Chamber and committees

Not only are we in a housing emergency; more than a quarter of existing homes are unfit to live in. I say to the minister that that is not a steady improvement. An estimated 270,000 Scottish homes suffer from mould, while 81,000 have rising or penetrating damp. I suspect that those figures are even higher than reported, given the lack of clarity that surrounds data collection. My concerns relate to the health impacts that mould and damp cause—especially for young children. There has been no urgency from the Government to act on mould and damp in homes, although I would wager that every MSP has had at least one complaint from a constituent about mould and damp. Has the Government been sleepwalking into the latest mess, and why has nothing been done?

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that people live in safe, warm homes, in light of reports that the number of properties falling below the tolerable standard in order to be fit for habitation has increased from an estimated 54,000 in 2018 to 729,000 in 2023. (S6T-02395)

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it plans to introduce its proposed heat in buildings bill. (S6O-04404)

I say to the minister that we have only 14 months left, but the housing sector needs certainty about substantial proposals and changes that the Government has suggested. The fact that the Government is no further forward with introducing the bill in the Parliament leaves unanswered serious questions about energy performance certificate ratings.

I understand that the Government is consulting on EPCs. However, the current deadline for landlords to comply with the requirement to have an EPC rating of C is 2028. Is that target achievable when less than half of private homes are EPC C rating compliant and the Government might shift the goalposts on the scope of EPC ratings? Will the Government consider the current timelines to ensure that what it proposes and what it expects of private home owners are in sync?

Thank you, convener, and good morning, cabinet secretary and officials. In January, cabinet secretary, you told the committee of your intention

“to publish the fiscal framework alongside the local government settlement next month, if we can reach agreement on it with COSLA”.—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 21 January 2025; c 18.]

We have now passed that point. Can you or Councillor Hagmann give us an update on any conversations or progress that has been made?

If I may, convener, I have one final question. I have listened carefully to the responses that have been given this morning about reaching consensus and ensuring that discussions are being had with various political parties. We should remember that there have been periods when the governing party had a majority. Why did the Government not look at council tax reform then? It would not have needed political consensus, and the Government would have been able to move forward with it, if it wanted to.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on any correspondence it has had with the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Public Pensions Agency regarding the legacy of the Scottish police pension 1987 scheme. (S6O-04369)

Many officers who have proven to be unlawfully discriminated against were successful in that remedy under the terms that were set by the contingent decision process. However, despite having the opportunity to buy back their pensions, they were ultimately forced to exit. With the pause under the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022, that discrimination continues and prevents officers from retiring.

Will the minister provide an update on a proposed resolution and a timescale for when those officers will be able to buy back their pensionable term under the 1987 scheme, as agreed, to provide a remedy for the group of police officers who are affected? Will the minister share with Parliament when the date range that was released last month by the Home Office and the Treasury regarding some members who can be unpaused can be clarified, because that appears to continue discrimination within the police force?

This debate has been important. We need to build more homes, as we are in a housing emergency, and one of the ways in which we can do that is by accelerating the regeneration of our towns and town centres. That would surely provide more living spaces, and there would be more areas in which developers could come in to build homes. That would create a new dynamic, taking pressure off the villages that Fulton MacGregor rightly mentioned in his opening speech. Is the minister steadfast in doing that to try to tackle the housing emergency?

I congratulate Fulton MacGregor on securing this important debate and bringing it to the chamber. I also congratulate the northern corridor community forum, which undertook a lot of work in compiling its report, with the aim of making changes for the better in its community.

All members can support this issue and get around it. Our constituents’ voices matter, whether or not they are in community forum groups such as the NCCF, many of which have put together concerning statistics on lack of infrastructure and other issues that I will come to shortly.

The NCCF’s report shows that people are passionate about the areas in which they live—they care deeply about them. Fulton MacGregor is passionate about the area that he represents, and he has raised local issues in the chamber time and time again. We can share that approach across the parties. I would love to have seen a copy of the forum’s report before this evening’s debate, but I was not able to find it online. I have had direct conversations with Fulton MacGregor, but I am keen to have further discussions offline, to see whether there is a cross-party way forward in which we could examine and address the issue collectively, as MSPs who represent the same area.

In preparing for the debate, I reflected on my time as a councillor in North Lanarkshire. I fondly remember discussing the northern corridor at that time, when a range of unique problems affected communities in the area. Fulton MacGregor hit the nail on the head: many such problems are down to population growth. The number of people coming into the area through new housing development undoubtedly places pressures on infrastructure, healthcare and education, and affects people’s ability simply to get down to local shops, for example. We must ensure that we have the right infrastructure in place for each area.

I was struck by the transport issues that Fulton MacGregor raised, regarding accessibility to train stations and the lack of bus services in the area. Such issues are not unique to the northern corridor or to North Lanarkshire. However, the Scottish Government must refocus its efforts. Local people must be able to get into and out of the areas in which they live or work, but we must also be aware of the impact of the journey to net zero and achieving an affordable just transition, on which I am sure all members are focused.

I was pleased to hear that the forum is not against housing development, but that it wants a sensible and pragmatic approach to how such development comes into the area. It must come with the right infrastructure, otherwise it will not work. Roughly 14,000 people are on social housing waiting lists across North Lanarkshire. It is acknowledged that we have a housing issue in the area, and we must do something to address that collectively—not only local MSPs but North Lanarkshire councillors.

One way of doing so would be to explore using brownfield sites instead of encroaching on villages that have a lot of green belt. North Lanarkshire Council’s area is rich in brownfield sites—I think that it has roughly half of the available brownfield sites in Scotland. We should pursue that to take pressure off villages that cannot cope with the substantial housing developments that come to their area.