Chamber and committees

Here we are again. The Office for National Statistics repeatedly warned that the statistics cannot be compared like for like, and those who lobby for landlord profits and against tenant interests repeatedly show that they do not care about the reality. Given that between-tenancy rent increases are too high, does the minister agree that it would be utterly perverse to use that as a justification to remove protection from those between-tenancy increases from the rent control proposals in the Housing (Scotland) Bill?

I welcome the fact that we are now all at the point of recognising the reality of the housing emergency. I regret that a few members seem uncomfortable when consensus breaks out on such an issue. As well as some very constructive and consensual contributions, we have, I am afraid, heard one or two contributions that seemed rather petulant.

A recognition of the causes of the housing emergency is absolutely critical, and it is silly for a few members to say simply that the Scottish Government has led us to where we are at the moment. I will disagree, as I have done in the past, with aspects of Scottish Government policy. I take responsibility for, in some cases, not being able to act as fast as I might have wished on some issues when I was part of the Scottish Government. However, the idea that we would discount the causal factors of the housing emergency that are outwith the Scottish Government’s control is absurd. Emma Roddick laid those factors out very clearly a few moments ago: the cost of living crisis, insecure work, extreme rents and UK Government welfare cuts. Those are the factors that lead so many more individuals into housing crisis. Brexit and inflation are significant structural aspects in relation to the housing system.

In addition to those factors, there are long-standing aspects of our housing system itself that we need to recognise, but the idea that the economic circumstances of the past few years do not create and shape the housing emergency is absurd.

I want to say something about supply because Mark Griffin, Miles Briggs and Kevin Stewart—and, I think, almost everybody else who spoke—said something about supply. The supply of housing is a big part of the picture, but it is not the whole picture, and there have been some simplistic arguments made, not just here but in the wider public debate on supply. The ratio of homes to people has not changed so dramatically in the past few years as to create this housing emergency. The distribution of housing is equally significant. Mark Griffin rightly spoke about empty and second homes, and action is being taken on that. The nature of new supply is also important. It is not just about the number of homes that are built; it is about what they are and where they are.

I hear people talking about the important role of build to rent, but many of the build-to-rent developments that I see being promoted are flats that cost two grand a month at the luxury high end of the market. With some housing developments, I hear the question, “Are we are risking losing investment in housing for sale?” when some of what is being built are homes that cost £250,000 to £300,000. Are those being built for social need or are they being built principally for the interests of investors? We need to ask those structural questions about the nature of our housing market.

I am afraid that I have very little time. Price also needs to be recognised. Rent control is a critical part of our coherent response to the climate emergency—housing emergency. That was a slip of the tongue; I beg your pardon.

I cannot accept that investment in housing must depend on extreme rent rises or that we should simply accept that ever more people will be stuck in the most expensive and least secure tenure. Supply is important, but it is about the nature of that supply.

The Greens will support both amendments. It would be implausible not to mention the context of the housing emergency, as the Government’s amendment does.

We will support the Conservative amendment with some caveats. For example, the homelessness prevention strategy group is leading on the actions that result from the task and finish group. That is where the leadership of that work should continue, notwithstanding what is in the amendment—there are aspects of the amendment that I would not want to lose.

It is also astonishing to ignore the role of the UK Government or the political parties that want to spend ever more on public services but will not recognise the need for the progressive taxation that has already put an extra £1.5 billion into the Scottish Government’s budget for public services. They oppose the taxation that raises the money to spend on the services that they want.

I am not yet sure that the First Minister acknowledges or understands just how worried many LGBT people—and others—in Scotland are at the moment. It is not only equality and human rights that are at stake here, because the new Deputy First Minister has also explicitly criticised the role of fairer, progressive taxation. Ensuring that people who are on high incomes pay their fair share is the only way that the Scottish Government has been able to afford investment in climate and nature, cheaper public transport and the Scottish child payment. Without fairer tax policies, which the Greens repeatedly had to push the SNP into supporting, those things simply could not have happened.

We know that, next year, whether it is a Tory or a Labour one, the United Kingdom Government will continue with austerity, imposing deeper cuts than ever on Scotland. Does the First Minister accept that continuing on the path towards progressive taxation will be more important than ever? Will that progress continue or will the First Minister give in to the right wing of his party?

The Scottish Greens have been clear that we acknowledge the Scottish National Party’s right to form a minority Government, but we have been equally clear that the First Minister must quickly signal the direction that his Government will take.

That signal came pretty clearly yesterday. Progressive ministers were sacked and the second-most powerful job in Government was given to someone who has opposed legal equality for LGBT people, who has expressed judgmental attitudes against abortion and who has even expressed the view that people who have families without being married are doing something wrong. Is the Scottish Government’s vision for the future of Scotland taking us back to the repressive values of the 1950s?

I am pleased that the minister still supports the principle of rent controls, but he will be aware that some people are lobbying for the vested interests of landlords, not tenants, and are seeking to water down those proposals—for example, in relation to between-tenancy rent increases and automatic rent condition assessments. Will he assure us that he will oppose such measures, which, if taken forward, would be as useless as the old rent pressure zones, which have never been in effect anywhere in Scotland? [Interruption.]

Nonsense!

It is not often that I have a lump in my throat speaking in Parliament after I have been doing it for so long. However, with this debate, after so long of this Parliament having a strong and proud track record of supporting LGBT people’s equality and human rights, I feel deeply anxious that that is about to change.

A number of members have spoken about the toxicity of the debate. It has been recognised that Hilary Cass has said the same; even Meghan Gallacher agrees. However, I have to question whether the debate will have improved that or made it worse. I am not sure whether Meghan Gallacher even once in her speech mentioned transgender people as transgender people. In fact, few people who spoke in today’s debate did. Clare Haughey was the most notable exception, and I thank her for her contribution.

