Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate on the Gracious Speech.

Ensuring affordable housing for all really is a case of a tale of two Governments. It is not a competition—I wish the Minister and the UK Government well in tackling the housing crisis in England—but the Scottish Government can be judged on our actions and successes, and I suggest that there are some examples to take on in tackling common endeavours.

Since 2007, we have put housing and homelessness at the heart of policy. There is much to do, but much has been achieved. On buying, our first home fund has helped 11,000 homes to be sold and our open market shared equity scheme and our new supply shared equity scheme have helped thousands more to buy their first home. Since 2007, we have delivered 96,750 affordable homes, and we have just been re-elected on a manifesto to build 100,000 more by 2032.

During covid, we have proven to the citizens we all serve that homelessness need not exist. It is a question of political priorities and funding them properly. Since August 2018, the Housing First initiative in Scotland has helped 832 people to access permanent housing. It is a wonderful scheme, which I commend to the House.

But it is poverty that drives homelessness, and the Gracious Speech makes it clear that the UK Government are more interested in fighting culture wars than in fighting poverty. Poverty drives homelessness. Poverty drives precarious employment. Poverty blights the lives of millions across these islands, and this Government also can be judged by their actions. Freezing local housing allowance and continuing the bedroom tax will hurt the poorest hardest. The Resolution Foundation has found that 450,000 households are in rent arrears because of covid. This Gracious Speech offers them nothing in their continuing plight.

The Scottish Government can do much and have done much, but they can only do so much when 85% of welfare expenditure is controlled by this place. We want those powers and we want those budgets. We want all the powers of independence, not for the flags and the anthems, the old songs and the old stories, but because of what we will do with those powers. My party has concluded that independence within the European Union offers our best future, and we have just been re-elected as the national Government of Scotland with 85% of the constituency first-past-the-post seats. The fact that we have a mandate for an independence referendum is undeniable. The people of Scotland will get to make their choice between two Unions, and I am confident about standing on the SNP’s record of achievement and our aspirations for the future.