Chamber and committees

We might need to return to the issue. My understanding from my conversations with the council is that people who will be operating before September are being told that they do not need to apply until after the festival. If this is just a one-off, I doubt that people will apply until next year, when the council could face a tsunami of applications. I do not think that the approach will necessarily fix the problem now; it will just build it up for later.

Cabinet secretary, you touched on the issue of licensing schemes being applied inconsistently across Scotland, specifically in relation to floor plans. Have you provided councils with guidance that a detailed architect floor plan is not needed and that a hand-drawn one is acceptable? What guidance is being provided to councils on what is expected?

Thanks for that. Around the world, what is the trend? Ireland, for example, had such intervention and legislation in place ahead of us, and now has a record low number of urban and rural properties being available to rent and is seeing big rent increases. The intervention has not had the impact that the Irish Government desired. Do you think that Scotland will buck that trend?

Good morning, panellists. Thank you for joining us here and online. I have a couple of questions. The first is about the pause on evictions until the end of September 2023. How proportionate and necessary is that?

I thank the panel members for joining us today.

My question is about private tenancies and how to support people who are furthest from the housing market into tenancies. You have comprehensively outlined what you see as a change in landlord behaviour. Record numbers of people in Scotland are living in temporary accommodation. Is that a direct result of that change and of the people who are furthest from the market being unable to access private tenancies? That is likely to have a more pronounced impact in rural Scotland, where the loss of even one property can have a huge impact. Sarah-Jane Laing, will you talk about the rural dimension?

I welcome that, but we need to formally embed that partnership between the Scottish Government and local authorities.

The Barnett formula ensures that the Scottish Government budget is linked to UK Government spending. The UK Government has bailed out the Deputy First Minister to the tune of £146 million of additional spend, which I believe is now available, but our councils are not necessarily seeing the same uplift in their budgets. We need to seize that vital opportunity and ensure that our councils are properly funded as we ask them to deliver more and more policy commitments. It is not just about one year; it is about how we take forward those policies. The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee hears again and again that local councils cannot match the proposals with policy delivery, because the resources are not forthcoming.

One key issue that I raised in the stage 1 debate, and that Sarah Boyack touched on, is the housing crisis and the cut to the housing budget. We need to reflect on that. It is not just Labour and Conservative politicians who are warning against that cut—representatives of Shelter were outside the Parliament today to outline their concern. We have record levels of people living in temporary accommodation.

If I can get the time back, I will.

I, too, welcome James Dornan back to the Parliament. Those of us who serve on the Social Justice and Social Security Committee get to see him every week on the television, but I welcome him back to the Parliament in person.

Over the past few hours, we have heard a new word in politics: “de-endorsement”, which can be applied to many SNP members’ decisions about the party’s leadership. Today, I welcome the acting finance secretary’s de-endorsement of many parts of his budget. I welcome the fact that he has listened to the many concerns that were raised and has changed some spending commitments in the budget.

In recent weeks, I have met councillors across Scotland from all parties and have listened to their concerns. I thank all those who work in local government across our country, because they have gone the extra mile during the pandemic to support all our communities, but they still feel that they have not been given the support that they need to carry on and to recover from the pandemic.

For many in local government, it feels like the challenges and pressures on local services have not passed and are very real today, and that those services have not recovered. After 15 years of the SNP Government underfunding local government in Scotland, there are increasing concerns over long-term financial sustainability and the problems that councils across the country face.

Put simply, for council leaders who I have spoken to across Scotland, there is nothing more that they can cut, beyond core services, to balance their budgets. They will welcome the additional £100 million. Many will start balancing that with the funding floor, which will probably result in the finance secretary giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

Despite that additional money, councils will be setting their budgets in the coming weeks and will still have to make significant cuts to services. In Clackmannanshire, councillors are considering reducing home to school transport and the amount of money that is spent on the delivery of secondary school subjects. In Kenny Gibson’s area of North Ayrshire, the Arran outdoor education centre could be shut to save cash. Beyond education, leisure services will face cuts in many areas. Inverclyde Council is looking to close Greenock sports centre and Port Glasgow swimming pool. In my region, West Lothian Council has suggested cuts for library services, including in West Calder. In West Dunbartonshire, the council is thinking about reducing opening hours for recycling centres.

Many charities are worried about the loss of grant funding from local authorities. That is concerning many people in our third sector, who feel that they could be the last in line to receive vital funding for the services that they deliver. Like most councils, Aberdeen City Council and West Dunbartonshire Council are considering increasing many charges. East Ayrshire Council is now looking at a 4 per cent increase in rent charges for temporary accommodation. In East Renfrewshire, there is already a £40 charge on top of council tax for households who want additional garden waste removed, and that will go up to £60.

The finance secretary talked about a better deal and working with councils and council leaders. We really need to move towards that. In the most recent budget round, councils have looked in many imaginative ways at changing their funding and at how they can reprofile council debt, especially around public-private partnership schemes. I do not see anything else that they can do in future for which they will not need Scottish Government support to balance budgets.

I take the member’s point that there are a number of competing factors, but I will not apologise for pointing out that we are in a housing crisis and that we have the highest number of children and pregnant women living in temporary accommodation. Here in the capital, we are seeing levels of homelessness that we have never experienced before, and the response from the SNP-Green Government is to cut 16 per cent from the housing budget and to underfund the City of Edinburgh Council and our health board.

On delivering outcomes, ministers really need to consider what they are not doing for Edinburgh. I make no apologies for raising that in Parliament today, because decisions that are taken to cut affordable housing supply programmes at the very time that we are seeing those increases will come back to haunt the Government. I think that, in the autumn, we will see a housing crisis in Scotland and the potential collapse of the housing market here in Edinburgh, and SNP and Green members will be held responsible for that.

It is critical that we now move towards ways in which local authorities can meet the cuts and consider what impact that will have on our communities. We will be hearing about that in the coming days. However, it is clear that this SNP-Green budget is a pay more, get less budget, which is not something that we can endorse. As my colleague Liz Smith says, after 15 years of SNP government, it is clear that ministers have no fresh ideas to help grow the Scottish economy and that, ultimately, Scottish taxpayers are paying the price for that failure to stimulate our economy.

Like me, Pam Duncan-Glancy represents a city that has experienced some of the highest increases in homelessness in recent months. What impact will the budget have on that?

Will Pam Duncan-Glancy give way?