Official Report 1105KB pdf
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-14024, in the name of Graham Simpson, on retrofitting and tenement maintenance. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the publication of the report, Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge: solutions from the industry, jointly published by 14 leading built environment sector organisations; recognises that this paper follows a “Retrofit Roundtable” meeting convened at the Scottish Parliament in May 2023; notes the support for the report’s key policy recommendations to establish a Ministerial Oversight Group on Retrofit and to develop a long-term Retrofit Delivery Plan with a joined-up approach to funding, regulating and incentivising retrofit work across Scotland, including in the Central Scotland region; further notes the calls on the Scottish Government to significantly increase the pace and scale of retrofit projects being undertaken across the country; welcomes the publication of the Scottish Law Commission’s discussion paper on the proposed scheme for owners’ associations; recognises that this discussion paper follows the work of the Tenement Maintenance Working Group, convened at the Scottish Parliament in March 2018, which was established to explore actions that could be taken to improve the condition of Scotland’s tenements; acknowledges that the Scottish Law Commission’s discussion project responds to the Tenement Maintenance Working Group’s recommendation that every tenement building in Scotland should have an owners’ association to coordinate work to the building and a corresponding reference received from the Scottish Government to that effect in January 2022, and notes the discussion paper’s proposals concerning the functions, powers and duties of a tenement owners’ association, including the role of an association manager, decision-making procedures, liability of owners for costs and the implementation of an annual budgeting system.
17:32
I start by apologising: first, to my colleagues for their having had to listen to me twice today; I spotted the ones who filed out of the chamber just now. I also apologise for the length of the motion, which is—to be frank—ludicrous. I have poked fun at other members for producing similar epics in the past, so I deserve whatever ridicule comes my way.
However, as members may recall, I had originally—well before recess—lodged a motion on tenement maintenance and the Scottish Law Commission’s consultation on the issue. That motion got immediate cross-party support and could have been debated, but, sadly, my whip’s office preferred other topics, so here we are.
There is a benefit to that delay, as it has allowed me to encompass retrofitting in the motion for debate today, which is very much linked to the original topic. I thank all those members who have signed the new, longer motion. There has always been cross-party interest in this important topic, which affects so many lives.
In March 2018, some of us, as MSPs, established the tenement maintenance working group to see what we could suggest to improve the condition of Scotland’s tenements. Around a third of tenement flats were built prior to 1919; another third were built between 1919 and 1982; and the final third were built after 1982. Many tenement flats were in a state of critical disrepair when we started our work, and they are probably worse now.
Members will know from their casework of the difficulties that people can face in getting work done to shared buildings. People can sometimes wait for years to get agreement to have essential work, such as fixing the roof, done. The existing tenement law is not strong enough to get us to a place where our housing stock is brought up to scratch, maintained and made fit for the future. Housing impacts on people’s lives: it can affect their health, both physical and mental, as well as their work, relationships and wellbeing. Living in poor housing is depressing, and no one should have to put up with it.
I accept that the subject of the debate may appear to some to be a little dry, but there is nothing that is more important for people than the condition of where they live. In May 2019, the working group made a number of recommendations: there should be compulsory owners associations, sinking funds and five-yearly inspections. We sent our “Working Group on Maintenance of Tenement Scheme Property—Final Recommendations Report” to the Scottish Government, and it produced a work plan. In May 2022, the Government asked the Scottish Law Commission to make recommendations, but only on the proposal for owners associations. That consultation ran until 1 August.
I will talk about that in a moment. As members will see, that has all taken a long time, and it has been frustrating, so in 2022, we reconvened the working group. The group has been one of the best examples that I can think of that has involved parties working together in the Parliament, with outside experts, for the common good. We really should see more of that kind of thing.
I thank the Scottish Law Commission for the work that it is doing, too. In particular, I thank Professor Frankie McCarthy, who is leading on that work, and who has become something of an expert on tenement law, if she was not one already. The Scottish Law Commission’s discussion paper explores proposals to replace the existing tenement management scheme with an owners association scheme. That would make owners associations compulsory for every tenement building in Scotland and give those associations the power to enter contracts and appoint managers. It would also introduce duties on those associations, including an obligation to organise meetings, approve budgets and standardise titles to ensure that maintenance rules are consistent across tenements.
In its paper, the Scottish Law Commission posed 79 questions. Those included questions on which powers should be made available to owners associations, who should be eligible to act as the manager of those bodies, and in which circumstances an owner should be able to challenge a majority decision. The results of that consultation—I believe that there was a good response to it—will inform the final recommendations, as well as a draft bill, which should be introduced by the Scottish Law Commission in 2026. That will be after the next Scottish Parliament elections, so it will be for whoever is elected then to take the matter forward. That will be no easy task, but it is essential.
