Chamber and committees

My final question is on the Scottish Government’s proposed new national outcome on housing. I think that a consultation closes tomorrow on the review of criteria for amending NPF4. How will the proposed new national outcome on housing and the declaration of a housing emergency by the Parliament and the Government feed into that consultation on the review of NPF4?

Thank you.

Are you in a position to say whether there are any plans, through the assessment of that decision, to review policy 16(f) of NPF4, even as an interim measure, given that the data that the pipeline has been assessed against is out of date? Until the new local development plans and the research that backs them up come into force, are there plans to review policy 16(f) in the interim—if there are any early signs that the ruling is choking off development?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I ceased being a private landlord last summer.

The huge rent increases are a symptom of the housing emergency that Parliament and Government acknowledged last week. When does the Government expect to formally respond to that declaration and bring forward actions to lift the country out of the housing emergency that we are experiencing?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which shows that I ceased to be the owner of a private rented property last summer.

Almost exactly six months ago, with the support of Shelter Scotland, I moved a motion for the Parliament to declare a housing emergency in Scotland, and will today move a similar motion in my name—again, supported by Shelter.

Six months ago, I warned of the estimated 700,000 people who are in housing need, the more than 9,000 children who are living in temporary accommodation and the two councils that had declared housing emergencies. At the time, the Government assured us that it would work to ensure that we have

“the right range and choice of homes to allow our communities to thrive.”—[Official Report, 22 November 2023; c 36.]

Six months ago, the Government refused to admit that there was a problem. The minister listened to the scale of the challenge, assessed the solutions, then sat by while his Government slashed the affordable housing supply budget by 26 per cent. That decision made a bad situation impossible.

Every 16 minutes, one household becomes homeless. Around 10,000 children are now in temporary accommodation. Three more councils have declared housing emergencies and more are likely to follow. The Scottish Housing Regulator has warned that 10 local authorities are at risk of systemic failure in homelessness services. House building is collapsing, with 24 per cent fewer new houses being built in Scotland this year. Housing associations are building fewer houses than at any point since 1998. West Dunbartonshire Council has told us that it is now highly unlikely to be able to approve any new social housing developments this year. Fife Council has predicted that the number of new social rented house starts there could be reduced by 50 per cent. That is a direct result of Scottish Government cuts.

I welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice’s comments in the media today. She is asking Parliament to “unite with one voice” and for work across all spheres of government to tackle the housing emergency, but the Government has lodged what is, to be frank, a self-congratulatory amendment that blames everyone and everything but the Government. The first step has to be to take responsibility for the facts that there are 10,000 children in temporary accommodation, that not enough homes are being built and that far too many homes are lying empty.

We need to start to come up with solutions; we have come to the chamber repeatedly with those solutions. Some have been adopted, but far more could be adopted. We asked the Government to increase council tax on second homes, to provide more support for people who are struggling with mortgages and to create a national acquisition programme to allow properties to be purchased with tenants in situ in order to prevent homelessness. The Government agreed and started progressing those, although not as quickly as we would have liked, but we have suggested so much more.

The Government should set an all-tenures house building target and reverse years of undersupply. The housing requirements in national planning framework 4 need to be revised and increased urgently. The planning system needs to be reformed and properly resourced, especially given the drain of planning expertise into the renewables sector and away from housing and council planning departments. We have suggested provision of additional national resource to support local authority teams in dealing with applications that are of national significance, which housing applications absolutely are.

Alongside council tax on second homes, council tax on empty homes should be increased, and the funding should be used to build more homes. Councils should have powers of compulsory sale and rental orders in order to force empty homes back into use, thereby removing blight from communities and giving families homes. We should look at the use of discounted homes for sale, with the price being permanently reduced in title deeds to create a positive cycle of affordable home ownership.

We have suggested looking at continental Europe and the innovative €1 houses model to encourage people to take on long-term empty homes and do the work to bring them back to life. We have talked about housing voids and the huge difficulties that councils and housing associations have in getting electricity supply connected to allow the houses to be allocated to families who need them.

