Chamber and committees

I find it difficult to believe that the minister has come to the chamber this afternoon to announce that four additional beds will solve secure care accommodation capacity issues. I am not convinced that the minister believes that four additional beds will solve the problem either, given that capacity has already been reduced by almost 20 per cent.

I find the timing quite odd, because we have had a statement this afternoon, but the secure care contingency plan has not yet been completed. Why not? How has the minister managed to arrive at the conclusion that four additional beds are sufficient? Will MSPs have to come back to the chamber in a few months’ time, when the number increases yet again?

Yes, it was.

I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. We are now eight years on from the Grenfell tragedy. The Scottish Government has had eight years to carry out remedial works to properties with unsafe cladding, yet here we are with another statement, and we are no further forward. It feels like groundhog day in Holyrood.

To be frank, it is embarrassing that the Scottish Government has concluded the single building assessment process for only 13 properties. Progress has been painfully slow and the Scottish Government has shown a distinct lack of leadership, leaving us miles behind our UK counterparts.

Today’s statement is riddled with next steps that should have been completed following the passing of the 2024 act. There will be more consulting and assessments, more information gathering and a resetting of the ministerial working group, but that will lead to no further action. Today’s announcement is a kick in the teeth for those waiting for work to be carried out on their homes. People want to know when cladding will be removed from their properties, not when the latest Scottish Government talking shop will next meet.

The Grenfell tower inquiry’s second report, which was published on 4 September last year, made 58 recommendations, 43 of which fall within areas of devolved competence. Does the minister accept all of those 43 recommendations? When will remediation works on the five properties where work has begun be completed? Finally, it feels as if it is a lifetime since the Government announced it in the first place, so when will work on the remaining 102 properties be completed?

Given the responses to amendments this morning at the Social Justice and Social Security Committee, I am not sure that what the minister says is quite accurate. Fife Council underspent its housing budget by almost £9 million this year, despite declaring a housing emergency a year ago. Included in that £9 million was £3.5 million for the property acquisition programme. Acquisition plays a key role in any council’s housing approach, but it does not necessarily add properties to the overall stock. Will the minister engage with council officials to ensure that all levers are available to local government to prevent slippage? Will he also give an update on the roll-out of the planning hubs? We have not heard much about those since the Government’s announcement.

It has been 10 months since the Scottish Government was forced into declaring a housing emergency. Local councils, of course, followed suit, referencing the growing number of people declaring themselves as homeless and the fact that they have to place families in temporary accommodation as they do not have the supply to meet demand. At the same time, measures such as the introduction of rent controls have led to £3.2 billion of lost investment, with a significant drop in house building. Something has gone dreadfully wrong, and I have no confidence that this Government will be able to produce a plan that will tackle the housing emergency before the end of this parliamentary session.

Scottish Labour has rightly focused its debate today on the impacts of temporary accommodation and the affect that it has on children and young people.

Will the minister accept any responsibility for the actions of his Government that have led to a housing emergency and the issues of temporary accommodation for children?

I appreciate the response that the cabinet secretary has just provided, because the most heartbreaking conclusion of the inquiry is, of course, that the deaths of Lea, Ellie and Mira-Belle could have been avoided. My deepest sympathies go to the families who have been impacted by the inquiry findings.

While we cannot undo the pain and distress that those families have endured, we must ensure that their experiences lead to meaningful change. The report highlights defects in the system of working in hospitals, pointing to a lack of guidance for midwives in assessing preterm labour symptoms and a lack of effective means of flagging risks on hospital systems.

Given the inquiry’s recommendations, although I was listening closely to what the cabinet secretary has just said, what further assurances can the Scottish Government provide to pregnant women and families that those recommendations will be fully implemented in order to prevent similar tragedies in the future?

I do not have time; I have only four minutes for my speech.

The figure of 10,300 should shame the Scottish Government into action, and action is exactly what this Government promised to deliver following 15 recommendations from the temporary accommodation task-and-finish group in 2023. At that time, the Government said that it would

“prioritise action in response to the recommendations that will have the greatest impact to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation by 2026.”

That is what it promised, yet here we are, with the number of people in temporary accommodation rising exponentially.

To add insult to the Government’s injury, the publication of “In Their Own Words: Children’s Experiences in Temporary Accommodation” lays bare the scale of the problems. I accept that a pilot programme is being rolled out to five local authorities with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures to increase supply through buying back properties and bringing long-term empty homes back into use.

I submitted a written question to ask what immediate steps are being taken to

“guarantee that all temporary accommodation meets the basic standards of safety, cleanliness and suitability for households with children”.

The minister’s response is to advise that the Scottish Government published a standards framework in 2023, although it will need to further consult on whether the framework can be legally enforced. The framework was published back in 2023, so if the minister has time in his concluding remarks, will he answer the question of what exactly has been done?

It would be remiss of me not to mention the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which represents the Scottish Government’s biggest missed opportunity to tackle the housing emergency. The legislation should be about housing, but it will not result in the building of one single home. I will leave the issues that I have with rent controls to one side for today, but I gently remind the minister that, should billions of pounds of investment continue to be lost, that will be on his watch.

That being said, I welcome the minister’s amendment to the Housing (Scotland) Bill on the introduction of Awaab’s law, which I called for in the chamber just last week. However, that shows that many issues that could have been included in the bill have not been. I am still unclear why the amendment that the minister has lodged does not include the private rented sector, because the private rented sector will be included in the bill that is going through Westminster. Why is that not the case here? Perhaps the minister can expand on that in his closing speech. He was only too happy to tell me that most of the mould and damp instances occur in the private rented sector, despite the issue that I raised directly with him relating to a social landlord.

I am out of time, so I will conclude. The only way out of the housing emergency is to build more homes. Until this Government gets a grip on the housing situation that we face in Scotland, my fear is that more children will be stranded in temporary accommodation, which will not allow them to go on and live full lives.

I move amendment S6M-16844.2, to insert at end:

“; believes that the report underlines the urgent need for the Scottish Government to outline an action plan to address the housing emergency, and notes that the Housing (Scotland) Bill is a missed opportunity to encourage more investment and housebuilding in Scotland.”

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the findings of the fatal accident inquiry for Lea Lamont, Ellie McCormick, and Mira-Belle Bosch, published on 14 March 2025, which suggest that the three child fatalities were avoidable.

A written response from the cabinet secretary would be greatly appreciated.

Following the reviews that were conducted by the fatal accident inquiry, and its findings, there will be significant concern, anxiety and anticipation among women and families who are expecting. Can the Scottish Government provide assurance on the additional measures that are being considered to enhance that patient safety—I understand that the cabinet secretary has just outlined some of those—to improve oversight and address staffing levels in our maternity and neonatal services in order to alleviate those concerns?

The cabinet secretary has provided a timescale for that, but could he also consider whether any changes that have been made to neonatal services, in particular in relation to the downgrading at Wishaw general hospital, can also be taken into consideration, given the findings of the fatal accident inquiry?