That brings me to retrofitting. In order for Scotland to tackle climate change, it is critical that we reduce carbon emissions from existing buildings. Across the United Kingdom, 80 per cent of buildings that will be in use in 2050 have already been built, and those could represent 95 per cent of future built environment emissions. Reducing emissions to net zero will require retrofit work on up to 27 million domestic buildings and 2 million non-domestic buildings across the UK. According to the UK Climate Change Committee, £45 billion of investment will be needed for energy efficiency improvements in homes to 2035. Those are massive numbers.
The motion mentions the publication of the report, “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge: solutions from the industry”, which was jointly published by 14 leading built environment sector organisations. That followed a retrofit round-table meeting that was convened at the Parliament in May last year. The report calls on the Government to
“Establish a Ministerial Oversight Group on Retrofit”,
stating that
“Retrofit is a complicated, cross-portfolio issue”
on which “relevant ministers” must be brought together. The report also says that the Scottish Government should
“Develop ... a long-term Retrofit Delivery Plan with a joined-up approach to funding, regulating and incentivising retrofit work across Scotland.”
The report goes on to list some items that the plan should address, stating that it should
“Establish long-term targets and measurement tools”
and consider
“the human resources ... necessary ... to undertake”
retrofit “projects properly”. That really means skills.
In addition, the report calls for “a fabric first approach”, which means that heat conservation repairs and improvements should be prioritised before any changes are made to heat generation, such as installing a heat pump. People should do work to their property before they put a heat pump in.
None of that is headline grabbing; housing tends not to be, until things go wrong.
In my foreword to the tenement maintenance working group’s final report, I wrote about the tragic death of an Australian, Christine Foster, who was killed by falling masonry while she was working in an Edinburgh city centre pub in June 2000. She was just 26. Her dad called on the Government to lay down tougher regulations to ensure safer construction in Scotland, but not much has happened since then, which is why the action that I have set out is essential. I look forward to hearing today from other members, and from the minister.
17:40
First, I pay tribute to Graham Simpson for bringing the debate to the chamber, following the members’ business debate on maintenance of tenement communal property that I brought to the chamber—in which I debated the issue with Graham Simpson—in 2018. There has been much progress since then, including one Opposition debate and one Government debate, as well as this debate. The subject is important, and it is right that we are having more debates about it in the Parliament.
I declare an interest, as someone who lives in one of the approximately 900,000 tenements in Scotland. The issue of tenement maintenance is relevant to a huge number of my constituents, many of whom, like me, live in a tenement.
The casework that I have had on tenement issues during the time—more than eight years—that I have had the privilege of representing the communities of Edinburgh Northern and Leith has been significant. People are really struggling to get repairs done on their properties. Although the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 is better than the legislation that was previously in place, we do not have a suitable legal structure to incentivise and necessitate people to organise and finance the repair and maintenance of their properties
The work that the group of MSPs and expert advisers has done over the past eight years has done a lot of heavy lifting for the Government. I know that we have the Acting Minister for Climate Action in the chamber today, but this issue is fundamentally one for the Minister for Housing and his colleagues, and I hope that this debate will be brought to their attention.
Many of Scotland’s tenements are factored, but we know—again from our casework, and from a news item that was reported by BBC Scotland this week—about the difficulties that people have with factoring in terms of difficulty and value for money. Some factoring is done very well, but not every tenement will necessarily want to sign up to that, for various reasons.
We need ways of ensuring, therefore, that tenements are self-organised, and that people are necessitated to undertake repairs and maintenance and that they have funding available to do so. That is where we are. We are nowhere near the point of considering retrofitting, which needs to be done not only in order to meet our climate obligations, but—importantly—to ensure that our homes are warm and watertight and that quality of life is enhanced. We have to make these changes just to get to the point at which enough repair and maintenance is taking place to ensure public safety and the integrity of people’s properties, and to ensure that our stock is enhanced at a time when we have a housing crisis.
The issue needs more focus from the Parliament as a whole, and from the Government, because it affects all those in urban Scotland, including my constituents. The Scottish Law Commission is doing excellent work, and its consultation is important. We need work to be undertaken on the consideration of sinking funds. Thereafter, as a Parliament and as a political community of representatives and parties, we need a shared position of agreement as we go into the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2026, so that a bill on tenement maintenance is one of the first pieces of legislation that is considered in the next session of Parliament. We need to take the time now to work through the development of the hard law and the human rights considerations that are part of the issue. In the next session of Parliament, we will need to legislate quickly, and implement the changes as soon as possible after that. If we do not do that, we will not get on to even the idea of retrofitting.
The heat in buildings bill that will be introduced as part of the programme for government is worth while and important, but people will not be able to undertake the changes that it will necessitate in tenements unless tenement law is reformed. The practical function and legal operation to enable such retrofit will not be in place. Therefore we need both a new act on tenements and a shared commitment. The debate is an important step forward in achieving those.
