Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to participate in today’s session of the Queen’s Speech debate on the theme of safe and affordable housing for all, which I will come to in just a moment.

It has to be said that the Government’s plan outlined last week was a bit of a damp squib. In terms of the challenges faced by our constituents, it was pretty much a non-event; indeed, it contained proposals that caused some alarm. There was nothing about using the levers that this Parliament has, which devolved Governments do not have, to tackle issues such as child poverty or even commit to the modest ask to retain the £20 per week universal credit uplift. In contrast, the Scottish Government are using their limited powers to double the Scottish child payment to tackle child poverty. Plans for social care seem to have come to naught, while the Scottish Government seek to establish a national care service for Scotland.

Despite all the hand-wringing from this Government, there was no action on fire and rehire, as set out in the Bill brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). While the UK Government continue to throw their hands in the air over this very serious issue, the Scottish Government will review the Fair Work First criteria for contracts and Government support grants to include specific references to fire and rehire tactics, and we will continue to press for employment law to be devolved to Scotland’s Parliament, where it rightfully belongs.

Moreover, the absence of an employment Bill is very disappointing, not least because it means that the Government have decided to do nothing about exploitative unpaid work trials, just as they refused to back the Bill brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald). In addition, I and others in this place had some hope for the inclusion of statutory paid bereavement leave for all—an idea whose time has come as we work towards a post-pandemic world, reminding us of all the crushing loss that grief can inflict on us, which, as a society, we would do well to give better recognition to. We had hoped that that could be put on a legislative basis.

All those hopes to improve the lives of hard-working people across the UK have been dashed in this rather empty programme for government—and all of this is before we come to the fact that the Government’s programme is set to deregulate and privatise wherever it can. The procurement Bill, which will seek to privatise Scotland’s NHS not by the back door but increasingly by the front door, is an act of legislative aggression against the express wishes of the people of Scotland, all taking place in the teeth of amendments to the Trade Bill put forward by the SNP to protect Scotland’s NHS. We continue to see the narrative of the democratic outrage committed against Scotland that was started by the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill.

Then we come to the so-called electoral integrity Bill for compulsory ID by 2023, which will suppress voter participation, and I fear that that may be the intention. Indeed, without my parliamentary pass, I, too, would be excluded from participating in voting for elections, alongside 3.5 million other citizens. It seems that maintaining electoral integrity demands that a huge number of voters be excluded from voting.

I suppose it is easier to speak of integrity by crushing the suffrage of those who do not have photo ID and, coincidentally, may be less likely to vote Tory than it is to do anything meaningful to tackle the murky world of political lobbying, as set out in a Bill brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson). If there is a desire to protect the integrity of our politics, would that not be a better place to start? Nor are there any measures to deal with dark money, which is yet another very real danger to electoral integrity. Folk will no doubt wish to speculate as to why nothing is being done to properly tackle those issues. It would be laughable if it were not so very serious and dangerous to our democratic system.

I wish to turn to the theme of safe and affordable housing for all. Housing and local government are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and the Scottish Government require buildings to be constructed in ways that better withstand fires and actively prevent their spread. That explains why Scotland has only a handful of buildings with Grenfell-type cladding, whereas that is a much more widespread problem across England. We, in Scotland, can look forward to a single building assessment programme. It is soon to be launched and will be carrying out safety assessments on all properties with external cladding, so that the scale of the funding needed for the necessary remedial work can be identified. There will be no “first come, first served” approach to building safety in Scotland. Funding needs to begin with an understanding of need.

Although the Building Safety Bill applies only to England, part 5 contains applications to Scotland where a new homes ombudsman is to be created for the whole UK, and paragraph 8 of schedule 1 amends the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Therefore, this Bill must not be pushed through unless and until the necessary legislative consent is secured from the Scottish Government. A very important principle of devolution is at stake. The people of Scotland elect MSPs to govern in devolved areas. This UK Government have no business or remit to encroach on those areas, so they must engage in dialogue—constructive dialogue—with those elected to represent the people of Scotland in devolved matters if they wish to secure legislative consent. It is understood that the regulation of construction products is a reserved matter, but it is essential that Scottish Ministers are consulted about such regulations before decisions are made, as they will have an impact on Scottish developers, builders and homeowners, and could also interfere with the Scottish Parliament’s freedom to legislate on devolved matters. So a legislative consent motion should be sought in that case, too. By the same token, appointments to the Health and Safety Executive amending the 1974 Act should not just require Scottish Ministers to be consulted; their agreement should be required for such appointments.

As well as being safe, homes must be affordable. The Secretary of State will be aware that the Scottish Government have provided about 100,000 new affordable homes since 2007, but we clearly need to go further. The Scottish Government are planning for another 100,000 new affordable homes. In order to help first-time buyers to get on the property ladder, the Scottish National party’s Scottish home fund helps to boost the finances of those seeking to purchase a property. This shared equity pilot scheme provides first-time buyers with up to £25,000 to help them buy a property that meets their needs, located in an area where they want to live. So far, the investment has been £240 million in this fund and it expected to support more than 11,000 households to buy their first home. So far, so good, but it is deeply disappointing that the total Scottish Government financial transaction budget in 2021-22 was cut by almost two thirds as a result of the UK Government’s spending review in November.

