 The next item of business is a debate on motion number 1392 in the name of Kevin Stewart on more investment for more homes Scotland. Can I invite members who wish to speak in this debate to press the request to speak buns? I call on Kevin Stewart to speak to and move the motion. You have up to 13 minutes, please minister. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Last week, the First Minister set out our programme for government. It is a plan to build a more prosperous nation with a dynamic, sustainable and inclusive economy, with public services that put people's needs first, and where every individual has true equality of opportunity. We can only achieve that ambition if people can access a good quality, warm and affordable home. That Government is ambitious for housing, with a commitment of over £3 billion to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes over the next five years, of which £35,000 are for social rent. We already have a strong track record of delivery. We invested £1.7 billion in affordable housing over the lifetime of the last Parliament, and we exceeded our target to deliver 30,000 affordable homes by more than 10 per cent. It shows what can be done when we all work together, but the targets that we have set for this Parliament are much more challenging. Our ambition for housing can only be met if we work in partnership with councils, housing associations and developers to expand on what we do well, to push the boundaries of innovation and to make the housing system work for people. That is the More Home Scotland approach. More Home Scotland includes all the actions that we are taking to increase the supply of every type of home and make the housing system work for people. Over the summer, I have been out and about, speaking to many different people, and I have been struck by how positive they are about that. In August, I visited Fern and Gardens, which is developed by the Shettleston Housing Association in Glasgow. With solar panels on the roof, an efficient heat recovery system, triple glazing, a landscape central courtyard and integrated wi-fi, those flats provide modern, attractive, safe and secure housing for older people. It just shows what can be done. Expanding what we do well means more investment for more housing. To achieve our ambitions, we will invest more than £572 million this financial year in affordable homes. Councils have been allocated over £100 million more than last year, and the basic subsidiary rate for councils was increased by 24 per cent in January. I am pleased to see in statistics published today that we have a 26 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of affordable homes approved in the period to the end of June. That is a healthy start. We are also supporting home ownership through our shared equity schemes. This year, £160 million is available to support up to 5,000 households to buy their own home, adding to the 22,000 who have already benefited through those schemes. Government investment in housing is also good for the wider economy. It will support around 14,000 jobs in the construction and related industries in Scotland, and will generate £1.8 billion of economic activity each year. A substantial contribution to boosting our economy, creating jobs and investing in our future. However, it cannot be done with the Scottish Government investment alone. Securing wider investment is just one reason why we keep innovating. We are the only Government in the UK to invest in charitable bonds, and we have invested over £40 million so far. We are also pushing forward with innovation in mid-market rent. The local affordable rented housing trust will deliver up to 1,000 affordable homes across Scotland over five years, supported by a £55 million loan from the Scottish Government. Turning to rural housing, our £25 million rural housing fund is increasing the supply of affordable rural housing—two seconds, please—promoting self- and custom-build and supporting smaller building firms. I will give way to Mr Cole-Hamilton. I thank the minister for giving way. Liberal Democrats absolutely welcome the introduction of the rural housing fund, but will the minister speak to and act on Lib Dem calls for a commensurate island housing fund and meet with us to discuss the details of how we can meet those demonstrable acute needs in our island communities? I think that Mr Cole-Hamilton is right that it is also important to focus on the needs and housing needs of our island communities. The Government will therefore establish an island housing fund with up to £5 million over the next three years. That accords with our positive and comprehensive vision for the islands as outlined in our programme for government. Our national housing trust initiative uses guarantees to unlock the development of affordable rented homes. This morning, I was at Shrubhill in Edinburgh for the site start of the seventh national housing development in the city. That takes the total to 886 affordable homes in the city and more than 2,000 across Scotland. However, our housing sector can only deliver if we make the housing system work better, not least our infrastructure, land, planning and tax systems. We have made supplying more homes a national strategic infrastructure priority. We are working with local authorities and through our flexible five-year housing infrastructure fund we will unlock strategically important sites. The planning system has a critical role to play. Yesterday, I attended a planning workshop session with folks from across Scotland who will discuss planning on the run-up to our white paper yesterday and today. We will bring forward