Chamber and committees

Just before he does, I will add one point. Paragraph 18 of your report refers to a report by Public Health Scotland that

“estimated that the policy had reduced the number of deaths directly caused by alcohol consumption by 13 per cent”.

It was an estimate. I do not know whether you have looked at the issue in any detail, but can we say with any certainty that there has been that reduction?

I think that you have summed it up very well: we do not know what is making a difference, and we do not know whether we are getting value for money. I will leave it there, convener.

You also say that there has been a real-terms decrease in funding for the partnerships in the past two years. Does that suggest that there has been a loss of confidence in them?

Thanks, convener. On the previous point, I guess that you would expect the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy to be all over this and to be able to answer why there is such wide variation across Scotland. Has having a Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy made a difference?

All right—we can look at that if we get the Scottish Government in. It is not fair to ask you about it.

I want to ask about an issue that has come up previously about the alcohol and drug partnerships. Do we know what they actually do?

I raise the point because, as you say in the report,

“the role of ADPs is not always widely known across other services.”

If the people who are meant to be providing those services do not know what ADPs are meant to be doing, what are they there for?

Earlier, you said that the Scottish Government does not know what is making the biggest difference. Does that include minimum unit pricing? I think that Cornilius Chikwama mentioned that.

This has been a good debate, and I am glad that we have had it. When the Housing (Scotland) Bill was introduced, we had not declared a housing emergency, but we were certainly in the throes of one, and the bill has made things worse. To be fair, we had rent controls before we saw the bill, and it has led to rents going up and investment drying up—a more ruinous policy we could not imagine. So, what does the Government do? It includes more rent controls in the bill, with the minister sticking with the policy in his announcement on stage 2 when we were not even at stage 1 yet. He really should know better.

The minister has a housing investment task force that does not include Homes for Scotland. Goodness knows what it talks about, because the money is not coming here any time soon—he has scared investors off.

You might not believe this, Presiding Officer, but the minister and I go way back. He might not remember this, but when we were both councillors, we sat on the commission on school reform. [Interruption.] He does remember that. I genuinely want the best for him, so I must advise him, as a friend, to go back to the drawing board on the bill, because landlords are leaving the sector in their thousands. That might please those who think that all private landlords are evil money-grabbers, but those with any sense will know that it is not a good situation to be in.

We are calling for the bill to be redrafted. If only the cabinet secretary could be patient—she knows that I am a positive guy—because I have some nice things to say that will please her. The Scottish Property Federation estimates that £3.2 billion in direct housing investment is under threat from the proposals in the bill. A survey by Propertymark suggests that 59 per cent of landlords are selling their properties or leaving the market completely.

The one part of the bill with any promise—this will please the cabinet secretary—is the section that deals with homelessness, and we should concentrate on getting that right. [Interruption.] I do not know whether the cabinet secretary is muttering that she is pleased, but she is muttering something.

More than 15,000 children are homeless, and the number of applications from households that have been assessed as homeless is at its highest since 2011-12. Shelter Scotland has condemned the Scottish Government for its record on homelessness. It says that the housing system is “broken” and is in need of “urgent and drastic change”.

Part 5 of the bill deals with homelessness prevention. Of course, the best way to end homelessness is to stop it happening in the first place, which is why the housing first model ought to be commonplace. The bill introduces an ask and act duty—a duty to ask a person whether they are homeless or threatened with homelessness and to act if they are—on relevant public bodies such as health boards and the police.

That part of the bill has the potential to make some important changes to how homelessness is dealt with in this country, by shifting the approach from a crisis response to an early-action prevention response. That is good, but it is just a legislative framework, and much more work will need to be done. A delivery plan should be built into the bill, and there must be cross-departmental support for homelessness prevention across the Government and public bodies. Prevention is about dealing with the root causes of homelessness.

There have been a number of very good contributions to the debate, but Maggie Chapman’s was perhaps not one of them, because she seemed to be rather in denial about the impact of rent controls and the costs that landlords face. Willie Rennie spoke about the impact of homelessness on people. Miles Briggs talked about the situation in Edinburgh, as did Gordon MacDonald, to be fair. I was pleased that, although Paul Sweeney did not mention the tenement maintenance working group, he mentioned the group’s recommendations for dealing with the problems of tenements.

I was delighted that Jackson Carlaw mentioned students because, in September, the cross-party group on housing published a report that examined housing options for students in Scotland and their experiences of homelessness. Our report found that there is insufficient suitable and affordable accommodation for students here, and that thousands are at risk of homelessness. We came up with a set of clear and challenging recommendations for the Government, such as the recommendations that student housing be integrated into local housing strategies and that more robust data be gathered on student accommodation.

The Scottish Government must take more action to address student homelessness and answer the concerns that will undoubtedly be expressed at the rally outside Parliament tomorrow, which I will attend.

Frankly, the bill is a mess. The minister inherited some of the bad stuff in it, but he has stuck with it. That is why, as Meghan Gallacher rightly said—

As the minister said, the use of e-scooters is illegal. However, they are being sold and used here, and in quite big numbers in some parts of the country. The minister will be aware that there have been some trials in parts of England; the nearest one to Scotland is, I think, in Newcastle. Would she be minded to consider trialling a scheme somewhere in Scotland?