We need all of that because Cyrenians and others are telling us that emergency accommodation is at full capacity every single night and that temporary accommodation is usually full by 8.30 in the morning, here in this city. When charities are saying that there is a housing emergency, when councils are saying that there is a housing emergency, when the private sector is saying that there is a housing emergency and when the public are telling us loud and clear that there is a housing emergency, there is no longer a debate: there is a housing emergency in Scotland.

I am pleased that the Government has finally come to terms with the reality that we are facing. It must now set out a clear plan of action to end the emergency that it helped to create. We are all living with the consequences of the economic illiteracy of our Tory Government. A Labour Government will sweep the Tories out of office and make better choices for this country, but we will need to take stock of the public finances and pick up the mess that we inherit. Now that the SNP has found the political will, within six months, to declare an emergency, it must use every available political and financial tool that it has at its disposal to end it.

I have been absolutely clear that we need to build more houses across all tenures. We have set out a range of policies on making homes affordable and helping those who are facing the mortgage time bomb.

I am glad that the Government has finally admitted that we have a problem. I look forward to seeing a Government action plan and, more crucially, a delivery plan that is developed in conjunction with Shelter and the other organisations that have contributed to the debate today, and that ends the housing emergency and gets kids into warm, safe and secure homes. The people who are at the sharp end of this Government-created crisis do not have any more time to wait.

I move,

That the Parliament believes that Scotland is in a housing emergency.

In pressing amendment 10, I again make the point that the amendments in group 2 and in the previous group are on a continuous theme of providing more detail about the key concept in the legislation—which is, as the committee and the Government have set out, the single building assessment. We are leaving all that detail to further discussion and publication post stage 3 agreement of the legislation. Given that we are seven years down the line, the Government has missed the opportunity to give much more clarity to residents and developers about the process of assessment and remediation. We seek to rectify that through amendments in group 2 and in the previous group.

I press amendment 10.

Despite the Scottish Government’s reports, we still do not understand the true extent to which combustible materials have been used in buildings in Scotland. The single building assessment is an opportunity to help to address that. The Scottish Government’s first high-rise inventory, which was published in 2020, did not request or detail the Euroclass ratings of materials that were used, which makes it impossible to know whether those materials are combustible. Despite the Government agreeing to consider recommendations to address that, no changes were made to the 2021 survey.

Further survey work following the last iteration of the high-rise inventory will form part of the register of safe buildings. A key part of determining whether a building is safe is—and must be—knowing what materials have been used and the make-up of the external wall system. Since the launch of the single building assessment, the Scottish Government has always maintained the position that it is engaging with residents in those buildings that are affected by combustible materials.

In 2022, the then Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison, stated:

“If cladding is assessed to be high risk, home owners will be invited to discuss the assessment and to agree to actions that will be required to make their building safe.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2022; c 14.]

The Scottish Government has since maintained that it would be open and transparent and engage with those residents who are affected. How can that be the case if it is not willing to detail to residents or owners the materials with which the building is constructed? The Government should also clarify what detail will be made available and what the reason is for not outlining which materials have been used in the construction of the external walls.

The argument that was set out by the minister at stage 2 was that releasing information might be

“to the detriment of homeowners if insurers or mortgage providers were to use that information to refuse on a blanket basis to insure or to lend on that building”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 23 April 2024; c 37.]

Surely, the Government must be working with those institutions, engaging with that sector ahead of the bill and working to define what the single building assessment process will be. That engagement should have mitigated any risk. If it does not, it begs the question of whether the Scottish Government has listened adequately to the concerns that have been raised. We have real concerns about whether the SBA process and the bill will have the desired effect if residents simply are not told what their building is made with.

On amendments 14 and 44, house builders in Scotland believe that the creation of a cladding assurance register, in principle, is appropriate as a record of what properties have been remediated. However, there is a lack of clarity about what information is to be provided in the register and who should be responsible for the remediation. Is it the developer or a home owner who might not have maintained a building?

