Chamber and committees

I come back to the point that the chancellor said that the UK Government would spend what is necessary, but there has been no funding. We continue to raise the issue with the UK Government, but nothing has been set aside; funding was not set aside in the budget.

Any answer would be hypothetical at this point, because we do not know what the options appraisal will say. I am happy to come back to the committee when we have more detail, such as from other local authorities. At this moment, anything would be hypothetical, because we do not know what any particular ask will be and whether any funding will come from the UK Government to address the matter. Obviously, the issue has continued to evolve in the rest of the UK, too. If there was additional funding from the UK Government and there were consequentials, that would change the situation but, at this moment, it is hard to indicate that when we do not know, and have not had any specific asks, about funding.

There are a couple of important issues to mention, the first of which is data. In previous question sessions, we have talked about the data collection issues that arose during the pandemic. Local authorities are playing catch-up on that and will continue to do that work.

Secondly, social landlords are required by law to meet the housing standard, and the repairing standard statutory guidance sets out what private landlords need to do in that regard. If they are not meeting that standard, issues can be taken to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland for determination.

Similarly, if the Scottish Housing Regulator does not think that local authorities are doing enough on damp and mould, for example, it can write to ask them for an action plan. We discuss that with the regulator on an on-going basis, and discussions with ALACHO and COSLA feed into that point. ALACHO has not specifically mentioned to me the issue that you raised, but I am happy to pick up that point with it and come back to the committee.

Guidelines exist and actions can be taken, and COSLA is catching up on data collection. In general, the figures that we referenced are standing still. We are working with ALACHO, COSLA and the regulator on how we take the issue forward.

I am happy to come back to the committee on the point that you mentioned and I can contact ALACHO about its specific concerns. I have not been made aware of the issue, but colleagues may be aware of it. I will speak to officials and come back to the committee.

I come back to what I said in my opening statement. The strategy came out in 2021, and there was, at that particular point, no disagreement in that respect. Since I was made a minister a year ago, the board has met on, I think, two or three occasions, and obviously we regularly meet board members to discuss their own specific issues as well as broader matters.

Since 2021, we have had, as we have talked about, the pandemic as well as the cost of living crisis. There has been an impact; indeed, we have seen the impact on Scotland. The Office for National Statistics has said that, in the UK, around about one and a half million workers have been lost, and obviously, the construction sector will have been part of that. It means that, in Scotland, you would be talking about 150,000-ish people; again, that is just an estimate based on the share of the population. There has been an impact in that respect.

Construction inflation, too, has had a real impact. On my visits last summer, I was told that contracts might be there for a day or two, and then the prices had to change. Anecdotally, I have heard from speaking to developers that things have slowed down a little bit, but inflation is still high, and we have obviously had the cut to the capital budget.

The key point is that the situation has changed since the strategy was first set. The objectives are still there: we have set the 110,000 new homes target, and the review planned for 2026-27 has been brought forward to now. Work is on-going on that and the logistics are being worked out at the moment. As I have said publicly and will continue to say, the deliverability of all that is being reviewed and the stakeholders involved in the housing to 2040 strategy will be included. Indeed, we have said as much to them. The review will be carried out not just by Government but by stakeholders themselves, which I think is incredibly important.

I will bring in Joe Brown in a second to talk about the review, but I think that the issue of deliverability is really important. Things have changed; in fact, they have changed significantly from when the strategy came out. I do not think that anybody can say that they have not.

I want to come back to a couple of other issues with regard to what we do as we move forward, but I will bring in Joe Brown to talk about the deliverability review, what is happening in that respect, how it will work and how it will report back, and to give you a little bit more detail on how it will be worked on operationally, if that is okay.

I am happy to come back and discuss the report when it comes out, but we are very much taking an inclusive approach. Indeed, that is an important part of the review, because it means that it is not just the Scottish Government that is looking at this, but the stakeholders. As I have said, I am happy to come back to the committee at any point to discuss that.

I apologise. We are continuing to discuss what the indicators should be in that respect, and, again, I am happy to come back to the committee on that. Discussions are on-going.

No—it will probably be before then. I do not want to commit to anything, as discussions are on-going, but I think that it would be before then.

It is continuing to be developed, with a consultation coming out relatively shortly. Obviously, we will write to the committee about that particular point.

An issue that was raised through the housing to 2040 group was the forthcoming legislation and at what pace and at what time that would be coming forward, and we are continuing to take feedback on that. There will be consultations on the standards; we will write to the committee about the process and what it looks like, but work on the consultations on that matter is on-going.

I mentioned the funding that was allocated this year as part of the £100 million of ending homelessness together funding. An additional £2 million was set aside and we negotiated and discussed with COSLA which local authorities needed it most—it is not my place to say which ones those are, but Edinburgh, for example, received part of that funding.

I talked about our work with Edinburgh and the fact that it is developing a housing emergency action plan. Officials are working with councils collectively on their needs and we are asking them specifically what they need. One of the key things that the City of Edinburgh Council talked about was employing another empty homes officer, and I think that that has started to make an impact. We are asking councils specifically what they need, and not just in terms of funding. The additional empty homes officer has already made a difference in Edinburgh.

