Chamber and committees

Rural housing providers face unique and complex challenges that set them apart from providers in urban areas. When they attempt to meet net zero targets, they are faced with high retrofit costs due to traditional construction, lack of access to skilled labour and materials and, as the minister cited in his response, funding gaps. The grants that are given by the Government often fall short of covering the substantial costs of decarbonising rural housing. That is not to mention the difficulties of complying with the energy performance certificate system, due to the issues that I have just raised. Such issues need to be fully addressed in the heat in buildings framework when the relevant bill comes to the Parliament. Will the minister commit to working towards a tailored strategy for rural communities that does not leave them at a disadvantage?

To ask the Scottish Government what additional measures will be introduced to support rural housing providers to achieve the net zero emissions target by decarbonising social housing. (S6O-04213)

Yesterday, I asked the housing minister about the Scottish Government’s affordable homes target of providing 110,000 homes by 2032. To achieve that target, there would need to be, on average, 10,700 homes built per year; however, as it stands, only 21 per cent of that overall target has been delivered.

To build more houses, there needs to be confidence in the market and long-term planning. However, over the past three years, the affordable housing budget has been committed, cut and restored. Does the cabinet secretary recognise that that has damaged market confidence? Why should investors have confidence that the Government will not cut the budget again next year?

I apologise, Presiding Officer. I understand what the minister says about the need to interact with others and look at the full picture when considering whether to endorse NOVA Scotland fully. However, my understanding is that the police are supportive of endorsement and want to proceed. The last conversation that I am aware of was in October last year. Has there been any update since then?

Absolutely. That is something that I completely support and is why I am so supportive of NOVA Scot: it is not about looking at veterans in silos—for example, as only men—but about ensuring that we consider the needs of women, families and young people, who are part of the forces family as well. Everyone can be supported through the system, but it is not fully operational yet. That is why I am bringing the debate to the chamber—to try to convince the Scottish Government to give the expanded service the green light so that we can get the support to people who need it.

Importantly, Op NOVA has dedicated caseworkers who are assigned to work directly with veterans, enabling them to build a strong one-to-one relationship. It provides veterans with someone whom they trust while the best programme of help and support for them is worked out. We have that through NOVA Scot but, again, the number of referrals that the Scottish service gets will be significantly lower, because it does not have the same access that Op NOVA has to the various other sectors.

The outcomes from Op NOVA speak for themselves. Of the total referrals that were received from Op NOVA, 82 per cent of veterans who engaged with the service noticed that their mental health improved; 76 per cent

“reported progress to a crime-free life”;

and 66 per cent noted improved relationships with family and friends. Those statistics can be replicated in Scotland if the Minister for Veterans and the Scottish Government would agree to put pen to paper.

Many veterans already feel a sense of detachment from decision making in this country, and they often feel that MSPs are not standing shoulder to shoulder with them. We can show today that, as a Parliament, we do care. NOVA Scot is about not just reducing reoffending in our veterans community, but showing that there is a tailored model of support, should any veteran fall on hard times. The best part is that it does not even need legislation. What NOVA Scot needs is the Scottish Government’s buy-in, so that it can hit the ground running by providing access to other sectors and ensuring that the project is veteran centred, with everyone pulling together to reduce veteran crime rates.

I firmly believe that adopting such a person-centred approach can positively change the lives of veterans throughout Scotland. I finish with a question to the minister. Will he approve the letter today, and will he give the green light to NOVA Scot?

For us as members, among the many highlights of being elected to represent our communities are the fantastic people whom we get to meet along the way. There are literally thousands of people in communities across the country who spend every single day helping others without expecting anything in return. I am fortunate enough to know one of those people: Scott Muir.

I first met Scott when I was a councillor in North Lanarkshire. I was aware of a veterans cafe that was being held every Friday, so one afternoon, I decided to pay a visit. When I arrived, I could not have been made more welcome. They were not used to politicians visiting, but they very quickly invited me to sit at a table with some members of our armed forces and veterans community. I was offered a bowl of soup—they told me that it was road-kill soup; to this day, I do not know whether it was or not, but it was enjoyable all the same—and we spent the next few hours chatting away. I listened to their views on the issues of the day and asked whether there was anything that the council could do to help them.

It was there that I met Scott. He is one of the driving forces behind Veterans Community (Lanarkshire)—VCLAN—which is the group that is responsible for holding those cafes every Friday. It is a brilliant initiative to enable our armed forces and veterans community in Lanarkshire to get together, enjoy a warm meal and socialise. Scott is the definition of a community champion—I know that I am going to be in a lot of trouble for mentioning him in the chamber, as he is not someone who enjoys having the spotlight shone on him, but he certainly deserves the recognition; I suppose that he can chin me later for doing so.