that planning bill early in the parliamentary session, and we are pressing ahead with local authorities to deliver simplified planning zones to help to attract investment and promote housing delivery. Earlier this year, we published a play standard to help people to work together to design and deliver successful places. Last week, I met representatives from Sanctuary Group, Robertson and Tory Community Councils, Craig Inches and Maureen Watt's constituency in Aberdeen. They had broken ground in the development of 124 new affordable homes for key workers in Aberdeen on land previously owned by the Government. That is an excellent example of making good use of public land and of engaging local people to provide much needed affordable housing and create a sense of place. We will make more land available for housing by modernising compulsory purchase orders and empowering communities through implementation of the Land Reform Act. In our approach to land and building transactions tax, we have prioritised support for first-time buyers and those buying homes at the lower end of the market. The first year of the tax, more than 41,600 buyers paid less tax than they would have under UK stamp duty. Finally, we have ended right to buy to safeguard up to 15,500 existing homes for future generations. We can only succeed if we all work together. Our integrated and collaborative approach to developing the joint housing delivery plan published last year demonstrates how highly we value our partners and communities. I look forward to working with this Parliament, the joint housing policy and delivery group and the sector to transform our ambition into reality. I would repeat to Parliament what I have said before. I think that we have a shared interest in ensuring that we can provide the people of Scotland with those warm, affordable homes that we all believe should happen. I am willing to talk to everyone in this place about how we go about the delivery of that house building programme. As I said at the very beginning of the speech, it is an ambitious target of 50,000 affordable homes, 35,000 of which will be for social rent, and we will do everything possible as a Government to rise up to the challenge and fulfil that ambition. I think that you were so pleased at giving me some time in hand that you forgot to move the motion. How, Alex Johnson, to speak to and move amendment 1392.3 up to eight minutes, Mr Johnson? Thank you very much indeed, Deputy Presiding Officer. Should I fall foul of your ire at the end of this, I may begin by moving the amendment that stands in my name. It is the case that we have finally got round to a debate in this Parliament, where we are actually talking about what is important to people. It may be surprised many that much of what is contained in the commitments made by the minister in the opening speech will find favour with the Conservatives. Any cursory look at the commitments that were made on housing in the Conservative Party's manifesto in May will cause you to realise that we do have a great deal in common. However, we must be careful not to exaggerate our claims or achievements, and yet again we find ourselves in the position today where the claim has been made that the commitment to 30,000 affordable homes in the last Parliament was achieved. Need I point out once again that the commitment was, of course, in the manifesto at the previous election to 30,000 homes for social rent, and that that was transmogrified into a commitment for 30,000 affordable homes, 20,000 of which would be for social rent. It remains a question as to whether that was actually achieved or not. However, to quote the minister, we can only succeed if we are all working together. I agree, and that is why I would like to start by emphasising what we have in common. We were committed in our manifesto to house building becoming a national strategic infrastructure priority, and I welcome the fact that the Government has made that move. We gave a commitment to a total build of 100,000 homes during the course of this Parliament, 50,000 of which would be in the affordable housing sector, again a number that we have in common with this Government. We would also wish to oversee investment in clean, secure and affordable energy, because of course the ability to heat homes is vital, and we also want to ensure that nobody will live in a hard to heat home in future. While we welcome the Scottish Government's promise on house building, we do not believe that it goes far enough in some areas. There is room for improvement. Not nearly enough is being done to attract the additional investment from private or institutional sources, which must, might see the sector become more attractive in the current economic environment. Bungled attempts to bring in investment through the discredited memorandum of understanding with China being a case in point. The motion put forward by the SNP mentions increased subsidy rates, yet it is a bit rich, coming from a nationalist Government, to act like the champion of housing association subsidies, when, in 2011, it was this Government that significantly cut capital subsidy per home from an average of 70,000 down to 40,000, directly causing the collapse on the number of completions in 2012-13. No, thank you. That is like setting fire to someone's home and expecting a medal for phoning the fire brigade. More seriously, it is indicative of the minister's lazy analysis, which ran deep through his opening speech. If the minister wants to make comparisons, let's pick some comparisons. The number of completions of social affordable houses in 2015 came to a total of 4,037. No, thank you. It