Chamber and committees

Mark Griffin is absolutely right. It is probably more complex than simply a ratio of income and cost. Work is being done to try and get an agreed definition of affordability across the system in order to give it more sophistication than it currently has. Again, I am happy to furnish the committee with more details as that work progresses. We want to get an agreed position across all the registered social landlords and local authorities—it is work in progress.

I am happy to consider that reporting in addition to all the reports and statistics that come out. There is no lack of information but, if the committee would find it helpful for us to pull that together in a way that puts the key points in a single place, I am happy to do that.

Caroline Dicks might be the most appropriate person to come in at this point to talk about the benchmarks.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to give evidence and look forward to meeting it again.

That will be a judgment for Kevin Stewart, the minister who is leading on the issue, and not for me.

We absolutely want to hear the voices of not just COSLA but stakeholders and those who receive social care. We are not starting from scratch. We have had lots of discussion on the issue, and there have been many parliamentary debates about it over the years. There was a lot of consensus among the manifestos leading up to the election that business as usual and the current models of social care just will not cut the mustard, so we need to do something different. I think that there is that level of consensus.

The detail is important, though, and how the service is taken forward and implemented matters. It is a big change, and it has to be got right. However, if we get it right, it could be one of the most important reforms that Parliament has ever supported and implemented.

I agree that opportunities are provided by joining up all those areas. The committee has a great opportunity to pull together the various strands and look at how we work as a Government, not just in my portfolio, I hasten to add, but across the whole Government. That is why, in relation to child poverty, I have tasked my Cabinet colleagues to tell me what more they can do in their portfolios to leave no stone unturned in looking at game-changing policies that they can deliver in their portfolio areas to make sure that there is a cross-Government effort. However, it is not only a cross-Government effort, because it has to involve local government and the third sector, too. We all have to work together if we are going to get anywhere near those interim child poverty targets, which are very challenging, as I said in my opening remarks.

I agree with the Accounts Commission that significant progress still has to be made in reducing inequalities and protecting human rights. As I said earlier, we have agreed a national mission to tackle child poverty, and we remain firmly committed to that. It will take all of us working together to do that. We are working in particular with COSLA, Public Health Scotland and the third sector to identify how we can support and embed positive changes that have been made as a result of the crisis. There are some changes that we want to make permanent, and we do not want to go back to some of the old ways of working. We need to deliver further progress on our fairer Scotland ambition. I meet COSLA regularly, and we are working with the Deputy First Minister on the Covid recovery plan, which local government is at the heart of.

I hope that that gives the committee a flavour of the key elements that we are working on and taking forward.

Thank you for the welcome of the recent allocation of the five-year resource planning assumptions. That gives further confidence to partners, strengthens the certainty of delivering future affordable homes commitments and allows the sector the time to build the necessary capacity to plan and deliver that ambitious number of affordable homes. We will continue to work with partners in doing that.

Elena Whitham makes an important point about construction materials. We are aware, as you would expect, of concerns about price increases and supply shortages, and we are working closely with the construction industry through the Scottish construction leadership forum, which is chaired by the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, Ivan McKee. We want to fully understand the current supply chain issues and, where possible, put in place mitigating actions to address those issues.

As you would expect, I am kept up to date about material cost increases and availability and the impact on the affordable housing supply programme. I meet regularly with local authorities and registered social landlords to discuss those matters and make sure that we support them in delivering the ambitious targets. I am confident that we can work through those issues and deliver the 110,000 affordable homes.

I would be happy to write to the committee with more detail on that. The agreement included £45 million in addition to the affordable housing supply programme and the commitment that 10 per cent of the 110,000 homes will be located in remote and rural communities. There is also a dedicated plan for remote and rural housing. I would be happy to come back to discuss that in detail with the committee, if it would find that helpful.

Early intervention and prevention are always better than trying to deal with the consequences of poverty or homelessness further down the line. You will see early intervention and prevention built into all our policies, but we need to get better at that. We have been saying for a long time that investing upstream is the best way to invest in order to prevent problems from emerging, but it is quite hard to do that and transform services while trying to keep those services running.

One of the key recommendations of the Christie commission was to invest upstream in prevention and early intervention. We need to work out ways of making that easier. We are currently in discussions with COSLA and local government on how we can help services to make that transition. That is easy to say but harder to do.

We are looking to continue funding the Hunter Foundation and its exciting work on transformation. The foundation brings funding to the table, too, which is always welcome. We have been partnering with and providing funding to the foundation. The work is to oil the wheels of change—to help to get from A to B and make that service change. You cannot do that overnight; you have to invest in that bridging to transform a service.

I am keen to see more of that. To tackle child poverty, we absolutely need to tackle its causes. Some of that is systemic. There is not a single solution; we need to tackle it all. Early intervention and prevention are key. Where possible, we need to push the spend in that direction. However, as I said, that is easy to say but a lot harder to do when we are also trying to keep services going day to day while we make the transition.

I think that it is about challenging silos, bureaucracy and barriers if they begin to emerge again. It is about challenging ourselves, too, because it is easy to fall back into old ways of working. We need to be open about the issue. The committee has a role in that regard, as does Government and local government; we need to act as checks on ourselves in that regard.

I think that communities want to lead and do stuff for themselves, and there is a lot of legislation and policy in place to help make that happen. Sometimes, letting go of power can be quite difficult, for all of us. However, when you look at what communities have achieved when they have taken over, for example, assets or buildings, you can see that they have managed to turn around things that statutory agencies were, with the best will in the world, sometimes not able to. There is something very special and inspiring about the community ownership model. We need to see more of that. Where communities desire that—they should not be forced—they should be empowered to do that and we should support them.

I am happy to do that. The rented sector strategy will build on what I hope you agree is significant progress in improving standards and tenants’ rights over the years, which has been a collective endeavour by Parliament over some time. We are committed to a public consultation early next year, which will include plans for a new housing regulator for the private rented sector for new and strengthened tenants’ rights, greater restrictions on evictions over winter and additional penalties for illegal evictions. We want to make sure that we can deliver enhanced tenants’ rights, but we want to consult stakeholders on the detail of that. Any legislative issues that emerge from the rented sector strategy can be picked up by a housing bill in the second year of this parliamentary session. It seemed a logical way to do it, so we will consult on the strategy, publish the final strategy later in 2022 and thereafter look at any legislative changes that are required through a housing bill.

I do not know whether you want me to say something on rent controls. Clearly, rent controls are an issue that is part of the agreement with the Scottish Green Party. We want to consult on what a system of rent controls would look like and ensure that there is sufficient local flexibility in taking that forward. That is a big piece of work that we will take forward, which I know that your colleagues have been interested in as well.