The truth is that I would not be raising the matter of NOVA Scotland in the chamber today if it was not for Scott. When he shared with me the NOVA Scot proposals and how the service had the potential to transform the lives of many veterans in Scotland, I knew that I had to seek answers from the Scottish Government.

So, what exactly is NOVA Scot? To put it simply, the project champions veterans in the justice system or in times of crisis. The NOVA Scot service, were it to be introduced in full, would enable veterans to live stable lives by providing access to practical and emotional support across a range of areas including education, employment, accommodation, living skills, self-care, mental health and wellbeing, friendships and communities, drugs and alcohol and living a law-abiding life.

NOVA Scot has already established a direct referral pathway with Police Scotland and received referrals from a vulnerable persons database. Any veteran whom Police Scotland encounters who is deemed vulnerable—for example, there might be concerns relating to their mental health or to addiction or suicide—will automatically be referred to NOVA Scot.

Although the service is working well, veterans who are arrested or who go through the custody suites are not currently referred to NOVA Scot. That is because Police Scotland is able to refer those who enter the justice system only to organisations that are funded by a statutory body. As NOVA Scot is not currently funded through that model, it falls outwith the remit. Ideally, the service needs a letter of support from the Scottish Government, which would open the door to NOVA Scot being able to improve the identification of veterans in the justice system. Susie Hamilton, the Scottish veterans commissioner, has recently called for such improvements to be made in order to prevent reoffending.

There is a gap in the justice system when it comes to supporting veterans. I must stress that although veterans are no more likely than any other civilian in Scotland to commit a crime, the reasons that they fall into the justice system can often be prevented. By providing veterans with assistance early on, there is an opportunity to prevent them from ending up in the justice system in the first place.

NOVA Scot has been modelled on the highly successful Op NOVA service, which was commissioned in England in 2023 but has been operational since 2014. The primary objective is to provide a single pathway to support veterans to prevent them from entering the justice system. Op NOVA has access to, and receives referrals from, the police, the national health service, HM Prison and Probation Service and the NHS GP connect service.

That is the main difference between Op NOVA and NOVA Scot. The system in England has access to various different areas to which Nova Scot currently does not have access. As I said, all that is needed is for the Scottish Government to give the green light to replicate that system through the creation of a bespoke service in Scotland, which could transform lives.

This morning, the minister and I received a copy of a letter from a house builder who eloquently described the current state of our planning system and the decisions taken by the Government that have made it incredibly challenging for small and medium-sized house builders.

The last time that the Scottish Government undertook a review of the planning system, it resulted in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 and national planning framework 4. Since both of those have been in place, there has been a decline in house-building delivery, a loss of house builders, a decline in the number of construction companies and the declaration of a housing emergency. Scotland is now a hostile environment for anyone in the housing industry.

What role will the planning hub have in looking at those particular issues, which are really important to our housing sector? How much will the Government invest overall in the hub to prevent such issues from recurring and the hub itself from becoming a talking shop?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its progress towards creating a planning hub. (S6O-04099)

We all read in the paper this morning about the Scottish Government’s proposals for affordable housing. That was a key ask of stakeholders, but we cannot ignore the fact that cutting and then reinstating budgets creates instability in the market, as developers simply cannot trust whether that budget will still be in place next year.

We also have to acknowledge that cutting the budget last year caused a huge amount of damage and lost investment in our housing sector. If the cabinet secretary is serious about listening to housing stakeholders, what will she do to encourage developers and developments, and to deliver what developers are calling for, which is to scrap the disastrous rent proposals that will have devastating impacts on our housing sector? Is she confident that the Scottish Government will finally achieve its housing target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance. Given the Scottish Government’s shoddy behaviour last week on the winter fuel payment announcement, it should have learned a lesson. Therefore, I suspect that I was not the only MSP who was angered to read in the Daily Record that the Scottish Government is set to make an embarrassing U-turn on the cuts to affordable housing in the budget statement today.

The article was published at 4.30 this morning. It appears to me that the news was leaked to the media before MSPs had the opportunity to listen to and scrutinise the Scottish Government’s proposals. The Daily Record must be the Scottish National Party’s favourite choice of paper this season; I find it almost suspicious that both leaks have been handed to the same paper. The SNP Government should not be using the press to try to claw back any shred of credibility that it lost when it brutally cut the vital winter fuel payment fund. If it believes that that is clever politics, it is clearly mistaken. It is disrespectful to the Presiding Officer, backbench SNP MSPs and Opposition members in the Parliament.

It is becoming commonplace for the SNP to believe that it is above any convention and the processes of the Parliament. Will the Presiding Officer therefore seek to investigate the matter, to ascertain how the information managed to find its way into the mainstream press before the ministerial statement on the Scottish budget this afternoon? What will the repercussions for the disrespectful behaviour be? Should the statement be rewritten to reflect what we already know and what has been available in the public domain for nearly nine hours?