I mentioned the work that we are doing with the other local authorities that have declared a housing emergency. We are working collaboratively with them as well. I disagree with your comment that we are not working closely with them. Officials will tell you that that is not the case. We are working very closely with them. I have a meeting with the City of Edinburgh Council either tomorrow or Thursday to talk about specific points. We are talking about their acquisitions. Last year, we set aside £60 million for acquisitions, and that has been picked up. Edinburgh has taken advantage of that.

We are also working very closely on the voids issue. Edinburgh acknowledges that it has far too many voids and we are working closely with it on what we need to do to get the figures down and to get empty homes back into use. We have a partnership approach with all local authorities that have declared a housing emergency. As I indicated, we are in discussions with ALACHO and COSLA on a more joined-up piece of work across Scotland and I hope that we will be able to come back with more details on that relatively shortly.

We need to do more about voids, empty homes and allocation policies. However, it comes back to building more homes. We have talked about that element, and we are talking about trying to flex up the financing around that. There are real opportunities to flex up the finance system to get more money into the sector—not to replace the grant system, but in addition to that.

You are seeing the likes of Ken Gibb say that more collaboration is needed between the Scottish and UK Governments. Ken is part of the housing investment task force. He has come to the committee previously and what he has to say is very much respected. He advises all four Governments on those matters.

We need to work with the sector on how we get more money into the sector to build more houses. We are working closely with the local authorities that are talking about that, including Edinburgh.

I am also happy to discuss any issues about Edinburgh. We catch up regularly so I am happy to discuss those matters further.

I will come to the social housing issue first. I think that there has to be more social housing built, which could be local authority housing. As you know, a piece of work on affordable housing is being carried out by Ken Gibb, whom I mentioned earlier. We have raised the issue in committee before, and Ken Gibb was asked to come back with a definition of affordable housing.

Affordable housing can be a number of things. Miles Briggs talked about mid-market rent. MMR can be important for people who cannot afford a deposit but for whom a house is still affordable. What does affordable housing mean? I look forward to getting that piece of work from Ken Gibb. I imagine that he will write to the committee about it at some stage. We have raised the issue of affordable housing in committee on a number of occasions; I remember doing so myself. It is important to know what affordable housing looks like and how we work with it, but I do not think that we actually have a definition of what it is.

As I have said before, there has to be an all-tenures approach. There are lots of examples of developments that I have been to where there is the opportunity for all-tenures housing—houses for sale, MMR or houses for rent. That all-tenures approach is needed.

On how financing for local authorities for what they do, we have gone on about the financing of local authorities and what needs to be done. The housing investment task force is a really important part of working out how we can get more money into the sector. The minutes of task force meetings will show that it has discussed how we can get more money to local authorities.

I come back to the point that Ken Gibb made, which was that guarantees and borrowing powers will be continued—he made that very clear. I note that Kezia Dugdale, who represents Shelter, very clearly supported Ken Gibb’s paper and what he has said on that issue. There is an question about how to get more money. I have talked about our investment discussions about how to get more money into the sector with local authorities, SFT, SNIB, hubco and so on.

Of course, there has to be social housing, but there has to be an all-tenures approach, as well. In East Lothian, Midlothian and other parts of Scotland, a lot of house building is going on. We can talk about 25 per cent of building being affordable housing, but if developers are not building housing using an all-tenures approach, 25 per cent of zero is zero. If the house-building sector picks up as interest rates drop—as we hope it will—the amount of affordable housing that is being built will, obviously, increase.

There has to be an all-tenures approach, but there also has to be a specific focus on affordable housing. One of the key things that was made clear in the housing investment task force was that funding would be focused particularly on social housing. There needs to be an all-tenures approach, but the housing investment task force agreed in its terms of reference that funding has to be focused on affordable housing and social housing. The work of Ken Gibb was referred to in that connection by the housing investment task force.

The number of voids is really important. The City of Edinburgh Council, for example, has talked about the number of voids that it has. A specific piece of work by Ken Gibb that I reference in every discussion that I have with local authorities is on-going. The meetings that we have had with COSLA and ALACHO are about the national approach and how we can drive down the number of voids, because there are far too many.

We need to ask what the Government needs to do about voids, but we also need to ask what local authorities need to do. That relates to the housing emergency action plans that we talked about in our discussions with local authorities. How do we help Edinburgh to get its number of voids down? In Edinburgh the problem is not funding but the fact that it does not have the workforce to deal with the issue. How do we work with that council to deliver that workforce? The issue differs in different parts of Scotland, so it comes back to how we look at that.

However, we need to make sure that we are driving down the number of voids, which could make a real difference in the number of temporary accommodation units that are available to local authorities. There will always be some voids and there will always be that carry-forward. However, given the number of people who are in temporary accommodation, more than 1,500 voids—I think that that was the figure that was mentioned at the round-table meeting that Miles Briggs and I attended—is far too many. I will give the City of Edinburgh Council thanks for beginning to drive the number down, but a national focus across Scotland is needed, so our discussions with COSLA and ALACHO are focused on what we need to do to drive down the number.