Chamber and committees

I want to ask a couple of questions about the pressures that councils face, a number of which are highlighted in the helpful briefing from COSLA. Glasgow City Council and the City of Edinburgh Council face particular pressures. How do you manage to balance your resources? Specifically, what work are you doing with the third sector, which can play an important role, especially in assisting people who have no recourse to public funds?

Andrew Morrison, Alistair Dinnie and Pat Togher all want to come in. I will bring in Andrew Morrison, specifically on my question about the third sector.

I want to move on to the budget pressures that will be faced as a result of the coming budget. We know about the concern that has been expressed about cuts to council funding. Martin Booth, who colleagues from Glasgow will know is the executive director of finance at Glasgow City Council, recently represented the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers at the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. He expressed concern about support for English as a second language, which will undoubtedly come under challenge as a result of the budget. We know that around 100 different languages are spoken in the school population in Glasgow.

How is the specific issue of the need for language assistance to access services prioritised by councils? I will bring in Susan Aitken first. If anyone else wants to answer that question, I ask them to put an R in the chat.

In that case, can I go back on my word and briefly ask another question, convener?

I am not sure whether anyone else wants to come in on that.

It follows on from the language question and concerns access to healthcare services. The language barriers around healthcare are often critically important. This question is directed at Pat Togher. What work is under way on that? We know that barriers to access to healthcare already exist for homeless people but are greater for people who do not have English as their first language.

Clearly, those things are not having the desired effect in the capital. In Edinburgh, people’s average wait for access to an allotment is more than eight years; in East Lothian, it stands at more than 15 years. Currently, 4,259 people in the capital are waiting for an allotment. Will the minister agree to my request to take forward a national allotment viability study, with all Government agencies looking at what potential land they could use to develop allotments and community growing spaces?

To ask the Scottish Government what support it will provide to help increase the numbers of allotments and community garden spaces available in Edinburgh. (S6O-00712)

I thank the organisations and charities that have provided helpful briefings ahead of the debate, including Shelter Scotland and Crisis. Both charities have been incredibly helpful in briefing me on homelessness prevention and highlighting what needs to be done to end homelessness and rough sleeping in Scotland. I pay tribute to them and to all those who are working across Scotland to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.

All parties in Scotland are committed to ending homelessness and rough sleeping by the end of this parliamentary session. Disappointingly, there has been limited progress on reaching that goal, especially here in the capital, with concerning figures being published today.

If we are serious about ending homelessness, we need to see people in sustainable accommodation now, not just good intentions about the progress to be made in the future. No one doubts that ending homelessness is not a straightforward task. Ultimately, we need to have enough homes for everyone in Scotland.

Having sustainable, suitable accommodation that meets the needs of the people and families living in it is vital to ensure that accommodation becomes a stable home. Making sure that local authorities keep people in mind when they plan homes and communities and make decisions about the location and locality of the services available is also very important.

As well as getting people who are currently homeless rehomed, preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place is hugely important. That is why I welcome the publication of the joint Scottish Government and COSLA consultation on the homelessness prevention duties and the work that the prevention review group has undertaken to date.

The plans that have been outlined to strengthen the rights of people who are experiencing or who are at risk of experiencing homelessness in Scotland present a welcome step forward. I have long supported the development of a preventative system; indeed, I welcome the package of measures that is outlined in the consultation, including the introduction of new legal duties on public bodies and landlords to ask and act in relation to any risk of homelessness.

A major flaw in the current system is that people must register as homeless before they are given any housing support or access to services. The current model prevents people from presenting or asking for help at an early stage; often, they are at a crisis point, which is completely counterintuitive to what we are all trying to achieve.

If we want to prevent people from becoming homeless, we must give them the necessary support to stay in their accommodation, as the cabinet secretary mentioned, at least six months ahead of them potentially becoming homeless. Local authorities are still not required to provide housing support before someone becomes homeless. As I have said, that must change if we are going to be more effective at preventing homelessness in all our communities.

Policies such as rapid rehousing are very welcome, but keeping someone in their home is often more important, especially when children are involved. Legislation takes time to put in place and often even longer to implement on the ground in council areas. That is why I hope that the homelessness prevention duties will be given the priority and resources that they require.

The duties will require proper funding—for example, in Edinburgh, we see pressures on local budgets, especially in light of the additional challenges that the capital faces in preventing homelessness. I welcome the conversations that I have had with the cabinet secretary on the issue and I welcome her commitment to take forward cross-party talks with regard to the situation in Edinburgh.

I look forward to that.

During the pandemic, we saw significant reductions in the levels of homelessness across Scotland and in the capital. I hope that the legislation will continue to enable public bodies to focus their resources and respond in a way that is similar to the response that we saw to the public health emergency during the pandemic. A multisector response to the pandemic facilitated much of that welcome work and should be promoted and expected, as I hope that it will be.

As I said, ending homelessness is not a straightforward task. Having enough homes for everyone is essential, but that is not enough in itself. When someone becomes homeless, it is often due to an obstacle in their life that they have found hard to overcome. That can range from experiences as a result of trauma, addiction, substance misuse, mental health problems or relationship breakdown, for example. Models such as housing first and more assisted living can and should be part of that template for rehousing and supporting people to overcome their personal challenges.

That is why the Scottish Conservatives have called for the roll-out of housing first to be accelerated across all Scotland’s local authorities. The cuts that councils face from ministers in the coming budget are a major concern. I hope that leaders across local authorities will not make savings, which they could look to make, from homelessness services or the third sector organisations that support people.

Access to health services and social care is another critically important issue. The homelessness death rate in Scotland is currently double that of England and Wales. There were an estimated 256 deaths of people experiencing homelessness in Scotland in 2020. People who are homeless are three to six times more likely to die prematurely, which is unacceptable and must be addressed. All of us in the Parliament must work to address that.

Research by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland suggests that people who are experiencing homelessness continue to face stigma and additional barriers to accessing health and addiction services. That is why I also believe that we need a review of access to homeless health and social care services, and I ask Parliament to support that by agreeing to my amendment to the motion.

Ending homelessness and rough sleeping in Scotland at the earliest opportunity, and by the end of this parliamentary session, is an admirable goal, but we all need to work to ensure that the action that we want to see becomes a reality.

I move amendment S6M-03018.2, to insert at end:

“; is committed and united in the shared public responsibility to eradicate rough sleeping in Scotland at the earliest opportunity or by 2026; notes that surveys have suggested that over 5,000 people in Scotland have reported sleeping rough at least once per year, with the homelessness death rate in Scotland being double that of England and Wales, with an estimated 256 deaths of people experiencing homelessness in Scotland in 2020; further notes with concern the number of children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland, which has reached its highest levels since records began, along with the number of councils reporting the breaching of unsuitable accommodation orders; notes that research has demonstrated the link between increased interactions with health and social care services and the risk of people becoming homeless; calls on the Scottish Government to help support people into safe and stable housing as quickly as possible with an acceleration in the roll-out of Housing First across all Scottish local authorities; notes the research by the Health and Social Care Alliance that suggests that people experiencing homelessness continue to face stigma and additional barriers to accessing health and addiction services, and calls on ministers to support a review of access to homeless health and care services.”