspiration. That target must be met.
Right; I accept that.
Murray Tosh made an authoritative speech, as he always does on housing. He is acknowledged as one of the experts and if I was being really generous today, I might suggest to the minister that he borrows him as a deputy minister for housing for a few months to see whether we can sort things out. He made the point that there are just not enough available and fit-for-purpose houses. No one person is to blame for that. The blame lies with a lot of people in Government and local authorities who have not seen the need for investment.
Des McNulty was quite passionate about fairness. I could highlight several recent cases that would show exactly what he was talking about. For example, a person came through the courts and was put into an Aberdeenshire village. He had an alcohol problem and wandered around waving knives about. He went back to the court but remained in the council house and was moved out this week only after everyone in the community signed a petition. The community council and local councillors were involved and I have written to ask for details from the police and the housing authority to find out why the situation was not dealt with when it was first reported. Although there were old people in the village who wanted to downsize, the man was living in a house that had been earmarked for sheltered accommodation. We have to get ourselves organised and look at the situation properly.
Tommy Sheridan made a good point about successful tenancies. Many young people do not know how to be a tenant. I congratulate the foyer movement because it does an excellent job wherever it can to help young people through different stages and enables them to move on.
Several members have talked about the right to buy. If the 400,000 people who bought their council houses did not buy them but just stayed put, there would still be a shortage. The argument against buying is not logical. We must examine how the money that was raised through the right to buy was used and try to learn from that so that we can get it right in future.
Everyone here has talked about fairness in the system and investment in the future, but we need facts and figures. Where will people need to live? Where are the new jobs going to be? Where are the retirement homes? Where are people going to be able to downsize to release a bigger property or upsize their property if they have a family? Those are the issues that the minister has to address.
I ask the minister not to give pat answers, but to listen and to consider carefully everything that has been said today. I ask him to go away and come back with a decent statement in December.
First, I want to restate how all this started. In February 2002, the homelessness task force recommended setting a target of 10 years for local authorities to be in a position to offer permanent accommodation to all homeless applicants, regardless of their priority need status. I think that at the time Tommy Sheridan said that 10 years—a decade—was too long. However, the Executive agreed with the recommendation, which was endorsed by the Parliament when it passed the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Bill. The 2012 target then became part of the Executive's overall housing policy.
Under the 2003 act, the Executive is required to make a statement by the end of the year on how the target will be met. That is why, like Tricia Marwick, I was bemused to discover that this afternoon's business was to be not that statement, but another subject debate on homelessness. Although the minister assured us that the statement will be made, I was still wondering why we are having this debate, given that only seven weeks are left before recess and the clocks go back this weekend.
Then I listened carefully to Des McNulty, who referred to limiting supply in relation to those who require or desire either to rent or to transfer to more suitable accommodation. That is fair enough; as many members, especially Murray Tosh, have pointed out, we are talking about bricks and mortar. However, to the loud support of some of his Labour colleagues, Des McNulty then called for the 2012 target to be scrapped. Is that why the minister called this subject debate only weeks before having to make his required statement? Is he testing the water to see what might happen if he ditches the target? Does he intend to water down the impact of his statement? I hope not. The Executive has a responsibility to meet that target and the SNP would find it unacceptable if the target were diluted, extended or abandoned. I suspect that, in saying so, I speak for other members in the chamber.
My point was that the target cannot be isolated from every other priority need. After all, politics is about deciding how to integrate different priorities in order to come up with a balanced solution. I was not arguing for the target to be abandoned; I was simply pointing out that we need to consider the broader issues.
With respect—
It is not simply a question of resources.
Please sit down, Mr McNulty.
With respect, it is up to the Government to get things right before the legislation is passed. I hope that that is what the Government did. At the time, I expressed concern that the target might turn out to be only an aspiration and was assured by the minister that there would be no increase in homeless applications. Well, as we know, the current situation is very different.
Patrick Harvie, Tommy Sheridan and other members expressed the view that the target can be met if the political will and resources are there. Indeed, Roseanna Cunningham pointed out that COSLA asked for assurances that the resources would be made available.
