Chamber and committees

You are quite right not to make it up as you go along.

I want to double-check on the make-up of the Grangemouth future industry board. Both Liam Middleton and you, cabinet secretary, alluded to getting the private sector more involved. Will you ask for people to join the board or, as Liam has said, to engage with the board?

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the constitution secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding engagement with the United Kingdom Government on a potential return to the horizon Europe research programme. (S6O-02139)

The minister has not yet mentioned the report of the temporary accommodation task and finish group. Does he accept what that report says and its recommendations?

It always takes Opposition parties to debate housing. I congratulate Labour on doing so again.

At the heart of Labour’s motion is the issue of the lack of supply and the scathing report of the temporary accommodation task and finish group. What a shame that the minister could not commit to its recommendations. We need look no further than the report’s opening lines to see the scale of the problem that we face. It says:

“Scotland is in the grip of a homelessness crisis that is damaging the lives and opportunities of thousands of families with children and young people across every community in Scotland.”

It talks of a “broken housing system”, and it says that, six years ago,

“the Scottish Government and COSLA convened the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group.”

It says that that group proposed

“a Rapid Rehousing approach to reduce the need for temporary accommodation and the ... adoption of Housing First”

to help those with complex needs.

I was on the Local Government and Communities Committee at that time, and we produced a report that also proposed following the housing first model. That followed a visit to Finland, where we saw how that country’s approach had helped to cut homelessness to as near to zero as possible.

The task and finish group said:

“The ambitions of that plan have not matched up to the realities on the ground ... we have rising rough sleeping, record numbers of people trapped in the homelessness system for longer and the national scandal of nearly 10,000 children in temporary accommodation.”

That is disgraceful—there is no other word for it.

None of us lives in temporary accommodation. However, in September last year, 14,400 households in Scotland did. That is the highest number on record. That is a statistic that should shame the Government. The average time that was spent in temporary accommodation was 207 days. Try to imagine that, and tell me that we live in a caring Scotland.

Ultimately, we need to build more homes of the right type and in the right places. For as long as I have been an MSP—and even longer—we have known that. The temporary accommodation task and finish group knows that, and so does Shelter Scotland. The task group’s report says that the solutions are straightforward—namely, we need more social homes,

“we need to use the homes we have more effectively and we need to fund”

homelessness

“services properly to treat people with dignity and respect.”

Of course, that should have been happening already. Part of the problem is funding for councils, whose budgets have been systematically slashed year on year by the SNP. Recently, the Scottish Housing Regulator said that homelessness services in Scotland are at

“emerging risk of systemic failure”

due to the pressure on the system, with councils increasingly unable to meet their statutory duties.

Funding, which was mentioned by Mercedes Villalba, is also a serious issue for those who are trying to deliver social housing. The minister really needs to look at the way in which funding is delivered, because it seems to be deemed too high a risk for some people to get involved in building those vital homes.

We have heard a number of good speeches. Roz McCall spoke of the problems that women face with homelessness, and Miles Briggs spoke about the situation in Edinburgh. Also, it was great to hear Ben Macpherson, freed from the shackles of SNP groupthink, coming up with ideas such as land value tax—he will get into trouble for that.

The message is that the Government needs to do better, so I support the amendment in the name of Miles Briggs.

The cabinet secretary pledged to press for a return to the programme in last week’s programme for government document, so he will be aware that that is the exact outcome that the UK Government seeks, but it must be a good deal for the UK. If that is not possible, there is the alternative pioneer plan, which is backed, should it be required, by the Russell group and others. Will the cabinet secretary commit to working with the UK Government on the horizon and pioneer programmes for the benefit of research and development across these islands?

If the minister was serious about getting people on to buses, he would take action on bus fares, as he is doing on train fares. Why does he not replicate what England has, which is a fare cap on local bus journeys?

When you have those meetings around the country, do you invite local people so that you can find out about local issues?

I did not mean you.

This will be my final question. Do we have a timescale for when we expect to see the other sectoral plans?

You say that you have not really had a look at Grangemouth—clearly, this committee has been looking at Grangemouth. Has there been no discussion about what you would like to see in the Grangemouth plan or has there been some discussion? Can you give us a flavour of the things that you might want to see?

That makes sense and is an excellent approach. Committees of this Parliament often get the same people, so I know where you are coming from.