Chamber and committees

Will the minister give way?

This Government has had 17 years to fix the problem, but it has failed. A quarter of all households with children have spent a year or more in temporary accommodation and almost 8,000 households in need were not offered temporary accommodation. It is time for action, not words.

The Scottish National Party has failed to turbo boost housebuilding and families are now stuck on accommodation waiting lists. Will the SNP finally tackle the housing emergency, or will that continue to be another ball dropped by the SNP Government?

I thank the minister for giving way, and I promise that I will not take too long.

These are just words. It would be helpful if, today, the Government were to agree to a review or to consider a review. That would benefit not only parents, but children and their safety, which is what we are talking about today.

Good morning. My question relates to rural areas, which we know are in danger of being left behind when it comes to Scotland’s housing emergency. Many jobs in rural Scotland tend to be lower paid, with wages in general not keeping pace with inflation. There is also less local infrastructure and less access to public services, which makes it less likely that young people will stay, so they often move to other parts of the country. How do we tackle depopulation? Could addressing that issue be the answer to tackling Scotland’s housing emergency in our rural areas?

I do not have a question at the moment, convener.

Thank you, convener—I appreciate the opportunity to come in with a last-minute question.

I note that, similarly to Fulton MacGregor, I regularly work alongside Stephen Llewellyn in relation to local housing casework.

My question is on housing waiting lists and the points-based system that operates in council areas up and down the country. Based on what we have heard today in relation to needs, wants and aspirations, will there come a point when we have to adapt the points-based system to meet modern-day housing challenges?

I will kick off with Stephen Llewellyn, given the vast amount of people who are on housing waiting lists in North Lanarkshire just now.

I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement.

The Housing (Scotland) Bill was the opportunity for the Scottish National Party Government to address the housing emergency, but his statement has done nothing to address the housing shortage or to reassure housing developers and landlords that the Government understands the issue at hand.

The minister has already taken a sledgehammer to the rental market, and today’s announcement will only cause further worry to an already unsteady housing sector.

As the Government is hellbent on being anti-house building, developers have axed plans to deliver hundreds more houses since the introduction of the SNP rent cap legislation. Because of the SNP, around £3.2 billion-worth of build-to-rent developments have stalled. How on earth will we tackle the housing emergency if the Government does not understand that we need to build, build, build and not cap, cap, cap?

Has the Government consulted build-to-rent developers regarding the minister’s proposals? If the minister is serious about addressing housing shortages, is he prepared to exempt social housing from rent controls?

Thank you. It is great to be back on the committee and I look forward to working with you all once more. My only declaration of interest at present is that I was a serving councillor on North Lanarkshire Council between 2017 and 2021. Of course, if there are any future declarations of interest, I will update the committee as and when appropriate.

I am pleased to contribute to Paul O’Kane’s members’ business debate to highlight the importance of challenge poverty week 2024. I will use my time to raise an important issue that I have been looking into for quite some time. It relates to Paul O’Kane’s opening speech, in which he mentioned the importance of food provision.

When I was the Conservative spokesperson for children and young people, I visited a Stirling food bank after I was contacted by an individual who wanted to help families with babies but had come across a huge barrier to supplying baby milk to families in need. Milk is, of course, essential for the first stages of an infant’s life and, if the mother is unable to breastfeed, they rely solely on baby milk formula. The nutrients that are contained in the milk are vital for a baby’s healthy growth and development. However, keeping up with the cost of bottles and tins can leave many mothers who are struggling financially in a worrying situation. To put that into context, it can cost up to £18 per 800g for baby formula powder. I know from when my baby, Charlotte, was growing up that that can involve a lot of tins over a very short period of time.

At present, food banks are not permitted to accept or distribute infant formula donations. Although I fully accept that that guidance comes from UNICEF rather than the Scottish Government or the UK Government, it makes no sense to me whatsoever to deny a family that vital product, which they might need to help to provide for their child.

Local authorities, health boards and public health teams play an important role in identifying families and meeting their needs with regard to infant formula through wraparound care. However, for quite some time, I have been concerned about families falling through gaps in the system. Some families will go to a food bank when they hit crisis point, instead of following the direct services route that I mentioned.

UNICEF suggests that food banks should contact health visiting services, public health teams, local authorities or health boards to agree on a referral strategy for families who are in crisis and need support. However, that can be a very long process involving layers of bureaucracy. Families who need to feed their babies need that help directly. They simply cannot wait to go through the various layers of the system.

The healthy start scheme is another route, but it is not immediate, and not all families are eligible to use it.

I understand the risks of food banks handing out baby milk, but I also understand the risks of buying baby milk from a supermarket. In my view, those risks are exactly the same. There must be a way round the issue. A supermarket in Buxton was able to support a local paper’s campaign to support the High Peak Baby Bank, which led to people being able to donate items from supermarkets, including formula, wipes and food.

However, the guidance must be clearer. In my view, it is simply common sense to ensure that families are able to access baby milk formula if they need to. I would welcome the opportunity to speak to the minister at a future point to talk about how we can engage with UNICEF directly to see whether there is any way of overcoming such barriers for charities and organisations that do a wonderful job to help families in need.

This is challenge poverty week. I hope that there will come a day when families do not need to rely on food banks, but until we tackle the root causes of poverty, we must ensure that such vital items are available to support families with babies. I fully believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life. One way in which we can improve the health and wellbeing of babies in Scotland is by looking at whether baby milk can be supplied through food banks. I urge the Scottish Government to do that. I am more than happy to work with the Government on the matter so that a commonsense approach can be adopted to tackling poverty in Scotland.

I associate myself with Paul O’Kane’s comments about the fact that access to legal services is vitally important to everyone. We have been speaking about human rights this morning. We need to ensure that people can access legal services when they need to. I share the concerns about the annulment as it is presented in the motion. That is not because I do not believe that the matter should be looked into. It absolutely should be looked into.

I seek reassurance from the minister with regard to the review of legal fees, which she touched on briefly in her opening statement. The committee could explore that or the Scottish Government could pursue it directly on the back of what we have discussed today. It would be helpful if the minister could address that when she sums up. I sympathise with the points that have been raised about ensuring that people can get access to justice support when they need it.