The two strands of the homelessness policy are prevention and supply, the first of which includes housing support. In her opening speech, the deputy minister said that the key was manageability and sustainability. That would be fine but for the fact that the Executive has cut the supporting people fund, which, by supporting vulnerable people in their tenancies, provided one of the cost-effective ways of preventing homelessness. The Scottish Executive must reverse the 12 per cent real-terms cut in the fund in the current year. Another aspect of prevention is housing advice, which must also be funded.
The housing benefit system must be reformed to ensure that it works smoothly and properly. I cannot remember who said that it is unacceptable for landlords to begin repossession action when an outstanding benefit claim is being processed but, whoever it was, they were right.
Does the member agree that it is well within the Parliament's power to make the legislative demand that such actions should not be started while a housing benefit claim is still being processed?
Right from the start, the SNP has called for responsibility for housing benefit to be brought within the Scottish Parliament's remit. That certainly could happen.
The other strand of the homelessness policy is supply. We talk a good talk in the chamber, but the truth is that, despite the targets that the minister talks up in every housing debate, the number of housing association new builds has consistently fallen over the past four years.
We have heard lots today, as often before, about infrastructure, land use, planning and other such things. Innovative solutions are required to enable the 2012 target to be met and I want to hear about them when the minister makes his statement just before Christmas. I want to hear about innovative solutions, about prevention measures and about the resources that will be put in place to allow councils to achieve the target by 2012. What I want from the minister today is a clear statement that the 2012 target for the eradication of homelessness stands and will continue to stand.
Today's debate has been excellent. It has provided an opportunity for a full and frank airing of the challenges that confront us in delivering our commitments under the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003. I can, of course, say clearly that the 2012 target remains our target. However, we have to face up to the challenges of meeting that target and come up with appropriate solutions.
The debate has been useful and, on the whole, balanced—although some members failed to acknowledge any of the progress that has been made. Karen Whitefield usefully reminded us of many of the actions that have been taken. For example, all local authorities have local homelessness strategies and there has been broad progress on national health and homelessness standards and on the Scottish homelessness and employability network.
Alex Fergusson reminded us of the progress in this session of Parliament on rough sleeping. Reference has also been made to progress on housing conditions—we have ambitious plans with the Scottish housing quality standard—and on the central heating programme, both of which have done much to improve health. Christine Grahame talked about that. Even the supporting people budget with its current challenges is twice what it was only four years ago. Christine Grahame reminded us of some of the homelessness figures in various local authorities, but I point out that homeless people now have new rights that they did not have in 1999.
Much of the debate has been about housing supply, which is an issue that we take very seriously. Murray Tosh made an interesting speech and said that Bramley did not recognise the backlog. I disagree. Bramley recognises the backlog; the model builds in the clearance of the backlog over 10 years. However, that is not the last word as far as we are concerned. Work to update and improve further the modelling of estimates of affordable housing requirements is already under way—the very research that Murray Tosh asked for.
I have said before that our current projections are not the last word. That is why we are undertaking work nationally and locally to inform the planning of future affordable housing supply beyond the current spending review period. We are working jointly with local authorities on that.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I will give way in a moment, but I have to make some progress.
Karen Whitefield said that work on the numbers had to be related to funding. Of course, that will feed directly into the next spending review.
A key feature of the debate related to the allocation of houses. Mary Scanlon raised the matter, although her figures were not the official ones that I have for Argyll and Clyde, which are that 48 per cent of new lets and 39 per cent of all lets go to homeless households. However, of course there is an issue. Elaine Smith and Karen Whitefield talked about it, but Alex Fergusson was exaggerating when he said that there was no hope for people on the waiting list unless they were priority homeless. Currently, 23 per cent of all social rented lets in Scotland go to homeless people, although, of course, the figure is much higher in certain areas.
Homeless people must be given reasonable preference when being allocated housing, but they are not the only category of people to be given such preference. Others who are given the same reasonable preference are people in housing that does not meet the tolerable standard, people who live in unsatisfactory housing conditions, people who have large families and people in overcrowded housing.
I give way to Murray Tosh.
I am most obliged. The point that I wanted to put was that the Bramley research identified a net housing shortfall in 15 local authority areas and identified necessary annual building programmes. If we except Edinburgh, where a substantial regeneration programme is planned, do the strategic development and funding packages agreed by Communities Scotland provide for Bramley's target figures to be met in any of the other 14 council areas?