17:45
I thank my colleague Graham Simpson for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I also thank the organisations that provided members with helpful briefings for it. I pay tribute to Graham Simpson and Ben Macpherson for their campaigning work on tenement issues, and to the Parliament’s cross-party group on housing that has also been working on those issues—it is important that we then debate those issues in the chamber.
When I was first elected eight years ago, one of my early cases concerned stair cleaning in a tenement here in the capital. There was an issue with shared payments towards communal cleaning and maintenance. To some extent, eight years on, it does not feel as though we have made any progress on such matters. That case provided me with a good, early lesson on the legal pitfalls and problems that people who live in tenements often face and on the need for organised and legal frameworks to improve conditions in all tenements across Scotland for the people who call them home.
As the motion notes, there is a pressing need for solutions to be developed, as was highlighted in the recent publication “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge: solutions from the industry”, which was co-ordinated by the Chartered Institute of Building and jointly published by 14 leading organisations from across the built environment sector.
Retrofit presents a complicated, multifaceted, cross-portfolio challenge for which there will be no silver-bullet solution. We must consider the problems and the potential future pitfalls if we are to achieve our net zero ambitions in tenements across Scotland and in order to develop such a legal framework sooner rather than later.
I agree with Ben Macpherson that we will find that the net zero legislation in the heat in buildings strategy does not fit with tenement law in Scotland and so it will not make early progress. A joined-up, holistic policy-making approach will be needed if Scotland is to reach its targets and ensure not only that our existing buildings are warm and energy efficient but that they promote the health and wellbeing of the people who live there and use them.
The solutions and key industry recommendations in “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge” therefore act as a welcome focus on how the Government could identify opportunities and either remove or mitigate existing barriers.
At the heart of such an approach are the challenges identified in the Local Government and Housing Committee’s recent work on the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill. Many of the challenges on tenement issues, such as surveying buildings and gaining access to them, will be the same. The Government is already aware of those aspects, having taken that bill through as emergency legislation, so we might see discussion of exactly the same challenges in the context of tenements.
The Scottish Law Commission’s discussion paper on tenement law represents a welcome first step in establishing the necessary governance structures to address the maintenance of tenement buildings across Scotland, which operate within a complex multitenure system that we need to get to grips with sooner rather than later. As Graham Simpson stated, the development of compulsory owners associations could be one way of addressing that. We must look towards having a solution-driven approach where, regardless of who owns which flat in a tenement property, we see group effort and group funding of what are, let us face it, expensive works.
The Scottish Law Commission’s proposals would provide a legal framework for establishing the relevant powers and duties. Should they be adopted in legislation, along with suitable guidance and advice, owners associations, managers and individual property owners—individual owners will also want to be at the heart of such a solution—will have a suitable legal framework to enable us to move forward with retrofit in the future.
It is clear to those of us who represent communities with a large number of tenements that we will face many challenges—existing and future—especially in relation to the retrofit of tenement properties. However, as Ben Macpherson and Graham Simpson have outlined, Parliament, in a collective and cross-party way, needs to look now at what actions can be taken early in the next parliamentary session. For example, a commitment is needed from all parties to support a tenement maintenance bill in the next session of Parliament. We can build on the positive work that has been done and the solutions that have been developed—sometimes not by Government but by outside bodies. We must ensure that we get solutions in place for people who live in tenements, because they need those solutions.
I go back to the example of my constituent whom I met eight years ago. We need to ensure that those issues are addressed. They have not been addressed, and all of us in this chamber have an opportunity to help to fix that.
17:50
I start by congratulating my Central Scotland regional colleague Graham Simpson on securing this evening’s debate. It is an important issue that we have not covered regularly enough, and I am glad that we are getting the chance to discuss it in Parliament.
Buildings are one of the highest carbon emitters in Scotland, behind only industry and transport. One in five of Scotland’s homes is traditionally built, and heat leaks out of those tenements’ historic windows and walls. In the UK, the new Labour Government has pledged an extra £6.6 billion over the next parliamentary session towards its warm home plans. I hope that the Scottish Government can work with colleagues in the UK Government to make that plan a reality in homes across Scotland, too.
Although we have discussed the issue before, and we have known for a long time that we have to bring our homes up to standard, we still have not worked out the nuts and bolts of how we will do that and, crucially, how we will finance it. Retrofitting homes in Scotland remains complicated and, crucially, too expensive for lots of homeowners who are now struggling with mortgage payments.
I ask Mark Griffin in good faith whether he will agree that an important point for consideration, which many campaigners and those involved in the working group have suggested before, is whether we could reduce VAT on retrofitting and home improvements in order to help people to afford and facilitate that work.
