Chamber and committees

Will you say a little more about the opportunities that you mentioned? You said that there was an opportunity to do a lot more and do it quicker if we join the dots. Will you be more specific about the dots that need to be joined? You mentioned policy, but what about what happens on the ground?

There is the 26 per cent cut, which is a problem. Obviously, it is important that more money goes into the housing budget to be able to do some of this work. What would you say has to be done, given that housing takes time to build? We have heard from Chris Stewart about the struggle to attract people into the sector to build or retrofit houses. What do you think should be the priority? What do we need to change policy wise? Is it the type of housing that we build? We are still trying to have affordable accessible housing with all kinds of features, but if we are in a homelessness emergency and need to get people housed, what do we need to prioritise?

I call Pam Gosal to add her question to the conversation. I will then bring in Gordon MacRae, Rhiannon Sims and anyone else either to pick it up or to go back to other points, so that we have a bit of what I would call conversation weave.

Thanks for that. It is really important to go into that detail.

I want to pull the discussion back into more of a general space. Do you think that the Scottish Government is adequately balancing the need to address the short-term housing problems with longer-term policy aims? We have begun to touch on that question; indeed, we have already heard that that might not be the case. Somebody—Chris Birt, I think—talked about priorities, but where in the mix do the priorities need to change?

What would that look like?

David Melhuish, you wanted to come in a while ago, as did Chris Birt and Emma Jackson. You might have forgotten the points that you wanted to make, but please come back in and scoop up anything else that has been added to the conversation.

That would be great. You quoted stats for developments in Scotland compared with south of the border. How do those figures break down in relation to the population, given that Scotland has five point something million people? It would be interesting to understand the numbers in that context and to hear how many houses we are building in relation to population size. It would be great if you could send that information to us.

Thanks very much.

Thanks, Willie. I will bring in Gordon MacRae, then Rhiannon Sims.

Thanks very much for talking about the need for a broader and more holistic approach, and the fact that people are facing not only a housing challenge but energy pressures, which are leading to rationing, self-disconnection and so on. You also mentioned people using food banks—all of that comes with cost of living pressures.

I see that Chris Birt wants to come in.