With much of the process hanging on the key concept of the SBA, it is essential that all parties that will be impacted by it have full clarity at the outset of what a Scottish SBA is, its specification, what it looks like and the standards that it is assessing. However, none of that detail for such a key policy proposal is provided in the bill. We should give residents and developers much more clarity about the details that should be contained in an SBA and an idea of how the register would be used in practice. Amendment 9 would clarify who has responsibility for carrying out the actions that are set out in the SBA.

Not all risks that are identified will be because of the construction of the building. Given the fact that some buildings are decades old, the risk might have emerged through a lack of maintenance or adaptation. The minister’s opinion was that the process in the bill would give people that information, and he offered to pick that up and discuss the SBA process when it is completed. He also reiterated that the SBA process currently includes developers and stakeholders.

We welcome that assurance, but it does not go far enough. If the key concept in the bill is the single building assessment, we feel that far more information should be included, and we seek to do that through my amendments.

I move amendment 9.

All the amendments in the group, except amendment 42, attempt to make it clear that issues that are raised through the single building assessment must link directly to a life-critical risk. The amendments seek to replace the bill’s current references to risks

“that are (directly or indirectly) created or exacerbated by the building’s external wall cladding system”

with broader references to “any” risks that are created or exacerbated by that system. The amendments seek to change the language in the bill so that it clarifies that issues that are raised through the single building assessment must link directly to a life-critical risk.

At stage 2, the minister indicated that he would not support that approach. He said that it

“could risk narrowing the focus of the single building assessment to risks that are directly attributed to the cladding system alone, with the result that secondary or indirect risks that impact on the risk to life could potentially be overlooked.”

He added:

“Ultimately, such a narrowing of the assessment could have the effect of leaving remediated buildings at a higher risk level post remediation than the bill currently allows for.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 23 April 2024; c 31.]

The minister did not engage any further on the amendments, so I assume that the Government still sees no merit in taking them further.

The Government’s approach to the content and scope of the single building assessment is far too vague. It seeks to take as much detail as possible on what is required out of the bill and leave it to be finalised in regulations while it waits for the conclusion of the SBA task and finish group. However, the policy memorandum states:

“engagement with partners suggests that there would be a clear benefit in providing further technical detail and guidance on the Single Building Assessments”.

It is essential that all parties that will be impacted have full clarity at the outset about what the single building assessment is, its specification, what it will look like and what standards it will assess. The minister’s assessment at stage 3 goes some way towards that, but residents and developers deserve more clarity about the details of the SBA.

The minister assures us that the outcomes of the task and finish group will be finalised and published by July 2024 but, in practice, that means that we are debating the merits of the assessment, which is the key focus of the bill, without being aware of those key details. My amendments in group 2 seek to add clarity on some aspects of the assessment and ensure that actions that are outlined by it must be focused on the most pressing issues, which may be a matter of life and death to residents.

Amendment 42 seeks to clarify the definitions in the bill. The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s stage 1 report states:

“the Single Building Assessment is the foundation of the Cladding Assurance Register, however, with a binary process that does not recognise tolerable risk there is the potential to include buildings within the cladding remediation programme that are fundamentally safe, thereby exacerbating financial and practical issues for those living in those buildings. The Committee recommends that the concept of tolerable or medium risk is incorporated into assessments”.

Leaving a definition of tolerable risk out of the bill would mean that most developments over 11m would automatically default to being high risk, which would make matters worse for home owners, even if there were no life-critical issues that required remediation. Amendment 42 seeks to clarify the situation by providing detail and context to the concept of tolerable risk in the cladding assurance register.

It is welcome that the Government has agreed that tolerable risk will form part of the single building assessment process, instead of the initial process to have binary designations of “safe” or “unsafe”. The minister disagreed with my amendment 83 at stage 2 and said that tolerable risk would not be assessed in that way in the SBA. He stated:

“After all the risks have been identified, the SBA will state which of those risks should be addressed and how, in order to bring the risk as a whole that is posed to human life down to a tolerable level.”—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 23 April 2024; c 39.]