came to a total of 4,037. The total completions in 1983, for example, at the height of the Conservative Government, was 4,763. That is 726 more than was achieved last year. It is just a broadly of comparison that we can all draw comparisons and conclusions. The Government's obsession with the figures for council house building alone, rather than for social rented housing, is, as a whole, to further betray its content for housing associations and what they have achieved. Kevin Stewart Housing associations have welcomed the Government's commitment and are working in partnership with us to deliver the 50,000 affordable homes. Mr Johnson has talked about the Government's record in house buildings. Will he recognise that we are building more homes in Scotland per head of population than England and Wales, where his party is in government? I will acknowledge that the Scottish National Party is the Government of Scotland and will be accountable for their actions in Scotland. If they choose to fall back on the slim defence of comparison with other parts of the United Kingdom, then they themselves are in breach of their own rules, as far as comparison is concerned. Let's talk about Scotland and what we can achieve in Scotland, rather than doing Scotland down by comparison with other areas of the United Kingdom. The SNP also has a very poor record on help for first-time buyers. On 27 September 2013, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities launched the three-year help to buy Scotland scheme, which allocated £130 million for the financial year 2015-16. However, this year, we see that budget significantly reduced. Also, the number of loans being given by institutions for first-time buyers remains below the quarter to 2007 level when the SNP came to power. That suggests a failure on the part of the SNP to provide adequate support for helping people on to the property ladder. The SNP has also committed to cut fuel poverty, but yet the budget for fuel poverty and energy efficiency has also seen reductions. The Conservative manifesto committed to warmer homes. Scotland is a cold place most of the time, and research shows that living in a cold, damp home is much more likely to cause health problems. Increasing energy efficiency and heating homes should be a top priority. Again, the Conservative party's manifesto for the May election offered commitments in that area. I will carry on at the moment. You had a speech of your own. We want to see ambitious targets set for energy efficiency, and we want to see all properties achieve the EPCC rating that is above by the end of the decade. We are happy to work with this Government in order to achieve that. We want to see more investment in energy efficiency, and we do not believe that current policies go as far as they could. In the budget process on which we are about to embark, the Scottish Conservatives will support energy efficiency in the budget increases. We also believe that energy efficiency improvements should be reflected in the tax system. Specifically, energy efficiency improvements could be incentivised through the LBTT discounts or by the business rate system. The fact that the SNP has allowed a drastic fall in that is something that it should be held to account for. In addition, there are other things that I could mention. The failure to adequately provide care home places is again demonstrating a lack of joined-up thinking in the failure to comprehend the housing landscape. Also, the planning system review is welcome, but the system has been an adversarial bloc to development for too long. As I said at the outset, there is a great deal that we could have in common on that. Unfortunately, this Government will persist in putting things in its motions that we cannot support. Tonight, we will vote against that motion for the simple reason that it could not avoid mentioning land reform once again. I have the brief in this Parliament of being Labour's spokesperson on housing and social justice. That is because having a warm, secure, affordable home is at the heart of our social justice policy. Housing costs pushed many in Scotland into poverty. That is one of the conclusions of Naomi Eisenstein's report, Shifting the Curve. 290,000 people were in in-work poverty, and that was before housing costs. When including housing costs, that rises to 420,000 people in Scotland. I think that we agree at least that housing is a pressing issue for this Parliament. In that, I can assure the minister that there is indeed a shared interest in moving towards that. Scottish Labour supports a national house-build plan, which we think is a more definitive approach to reaching the 50,000 new-build target, to ensure the co-ordination of new-build homes and to support the Government's desire to tackle the housing crisis in this session 5 of the Scottish Parliament. However, Scottish Labour supports Shelter and other housing experts that believe that that 50,000 should not be the limit of our ambition and that, in fact, we need 60,000 homes to stand still. Nonetheless, we support the general ethos of the Government's position, and we do not intend in this Parliament to get into debate about the numbers, but rather we will get into debate with the Government about how it can be achieved. We all agree that there is an acute need for new housing on a large scale. With a 13 per cent increase in children staying in council hostels and bed and breakfasts, a dramatic increase in the number of one-person households since 2008, a Conservative estimate is that there are reported 150,000 households on council waiting lists, and according to Shelter, 30,000 people are