Chamber and committees

It would be useful to reflect on those duties when they are passed on to local authorities and housing associations and how they are monitored and delivered. We might legislate in this Parliament, but how are they delivered on the ground? Do we need to do more analysis of delivery and provide more support for agencies to do that?

Thank you. I am conscious of the time, so I will stop there.

Thank you, convener. The deputy convener and I have served on this committee together since 2023. There are areas on which we agree and there are areas on which we disagree. She has a right to express her views on a wide range of policies in relation to her constituents, her region and her party, and I recognise that many people view her as an advocate and a passionate voice for them.

However, fundamentally, I believe that, to retain confidence, particularly in terms of the committee’s role on civil justice, she must take the opportunity to clarify the points that I have raised. If she takes the opportunity to do so sufficiently, I believe that we can move forward as a committee. Otherwise, we might have no choice but to refer the matter for the consideration of the whole Parliament, with a recommendation for her removal.

Colleagues will have other areas of recommendations to cover, and I do not want to intrude on anyone’s area of interest, so I will hand back to the convener.

I will follow-up on Tess White’s question and ask about the pattern of challenges that exist for people who have a learning disability and the commitments that have been made to them on their human rights. We discussed the £20 million and the lack of accountability on that. We know that £2 million was allocated for health checks for those with learning disabilities and that a pledge was made that every person with a learning disability would have one. We know that that target is not being met, and analysis by the Fraser of Allander Institute shows that, in some health board areas, no health checks have been offered.

We hear consistently from people who have a learning disability that they feel forgotten and that their human rights are forgotten. Do you think that there is a pattern here in what the Government is doing? What can be done to interrogate that?

That was useful. We look forward to hearing the outcome of your discussions with COSLA—that will be helpful to the committee.

I will broaden my questions. The report looked at the challenge of people continuing to be admitted to institutions on the basis of their learning disability. How we define “learning disability” remains a significant challenge more broadly. For example, the Scottish mental health law review has been considering the definition of learning disability as a mental health issue for some time, and we are expecting legislation on a range of those issues. Admitting someone to an institutional setting due to their learning disability is a contravention of the European convention on human rights, so I am keen to understand what particular concerns you have identified around that in the report.

Thank you, Cathy—that was a helpful and comprehensive overview. What I would take from those final comments—I might ask Jan Savage for her reflection on this—is that the work to bring people out of long-stay institutions has been on-going for decades. It feels as though we are no closer to having people not live in the state hospital, for example, than we were all those decades ago.

Jan, are there immediate actions that could be taken to stop that inappropriate placement of people? The recommendations are there, but how do we get that sense of pace that Cathy Asante referred to?

What engagement have you had with local authorities on that work? We know that local authorities face a significant challenge in delivering on a range of issues, such as housing, supporting people through their local health and social care partnership, and non-residential care charges, which are still seen as a significant breach of human rights for many people with a learning disability. Have you engaged broadly with local authorities on that?

I certainly recognise what Mr Doris said about local authorities having wider duties to consider the size and scale of housing development and people’s needs, but giving the duty a legislative footing is important because it would put it clearly at the front of people’s minds when considerations were made.

As Mr Doris alluded to, there are a lot of competing demands. In particular, there is a need for smaller-sized housing for older people and for adapted housing of various sizes. However, the significant crisis in relation to housing for larger families and the UNCRC duties mean that it is important that we put the duty in the bill itself, to ensure that councils and other developers are thinking about that need very clearly and so that there is a legal mechanism to enable them to fulfil the duty. Overcrowded housing does not live up to the rights in the UNCRC that we have committed to, and there is an opportunity to address failures through the bill.

As I said, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure from the beginning, when new social housing stock is being developed, that there are homes of a suitable size and that those who need access to social housing are not forced into the sort of cramped and unsuitable accommodation that I referred to.

I am pleased that the amendment has the support of organisations such as Aberlour, which has worked to develop the thinking and the debate around the issue. It does vital work in supporting at-risk and in-need families, and it has furnished all members with much of the difficult to hear testimony of families who are unable to access appropriately sized homes.

I am keen to listen carefully to the minister about the actions and methods that exist to address the wider problem. It is important to put that on the agenda. I go back to Mr Doris’s point that we can have a broader conversation about housing need, but it is important that we look to address these issues through the bill. There might be an opportunity, at this stage or at a future stage, to do that in a clear and precise way.

On the other amendments in the group, I welcome the proposal from my colleague Mark Griffin, which also seeks to ensure that children’s interests and rights are fully addressed through the bill. I do not think that the bill can be allowed to pass without making at least some progress on the pathway to tackling what I am sure that we all agree are the scandalous conditions that many children in Scotland find themselves living in.

I move amendment 1078.

I think that this has been a helpful first discussion of the issues. A number of members have referred to the wider debates that we had yesterday in the chamber and earlier on support for children in temporary accommodation. The issues are certainly well known—Shelter’s report, for example, has been very helpful in crystallising many of them—and we will continue to have those debates and discussions. That will be important.

The idea behind my amendment and Mr Griffin’s amendments is to put the issue on the agenda and ensure that we have a debate on it in advance of stage 3. I note the minister’s offer to meet and discuss the issues, to think about the mechanisms for complying with the UNCRC and to ensure that councils and housing associations can be better supported to deliver the right mix of homes. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw amendment 1078 at this stage, prior to further discussions with the minister, but I reserve the right to bring it back at stage 3 if required.

Amendment 1078, by agreement, withdrawn.