Chamber and committees

We, in the Scottish Government, are very clear in our minds that there is a real need for rural housing, and we want to make sure that the system can respond to that.

The core way in which the Government supports the delivery of housing in rural and island areas is through the general programme. You will know that, of our target of providing 110,000 houses by 2032, 70 per cent should be for social rent and 10 per cent should be in rural and island Scotland. I can tell the committee that we have consistently exceeded delivery of that 10 per cent through the core affordable supply programme, working with councils and RSLs.

That has been and will continue to be supplemented by the rural and islands housing fund and the rural affordable homes for key workers fund, which will be provided for in the coming budget. They are demand-led schemes, which means that, by their nature, we rely on people coming to us with opportunities. However, the funding is there to supplement what the core programme provides.

I mentioned the work on SMEs, which is about bolstering housing delivery in rural areas.

I think that there was a second part to your question, but I am sorry—I cannot remember what it was.

That is a really important point. There are two strands to it, as far as I see.

The first is a more general point, which is that a lot of the homes that are being delivered from investment are about unlocking economic opportunities for the local area. I mentioned that Highland Council was talking about its pitch for investment. That is geared to a large extent to the significant economic opportunities, which you will be very familiar with, around the Highlands and Islands—I am sorry, Highland Council is looking only at its area, but I see the picture more widely—however, those opportunities will not be unlocked without housing. Therefore, the investment in housing definitely brings a local community benefit that gets reinvested into the communities.

Then there is the separate question of making sure that we use local contractors. The greatest economic opportunities are extracted in that way, and the community wealth building work will absolutely help us to achieve that.

One more bit of interest is that I have been trying to support small and medium-sized enterprise house builders, because they in particular have had difficulty in recent years and are less able to withstand shocks. They are also critical to rural and island areas, because that is principally where they operate.

We are trying to take a whole-systems approach, but community wealth building work will be critical as well.

In the situation that we are in, in relation to temporary accommodation, it is about the degree of harm. As far as I am concerned, at the end of the spectrum, with the biggest difficulty, there are children who are living in unsuitable accommodation. Then there are the people who are spending too long in suitable accommodation.

The investment that we have made in acquisitions and in turning around voids has been about saying that, although the foundation of our approach is on house building—which must always continue—we need a year to 18 months for units to come through the process and be completed and that, in the meantime, we need immediate responses to serve those children who are in unsuitable accommodation and everyone else, moving back across that spectrum. That investment has been very successful. It is part of an activist and interventionist approach that the Government has been taking in recent years, since we declared the emergency.

Let me get my figures in front of me. The targeted investment that we have made so far has brought 1,250 voids and acquisitions back into use as affordable homes. That is a major achievement. As you can imagine, the work that is required to bring voids back into use will differ depending on the condition that they were in, and the number of acquisitions that can be made depends on the local market. It has been a really important part of providing immediacy in the programme. It is something that we have always done—acquisitions have always been part of our strategy—but that has ramped up significantly of late, and it has made a big difference.

We had that discussion last week about how the schemes will have to work harder and how we will do a bit of a review across the schemes in the coming financial year just to make sure that we can get the maximum out of them. However, as I say, that slight increase in cash terms was a win because it allows me to keep the schemes running.

I know that we discussed that last week, so I am sorry if that has not been forthcoming yet. We will get you that.

I do not envisage that there will be an underspend. The challenge for cladding remediation, now that everything is in place, is not about managing underspend; it is about managing the vast amount of spend that will be required.

Stephen Lea-Ross and I, working together with our teams, consider very closely the rhythm of the programme, with properties coming into the single open call, being considered, grant letters being offered, and then moving through to the SBA being undertaken. The next stage is review, and then mitigation in the first instance, if required.

There is a rhythm to the programme and I believe that the available funding will absolutely be spent. I know that consideration is on-going of the building safety levy, and its supplementing what we are talking about, so the challenge will not be not getting money out the door, but the cost of the programme.

The agreement that was reached was not a case of an offer being made by the Scottish Government and accepted by Aberdeen. There was an ask by Aberdeen City Council to re-purpose funds that had been committed to the council some years ago via the housing infrastructure fund but had never been spent. It is important that I make it clear that that was not a Government offer and was not additional Government money. There was internal work in the council, along with work in the community, which was not an easy process for anyone involved, not least the homeowners. The council reached a proposal that involved looking to that unspent fund as a way of meeting the need and providing what was required and then asked for flexibility. We were initially unable to accept that ask because the terms of the housing infrastructure fund did not allow that, but we could agree that money in the affordable homes supply programme could be made available to Aberdeen, in a way that was entirely separate from the ask about RAAC, and that it was up to the council to decide how to re-profile its spend. The council chose to do that for RAAC.