Yes, absolutely, and I have called on previous UK Governments of different colours to do that. There is clearly an imbalance in the VAT structure, in that improvements are not covered by VAT, but new-build customers can request changes and adaptations to avoid that VAT bill further down the line, after they have taken ownership. I am more than happy to work on that on a cross-party basis, because it will be critical when it comes to retrofitting the many houses that we need to bring up to standard in order to meet our obligations on net zero, climate change and fuel poverty. I am more than happy to work with Mr Macpherson and others to continue lobbying for that.
That process will be crucial, particularly with regard to our older homes, which are all uniquely built. Many of them have also been uniquely modified over the years and are used in different ways by their occupants, so a simple one-size-fits-all solution is not possible.
The tenement maintenance working group has shown that, as well as the complication around technical solutions, the law on tenement maintenance adds an extra layer of complexity to the process of retrofit. Therefore, it is reassuring to know that industry experts are engaged in addressing those thorny issues. I was pleased to read the report, “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge: solutions from the industry”, following the retrofit round-table meeting in May 2023. That group’s report and recommendations form a vital first step towards retrofitting our homes quickly and effectively.
I also note the recommendations of the tenement maintenance working group, which include establishing compulsory owners associations for tenements that would have a legal personality and the ability to enter into contracts in their own name. However, legislating for that initiative raises some questions around the interaction of a potential new law with existing tenement title conditions, and there are possible concerns around compliance with the property rights of flat owners under article 1 of the European convention on human rights.
The work of the Scottish Law Commission on mandatory owners associations for tenements in Scotland is therefore invaluable for us, particularly as it should, I hope, inform the Government’s thinking—whichever Government comes to office in 2026, it is crucial that it leans heavily on the work that is being done by the Law Commission.
Lowering emissions from Scotland’s housing stock is essential in reducing fuel poverty. If we are to get to net zero, 2.25 million homes in Scotland, including almost 900,000 tenements, need to be retrofitted.
I am grateful for the hard work of all the organisations that have been mentioned in the debate. With 48 per cent of our buildings in critical disrepair and spiralling fuel costs for residents—
Mr Griffin, I hope that you are bringing your remarks to a close.
I am, Presiding Officer. Retrofitting is a critical element of lifting Scotland out of the housing emergency and alleviating fuel poverty.
17:56
I thank Graham Simpson for securing the debate. I attended a number of the working group meetings prior to the Covid pandemic. I put on my record my thanks to Mr Simpson and his predecessor, Ben Macpherson, for taking forward this much-needed work.
The “Working Group on Maintenance of Tenement Scheme Property: Final Recommendations Report”, published in 2019, to which Graham Simpson referred, is a hugely important document. My constituency, like those of other members across the chamber, has many tenements in it. Many of us have an acute knowledge of the condition of those tenements because of the issues raised by our constituents, and, in addition—to be light-hearted for a moment—from when we do the morning leaflet runs when it comes to election periods, carrying out surveys and the delivery of annual reports.
Across the country, there are many stunning tenements that are well maintained and in very good condition, but, regrettably, many are also in a poor or very poor state. That is down to a variety of reasons. Some residents might not have the finance to make the repairs, some might not want to make the repairs if the issue does not affect them, and there might also be absentee landlords who are not willing to contribute. Those are just three examples, but there will be many more. That leads to buildings becoming undesirable and people becoming effectively trapped in a property, which has a negative effect on the local community.
Unfortunately, Inverclyde has many people in negative equity because their property has reduced in value over the years and repairs have not taken place. That means that they cannot sell and they often cannot afford to pay their share of the communal repair costs. It is a vicious cycle and something needs to be done. That is where the work of the tenement maintenance working group is hugely important.
We have heard from members across the chamber about the importance of getting an outcome or result. I agree with my colleague Ben Macpherson’s comments on the heat in buildings bill that was announced in the programme for government and on the issue of progressing a tenement bill. That is where the work of the Scottish Law Commission is important. Graham Simpson will recall, from our days early in this session on the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, that we pushed the boundaries and the envelope of what the committee could and should be doing with regard to the work of the SLC. One of our recommendations was to refer the matter to the relevant committee of the Scottish Parliament, but that did not stop the dialogue with the SLC, which was hugely important.
We all recognise and accept that the SLC work is taking a long time, and that was one of the frustrations that we had in the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. However, I would rather that it took a wee bit of extra time to get it right than to have to go back—at some point in the next parliamentary session or the one after that—to fix a problem that we could have got right at the outset.
The point that Ben Macpherson made about factoring was touched on not just earlier today but in the report. Factoring is one of the key problems that we face. Inverclyde Council in my constituency is fifth out of the 32 local authorities with regard to the number of tenements in the area, so I know how important the issue is from helping my constituents. It is a huge frustration.
