Chamber and committees

Good morning, minister and officials. Minister, you and I have had exchanges regarding Awaab’s law, and I am pleased to see that it will feature as part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, as it rightly should. My question relates to the number of homes that are no longer deemed habitable under the tolerable standard. You and I have had exchanges regarding that in the chamber.

When I asked a topical question on the issue on 11 March, you said:

“The increase in the tolerable standard failure rate is due to the introduction of smoke and carbon monoxide alarm criteria. The vast majority of the failures were in the private sector.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2025; c 6.]

However, the response to the freedom of information request that was made by my party in January 2025 shows that there are still council homes that do not have such interlinked fire safety alarms fitted in them. That includes 2,800 homes in Fife, 800 in Aberdeen, 524 in South Lanarkshire and 500 in Edinburgh. The committee would be interested to hear an update from you, minister, on whether the Government is engaging with local authorities on that. It fits in with making sure that homes are safe and secure for people to live in.

Okay. We know that the open call will be extended until June. I must admit that I was hoping for more information on the time frames, the scope and the numbers. I have not received that from the minister this morning. It would be really helpful if he could provide that information to the committee at the earliest opportunity because I think that that is what people need at this point, which is eight years down the road from when Grenfell happened.

I want to know about the assessed capacity of developers to undertake remediation work while still meeting new building targets. We are, of course, in a housing emergency, and it is appropriate for us to look at the need to build more homes—on which I am sure that we are all in agreement—and to make sure that developers are carrying out important remediation work at the same time.

I appreciate the detail, because I think it important that we tease it out. I have a follow-up question. There are 107 properties in the pilot programme. Given that the programme was launched in 2021, why do we still not know, four years later, which of the properties are subject to Scottish Government-led remediation and which are not?

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?