Housing

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 10:10 am on 1 May 2008.

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Photo of Stewart Maxwell Stewart Maxwell Scottish National Party 10:10, 1 May 2008

I tell you this, boy—sorry, Presiding Officer.

It is particularly ironic, I feel, that we are having this interesting debate today of all days. Today, of course, is 1 May, which is May day—and international workers day. The Labour Party in Scotland has decided to recognise the day by fighting tooth and nail in defence of the arch-Thatcherite policy of selling off council houses. Generations of comrades must be proud as they watch Wendy Alexander's new socialist party stand shoulder to shoulder with the Tory party in defence of Thatcherism. However, before Labour decided to come to the aid of the Tories in opposing the end of the right to buy for new-build social housing, perhaps it should have checked who it was up against.

On one side of the argument are those who oppose abolition of the right to buy for new-build social housing, such as the Labour Party, the Tory party and—actually, that is about it. That is the complete list of those who oppose the policy. However, in favour of our policy to abolish the right to buy for new-build social housing, we have local authorities, big and small housing associations, housing lobby groups such as Shelter and housing commentators. In fact, the whole housing sector approves our policy. It even won support from a certain Wendy Alexander. The Herald of 22 October 2007 stated:

"The abolition of the right to buy council houses came a step closer yesterday after ... Wendy Alexander indicated that her party would look favourably on proposals by the government."

I do not know whether the Labour party is coming or going on this issue. Unfortunately, neither does it.

Robert Brown asked how much will be spent on housing over the spending review period. Robert, perhaps you should have checked—I am sorry. Perhaps the member should have checked the budget. Over £1.5 billion will be spent over the spending review period, which is an increase of £131 million on the previous Executive's plans. That is a 19 per cent increase over the next spending review period versus the 2005-08 plans. It is clear that much more money is going into housing over the next three years.

I thought the speeches of Stuart McMillan and Jamie Hepburn were good. They clearly expressed the supply problems that we face. David McLetchie and others said that the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory policies on housing are a huge success, but still talked about the crisis that housing faces, particularly the social rented housing sector. Their policies cannot have been a huge success, given the housing crisis that we face today. It is clearly the case that this is a huge inherited problem, which we now have to face up to.

David Whitton talked about the homelessness crisis in his area—what a success his party's policies have been over the past few years. He talked about "dodgy" documents. I will take no lessons from the Labour Party on dodgy documents. We know fine well about dodgy documents from the Labour Party; it has had far too many over the past few years.

Margaret Curran talked about the fact that there has been no statement to Parliament. As I said, there will be a statement to Parliament in the coming weeks. We have said that that will happen, and we will ensure that it will happen. On the discussion about the £25 million for new council houses, that is but one policy on housing—it is not the only policy on housing—and it has been widely welcomed. We are in negotiation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities as to exactly how that policy will be implemented.

Both Johann Lamont and David Whitton talked about the dire, desperate, doom-and-gloom housing situation and the collapse of the housing association movement—I think that that sums up their views on our proposals. However, just this week, the Scottish Housing Regulator's financial digest published the fact that housing associations have cash deposits in excess of £300 million, and a gross surplus of £113 million. There is clearly not a crisis in, or a collapse of, the housing association sector.

Jeremy Purvis said that our proposal will cause rents to rise. It will not, because the changes that we are making reflect exactly the performance that housing associations have reported to the Government. Therefore, our proposals are exactly in line with those of the housing associations.

Cathie Craigie welcomed the fact that the Conservative party had chosen to use its debating time to discuss housing and claimed that the Government had not had any housing debates. I gently point out to her that we had a housing debate in the Parliament in the first month of our Government, in June 2007. Our second housing debate took place in October 2007. We will have another debate or statement very soon. We will have had three housing debates in our first year in Government, whereas Labour failed to have a housing debate in the Parliament in its first year in Government either in 1999 or 2003.

I ask members to support the amendment in my name. Clearly, we need to tackle the problem that we inherited from the frankly disgraceful Labour-Liberal Democrat Executive.