The point of the motion, which highlights the Commission on Housing and Wellbeing’s report, is to see whether we can reach agreement across the chamber on the scale of the crisis that we face. I assure John Mason that the Labour Party is willing to work with and support any Government initiatives that recognise the scale of the problem and the scale of the social rented housing, as well as private housing and housing across all other tenures, that needs to be built. I hope that the member will be willing to work with Labour and others on the issue.
Many housing and anti-poverty organisations would go much further than the commission’s interim target, both on overall housing and on housing for social rent. An area that does not get much attention in the report is how we improve housing for disabled people. It has been estimated that 70,000 households in Scotland need adaptations for wheelchair users. There is simply not enough suitable or accessible housing being built. It is up to the Scottish Government to increase that availability by insisting that at least 10 per cent of housing across all tenures is built to wheelchair-accessible standards.
The commission’s report spells out a series of further actions that need to be taken, and it does not shirk from identifying the major challenges that face us over the next decade: freeing up the supply of land for new housing; recognising and supporting the growing role of the private rented sector; tackling fuel poverty; and stepping up the pace in reducing residential greenhouse gas emissions. Those are all areas in which I am confident that there is at least the possibility that we can find agreement, if not consensus, across the Parliament, but what worries me—this is why we have posed the question in our motion—is that it is not clear that the programme for government matches the ambitions and the call to action that the commission has set out.
For example, one of the housing announcements in last week’s programme for government was on the continuation of the help to buy scheme. I think that we are all pleased that the Government has listened to our criticisms of the scheme and has announced a three-year budget as opposed to annual budgets but, as Homes for Scotland has pointed out, the £195 million that the First Minister outlined is to be provided over the next three years is significantly less than the £305 million that was allocated over the previous three years. That sum was immediately oversubscribed and resulted in a stop-start situation for the industry, which caused frustration and confusion for home buyers and builders alike.
Homes for Scotland has also pointed out that, earlier this year, the United Kingdom Government committed £6 billion to extend help to buy to at least 2020. On the basis of rough calculations, the consequentials for the Scottish Government would be expected to amount to some £150 million per year, as opposed to the £65 million per year that was announced. I invite the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights to explain to Homes for Scotland how he intends to use the remaining balance.
Another of the housing announcements in the programme for government was on planning. The First Minister surprised many of us—she surprised me, anyway—when she unveiled plans for a root-and-branch review of the planning system. As the cabinet secretary will know, I whole-heartedly support that, as I do not believe that the planning system is working as well as it should be. It neither addresses our need to deliver new housing nor gives communities the accountability, the control or the protection that they wish to have. It is too slow and too unpredictable in outcome.
I was pleasantly surprised because I lobbied the cabinet secretary as recently as March this year, when I asked what the Scottish Government’s position was on holding an independent review of the planning system from a community perspective. The reply that I received from Mr Neil did not encourage me. In it, he said:
“Scotland’s planning system has undergone the most significant modernisation in over 60 years. The overall aim was delivery of a planning service that is efficient, inclusive, fit for purpose and sustainable. The Scottish Government has no current plans to undertake a further review.”—[Written Answers, 3 March 2015; S4W-24530.]
I am intrigued. Perhaps the cabinet secretary will tell us what has changed in a mere six months to make this most significantly modernised planning system—this efficient, inclusive, fit-for-purpose and sustainable system—now apparently so antiquated.
In the absence of a reply, I will return to the private rented sector. The Commission on Housing and Wellbeing has flagged up the need for reform. That is another reason why my Labour colleagues and I were pleased to finally see the Government outline proposals for a private tenancies bill. Since devolution and the formation of this Parliament, the proportion of Scots who rent in the private sector has almost trebled, from 5 per cent to more than 13 per cent. As things stand, more than 312,000 households are privately renting, including some 80,000 families with children.
By itself, that might not be a cause for worry, but research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that
“The number of households in poverty in the Private Rented Sector has doubled in the last decade to 120,000”.
It reported that the gap between social and private rents in Scotland is higher than it is in every English region except London. Scottish National Party members often say that, instead of criticising the Scottish Government, Labour should come forward with solutions. It would not be untoward of me to remind the chamber that Scottish Labour has been calling for quite some time for action to be taken to improve security of tenure and to limit rent rises in the private sector. In fact, I point out to my SNP colleagues that if, instead of voting with the Scottish Conservatives, they had voted with Scottish Labour to introduce rent controls in the Housing (Scotland) Bill last year, they could have saved Scots in private lets a considerable amount of money.
Over the past few years, private tenants in Scotland have seen their rents rise on average by £200 per year and at above the rate of inflation—and by a lot more in the hot spots of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife and Aberdeen. That is why, although we await the detail, we hope that the private tenancies bill will be a positive step towards creating more stable and secure tenancies.
As I have outlined, we support some Government announcements on housing, but I am not convinced that they merit the label “bold” that the First Minister used to describe them last week. The Commission on Housing and Wellbeing has provided us with a call for action, and one of the strengths of its report is the constant link that it makes between a satisfactory home on the one hand and our individual wellbeing and a fair society on the other. The cabinet secretary has made much of the impact of welfare reform and is working on a new social justice action plan; this area impacts directly on our welfare, our quality of life and the prospects for our children’s success, and it is entirely devolved. We all know that families and individuals can prove remarkably resilient in the face of adversity if they have a safe and warm home to return to.
For example, on fuel poverty, the commission’s report highlights that
“a cold home is neither conducive to good health nor a satisfactory learning environment for children nor young people.”
Lang Banks, the director of WWF in Scotland, put it this way:
“It makes no sense that hard-pressed households spend scarce money on energy to simply heat the air outside of their cold, draughty and leaky homes.”
Nevertheless, the Scottish Government has yet to set a long-term goal for the national infrastructure project to bring homes up to an acceptable energy performance standard.
I am conscious of the time, Presiding Officer, but I want to say that, although we need to build many more homes, this is more than a numbers game. What is the Scottish Government doing about the report’s specific neighbourhood recommendations and to recognise the greater role that wellbeing and community have to play in future housing policy?
Scottish Labour has deliberately decided to focus on housing in its first debate following the programme for government. Ensuring that everyone has access to a decent home should be the starting block in our mission to build a more equitable and happier society, and Labour’s ambitions for our country’s future are matched by our absolute determination to ensure that everyone in Scotland has the comfort and assurance of a safe, secure, affordable and warm home. That is not an impossible dream or an unrealistic goal—what is required is the political will.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes the report of the independent Commission on Housing and Wellbeing, A blueprint for Scotland’s future, and the crucial importance that it places on securing a decent home for each and every Scot to ensure individual and social wellbeing; notes the findings of the commission, which concluded that “there is very clearly a homes crisis” in Scotland, with 150,000 households on waiting lists and 940,000 in fuel poverty; further notes the findings that more than 40% of social housing in Scotland falls short of official quality standards but that buying your own home is increasingly unaffordable, especially for young adults; further welcomes Shelter Scotland’s campaign, Make Renting Right, and the work of the many groups and individuals behind the Living Rent Campaign in highlighting the need to regulate the private renting sector in Scotland; looks forward to the Scottish Government’s Private Tenancies Bill, and asks the Scottish Government whether it believes that its Programme for Government matches the ambitions and “call to action” set out by the Commission on Housing and Wellbeing.
14:57