However, I genuinely believe that, if the work that the SLC is undertaking can be done right, we can make a hugely positive difference for future generations across the country. We will have to wait and see whether the VAT issue can be addressed going forward. The tenement maintenance issue is one of the key problems that the country faces, even before we get to retrofitting, which is hugely important for tackling climate change. If we can build flexibility into the heat in buildings bill, then when the tenement bill is introduced, we can get tenements sorted. I would like to think that—potentially, in the next session after the SLC work is completed—anyone who lives in or owns a tenement will be in a better place to deal with the maintenance issue and move forward, so that all our communities can be in a better place.
18:01
I, too, thank Graham Simpson for bringing this important issue to the chamber. It is time to get serious about retrofitting our building stock to meet our climate goals—not just tenements, but all of Scotland’s housing stock. The report “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge: solutions from the industry” is a wake-up call for the Government. Rather than repeating what has been said, I will highlight a few points from the report, as well as points that have come up in the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee and as part of the work of the Existing Homes Alliance.
First, we absolutely need a fabric-first approach to retrofitting. That means improving the building envelope—walls, roofs, floors, windows and doors—before installing new technology. Proper insulation is key. Without it, advanced heating technology is just a waste of money. By focusing on the building fabric first, we can maximise energy efficiency and provide long-term benefits to home owners. Too many people are installing heat pumps in leaky buildings, which leads to higher energy bills. That could be avoided with bespoke whole-building plans. Each house or tenement needs a tailored approach that considers its unique characteristics. A one-size-fits-all solution will not work for Scotland’s diverse housing stock. Tailored plans ensure that retrofitting is effective and efficient, which will save energy and improve comfort.
Secondly, we must push the new Labour Government to remove the 20 per cent VAT on retrofitting buildings and push the Scottish Government to give local authorities powers to raise a demolition levy. The current VAT set-up disincentivises contractors and slows down progress. Removing the tax would make retrofitting more affordable and accelerate our efforts to cut carbon emissions from heating.
As well as moving us towards our climate ambitions, retrofitting could help us tackle homelessness through the retrofit and adaptive reuse of the countless empty properties across Scotland. Through retrofitting, we could create three homes for the price of one new build. Communities and councils have been leading the way on that, with work being done, for example, by Midsteeple Quarter in Dumfries, Argyll and Bute Council and Perth and Kinross Council. Support is needed to help those leaders to share best practice.
We also need a local approach to engage private home owners and the private rented sector. The Existing Homes Alliance is doing great work in that area, and we need to do more.
Leveraging climate action networks and hubs could be a game changer. Those networks can spread information through local events, raising awareness and providing guidance to home owners and landlords to take the step. That grass-roots approach ensures that the retrofitting message reaches all corners of Scotland, thereby encouraging widespread participation.
I also welcome the publication of the Scottish Law Commission’s discussion paper on the proposed scheme for owners associations. I listened with interest to Stuart McMillan’s contribution on some of the issues that he is aware of.
The proposal for every tenement building in Scotland to have an owners association is a sensible and necessary step. Those associations exist in tenements in New York City, where I lived for 20 years, and having them here would ensure that maintenance work was carried out efficiently and that costs were fairly distributed among owners.
I agree with Ben Macpherson about the urgency of beginning work at the start of the next session of Parliament. Whole-building plans could fit that model well. The Government must incentivise technological innovation in heat distribution networks for whole tenements and in heat-source technology that could easily be installed in individual flats.
I urge the Scottish Government to act swiftly on the recommendations of both the retrofit report and the Scottish Law Commission’s discussion paper. By adopting a fabric-first approach, creating whole-house plans, removing VAT from the cost of retrofitting, bringing in a demolition levy, engaging local communities through action networks and incentivising innovation in heat technology, we can make significant strides towards a more sustainable, energy-efficient and well-maintained built environment for Scotland. Let us seize the opportunity and get on with the urgent work that will ensure that we meet our legally binding climate obligations.
18:06
I congratulate Mr Simpson on securing this timely debate. As he highlighted, this is not a matter of self-interest by building owners—it is a public health emergency. Having shelter and security in the home is one of the essential components of any hierarchy of needs, but the condition of Scotland’s housing stock leaves a lot to be desired. We certainly have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe, which has been a perennial challenge for the city of Glasgow for more than a century.
The Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 was created to address sanitation issues that were affecting housing in Glasgow, but it focused largely on the construction of new municipal housing estates and did not tackle inner city tenement challenges and the collapse of factoring that took place after emergency legislation was introduced in 1915 to restrict rents. Laudable as that was at the time, it was not revised or amended and, as a result, there was no factoring of tenements in Glasgow for half a century.