However, the bill does not do that. It does not require a ranking of the risk or the degrees of nuance. As such, there is no way to assess whether each risk is tolerable. The bill is silent regarding situations where, following a single building assessment, a building is ascribed a tolerable risk, or amber rating, and what that means for the building’s future management. Residents and developers who are looking at the bill have very little detail on its workings and are being expected to take assurance from the Government that unpublished findings will address their concerns before the bill passes at stage 3.

The Government has had seven years to consider how to make the bill work. It is not unreasonable for Parliament to expect more detail on how the assessment will affect developers and residents, which should be on the face of the bill.

I move amendment 10.

When it comes to the basics that people who live in such buildings are asking for, they want to know what their building is made of. There is an obligation on the Government, through the course of the assessment, to tell residents that basic information; it must be transparent and open with them about what their home is made of.

On the other amendments in the group, as I said, the committee’s stage 1 report agreed that the single building assessment was the key concept in the bill. We do not feel that it should be left to regulations; there should be far more clarity and certainty for the developers who are, potentially, picking up the bill and for the residents who are currently in those buildings. It should not be left to scrutiny at regulation level, which is not at the level of full legislative scrutiny.

I will press amendment 9.

I thank the members of the bill team and the minister for making themselves available to my Labour colleagues and me during the passage of the bill. I also thank the committee clerks and fellow members for their work in drafting the stage 1 report on the bill. I appreciate the time and effort from everyone who has contributed to the bill as it has made its way through the committee stages and, subsequently, to the chamber.

As elected members, we must be satisfied that the bill, like all bills that are put before us, is necessary, that it will improve outcomes for those affected and that it will make people’s lives safer and better. In this case, we also have to ask ourselves whether the bill, if passed, will help to prevent a Grenfell tragedy from happening again. It is horrifying that the Grenfell tragedy was not a one-off freak occurrence. The losses in Milan in 2021 and Valencia earlier this year show that, until we remove dangerous cladding from our buildings, we will continue to run the risk of more fires and more bereaved families mourning their loved ones.

For the bill to pass the tests that I have set out, it must get dangerous cladding off buildings more quickly than has been the case in Scotland up to now. My amendments were drafted in that context. They sought to streamline the process of entering buildings on to the register, to provide assurances to people about the types of action that had been carried out on buildings to remove cladding and to clarify some of the terms that are employed in the bill to help developers to know when action should be taken.

I commend the work of my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy and her efforts to ensure that the voices of residents are part of the process and that disabled people’s requirements are not ignored.

I recognise the minister’s efforts to engage with members through the legislation process, and I appreciate his assurance that he will use every tool that is available to him to handle the crisis in cladding in Scotland. That is welcome, but people have been waiting in properties that they could not insure, remortgage or sell—never mind the worry and stress of another Grenfell tragedy. They have been waiting in that situation for seven years now.

We know that removing dangerous cladding from buildings is complex. It has been the subject of working groups, regulations, standards and primary and secondary legislation in the United Kingdom and Scotland. However, underneath the noise, the politics, the meetings and the endless promises, we must not forget that seven years is far too long to wait for action for the vast majority of affected buildings.

I do not think that the bill will slow down the process of removing cladding, and I recognise the efforts that colleagues have made to ensure that the Government provides clarity and transparency on the way in which it claims that the bill will speed up the process. The bill, as amended, serves its purpose, but I believe that my amendments and those of my colleagues would have improved it.

I am still concerned that so much of the detail is left to secondary legislation. That seems to be symptomatic of the Government’s approach across many bills that we have seen, particularly in this session of Parliament. The approach seems to be to give Parliament the bare bones of a law to agree on in principle and then to promise to deliver the detail at some later point. That stifles proper consideration of policy, and it cannot replace debate on the detail of proposals.

We will support the passage of the bill at decision time. We believe that the bill is a welcome and overdue step to remove unsafe cladding from buildings. It will start to clarify the role of Government and developers and key aspects of regulations, which will be essential for remediation and removal of cladding in the future. However, much still needs to be done at pace to ensure that Scotland catches up with the rest of the UK in removing the threat of combustible cladding from people’s homes.