I want to mention one constituent who emailed me a few days ago. I will not give any personal details, but it was a young transgender person who wrote:

“I am writing this because I’m scared. I’m writing this because I’m desperate. I’m writing this because I need transgender voices to be heard and to matter when the discussion of our identities and rights are being brought into question.”

Objectively, this debate should be about access to healthcare, waiting times and the need for a clinical pathway with better follow-up and support. Nobody would object to that. Certainly, transgender people who are angry about the poor and inadequate quality of the healthcare that they can access would not object to a debate about that kind of improvement. Gillian Mackay was one of a number of members who recognised that waiting times are entirely unacceptable currently.

However, context matters. It is not just a debate on healthcare improvement that is needed. The context is a wave of transphobia, with marginalised people’s views rarely heard but their lives politicised, their rights weaponised and their very existence refuted. This debate should not ideally be about ideology, but even Dr Cass has recognised that she was probably naive in not acknowledging the prevalence of homophobia and transphobia in our society.

To be clear, most people in our society do not support homophobia and transphobia. Most people support trans people’s equality, and that support is higher among young people, women and lesbian, gay and bisexual people. However, that prejudice is all too prevalent in media and in politics, and it is being stirred up quite deliberately at the very top of the UK Government. We have a Prime Minister who made a cheap transphobic gag at Prime Minister’s questions while Brianna Ghey’s grieving mother was sitting in the gallery, and the Minister for Women and Equalities has called on the public to report organisations for not discriminating against transgender people and put pressure on schools to out young people to their parents even when they do not feel safe. Here in the Scottish Parliament, we have a Tory party that is now targeting LGBT Youth Scotland, which is an organisation that we should all be proud of.

Some of the speeches here today have been just as deplorable, including from those who have voted against LGBT people’s human rights at every opportunity and who have even supported restrictions on reproductive rights and freedoms as well.

What all this generates outside of politics is a wave of hostility and prejudice the likes of which I have never experienced in my many years working and campaigning on LGBT people’s human rights. I regret that the only amendment that reflected on that political context was not selected for debate today.

The Greens will support the Scottish Government amendment. We believe that it is something of an improvement on the motion and feel the same about the Labour amendment, but neither will be enough to make the amended motion supportable. We will oppose it, just as we will try as best we can, even if we are left alone in Scottish politics, to summon up the courage to oppose the toxic culture war that has started elsewhere and which I fear might be coming to Scotland.

As I have already said to the First Minister personally, the events of the past week are a source of regret but certainly not of hostility or ill will at a personal level. Today, it is appropriate to acknowledge the human impact of political life. For Humza Yousaf, that impact was shown most clearly in a moment of immense dignity, when global political events were impacting directly on his family. He rightly gained huge respect for speaking out for and, in many cases, humanising the people of Gaza and humanising the victims of collective punishment in a way that no other national leader that I can think of was able to do. For that, and for a great deal more, Humza Yousaf is due respect and thanks—and he is due all of our thanks for his service to the country.

Others may have a very long list of grievances; they may have an implacable hostility to everything that the First Minister, the SNP or the Bute house agreement represents. For the Greens, the reason why we were unable to have confidence in the First Minister personally was his decision to needlessly end the progressive pro-independence majority Government. It is to his credit that he has taken personal responsibility and announced his resignation. I do not celebrate that in any way, but I believe that it was necessary.

In light of that decision, a vote of no confidence in the First Minister personally would have been performative and petty, and I welcome the fact that the motion has been withdrawn. However, a vote of no confidence in the Scottish Government as a whole betrays the true motives of others—chaos for the sake of chaos. Let us just consider what would happen if the motion were passed. We would have a month to seek another Government, an election around the time that voters across the country were heading off on their summer holidays and a new Government formed perhaps by August, leaving—[Interruption.]

If members will permit another viewpoint to be heard, I say that that would leave little more than a year and a half until the legally required dissolution for the 2026 election.

In that time, what would happen to the legislation that is urgently needed? The Housing (Scotland) Bill, which contains measures on homelessness prevention and long-term rent controls, has just been introduced. We need a climate reset following the admission that Scotland is years behind where we should be on emissions cuts. One of the few areas of climate policy that have been praised in the past couple of years is the heat in buildings programme. Legislation on that will be needed soon if that is to be completed in time to accelerate the emission cuts from a previously neglected sector. All that and much more would be delayed. Then, after less than two years, we would have yet another Government with a different policy agenda altogether, potentially.

Fixed-term Parliaments are intended to give stability, and they have done so in contrast with more than a decade of chaos in Westminster politics. [Interruption.] It should be clear to everyone that both Labour and the Conservatives do not want stable self-government for Scotland. The Greens do.

We already had the best option—a stable, progressive and pro-independence majority Government—and I regret that it has not been allowed to continue. The Government will no longer be a majority Government, but minority Governments can work. It has happened before and it can happen again. It is not beyond the ability of any political party in the chamber to work constructively in that context, if it chooses to do so.

However, a minority Government must reach out and bring together a majority in Parliament. For that to happen, it will need to remain a progressive Government. We need a reset on climate; an acceleration of emission cuts, not defeatism; a bold commitment to equality, not a shabby compromise with the nasty, divisive culture war mentality that we see elsewhere; and continued redistribution, which will be all the more important if an incoming UK Labour Government carries out its threat to stick to Tory fiscal rules, which will mean even more austerity. That progressive agenda is still capable of providing stable government for Scotland, instead of the chaos that the Labour motion seeks.