We can fast forward to the post-war period, when emergency slum clearances in the city and the building of overspill estates and new towns were also intended to address the problem. The result was the designation of large parts of the city of Glasgow as comprehensive development areas, of which there were 29 in total. Within the space of 30 years, 40 per cent of Glasgow’s housing stock was demolished. That is an extraordinary figure: 40 per cent of the city’s houses were demolished in 30 years.
That is the scale of the challenge that we face if we do not deal with it. Glasgow City Council has highlighted the scale of the maintenance backlog; it recently conducted a survey that showed that 46,600 tenement properties in the city are in an urgent state of disrepair and that that maintenance backlog will cost £2.9 billion. That is an urgent crisis. Glasgow City Heritage Trust, of which I am a trustee, has an annual budget of £1 million to dispense in grants. That is an absurdly inadequate figure.
The structures for how we assist people to improve their tenements are also inadequate. Grant funding alone is not sufficient. We must be far more intelligent about providing patient loan finance to allow property owners to carry out larger-scale improvements and to address fundamental fabric challenges. In Glasgow alone, we have 76,000 residential buildings that predate the first world war, of which about 70,000 are tenements, so about one in four Glaswegians live in a tenement that was built before that war.
There are big challenges, but we must find hope in the solutions that Glasgow found a generation ago, in the 1970s. Many people of that generation will be familiar with the cludgie. My grandparents talked about the toilet in their shared stair, where the seat was always warm. That came about as a result of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892, which insisted on indoor sanitation but not necessarily on indoor toilets for individual private flats. Even in the 1970s, one in four Scots had no toilet in their own home and had to share one, but, by 1990, Scotland was the best-toileted nation in Europe.
That came about not by accident but by the innovations that were carried out in Govan, Partick and other districts in Glasgow by people such as Raymond Young, a young architect who was involved with Assist Architects, which was an experimental practice that spun out of the University of Strathclyde’s architecture department. He went to meet a lady called Annie Gibbons in Luath Street in Govan. She said, “I’ve heard all about your work on putting indoor toilets into flats. I want one,” so she became the experiment—the guinea pig—in putting an indoor toilet into a tenement. Eventually, the housing convener of the city, Pat Lally, came to cut the ribbon on her toilet.
The authorities realised that they had spent the past 30 years demolishing a hundred thousand tenements when they might have better deployed those resources in retrofit. As a result, the growth of the community housing association movement took place in Glasgow, with the passing of the Housing Act 1974. That formed the basis of what we are talking about now, such as owners associations, sinking funds and the management of properties. As a result, about a quarter of the city’s housing stock is managed by registered social landlords. In total, there are about 80 housing associations in Glasgow.
The infrastructure is there and we have done it before. We committed with positive action, coherence and the sort of consensual approach that the member for Edinburgh Northern and Leith talked about, and solved a major social problem in Scotland. We moved from one in four Scots sharing toilets in the 1970s to being the best-toileted nation in Europe.
We can do the same with other fabric repairs now, but we need to implement urgently the recommendations that the tenement maintenance working group identified in concert with the Scottish Law Commission. We cannot continue to dawdle. We have seen the pathway, we can pilot a lot of this stuff with our existing infrastructure, we can look at our housing associations and we can get ahead of the problem in Glasgow. We can start to effect the practical operation of this very early in a city such as Glasgow, and I urge members to look at how we move forward with that. The Law Commission is certainly keen to look at such pilots, so that it can write the legislation to reflect the reality. Let us move ahead with that, because there are big opportunities. If we do that, we can solve a lot of the housing problems that Scotland faces.
Given the number of members who wish to speak, I am minded to accept a motion without notice, under rule 8.14.3, to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. I invite Graham Simpson to move such a motion.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Graham Simpson]
Motion agreed to.
18:11
I thank Graham Simpson for securing the debate. There has been cross-party concern about tenement maintenance since Ben Macpherson led the working group originally, and I think that all we independent MSPs share that concern.
It is great that the Scottish Government has responded positively and that the Scottish Law Commission proposes a way forward—in particular, that every tenement building should have an owners association. Many of us have been frustrated at the slow progress, but I guess that any progress is better than none. We need to accept that, politically, some of the proposals may be unpopular—for example, once we get on to reserves or sinking funds. However, we need to remember that tenement buildings—I live in one—are gradually deteriorating, day by day and year by year.
Barlanark, where I live, was an area of post-war council housing in greater Easterhouse. It had become notorious by the 1980s. If a car was stolen in Glasgow, Sandaig Road—where I live—was where the police looked first. Bellway took over the whole area and did a major refurbishment that involved lowering the height of the buildings from four to two or three storeys, and the area completely changed, with all 270 or so flats being sold—they were called “yuppie flats” when I moved in, in 1990. I gather that John Swinney, in a previous life, was involved in the project.
