Seòmar agus comataidhean

I will. There is also a further statute that I will mention.

It is too early to say, at this stage, before we have the discussions. A key point is that, as I have laid out, statutes are already in place. Obviously, though, there are still issues with temporary accommodation, so we need to look at what we need to do to enforce the current legislation. I am happy to engage with Mr Griffin and others on that point. I am not going to say what will happen in relation to amendments between now and stage 3, before we have that discussion, but I am willing to have that engagement with Mr Griffin and others.

I oppose amendment 1077. Ms Boyack and I engaged on the matter last night. At that time, we had not heard from the City of Edinburgh Council on the particular point, and we agreed that we would try to get more detail on it.

I will touch on the essence of my opposition and how I would advise members to vote on the amendment. Local authorities already have a record of those who make an application to be assessed as homeless or who are threatened with homelessness. That information is required to enable a local authority comply with its statutory functions under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987.

It is unclear what the purpose would be of a separate register maintained by the Scottish Government. The information would need to be collected for a specific purpose and used only for that purpose, in order to comply with the United Kingdom’s general data protection regulation. In the amendment, there is no stated purpose for the register and no powers to use the information contained in the register in any specific way. The register could not be a public one because it would contain sensitive personal information. It is therefore not clear why a register would be necessary.

For those reasons, I encourage members of the committee to oppose the amendment, which would serve no benefit to those who are homeless and could conflict with the Scottish ministers’ duties under data protection legislation. I ask Sarah Boyack not to press the amendment. As I said in our engagement last night, I will discuss the matter further with her.

I am sorry, convener, but I have not finished my speech.

I will take Roz McCall and then Pam Duncan-Glancy.

I am happy to engage with Mr Balfour—that is all that I was going to add.

Amendment 1015A, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 1015, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 1034 moved—[Kevin Stewart].

There are two key points to consider in that regard, one of which goes back to the point that Mr Griffin made. I want to make it clear that we have no intention of using the powers to narrow the scope of the definition. A duty is built in for ministers to consult on proportionate modifications, and I hope that that provides reassurance.

I am happy to engage with Mr Balfour on that particular point.

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to update the committee on our wide-ranging work in response to the housing emergency.

I acknowledge that 2024 was a challenging year for housing delivery. However, by declaring and addressing the housing emergency, we have acted decisively to support individuals and families across Scotland, who remain at the heart of our action. Our vision is clear: it is for everyone to have a safe, good-quality and affordable home that meets their needs in the place that they want to be. The proposed increase in funding for the affordable housing supply programme in the next financial year further strengthens our commitment to delivery.

The housing emergency requires a responsive and bold approach to ensure the best outcomes. There is no one definition of the emergency, as the pressures in the system are complex and have different impacts in different parts of Scotland. As I outlined in my letter to the committee last month, we have prioritised a regional approach to deliver the impact that we wish to make by working most urgently with the five local authorities that are experiencing the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures.

Ministers and officials are engaging intensively with those local authorities to advance a range of activity, including the targeted use of £40 million to acquire additional homes and bring social voids into use. For example, in Fife, 25 properties were recently acquired and will soon be available for people to move into, while a further 12 acquisitions are approved and in progress. In 2025, we plan to make record funding of £15 billion available to councils for services, including homelessness services, alongside £97 million for discretionary housing payments and £4 million to support local authorities and front-line homelessness prevention services.

We have taken an activist approach to working with stakeholders on our emergency response and refocused our external housing to 2040 governance board to drive action on the housing emergency. We strengthened the board last week by welcoming new members from Shelter, Crisis, Homeless Network Scotland and the Wheatley Group, thereby fostering collaboration to deliver practical solutions to address the housing emergency. Their input on impactful funding, potential risks and new ideas was incredibly valuable as we planned our next steps together.

Among the promising early initiatives that the board is considering are further efforts to bring privately owned empty homes back into use. That is supported by the £2 million allocation for empty homes that was announced in the draft budget. We will continue to ask our partners to join us with the urgency and innovation that is needed to accelerate progress.