classed as being homeless. We estimate that at least 45,000 people may have been excluded from that list as stock transfer authorities appear not to be counted. I appreciate that it is hard to get accurate data on waiting times and waiting lists because they are double counting. However, the minister has asked to look into this. The whole of Glasgow is not in that picture, because it is a stock transfer authority, just to give you a, for instance, the Glasgow Housing Association waiting list alone is 24,000. I call on the minister to have a look at that waiting list figure. We think that it is a very conservative estimate, but nonetheless illustrates the point of the need for new-build housing. I thank Ms McNeill for allowing a debate to take place here today, because it seems that others are unwilling to take interventions very often. I said to Ms McNeill that I am certainly willing to explore that waiting list situation. I will ask civil servants to look at that closely, and we will report back to Parliament on that. On the national delivery strategy, we have the More Homes Scotland board and the Joint Delivery Group, which brings together 26 organisations to deliver. We have a determination, and I am glad to hear that Labour has the determination to help us in the task to deliver those homes. I want to say more about why we want to put the emphasis on our national plan in due course. The declining first-time buyers due to the economic crash and the fact that average deposits are at a staggering £20,000 if you want to buy a new house. I cannot be underestimated as being a factor in slowing down the housing market and the availability of mortgage loans, which I do not believe are all the responsibility of the Scottish Government. However, although it is improving, it is getting tough to get a mortgage these days, factors that do impinge on the housing market. Homes for Scotland, who favour the building of 100,000 homes, have all-tenures in this fifth session call for a plan to include all-tenures, recognising that many people want to own their own homes. We fully support the aim that at least 35,000 should be socially rented accommodation. However, we know that there are many obstacles to building, and I guess that is why Labour wants to place the emphasis on the need to take a national approach to that. We need more parliamentary time to look into the issues of planning and infrastructure and so on, but just to mention one today, the efficiency of the planning system does not necessarily seem to be fit for Government policy in this area. As we see, for example, in 2015 and 2016, it was still 40 weeks from starting an application to finishing an application, and improvement from the previous 64 weeks is something that has to be looked at if we are serious about reaching that 50,000 target. Kevin Stewart Presiding Officer, the independent panel that we are looking into planning published its report just at the beginning of my 10-years minister. The Government responded very quickly to that with some initial moves. We are moving very quickly to that new planning white paper, and I hope that the whole of Parliament will become engaged. I share some of the frustrations that Ms McNeill has, and I want to see a much more simplified planning system that will include simplified planning zones for housing. Pauline McNeill, if that would look forward to a more detailed debate on the planning system, for sure. However, another weakness in the Government position is that house building has fallen by 40 per cent in 2007, despite the number of households increasing. We have seen figures today that illustrate that the targets that the Government previously had have not been reached. I mentioned that. To illustrate the need for a more comprehensive national plan, the target of 50,000 homes in this Parliament would be quite an achievement, and I think that we have to make sure that all the steps in place are to achieve that. We also agree that some consideration of the types of homes that are needed has to be part of that essential plan. The design of homes—like many others, I visited the BRE Innovation Packet Ravens Craig, the shows that homes for the future can be achieved with zero waste and designed, for example, for people with dementia with special measures in their homes. I agree with the aspects of the Tory motion in that, when we are designing and building new homes, we need to think about energy efficiency. The targets on fuel poverty have not been met, and they must be a major feature in the building of new homes. It is a policy that I believe that can mark the success of this Parliament. I do not underestimate the tasks, but I do not overestimate the hope that it will give many people who need a warm, affordable home if it can indeed be achieved in this fifth session of the Scottish Parliament. I welcome the minister's open remarks, and I am pleased to speak in this debate and in support of the Scottish Government's motion. It is clear that this Government is committed to treating Scotland's housing shortage with the seriousness that it deserves, and I welcome the commitment from it and other partners to deliver a minimum of 50,000 affordable homes over the course of this Parliament, a commitment that will represent over £3 billion worth of investment. Official statistics published today show that the number of affordable homes has improved. It has increased by 26 per cent over the last year, so that should be welcomed across the chamber as a good early progress in meeting our ambitious target. The Scottish Government is due credit for the actions that it has taken over the recent years. In