Chamber and committees

That is helpful. Thank you.

I am sorry, convener, but I think that that is someone else’s section.

That is very helpful. It gives us a basis to interrogate the spending review and to flag up to the Government the lack of detail that would give local councils more certainty about the individual figures that they will get.

Leaving aside the principle of the spending review giving local authorities longer-term or medium-term stability, I want to ask about the content of the spending review. The five-year review is a flat-cash one, which means, with inflation as it is, significant real-terms reductions to local authority budgets. That is on top of cuts that go back over the past 10 years, probably. What is the Accounts Commission’s view on the ability of local authorities to continue to provide the services that are needed, based on projections of real-terms reductions of upwards of £700 million over the next five years?

Scottish Labour will support the bill at decision time, as we did at stages 1 and 2.

As we also did at previous stages of the bill’s journey through Parliament, we echo the concern of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee and a number of stakeholders about the lack of formal consultation prior to the introduction of secondary legislation. However, I note what the minister has said at various stages about consultation with the sector being an on-going issue on which he and other ministers have been working. Nevertheless, we call on ministers to restate that the omission of a formal consultation does not set a precedent for future legislation.

Non-domestic rates, which are also known as business rates, are a form of property tax on businesses that helps to pay for local council services. The amount of tax that is paid is based on the rateable value of the property, and the rateable value is based on comparable rental value in the years before the valuation takes place. As the minister said, rateable values are reviewed every few years. If it is passed, the bill will ensure that the impact of Covid-19 cannot be used in determining the rateable value of a non-domestic property from 2 April 2020 to 1 April 2021, unless the impact resulted in a change to the physical state of the property.

The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee looked at the issues that are raised in the bill when we looked at the Valuation and Rating (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Order 2021. The order does the same thing as the bill, but covers the period from 1 April 2021 onwards. Scottish Labour supported the order at committee. As the minister and Miles Briggs mentioned, the Welsh and UK Governments have made the same change across the rest of the UK.

Scottish Labour absolutely accepts that allowing consideration of a large volume of appeals would have significant workload implications for assessors and valuation committees. We highlight assessors’ concerns about potential litigation for appeals relating to the two weeks prior to 2 April 2020, and we flag up the general concerns around assessors’ workload that we heard in evidence to the committee.

Stakeholders have expressed fears that the policy decision sets a precedent in terms of retrospective changes to tax policy. Scottish Labour plans to hold the Government to its assurances that the principles of certainty and engagement would underpin any future non-domestic rates policies.

The Government could do more to support our towns and high streets through Scotland’s local tax system. We have heard from the Scottish Fiscal Commission and others that we lost almost 20,000 small businesses during a single year of the Covid crisis. Many more will surely follow if the Government does not adequately support small businesses through the recovery phase. We have repeatedly called for retail, hospitality and leisure properties in Scotland to be in receipt of the same 50 per cent rates relief that is being offered to businesses in England in this financial year.

We have also called on the Scottish Government to level up the business rates that are imposed on large warehouses such as are used by the majority of online retailers, in order that we could reduce the rates that are paid by bricks-and-mortar stores from 2022-23. That would support our high streets, which Miles Briggs spoke about.

Aside from some concerns around the process, we welcome the bill and we will support it at decision time. We look forward to a more wide-ranging debate on how to use the non-domestic rates system to support our high streets and struggling small businesses.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate on global MND awareness day. The work of MND Scotland in driving the issue of the availability of accessible housing up the agenda has been completely fantastic. Its report “No time to lose” has been vital in understanding the changes that are needed to secure accessible housing and adaptations that are fit for purpose ahead of the promised review of the “Housing for Varying Needs” design guide. I also thank Bob Doris for bringing the debate to the chamber so that we can all talk about the matter.

It is utterly disheartening that the report’s recommendations are not already a reality. The postcode lottery of support with which people with MND struggle just to get the housing that works for them while battling a rapidly progressing neurological illness, sometimes in their final months, is nothing short of cruelty. I hope that, when the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government speaks, she will confirm that the Government is working across Government and with partners to pursue the badly needed changes: fast-track applications; a common and consistent definition of accessible housing; a 10 per cent target for wheelchair-accessible new-build homes; and real, increased resources for adaptations across Scotland.

The research that MND Scotland conducted for the report is valuable for understanding the task. The Government’s statistics are not up to the job. Like the patchwork of policies, the data is inconsistent and requires a real overhaul if central Government wants to make our housing system truly accessible.

In Falkirk, in my region, MND Scotland found that just 1 per cent of stock is wheelchair accessible. There is only an aspiration to build accessible properties in new builds; there is no target and people who are terminally ill are not prioritised. The average wait in 2020-21 was 675 days, which is almost two years. Graham Simpson cited the situation in North and South Lanarkshire. Although it takes only 272 days for a disabled person to be housed in North Lanarkshire, last year, it took two and a quarter years in South Lanarkshire. Those are devastating figures for disabled people and people with MND. They mean that some people wait more than 18 months from diagnosis, which underlines how important the debate is.

Scottish Labour has gone into the past two elections committing to a target of 10 per cent of new homes being wheelchair accessible. I welcome the commitment that the Government made last week to deliver a target for all tenures, but I am interested to hear whether there have been any discussions across Government, particularly with the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, so that we can secure that target in the national planning framework 4, which is making its way through Parliament at the moment, and, specifically, consider making the accessible housing target a requirement in the affordable housing supply programme. Some registered social landlords and councils up and down the country are making amazing contributions to building more accessible homes, but the policy requires national co-ordination. Addressing that through the affordable housing supply programme would be one way of doing it.

The idea of fast-track allocations and adaptations is excellent. It is commendable of MND Scotland to pursue it, building on the charity’s success in securing fast-tracked benefits for terminally ill people during the passage of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. I am pleased to see the charity push that concept further. It is an absolute necessity for people with fast-progressing MND and is a policy area where local and national Government can make strides in making a real impact in supporting people. I am sure that we all agree that the last thing that someone who is terminally ill needs to do is battle with public sector bureaucracy.

The work that is done by MND Scotland and the recommendations that we have debated today will undoubtedly have benefits for all disabled people in Scotland, especially those who require wheelchair-accessible housing. I hope that the Government can undertake to ensure that more support comes in time for people with MND in Scotland.

I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of interests. I am an owner of a private rented property in North Lanarkshire.

To ask the Scottish Government what the support capacity of Home Energy Scotland was before that was increased by 12,000 households. (S6O-01243)

Although the cabinet secretary has mentioned that that figure has increased to 132,000 unique households, the capacity to reach low-income, potentially fuel-poor, clients has not increased proportionately with that increase of 12,000 households. Action will be critical this summer, with the price cap set to go up in the autumn. Has the Government written to every group that is eligible for the warmer homes Scotland grant since the cap went up in the spring, and how many installations does the Government expect to deliver from those 44,000 calls?

Social housing construction obviously depends on approval numbers, and recently published statistics show that the number of affordable home approvals has dropped significantly, with around 7,800 in 2021-22 compared with 12,800 in the previous year. Since 2016, the figure has never before dropped below 10,000. What is the reason for the drop in approvals, and how can the Scottish Government get the pipeline of affordable home delivery back up to previous levels?

Would any of the online witnesses like come in at this point?

Yes. My questions are on waiting lists, demand and communication between authorities and those on waiting lists. We have had quite a bit of discussion about that, so I probably know the answer to this but, generally, what is demand like? How many people are on the waiting list in your area? How has that changed since the 2015 act? I come to Rosanne Woods first.