That is a very different proposition to having an offer made by the Government and I must clarify that no such offer will be made. I have spoken with residents, elected representatives and council officers, usually in open forum and occasionally in public meetings. I have spoken to them all and heard their concerns but I must be very clear that there will be no central remediation fund for RAAC from the Scottish Government because we simply do not have the flexibility to provide that.

In Aberdeen, the council looked within its own plans and asked for flexibility for existing funding pots and I have said that I will consider that for any council that comes forward, but that is a very different proposition from having the Government make offers, which we will not be making.

Good morning and thank you, convener—I will indeed take the opportunity. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence today on Scotland’s draft climate change plan, which sets out the actions that we will take to 2040 to reduce emissions and to meet the first three statutory carbon budgets.

Specifically, I will discuss the buildings chapter, which is central to the plan, because homes and buildings are one of the largest remaining sources of emissions and one of the most challenging areas. It is felt directly by people in how warm their homes are, how much they pay in bills and the decisions that they make about their property, which is probably the most important asset that most people will ever own. It is therefore essential, in my view, that the transition is fair, affordable and practical, and it must not exacerbate fuel poverty.

From our perspective, delivering the transition to clean heat is not about a single policy lever. It requires a coherent strategy that brings together many elements that I am sure we will touch on today. It is about providing long-term market certainty, so that households and industry know the direction of travel and can plan, and about supporting households and organisations with advice and financial support where needed. Building public awareness is also important, as is investing in the workforce and supply chain, so that we can deliver at scale.

I believe that we are already making strong progress. Through Home Energy Scotland we are continuing to deliver generous loans, grants and tailored advice to help households move to clean heat. We have a wider package of support, with £1.67 billion allocated to heat and energy efficiency programmes over the course of this parliamentary session.

The buildings chapter of the draft CCP builds on that progress and sets out further planned work, including a heat in buildings strategy and delivery plan, which is to be published at the end of 2026 and which will set out how action is sequenced and how we will work with partners, taking account—crucially—of actions by the United Kingdom Government that we are expecting in the interim period.

As the committee knows, the heat in buildings bill will now be introduced early in the next parliamentary session, subject to the outcome of the election. I put on record that that does not represent a reduction in our ambition; it is part of the practical and fair approach that I mentioned earlier, which I am sure that we will get into today.

Moreover, the Parliament has now approved new regulations to reform the energy performance certificate, on which I recently gave evidence to the committee. We have also set out proposals to accelerate heat network development.

Crucially, regulation alone will not deliver the transition. Advice, consumer protection and financial support, particularly for those at risk of fuel poverty, will be fundamental. I take this opportunity to mention our warmer homes Scotland and area-based schemes, which are supporting those at risk of fuel poverty.

While the Government is committed to delivering net zero, the pace and affordability of the transition do not depend only on devolved levers, as will emerge in our conversation today. This area of policy is highly integrated across the United Kingdom and I am in close on-going contact with the UK Government Minister for Energy Consumers, Mr McCluskey, in particular, as his decisions will be integral to what we can take forward.

I believe that, in the meantime, the draft climate change plan provides a clear and credible pathway to net zero. I look forward to discussing it.

There is a fundamental issue that I cannot escape, which is that I cannot bind future Administrations. The climate change plan will be completed, as you all know, before the end of this parliamentary session. Subject to fundamental change, it will contain a 2045 target for decarbonisation and the policy levers that we think are required to achieve that. The fact that the UK Government is changing electricity cost arrangements will not change. What I can say is that anyone who picks up this work will appreciate that every lever has to be pulled, and the cost of electricity is a very significant lever.

I will come to Jess Niven on housing to 2040. However, I should have been clear that it is not just about my overseeing those things. Sustainability and good places are built into the housing to 2040 vision, of which the housing emergency action plan is a part. I suppose that all of it forms part of the public policy landscape. The registered social landlords with whom I meet about the affordable homes targets are very conscious that they will have to look across the board at what the Government asks them to do—whether in house building, the environment or emissions reduction—and they know that they have to comply with the suite of asks. Jess may want to add something.