Chamber and committees

A housing and land agency might help with, for example, the presumption against out-of-town development and development on brownfield sites. Developers are being pointed towards developing on brownfield sites, but I hear that they are not keen to go into that space. Would the agency that you propose help with paving the way for housing on such sites?

That was a helpful addition to the conversation.

Miles has pre-empted the next set of questions and pushed us into another conversation. Before we go there, I want to stick with the more general housing to 2040 strategy, and then we can go back to his question. We will have a specific set of questions about the cost of living, tenant protection and interim measures, and Miles’s question might fit better there.

I will direct a quick question at you, Ken Gibb. In your written submission, you talked about some work that you have done—I think it is the JRF work that you led—and mentioned something about the need for

“Institutional reform ideas”

including a new

“housing and land agency”.

The issue of getting the land to build the housing on has not come up in this conversation. Will you talk a little bit more about that idea? I know that there are budget cuts and a new agency might not be possible, but I want to understand how that could help us.

That is a good point. Thank you for raising the housing needs and demand assessment, because, as I understand it—my understanding is based on good work that is being done in Orkney—that assessment does not uncover the real need that exists in communities, because people who live in rural communities, in particular, do not put themselves on a list because they do not believe that there is any possibility of obtaining housing. We have not really clarified that. By digging underneath that in the way that some housing folks in Orkney are doing, we can uncover the real need that exists at local level.

Let us go back to Miles Briggs’s question about whether we need a new housing bill or whether we should go back and look at what is already available and dust it off.

David Melhuish has indicated that he wants to come in. After that, I will move on to the final four questions that we still have to cover, which are focused on the regulations under the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022.

Should EPC ratings and other such things be included?

I bring in Stephanie Callaghan, who joins us online and has been listening intently to the discussion.

Pam, do you have a supplementary question on that point?

We turn to questions from members. Please indicate to me if you would like to come in or to respond to something that somebody has said. The intention is that this should be a free-flowing conversation instead of a question-and-answer session, although sometimes that can be difficult to achieve. Let us see how we do.

I will start with a few general questions. To what extent do you think that the vision that is expressed in “Housing to 2040” is still fit for purpose and deliverable? Connected to that, do you think that the Scottish Government’s legislative programme, and its housing policy more generally, seek to deliver on the ambitions of “Housing to 2040” in a coherent way that considers the housing system holistically? Whoever feels prompted can come forward.

I would like to come back to you for more detail on that, but first I will bring some other people in.