Chamber and committees

The next item on our agenda is an evidence-taking session from Màiri McAllan, the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, on the progress of the Scottish Government’s cladding remediation programme and on her portfolio’s priorities. I welcome her warmly to her role. It is good to have her in our committee room, and we look forward to our conversation today.

Ms McAllan is joined by three Scottish Government officials: Matthew Elsby, deputy director of the better homes division; Stephen Lea-Ross, director of cladding remediation; and Jess Niven, interim deputy director of heat in buildings policy and regulation. I welcome them all to the meeting.

We will go straight to questions, and I will start. Members have a number of questions and interests, but the initial set of questions will focus on the cladding remediation programme. The pilot phase of that programme was launched in 2021 and I would be interested to understand whether that has now ended, what the results of the pilot were and what lessons have been learned to inform future action.

It was a very helpful answer, and it brings to mind an issue that the committee as a whole has been exploring since it first came up in one of our first sessions on cladding. You said that the responsibility for dealing with RAAC lies with the home owner—the differentiation that you made in that respect was helpful.

I can imagine that home owners do not necessarily know what their homes are made of. We have been discussing in the committee whether we need to get something set up so that people will know not necessarily the tiny details that go into homes but the general products. It would be something to ensure that, when people buy a home, they know what they are buying and whether there is RAAC in it or it is clad in a particular material. That would let people start to understand that they are not just buying a home but they need to maintain and operate it in a particular way because of the materials that are involved.

That is a different way of looking at a home. Many people are used to just buying a home and living in it, but we are moving in a new direction in which we are exploring things such as the Passivhaus approach. The point that is coming up is that we need to learn how to maintain and operate homes—not just to clean the gutters but to understand in a bit more detail what we are living in. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Because it is a live document and a live approach, we would be interested to get a sense of how you intend to monitor implementation of the plan. It seems that you are using a two-pronged approach of tackling the initial pressures, along with long-term investment. What can you say about monitoring implementation and the impact? What indicators will you use to assess whether the housing emergency is actually reducing?

It is good to hear you say that you have your eye on the 10 per cent target for rural and island housing. I will ask for your thoughts on whether the rural and islands housing fund will move into a multiyear pot. There are situations in which housing is built for future proofing; there are different approaches to how the fund is used. I have encountered communities that are building high-quality housing that is future proofed and which helps us to lower our carbon emissions, whereas other housing does not go as far as that. I know that the fund was reviewed recently, but my sense is that we might need to consider reviewing it again to look at whether more money could be put towards designs and projects that support the reduction of carbon emissions.

Some rural communities that have been given the funding do not have a wind turbine or something that generates an income that allows them to keep a project officer on. They have money for the housing, but they do not have money to keep the project officer from one year to another. We desperately need a pipeline of housing in rural and island communities, and we are giving money through the fund, but we are not making that easy, and that is a block that we need to address. I wonder whether you have your eye on that situation, given that you have your eye on delivering the 10 per cent target—and I would say that the figure should be at least 10 per cent.

It is great to hear that that is your perspective but, in my region, a lot of the housing is being delivered by communities because of that gap, so maybe there is work to do to fill it. There are situations in which community-led housing has been built with fantastic partnerships with housing associations, registered social landlords and so on. The community might do the development, but an RSL then takes a couple of the properties to house people. We need to look at why communities end up having to lead this; on the other hand, it is good that those communities are getting the housing that they need.

I would welcome you looking into that and seeing how we can get to a point at which local and national Governments are facilitating that better. I go to plenty of meetings where I hear about the many years for which a volunteer board has had to work to deliver maybe two houses, although those houses are crucial because they transform the community from a bedroom community into a thriving, full-featured community with kids in school.

People have given evidence to the committee on taking a more nuanced approach to need. If people do not see social housing in their community, they do not think to come and say, “We need it.” That is a gap.

I will move on to heat in buildings. I am interested in hearing about a few practical things, and then I will bring in a couple of colleagues with questions. What are the timings for the expected heat in buildings programme of work, including the energy performance certificate regulations, the regulations that require private landlords to meet defined energy efficiency standards, the social housing net zero standard and the proposed heat in buildings bill? We look forward to that with anticipation.

Given that we will do some scrutiny on the climate change plan, it would be helpful to know how the UK warm homes plan would impact the climate change plan.

Yes.

That is fine.

Another question popped up when you mentioned net zero. When we had the housing minister in post, a lot of work was done around the fact that we have a massive roll-out of renewable energy in the Highlands and Islands region and that a lot of worker camps and housing will need to be put in place in order to unlock that economic potential. Some of the discussion was around whether there is an opportunity for that housing to become legacy housing for rural and island communities. Have you picked up on that and had conversations with the renewables sector about it?

We have heard the concerns that David Anderson voiced around static gear not being included appropriately in the consultation process. I am interested in the other witnesses’ perspective on static gear. From what we have heard, even methods that are considered lower impact can still add pressure when used at scale. How do you see the industry balancing that with the need to protect ecosystems, so that fishing remains viable in the long term?