Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out regarding the implementation and potential impact of short-term lets legislation. (S6T-00856)

As Alexander Burnett and Fergus Ewing stated in their excellent speeches, many people will have been deeply touched by the fitting tribute that was the cavalcade of tractors and horses and riders bordering the M90 at Glenfarg and A90 at Peterculter as the Queen made her final journey from Balmoral to the capital.

The Queen’s lifelong love of horses and passion for horse-racing is well known. Her Majesty’s first appearance at a Scottish racecourse was in Musselburgh as a child, while visiting friends in East Lothian. The young Princess Elizabeth was seen playing in the parade ring.

The Queen visited Hamilton Park racecourse in May 1947 with her father, sister and an unknown gentleman—one Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. More than 21,000 Scots flocked to see the Royal family that day.

Over the course of her life, the Queen entered racehorses in more than 3,400 races in the UK, with her horses winning 566 races. The Queen’s last winner in Scotland—appropriately named First Love—was at Perth in May 2003. She had also bred that horse: it is well known that she was a dab hand at breeding great racehorses.

As Martin Whitfield said, the Queen’s last visit to a Scottish racecourse was in July 2016, when Her Majesty helped Musselburgh racecourse, in my region, to celebrate its 200th anniversary. After that day’s racing, the Queen dropped into the Sheep Heid pub in Duddingston for supper at a window seat in the public dining area.

Throughout her life, horse-racing gave the Queen a diversion from life as our monarch and, more importantly, a diversion from the sobering business of global and domestic affairs. Her trainer Richard Hannon said that when the Queen visited his stables she would say that it was nice to come to a place that did not smell of fresh paint. It was also well known that her advisers must ensure that a copy of the Racing Post newspaper was always tucked in with her daily correspondence.

The Queen inherited her love of horse-racing from the Queen Mother, as many do from their own parents. She often named her racehorses with a clear message, giving them names such as Duty Bound, Discretion, and Constitution. Jockey Frankie Dettori rode more than 50 winners for the Queen over 30 years. He stated that the sport has lost its greatest ambassador. I agree. The Queen and the Queen Mother redefined horse-racing from being the sport of kings, making it the sport of queens. The industry is grateful for her support for horse racing.

God save the King.

On the question of supporting people to enter the property market, the cabinet secretary will be aware that so many people who do not have the money for a deposit relied on the schemes, which, for many, now do not exist. Builders are saying that first-time buyers are not coming forward for properties in Scotland. Those homes do not just exist for them to then—

Not for the first time, the cabinet secretary does not understand Edinburgh. As for where first-time buyers want to get on the property ladder, the current price does not allow them even to get on to it. [Interruption.] Well, there has been no solution brought forward by the cabinet secretary; the Government has pulled the ladder up. [Interruption.]

I begin on a note of consensus regarding some aspects of the programme for government that I welcome, and which I have indeed campaigned for. The children’s care and justice bill is a welcome development, and I hope that it will finally deliver on the promises that have been made to care-experienced young people. I also hope—as I have discussed and hope to discuss again with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills—that it represents a move to end restraint of children in care settings. The First Minister has made a number of key promises to care-experienced young people, and this must be the time when they are delivered on.

I also welcome the announcement of the establishment of a Scottish patient safety commissioner. The devil will be in the detail on the proposal, but it can and must help improve patient advocacy.

In the limited time that I have today, I wish to concentrate my comments on housing, as the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights did. It is clear that storm clouds are starting to gather on the horizon of the Scottish housing market. Over the past year, the cost of building a home has increased by an average of 17 per cent. Over the past two years, the cost of building a new home in Scotland has increased to over £200,000. The decision by SNP ministers to remove the first home fund and help to buy for first-time buyers has pulled the ladder up for many aspirational Scots, and it has negatively impacted on the housing sector.

The national planning framework, as it stands, is not fit for purpose, and it needs to be redrafted to help facilitate the delivery of housing and renewables targets. We need a housing revolution in Scotland. It is disappointing that the Scottish Government has not included housing as a key infrastructure priority through its national planning framework. That needs to change. If there is going to be a slowdown in the construction sector in the months ahead, it is vital that both the Scottish Government and local government work to retain construction jobs, so I hope that ministers will actively consider reintroducing help-to-buy schemes and moving forward on shovel-ready projects.

I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. One word was missing from the statement, which was “sorry”—sorry to the people of Edinburgh and those in the rest of Scotland for the impact that the strikes have had on their lives, especially here in our capital city, where waste piled up on the streets for 12 days during our showcase Edinburgh festivals.

Scottish Conservatives warned Scottish National Party ministers during the passage of the SNP-Green budget that councils across Scotland would be put in a position in which they were unable to meet pay demands. Ministers did not listen and, after year-on-year cuts to council budgets, councils were limited in their ability to address local issues. Just this year, local councils have faced a cut of £251 million in real terms.

The cabinet secretary stated today that the Scottish Government is providing £3 billion. However, a report by the independent Scottish Parliament information centre shows that only £490 million of support has been put in place since October 2021. I am sure that the cabinet secretary does not want to mislead Parliament, so I hope that he will correct the record today.

I will ask two specific questions. It is clear that local government needs a new funding settlement, which the Government has failed to deliver for 15 years. Will the cabinet secretary look again at the idea of a new cross-party discussion about local government funding settlements in the future?

The cabinet secretary has announced £53 million of cuts from employability fund schemes. If we are going to face a recession, such schemes will be such an important part of getting people into work and saving jobs in Scotland. At the same time, the SNP Government is keeping £20 million aside for a referendum. Will he rethink that decision and invest in jobs, not a referendum?

Part of what we need to see is a change of priority.

I will, if I can get the time back.

I am concerned about the impact, because the Scottish Government’s proposals could lead to the loss of private rented property. I do not know whether Labour expects that to happen or whether it would be happy with that, but we cannot allow private rented properties, especially in the capital, not to be made available. That would mean that they would not be available for students—students could be camping in fields when they go to university, as we have seen in parts of Europe. We cannot allow that to happen. Those properties cannot leave the market, because there are no homes to replace them with.

Organisations that have expressed concerns are looking for an answer. The answer is a mixed housing approach with more social rented affordable housing targeted at lower earners; it is not to destabilise the sector even further.

It is concerning that the Scottish Government has still not published its review on housing for varying needs. Organisations such as MND Scotland have called for action to fast-track applications for adaptations and accessible housing for people with life-limiting conditions such as motor neurone disease. I hope that the review will be published as soon as possible.

The programme for government has the potential to drive a housing crisis in Scotland. Ministers should be warned that the problems that they are seeking to solve could be made much worse by their actions. I hope that they will think properly about what they are proposing.

Before recess, I raised the fact that, in Scotland today, 8,635 children are in temporary accommodation. I suggested to the cabinet secretary that she introduce a ban in that regard. What has she done over the summer with that suggestion?