However, over the past 34 years, no serious maintenance has been done at all. People have spent thousands on kitchens, bathrooms and double glazing, but there has been virtually no communal maintenance. That is a problem for my 270 neighbours, but it is also part of a national problem. We all suffer if a large part of our housing stock is not maintained.
We have factors, but the estate has a very poor payment record and the factors do not have the powers to ensure maintenance. We are on our third set of factors. I fully accept that factors, too, need supervision; however, in our case, as in many others, it is not the factors that are to blame for a lack of progress. From my experience, it is even worse if there are no factors. The whole system is broken, and I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government accepts that and that the Scottish Law Commission is getting the ball rolling.
Does John Mason agree with a point that Miles Briggs has made on several occasions this year—that, if we are to reform the Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004, perhaps there is also a need to make changes to the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011?
I confess that I am not an expert on all the different bits of legislation, but there certainly needs to be change. I am more than happy to be guided by others on what form that should take, but I certainly support some form of change.
I turn to the other half of Graham Simpson’s motion. The report “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge: solutions from the industry” makes interesting reading, and it raises important points and questions, including the point that clarity needs to be provided on the funding of any retrofitting and on how much of that will be public investment or private investment. As has been mentioned, the report suggests that the fabric of a building should be the first priority—that is, ensuring that it is wind and watertight—and that, secondly, the building should be properly insulated, with consideration being given to the heating system only as the third priority. The report questions the energy performance certificate ratings and suggests that the EPC assessment criteria need to be reformed. It also says that the workforce needs to be large enough and properly trained.
In 2020-21, a pilot full retrofit was carried out on a pre-1919 sandstone tenement building in the Queen’s Park area of Glasgow, which brought the eight flats in the building up to the Passivhaus standard. If less thorough work was done on a greater scale, the cost per unit would, one would hope, be substantially less. That work cost about £1 million for the eight flats, which is about £125,000 per flat. That is quite a substantial cost.
Funding of tenement maintenance and retrofit is going to be a substantial challenge. Some owners will be able and willing to pay substantial sums, but many will not, even including housing associations. One challenge is whether owners will need to receive grants or loans in order to get work completed. What would happen to an owner-occupier in a dilapidated flat that was worth less than £50,000 who had no savings and only a minimum income?
Today’s debate flags up more questions than answers, but a number of us want to keep the topic firmly on the agenda. No party can afford to say that the problem is too difficult or too expensive. Scotland needs us to move forward towards a solution.
18:16
I also thank Graham Simpson for bringing this important debate to the chamber. In my contribution, I will talk specifically about the workforce that we need now and into the future to address all the important points that colleagues have raised. I have been fascinated by the knowledge of colleagues, and I have learned a great deal. I can generally get a lot of information about buildings in Scotland by following my dear colleague Paul Sweeney on social media.
Tonight’s debate is such an important one. The work to ensure the continued existence of the buildings that we are talking about must be done in tandem with the progression of construction training. Members have made many important points about legislation, but we need the workforce to be able to do all the work that is required to tackle the retrofitting challenges that we face.
During the summer, I had the great pleasure of meeting a number of trades workers from a great variety of trades and backgrounds across my South Scotland region. Young workers in particular recognise that they need the skills to enable us to meet the challenge of reaching net zero and deliver on the retrofitting of buildings, not only now but way into the future. There are lots of skills that they need to develop.
The consistent message that I have heard from businesses and workers across the sector is that the Scottish Government must set policies to establish clearer training routes, to invest in local training, in particular, and to drive a desire to save some of the skills and understanding in what is a craft industry. I have previously raised in the chamber the challenge that young apprentices face in accessing the local education that will allow us to keep those craft skills. People seem to find it difficult to find the right provision to enable them to keep up their competencies and qualifications and become professional in the sector.
A number of points made by members have made me realise that we need to support the workforce, and I hope that the minister might consider some of the points that have been raised with me. We need to champion some skills from a very early age—from primary school—and ensure that people see them as offering a lifelong career and as linked to the future of our environment in our desire to get to net zero.
We perhaps also need to address some of the further education complexities for apprentices, such as the long distances that they might require to travel to get some of the skills they need. We should consider how to support apprentices with that. We should perhaps consider a model of education infrastructure that helps people who might be challenged if they have to go and work far away, particularly if they are young. There has been a suggestion about mobile education facilities, and I wonder whether the minister could speak with his colleagues in the education and economy portfolios to explore what we can do to progress that.
I thank everybody for their interesting contributions, and I thank Graham Simpson for bringing the debate to the chamber.
18:21
I start by thanking members for their contributions in what has been a useful debate. In particular, I thank Mr Simpson for bringing the debate to the chamber. I also pay tribute to the organisations that were involved in producing the “Meeting Scotland’s Retrofit Challenge” report.
