Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I appreciate the explanation, but, having asked two questions, I still do not know how many buildings will be subject to Government-led remediation.

Before I ask questions regarding assessors and the open call, I will go back to the pilot entries for the cladding remediation programme. As we know, there are 107 entries as part of that pilot. In the past, I have attempted to tease out an answer from the Government on when the works will be completed on the five properties and the pilot entries. Will the minister give an update on when those works will be completed and, indeed, when the works on the other 102 properties will be completed? We need to start moving forward. You are right in your assessment that things have been too slow, but if we are going to progress at speed, we need to know when the pilot programme will be completed.

There is not a single mention in the cabinet secretary’s statement of the huge amount of taxpayers’ money that has been wasted by the Scottish Government arguing about the definition of a woman. Taxpayers expect their money to be spent on helping our NHS, improving our roads and keeping our streets safe, not on court cases that aim to defend the indefensible, so will the cabinet secretary come clean with the public and confirm how much money was spent by the SNP Government to argue against biological sex in court?

I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. We warned the Scottish Government and the Scottish Greens time and again that the proposed heat in buildings bill was an absolute farce, but they refused to listen. Patrick Harvie was adamant that his heat pump proposals were the right call, despite warnings from stakeholders, investors and other parties. Expecting people to pay more than £14,000 for a heat pump that might not be suitable for their home shows how out of touch the Scottish Greens are with ordinary hard-working Scots.

The Scottish National Party has announced a rehashed heat in buildings bill with no further details about how much it will cost the public. More net zero targets have been missed and more net zero targets have been announced. When will the Government realise that Scotland deserves an affordable, just transition—one that works with industry, protects jobs and is affordable for people to make changes to their homes and lifestyles?

The SNP has announced that the new heat in buildings bill will be introduced next year, in the same year as the next Scottish Parliament election. Will the minister be up front with the public and tell them, right now, how much the new bill’s provisions will cost them? Will he confirm that, when the bill is introduced, he will announce to Parliament the timescales that the SNP will work towards?

To ask the Scottish Government how many NHS boards have designated single-sex spaces for women. (S6O-04520)

I asked a basic question, and I find it difficult to believe that the cabinet secretary cannot tell me today in the chamber how many NHS boards have single-sex spaces for women. Worse still, ministers have told parliamentary committees that they have no clue whether hospitals and health boards are following the law. The issue is about dignity and women’s safety, so will the cabinet secretary urgently write to all health boards to find out what their policies on single-sex spaces for women are? Once the responses are received, will he share those responses with MSPs?

Roughly 900,000 Scottish pensioners were denied access to the winter fuel allowance last year because of decisions taken by the UK Labour Government and the SNP Scottish Government. Has the Scottish Government made any assessment of its failure to pass on the devolved pension-age winter heating payment and the impact that that has had on pensioners living in, or on the cusp of, fuel poverty?

Amendment 1010 seeks to insert into the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, alongside new sections 36A to 36D, a new section to ensure that a person who identifies as homeless has the right to request a review of the various stages of support that they receive, if they feel let down or if they have not been recognised as homeless. It relates to comments made by other members this morning about tightening the definition of the ask and act duty to ensure that all the relevant bodies that will undertake those particular duties know exactly what is expected of them and that everyone can receive the level of service that they believe that they should receive, should they present in such a way.

That is where my concerns lie with this particular section of the bill. The minister has lodged amendments that the Conservatives are supportive of, but I think that there is further work to be done on the bill as it stands, particularly to ensure that public bodies have the confidence to ask and act and that, as Jeremy Balfour rightly pointed out, no legal challenges can happen on the back of the legislation. We all need to be incredibly mindful of that in relation to the ask and act duty. I believe that the right of review should be contained in the bill. After all, if someone wants to request a review to see what level of service they should receive and to benchmark that against the service that they did receive, what will happen through that process—and, indeed, what will happen to them should they follow that route—has to be made clear in the bill.

I believe that the bill needs to be tightened. I am happy to work with the minister and my colleague Alexander Stewart on amendment 1010, but, again, with regard to the ask and act duty, I think that Jeremy Balfour hit the nail on the head when he talked about how the bill’s weaknesses have been laid bare at this morning’s committee meeting.

Amendment 1010 seeks to insert into the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, alongside new sections 36A to 36D, a new section to ensure that a person who identifies as homeless has the right to request a review of the various stages of support that they receive, if they feel let down or if they have not been recognised as homeless. It relates to comments made by other members this morning about tightening the definition of the ask and act duty to ensure that all the relevant bodies that will undertake those particular duties know exactly what is expected of them and that everyone can receive the level of service that they believe that they should receive, should they present in such a way.

That is where my concerns lie with this particular section of the bill. The minister has lodged amendments that the Conservatives are supportive of, but I think that there is further work to be done on the bill as it stands, particularly to ensure that public bodies have the confidence to ask and act and that, as Jeremy Balfour rightly pointed out, no legal challenges can happen on the back of the legislation. We all need to be incredibly mindful of that in relation to the ask and act duty. I believe that the right of review should be contained in the bill. After all, if someone wants to request a review to see what level of service they should receive and to benchmark that against the service that they did receive, what will happen through that process—and, indeed, what will happen to them should they follow that route—has to be made clear in the bill.

I believe that the bill needs to be tightened. I am happy to work with the minister and my colleague Alexander Stewart on amendment 1010, but, again, with regard to the ask and act duty, I think that Jeremy Balfour hit the nail on the head when he talked about how the bill’s weaknesses have been laid bare at this morning’s committee meeting.