Chamber and committees

I want to chat about how effective the current actions of local authorities and the Scottish Government are at tackling the emergency and building towards a sustainable solution. We have spoken about the difficulties around taking a whole-system approach, but it should be fairly simple to look at taking that approach to the regulations that we have in place. Some of the regulations that we have talked about come into play down the line. Looking at them individually, a lot of them are very hard to disagree with, but it would be good to get your take on the cumulative impact of all those regulations on the general regulatory and legislative landscape around the emergency housing supply. I will come to Jennifer Kennedy first because I she talked about that in her submission.

It seems that the minister has been listening to the sector, to an extent, and there is a lot to be welcomed this afternoon. However, although the minister says that our national planning policy on housing is “permissive, not prescriptive”, which is technically correct, I am not quite sure that that sentiment is shared by house builders.

Based on the statistics that were released yesterday and the actions that were outlined in his statement today, when does the Government expect processing times to start to fall for major applications? The processing time is now more than a year, against a 16-week statutory timeframe.

Planning applications for sites with permission that have not been developed cost developers significant sums of money—money that they cannot borrow for. That money generally comes straight out of their cash flow, so it is not in their interest to sit on those permissions. Will the minister commit to an audit of the approvals and the sites that have been zoned for housing in the system on the basis of deliverability and the time that they have had that approval, so that we can get an accurate understanding of the capacity to build the homes that we so desperately need?

In the same vein as Mr Hepburn, perhaps I should declare an interest, in that two of my children will cease to get their entitlement to the bus provision next year.

The motion in front of us states:

“the Parliament notes with regret the reported reduction to school buses in North Lanarkshire”.

Of course we note that with regret, just as every councillor who made the decision to reduce school transport provision regrets that they felt that they had no other option but to make that change in the face of budget cuts from the Government. However, I find it strange that, in the motion, there is no mention of regret about the cuts to local council budgets that have forced councils to make that decision. There is no context at all around the financial situation in which councils of all political persuasions across the country find themselves.

North Lanarkshire Council raises less than 20 per cent of its own revenue—

I will just get to the end of this point. North Lanarkshire Council raises less than 20 per cent of its own revenue, in line with most other councils, so the cuts that it has been forced to make are a direct result of budget decisions made by the Government. We should be clear and honest about that when it comes to criticising decisions that are made by councils.

To ask the First Minister what plans the Scottish Government has to end the reported increase in families in the central belt living in temporary accommodation, in light of reports of almost 2,000 children in Glasgow living in unsuitable bed-and-breakfast accommodation in 2024 and more than 4,600 households in Edinburgh projected to be living in temporary accommodation by 2040. (S6F-03507)

First Minister, a key pillar of your agenda is—rightly—to focus on eradicating child poverty, but how can we do that when 10,000 children are in temporary accommodation and there is a tenfold increase in kids living in bed and breakfasts? Some are telling heartbreaking stories about how they are having to boil eggs in toilet water for their dinner.

The finance secretary promised that, if the Government received additional funding, its number 1 priority would be to reverse the cuts to the affordable housing supply programme. Now that the incoming Labour Government has delivered that additional funding—£1.5 billion this year and £3.4 billion next year—is that still your Government’s top priority, given that the best way of getting those 10,000 children out of poverty is to give them the homes that they desperately need?

Single-year underspends and raiding reserves—we hear the same things over and over. Those can be spent only once, and the bus provision is a recurring cost to the council.

MSPs have rightly criticised the cuts to the Scottish Government budget over the years, but the same MSPs seem to be strangely silent when those cuts are multiplied and then handed on to councils. Councillors are now left to choose between lots of bad things. There are no more positive choices to be made in the world of local government—only where to make cuts after a decade of deprioritisation of council budgets.

Councils must choose between teachers and school buses; between teaching assistants and school buses; between breakfast clubs and school buses; and between swimming pools, libraries, dealing with potholes, grass cutting or play parks and school buses. All those council services are being pitched against school buses. Twenty-seven other councils have already made that decision—some now provide only the statutory minimum—and yet we have no motions of regret here about those decisions.

Government ministers and back benchers regularly tell Opposition MSPs that, if they want to spending cuts to be reversed, they need to say where the alternative cut should be made. Those ministers and members need to start practising what they preach when it comes to council decisions, because councils all over the country are now reverting to statutory minimum levels of services across all departments, not just on school buses, because of those Government cuts.

I agree with the motion that all walking routes should be robustly assessed for safety, and if a route is not safe, free transport absolutely should be provided. I also agree that the Scottish Government should engage with councils on that issue, because the guidance on assessing the safety of school walking routes is set nationally by the Government. I am sure that the parents who are here in the chamber and across the country will be interested in hearing from the minister about any proposed change to that guidance.

North Lanarkshire Council has been clear that, if the Government wants to revise the national policy to reduce the mileage limits or the guidance on safety, it should provide the appropriate funding nationally. If there are to be any substantial changes to that policy, given the in-year increases to the Government’s budget and the substantial increases to its budget for next year, I understand that North Lanarkshire Council stands ready to look again at its decision in the light of those changes to guidance and of increased funding.

Thank you.

Professor Ken Gibb told us earlier about potential reforms to the way that we operate land and land banks in Scotland. His centre has published a report called “Sustainable Housing Policy in Scotland: Re-Booting the Affordable Housing Supply Programme”, which talks about creating a housing agency and compiling land assembly sites to assist the development of both affordable and private housing. I do not know whether you heard his comments, but I wonder how you think that would interact with council services. I know that you might not all have property services or planning as part of your remit, but do you think that that would work to increase supply of housing land in Scotland?

After years of talking, the Government finally managed to introduce a bill on rent control, but somehow it did not include any actual detail on rent control. The Government has plugged one gap by means of a framework bill, but has ignored the facts that the dam is collapsing around it and that there are thousands of people in temporary accommodation right now. More detail on rent control has been demanded, and we welcome what has been said in that regard, but the housing bill will build not one house and provides no support to local authorities that are dealing with a housing crisis.

Given what the statement had to say about amendments and regulations, the Government also seems to accept that the bill lacks fundamental detail. Does the minister agree that the bill should be fundamentally redrafted then, in its new form, subjected to full scrutiny and consultation by the Parliament in order to give tenants, landlords, councils and house builders certainty, and to enable us to get on with tackling the housing emergency?