the previous Parliament, a target of 30,000 affordable homes was exceeded against the backdrop of continued Westminster cuts to our capital budget. The Help to Buy Scotland shared equity scheme, which has been described by homes for Scotland as an unqualified success, boosted the supply of private homes, helping the delivery of new affordable housing. Furthermore, the abolition of the Right to Buy scheme in Scotland after 30 years was overwhelmingly welcomed by housing bodies. Recently, the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which invites local authorities to identify housing sites that can be unlocked as a matter of priority, was established. In April, I was particularly pleased to see the launch of a dedicated rural housing fund. The fund, which totals £25 million, is available to community organisations, development trusts, private landowners and private developers, and it is further evidence that the Scottish Government is dedicated to addressing the unique issues associated with provision of housing in rural Scotland. The Scottish Government is clearly committed to working with local authorities and other partners to deliver affordable housing. However, it is undeniable that the housing crisis has been growing across the whole of the United Kingdom for over a decade. Therefore, I believe that there is a pressing need to identify the root cause of the problem. Reading through the policy literature in preparation for this debate, it struck me that one issue was raised consistently by various stakeholders, and the minister has already mentioned this with the upcoming white paper on planning. The planning system, obviously, is being looked at. As far back as in 2004, the Barker review of housing supply concluded that a more effective planning system is vital to increased housing provision, particularly in terms of land allocation. That was supported by the Scottish Government's 2007 report from Foundations. It is for this reason that I welcome the Scottish Government's on-going route and branch review of the planning system and the understanding as outlined in the More Homes Scotland approach that specific action on land and planning is required to increase housing supply across all tenures. We have already seen progress on this front. The latest Scottish Government statistics showed an improvement in the time taken to decide major housing developments in 2015-16. In Scotland, we are already building more homes than anywhere else in the UK. However, to reach our bold target of 50,000 new homes, we cannot rely solely on the public sector. As the minister's motion states, a whole-systems approach to housing is essential. In the recent manifesto, Homes for Scotland rightly highlighted that the private sector has a crucial role to play in delivery of affordable housing. The Scottish Government's actions to date have undoubtedly helped to stimulate growth in the private housing market, but a more flexible approach by local authorities is also needed. Too often, planning burdens, bureaucracy and unpredictability impact small businesses disproportionately. Local small and medium-sized building businesses are perhaps best placed to understand the needs and the opportunities of the communities that they work in. A prime example of that is in my own area, SNA Homes, where I recently visited. SNA Homes has been working with Dumfries and Galloway Council homeless service to provide fully furnished, supported and secure emergency accommodation for almost 25 years. It provides 24-hour support, enabling each homeless person to address the issues that contributed to their circumstances. Indeed, it is not just how many homes we build that is important but what kind of homes. To paraphrase homes for Scotland once again, we need to build the range of homes that meet the diverse needs and life journeys of all those who live in Scotland. I further agree with Shelter Scotland, who emphasises that it is essential that we do not hit the housing target but miss the point by building ill-designed and isolated new communities. It is unacceptable that at least one in five disabled people or people living with long-term health problems who require anoddiad hws live somewhere that is not at all or not very suitable to their needs. We need to build housing that can be adapted as the needs of the occupant change, a hoose for life, mobility-friendly, learning disability-friendly and dementia-friendly. The Strenwer business has expanded its current practice with an additional proposal with a model of supporting people with difficult healthcare needs. I agree with Shelter Scotland that creating a supply of affordable and adaptable housing must continue to be a top priority both for the Scottish Government and local authorities over the course of this Parliament. I support that motion. Graham Simpson, to be followed by John Mason. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Scotland is in the grip of a housing crisis. With the SNP now into their third term of government, a briefing issued by Shelter today spelled out with stark facts, 150,000 households on council waiting lists, over 10,000 households stuck in temporary accommodation and nearly 30,000 people assessed as homeless last year, one household every 20 minutes. So, the first thing the Minister should have been doing today is apologising. No, targets are great. 