As for the planning Bill in England, such a Bill will not of itself magically build homes, as the Secretary of State knows. We know—and we have heard it mentioned by somebody else in the Chamber—that 1 million homes in England have approval but have not yet been built. Government investment and political will is also necessary to deliver affordable homes, which are so desperately needed. The Secretary of State may wish to look closely, as he will find it instructive, at the Scottish Government work done in this area, which has already delivered 100,000 new affordable homes—the other 100,000 are to be delivered by 2032. The fact is that despite the claims made by the Secretary of State today, the UK Government are playing catch-up on house building—I do not think there is any dispute about that. I remind him why I have made that comment about playing catch-up. He will recall that in 2015 the incoming Tory Government promised to build 200,000 new starter homes. Not a single one has been delivered. That is a terrible record, almost as bad as—actually, a little bit worse than—that of the Labour-Lib Dem Government in Scotland between 2003 and 2007, who built merely six houses. The broken promise of the UK incoming Government of 2015 makes those six houses look like a titanic effort—not an easy thing to do.

In the course of the new Parliament, the Scottish Government will put £1.6 billion into decarbonising how buildings are heated. Ambitiously, that equates to one third of all homes by 2030—a very important step in tackling climate change, since heating homes is a significant contributor to our emissions. Sadly, the UK Government are investing only one third of what has been invested in Scotland to decarbonise homes, which means that they are unlikely to meet their own targets to decarbonise homes by 2050.

I am sure that the Secretary of State understands the importance of increasing the supply of affordable housing. We have seen how urgent it is, and we know that it will improve the lives of the people across England who his Government represent in housing, who have suffered cramped, overcrowded conditions—conditions in which I myself grew up. Overcrowding fractures family relationships and has a hugely damaging impact on children as their development, schoolwork and self-esteem suffers. As we emerge from this pandemic, we know that so many people suffer these intolerable conditions under the strained relationships that lockdown has foisted on many of us.

What of supporting people to stay in their homes? We have seen from this Government repeated missed opportunities to cover the average cost of rents and ensure that people are supported to stay in their homes not just during the covid crisis, but beyond. The decision to maintain local housing rates in cash terms in 2021-22 represents a return to a freeze for renters. According to the Resolution Foundation, that means that 450,000 households have fallen into rent arrears since last January because of the covid pandemic. How will freeze local housing allowance rates help those families? It will not. It will disproportionately hurt them and further exacerbate the already deep financial difficulties that they face. The Secretary of State may wish to reflect on that.

We know that restoring local housing allowance rates to the 30th percentile has a positive impact on homelessness and poverty, as well as wider economic and social benefits, but the Scottish Government are finding that UK budget decisions have an adverse impact on their work to support those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, since they are priced out of private sector tenancies. We also know that the temporary restoration of housing allowance rates facilitated moves out of temporary accommodation, which is something that we should all want to see. Does the Secretary of State believe that the positive benefits of restoring local housing allowance rates, with all the positive impacts that that can have on homelessness, are worth saving—or are those at risk of homelessness worth sacrificing? If so, why? What price social cohesion?

All this is before we even mention the ongoing, the continuing, the dreaded, the hated Tory bedroom tax. Of course, the tax has been fully mitigated in Scotland, with the Scottish Government spending £71 million in 2021-22 to do so because we do not have the powers to abolish it, although we are often told that we have a powerhouse Parliament. This cruel and punishing policy, imposed on Scotland by a Government rejected by the people of Scotland, has meant that the discretionary housing payment spend in Scotland is estimated at approximately £82 million. We are safeguarding tenancies and working hard to prevent homelessness, doing all we can with the limited powers that we have to mop up the damage wreaked on Scotland by this Government. While they impose this cruel and damaging policy on the people of Scotland, the mopping up is increasingly difficult, with 85% of welfare powers still reserved to this Parliament. We have a job on our hands as we continue to try to help struggling families to meet the cost imposed on them.

Keeping people in their homes—sustaining tenancies—matters because the best way to tackle homelessness is to prevent homelessness in the first place. The Secretary of State may wish to reflect on that and on the fact that cutting local housing allowance rates and the bedroom tax, and preventing homelessness through the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, becomes much more difficult alongside these policies. Short-sighted welfare policies force people into unmanageable financial hardship and can lead to a spiral of difficulties, leading them to lose their home.

The Government’s programme lacks ambition and substance; vitally, it does not command the support of the people of Scotland, who have repeatedly rejected this Government at the ballot box. Indeed, last week they could only muster a feeble 21% on the constituency vote. The people of Scotland favour progressive politics and progressive policies that put people first, seek to be inclusive, and offer support to those who need it when they need it in order to build a fairer and more compassionate country. Governing our own affairs, we could do so much more for the people of Scotland, and increasingly the people of Scotland are persuaded of that argument.

Self-government, of course, is not controversial. It is only controversial, uniquely, when we talk about Scotland. No country can be better governed than by the people who live and work there. That is why, when we have our opportunity to put Scotland’s future back in the hands of the people of Scotland—as we will as we emerge from the pandemic—the answer will be a resounding rejection of the values of this Tory Government and of the values of this Parliament, so that Scotland’s future is back in the hands of the people of Scotland and the democratically elected Scottish Parliament. We will then no longer need to tolerate Tory attempts at voter suppression, failure to deal with cronyism, dark money and lobbying shenanigans. We reject those things in the name of the people of Scotland.

I wish I could say something more positive about the programme for government presented today, last week and the rest of this week, but, sadly, I fear that there is nothing to say.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As we are moving to the five-minute time limit, I remind everybody contributing from a remote location that they should have a visible timer at the bottom right of their device. If they do not, I ask them please to get a timer because there is a lot of pressure on time today. We do not intend to be rude, but Members will be cut off if they go beyond whatever the time limit happens to be.