I very much look forward to meeting the representatives of the 14 bodies that collaborated on the report next week to hear directly from them on the challenges that we face, and to discuss their recommendations to ensure that the pace and scale of retrofit across Scotland match our net zero ambitions. I accept that that requires cross-portfolio working within Government.
I thank all those who are involved in the Scottish Parliament working group on tenement maintenance, including Graham Simpson, the convener of the group, for their continued work. One of the group’s key recommendations was to instruct the Scottish Law Commission to undertake a reform project on compulsory owners associations for tenement properties. We welcome the discussion paper that was published by the commission, and we look forward to receiving further recommendations from it next spring, as well as its draft bill.
On the issue of tenements, on which the debate has rightly focused, I will pick up on a point that Ben Macpherson made. The subject is important to him, given that pretty much his whole constituency consists of old tenements. I refer to the recommendation of a short-life working group, which I hope will lead to new ways of providing information to owners in tenement properties, on everything from communal heating to energy efficiency measures.
When it comes to finding a way forward in establishing such best practice, does the minister recognise the work of Under One Roof in providing an interface and a one-stop shop for advice, as well as the work of organisations such as the Loco Home Retrofit co-operative in Glasgow, which was established in 2021? It has provided a great example of how to build confidence between owners and contractors, bring people together and build best practice, and we need to scale up that sort of work.
Yes, I very much wish to acknowledge the work that has been done by those organisations. The Government aims to publish a future public consultation on some of the issues that we have been talking about, particularly on new cross-tenure housing standards. I agree that any future legislation should consider the recommendations of the tenements maintenance working group. It is worth mentioning that the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 was amended in 2009 to include the installation of insulation. I accept, however that we need to continue to engage on that.
As Mark Griffin pointed out, around a fifth of Scotland’s emissions come from our buildings. To address that, we must work to improve the energy efficiency of our homes and transition them to clean heating systems. We must do that at scale and pace but, vitally, in a way that is fair and just that brings the people of Scotland with us.
The publication of the report that we are discussing today serves as a timely reminder of the importance of joined-up policy making in achieving all that we want to achieve. Paul Sweeney provided a historical context, which was really valuable, and pointed out the intrinsic value of tenement properties across Scotland.
Legislation can certainly play a vital role in driving the transition. As part of the recent programme for government, the First Minister announced that the Government will introduce a heat in buildings bill, which will be a significant step forward in that journey. The bill will be a significant means by which we can set a long-term direction of travel that is deliverable and affordable for households and businesses, and it will also provide certainty to building owners and those in the supply chain.
Does the minister agree with Ben Macpherson’s very good point that the heat in buildings bill needs to work with tenement law, so the Government needs to ensure that there is flexibility in the bill when such law comes along?
While I am on my feet, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. It is good to see such interest in the subject. If anyone wishes to be part of the tenement maintenance working group, please let me know.
With legislation, it is important that we scan the horizon for anything that might come in the future, but I hope that, in its own right, the heat in buildings bill will be relevant to tenements. Next year, we plan to publish a heat in buildings delivery plan, which will set out some of the foundations for a clearer path towards the 2045 targets.
I will build on the point that Mr Simpson made. If we do not have tenement law reform that obliges tenement owners to organise through owners associations and enables finance to be obtained and raised together, it could be very difficult, practically, to deliver on the 2045 targets. That will be the case if organising and getting all the owners of a tenement property to agree on a position remains as difficult as it is today.
I certainly acknowledge that we will not reach the 2045 targets unless we include tenement properties. That has to be part of our thinking, so today’s debate is very useful in raising some of those issues.
I might be running out of time, but I will touch on a couple of other points that have been made. Carol Mochan made some important points about skills. It is worth saying that, in 2023, the Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme funded significantly more installations of heat pumps in Scotland per capita than the boiler upgrade scheme in England and Wales—in fact, it did so at almost double the rate. That has implications for skills, so the Government is very much alive to the issue.
The independent green heat finance task force, which will publish its part 2 report shortly, has been considering some of the barriers that constrain private finance provision for installing clean heating systems, and it has been identifying opportunities to develop new products along the way.
I also draw attention to the importance of the reform to energy performance certificates and to the role of other assessment methods. Those issues were rightly raised in the report. We are aware of the limitations of the EPC system, particularly in providing recommendations for home owners, and we are considering other assessment methods to improve the situation.
Retrofitting existing homes across Scotland—not least tenements—to make them warmer and more energy efficient, and to transition them to climate-friendly heating systems, is a vital part of our plans and our responsibility to address the climate emergency and meet our net zero ambitions. However, we remain clear that we will achieve that in a way that is proportionate, fair and just for everyone, including people living in Scotland’s tenements.
Meeting closed at 18:29.Air ais
Decision Time