50,000 affordable homes in five years sounds a lot. It is. Targets, of course, can be missed, such as the SNP's manifesto commitment in May 2011 to build more than 6,000 new socially rented houses a year. That was missed, as Alex Johnson said. Their shaky record does not fill me with confidence. Over the summer, I was also, like the Minister, lucky enough to visit a number of housing associations in my patch. I heard about the great work that they are doing in areas like Wishaw, Motherwell and East Kilbride, and I visited new council housing in East Kilbride, not the only place where new council housing is springing up. North Lanarkshire council is to be commended for its ambitious programme to build 800 houses in the next five years. As a member of the local government communities committee, I have also seen the work being done in Glasgow by cube housing association, part of the weekly group, and we chatted to some very satisfied tenants there. My feeling is that there is a vibrancy across the sector. Local housing associations are adapting and in general are offering a very good service to their customers as cube refreshingly calls them. There is a great work going on. I just want to praise some of it. Lanarkshire housing association, based in Motherwell, has focused very much on improving engagement with tenants using text messaging and an improved website alongside a tenant focus group. East Kilbride and district housing association has paid student bursaries to five tenants in the last year, has a partnership with the credit union and provides free school uniforms to poorer tenants. The local housing associations I visited are small, but they are up to the government's challenge. Subsidies will be vital, of course, and while they are being increased, we should remember, as Alex Johnson said, that it was the SNP who cut them in the first place. Not yet, because I am about to strike a positive note with you, Mr Stewart. If you really want to hit the 50,000 target, please make sure that some of the money filters down to the smaller housing associations. If you are serious about hitting that target, you must involve them. As Andy Young, the director of East Kilbride and district housing association, told me just yesterday that they are ready to help, so they are up for it. I visited a number of smaller housing association developments over the course of the summer, including Cunningham housing association in Ardrossan and Shetleston housing association, as well as others. I do not know whether Mr Simpson is new to the Parliament. The Conservative benches seem to be forgetting that the Conservatives cut our capital budgets by 26 per cent in the last Parliament. We could have done so much more if that money had not been slashed by a Conservative Government. Graham Simpson I could have done without the condescending tone describing of me as a newbie and therefore not knowing very much. I had come up with a positive idea, which I hope is ready to take on board. We need more homes across the board, including privately owned homes, and here reforms to the planning system that Mr Stewart mentioned can help, but we will not see legislation until next year. I wonder if Mr Stewart could find a way to speed up the implementation of things like simplified planning zones, where I think he would find support across the chamber. That could unlock and hasten development. We do need action. Overall, total new builds still remain about 40 per cent down on 2007 levels, and we've got a long way to go to ensuring all our homes are warm. This should be a priority. Too many people are living in homes that are not up to scratch, and that has huge implications for health and educational attainment. Living in cold, damp homes results in a much higher likelihood of mental health problems, a higher incidence of respiratory disease, and other physical issues. That is simply unacceptable. We need to do more. As Alex Johnson said, I think that there are areas where we can unite a lot of areas. I hope that I've been reasonably positive to Mr Stewart, and he will take on some of my suggestions. John Mason, to be followed by Richard Leonard. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First, I very much want to welcome the fact that we're having a debate on housing today. It's a subject that is a huge priority for my constituents, and I have a strong personal interest in it, having worked for housing associations in the past. There is clearly a lot of good news on housing delivery in recent years. The target of 30,000 from 2011 to 2016 was achieved. In fact, we got 33,490 new homes, and in my own local area, the Commonwealth Games village remains a big success story in recent years, with 700 new homes, a mixture of social rented and owner occupiers. Clearly, there continue to be challenges in the housing sector, otherwise why would there be a commitment to 50,000 more affordable homes in the next five years? I do not believe that there is a crisis in the way that there was after the world war 2, or in the way that there is in a country that has an earthquake, or a war, or something like that. Opposition politicians need to be careful how they use words. If they use words like crisis too often, they risk the word losing its effect, and they personally risk losing credibility. When we look at a title like More Investment for More Housing, we are clearly going to focus on additional housing stock. That is good, and it has recently, as Kevin Stewart has mentioned, been in my constituency twice, opening developments for both Cheddleston Housing Association and West of Scotland Housing Association. New developments for own occupiers in my area continue to be in Broomehouse, in Balustin, in Belvedere and Parkhead, and Link Housing Association are planning mid-market rent at Dillmarnock. I would like to point out my thanks to Clyde Gateway and the Scottish Government for funding what was for cleaning