In rural Scotland, more than 12,400 affordable homes were delivered between April 2016 and March 2024. At the annual summit on the rural and island housing action plan in October, I highlighted successes such as the rural and islands housing fund, which recently supported an award-winning regeneration project. Joint funding with the Nationwide Foundation is helping community organisations to build capacity and deliver affordable homes. Our demand-led key worker fund, which has up to £25 million available until 2028, has already supported projects in Orkney, Highland, Moray and North Ayrshire.

In 2024, we also faced the impact of hugely reduced capital budgets across Government, driven by United Kingdom Government cuts. Despite that, we unlocked further funding throughout the year, including £40 million for acquisitions.

We also invested £22 million as part of our charitable bond programme. That generated a further £7 million in charitable donations, which, in addition to our investment through the affordable housing supply programme, will be used to deliver more homes. In 2023-24, we used more than £71 million of charitable bond donations to supplement our affordable housing supply programme investment, which will support the delivery of more than 600 housing association social rented homes. I am very pleased that the proposed budget for our affordable housing supply programme in 2025-26 will involve an increase of more than £200 million compared to the published budget for 2024-25. Subject to the budget being passed by the Parliament in the coming months, we will focus on ensuring the most impactful use of those funds.

In pursuit of that objective, last week ministers asked the housing to 2040 board to consider proposals that will reduce the number of families with children that are in temporary accommodation. We are also working with local authorities to develop innovative plans to maximise housing delivery. Where the Scottish Government can use its powers to do even more, we are committed to doing so.

I hope that this update has provided a clear overview. We are resolute in our determination to tackle the housing emergency and, together with our partners and communities, we will continue to make progress.

My immediate focus will be on planning the effective allocation of the significant funding that will be forthcoming if the budget is agreed. I look forward to updating you on that in the coming months.

I will go on to talk about progress, but on the areas that you queried, the record level of funding is £15 billion available to councils, £97 million for discretionary housing payments, and £4 million to support local authorities and front-line services. The board members who joined us last week were from Shelter, Crisis, the Wheatley Group and Homeless Network Scotland.

Coming back to progress, I have a number of points. At the start of the meeting, I said that this is a complex area. We have taken a number of actions, focusing on delivery. One of the key actions concerns planning—which you will have heard about from Ivan McKee—and the creation of the housing planning hub. We did that through extensive discussions with Homes for Scotland, for example.

On the back of that, on 15 November, we convened a group of key stakeholders to work on the issue of stalled sites. There will be a meeting on 17 January to talk about the progress that has been made on that. There has been significant focus on how we remove the barriers around stalled sites. You will have seen that several statements were made about houses that were approved but that have not yet been delivered. We are focusing on sites that have just started or that have not started yet through the planning delivery hub, including through speaking to partners such as Homes for Scotland. I will bring in Lauren McNamara to talk more about what work has been carried out on that.

On the affordable housing supply programme, I mentioned the £40 million fund. When we are talking about the housing emergency, we need to look at it in two ways. First, how do we reduce the number of people in temporary accommodation, particularly children? What can we do to bring homes back into use? We have talked about voids, empty homes and acquisitions

We also need to consider the longer-term sustainable actions that need to be taken, and the £40 million is focused on that. There have been significant reductions in some local authorities. For example, the City of Edinburgh Council has made a significant difference in reducing the number of void properties. That is really important.

Another key issue is the removal of delivery barriers. When I met all the housing conveners at a Convention of Scottish Local Authorities meeting about eight or nine months ago, one of the key things that I was told in relation to voids was about energy and utility companies being able to come in to get properties back into use, so we held a round-table meeting with utility companies to try to increase the turnover of social homes.

We have taken a number of actions. Later, I might talk about the focus on the five key local authorities and the specific actions that we have taken, but that is a general overview of what we have done. Our work is focused on how we can get homes turned around as quickly as possible while increasing the supply of affordable housing, because we need to continue to build houses. We have a good record on that.

That is a general overview of the initial actions that we have taken, and I am happy to go into more detail as we get into more questions.