Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:48 pm on 19 December 2024.
Graham Simpson
Conservative
12:48,
19 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to address wait times in temporary accommodation. (S6O-04147)
Paul McLennan
Scottish National Party
Increasing the supply of affordable and social housing is key to reducing the time spent in temporary accommodation. The proposed 2025-26 affordable housing supply programme budget of £768 million more than reinstates funding to 2023-24 levels. Additional investment of £42 million in affordable housing this year has been targets five local authorities in the central belt with sustained temporary accommodation pressures, to increase the supply of social and affordable homes through acquisitions and to bring empty social homes back into use. We are also working with energy suppliers to address issues to ensure that empty social homes can be turned around more quickly.
Graham Simpson
Conservative
I am sure that the Minister will agree that some of the waiting times in temporary accommodation have been absolutely appalling. There was one case in South Lanarkshire in which a child spent 420 days in temporary accommodation, and an adult who endured a 760-day stay. That is unacceptable. Given that the First Minister said earlier, “We are not building enough houses”, does the minister agree that we need a better approach and that it should be targeted at those areas that are most in need?
Paul McLennan
Scottish National Party
I will touch on some of the actions that we are taking. First, though, there was a capital budget cut from the Tory Government last year, and we also had the freezing of local housing allowance. Those are important contexts.
In addition to the £42 million acquisition funding that I talked about, there are other actions in this year’s budget, including £4 million of additional funding for homelessness provision and £2 million for empty homes initiatives. We are also spending £90 million—and continue to do so, even under the Labour Government—on the discretionary housing payment.
The £768 million that I mentioned will produce 8,000 homes. As Mr Simpson knows, and as we have discussed, there are prevention duties under the Housing (Scotland) Bill. The Government is taking a number of actions on homelessness and will continue to do so.
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