They certainly do in general terms, but more work is being done on the issue. I do not regard Bramley's work as the last word on the matter, although it was a useful and important contribution at the time.
Many members raised the issue of the right to buy. Euan Robson said that the exemption to the right to buy in places that have been designated as having pressured area status has never been used, but I recently approved such a designation for East Renfrewshire Council and I know that several other local authorities are considering the possibility. Such designations, which were introduced under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, are the way forward. We will publish a report on the right to buy next year, but I feel that there is already scope for action to be taken in areas that have a problem.
Several members mentioned antisocial behaviour. We should remember that the number of people who applied as homeless last year after losing their previous tenancy because of antisocial behaviour was 220. That is a minuscule proportion of all homeless people. Antisocial behaviour is an important issue, but we must keep it in proportion.
As Karen Whitefield reminded us, being tough on antisocial behaviour can sometimes prevent evictions. Des McNulty also raised concerns about antisocial behaviour—we all sympathise with the four constituents to whom he referred. When the provisions in the 2003 act come into force, local authorities will be able to decide whether to offer a short secure tenancy or non-tenancy accommodation to people who become intentionally homeless as a result of antisocial behaviour or because they are subject to an ASBO. The non-tenancy option, which has been called bottom-line accommodation, will be coupled with appropriate support to help to end the underlying problems.
Does the minister think that the present six-month period for the provisional tenancy is adequate, given the time lag in dealing with antisocial behaviour under the antisocial behaviour legislation?
I think that the current period is adequate, but I will be happy to consider any more detailed points that Des McNulty wants to highlight.
Euan Robson raised the issue of advice and information. Again, the provision of advice and information is a requirement under the 2001 act. Proactive advice and information that seeks to reach out to people before they reach a moment of crisis can be key in preventing the crisis from happening. I know that many local authorities are not only developing advice and information strategies but carefully considering what the best means might be for providing and disseminating that effectively. The Scottish national standards that are in place are designed to ensure that such advice and information is of good quality.
Tommy Sheridan mentioned housing benefit problems. Local authority homelessness strategies must include standards for dealing with housing benefit claims and targets for improvement. It is not acceptable that a family should be threatened with homelessness as a result of failures in the administration of housing benefit. Section 12 of the 2003 act requires courts to take into account the impact of any such failure in rent arrears repossession cases. That section came into force in July last year.
David Davidson raised points about the private sector. Increasing use of the private sector was emphasised in the consultation document. Discussion is also well advanced with private rural landowners about their role in the provision of affordable housing on private land that would not otherwise be available.
Mary Scanlon raised points about the suspension of the local connection test. We will not place an unmanageable burden on local authorities as they work to meet already challenging targets; hence, we intend the requirement for a local connection to be suspended, rather than abolished. The enabling legislation provides for a measured and sensible approach, including the option of reversing a suspension if any problems arise.
A whole lot more could be said about homelessness prevention, which is a big agenda. We want local authorities to do more work on prevention. In the recent local authority projections for 2012, only one local authority factored in the impact of prevention. We are examining those forecasts seriously in the lead-up to the statement to the Parliament, but it is obvious that different local authorities have arrived at their projections by using different methodologies.
Water was mentioned by several members, including Tricia Marwick, Donald Gorrie and David Davidson. However, Tricia Marwick was well wide of the mark in saying that there had been no ministerial intervention, given that Scottish Water has been given the specific objective of providing sufficient strategic water and sewerage capacity to enable all anticipated new housing developments between 2006 and 2014 to be connected to the public networks. If there was time, I could speak at length about the practical action that Scottish Water is taking in its investment programme, which will run from 2006 to 2014. On 3 October, for example, the Executive gave Scottish Water directions on investment that confirmed the investment requirements that it placed on Scottish Water for its next investment programme. Scottish Water has already started work on those with local authorities.
It has been right for this debate to take place before a statement is made to the Parliament in a few weeks' time. As Euan Robson and Patrick Harvie said, homelessness is a phenomenon that should not occur in a modern society. I reiterate and make clear that the 2012 target is still the target. The abolition of priority need is about social justice. It is about fairness, equality and opportunity. It is about providing access for all to a fundamental right—the right to a safe, secure and affordable home. We must not and will not fail to deliver that right to the people of Scotland.