up an old power station site so that housing could be built on it. However, I would like to touch on one or two other issues, and a key phrase for me in the motion is the right houses in the right place. That surely has to bring maintenance of existing stock, and a lot of work has been done on improving energy efficiency and the linked issue of ending fuel poverty, and that is great. However, there is a wider issue that many owners in tenemental stock are not investing what they need to in their properties. Examples are the estate where I myself live, which consists of 270 post-war flats. There are factors in place, but residents only pay the absolute minimum, so only absolutely essential repairs take place. Another example that I had this week was one of my staff lives in a tenement with no factor. They have major repairs to do, and some owners have led on that. Glasgow City Council is giving a 50 per cent grant, which is great, and it will insist on factors for the future, which is also very welcome. However, two residents are resisting the repair work and refusing access to their premises, and it seems to me that there is something wrong when it remains so difficult to get repairs and maintenance done on people's homes. I have mentioned factors or a lack of them in both those examples, and whether or not there is a factor in place usually depends on the title deeds, and whether residents have appointed a factor at all. I think that one of my questions or a couple of questions for the Government today would be, do we need to consider making compulsory to have a factor in situations where there is common property, and if so, do any of the powers to do proactive maintenance? I accept that some people have had a very bad experience with factors, but it is an issue that we need to look at if we are serious about maintaining existing homes. Returning to the provision of new housing, I welcome the proposals for a mix of housing, be that owner-occupiers, social rented, private rented et cetera. I have constituents for whom the help to buy scheme has been incredibly welcome and has made the difference between them not being able to buy a home and actually being able to buy one. I said that I have worked for a number of housing associations and I think that the work they do is tremendous, and especially that they can look at the whole community rather than just looking at the individual buildings. I have some agreement with some of the things that Graham Simpson said, and in particular that smaller housing associations can be particularly good at knowing their tenants and their communities really well. An example of that is in Greater Easterhouse, which straddles both the Proven constituency and my Shetleston constituency, where eight associations are independent but work together in many areas. Most residents chose to transfer to the community associations rather than staying with Glasgow Housing Association when the council stock was transferred. However, now in Glasgow, the council allocates the grant and sometimes the land for new housing developments, and there is a feeling that there seems to be an unhealthily close relationship between the council and Wheatley Group, which consists mainly of GHA. There is a strategic agreement between the council and Wheatley Group, and that in itself can be a good thing, but I think that the fear is that it squeezes out smaller housing associations, which I think was the point that Graham Simpson was making. They probably know their communities better, and I would have concerns if that was the case. Housing continues to be the subject that most residents raised with me, and I have to say that the right to buy stripped our area of some of its best housing in the social rented sector. If Graham Simpson wants an apology, then I would like to hear an apology from the Tories for having right to buy and for decimating the housing stock. In particular, properties at the ground floor level have reduced in the social rented sector, which, when we have an ageing population, has meant demand seriously outstripping supply, so I am delighted that right to buy has been stopped. However, I finished by welcoming the Government's commitment to housing. Of course, we are not going to solve all the challenges overnight, but at a time of financial pressure, a commitment to 50,000 new affordable homes is absolutely tremendous, and I hope that all parties can at least agree to welcome that. Richard Leonard, to be followed by Keith Forbes. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. One of the principal reasons for the creation of this Parliament was to drive housing policy up the political agenda. It devolved Scottish Parliament with responsibility for primary housing legislation. Housing investment and planning was always a critical part of the case for constitutional reform in the 1980s and 1990s, but also going back to the days of John Wheatley and the Reverend James Barr. The Reverend James Barr's name reminds me that next year is the centenary of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Industrial Population of Scotland, Rural and Urban, chaired by Sir Henry Ballantyne, which included among its membership the Reverend James Barr, who later became a Labour MP. It was set up following representations by the county medical officers and the Scottish Miners Federation about the terrible housing conditions in Scotland's coalfield. The commission concluded, and I quote, problems such as child welfare, care of mothers, better education, temperance and the living wage are all relevant to the housing problems. Those are the problems, perhaps not temperance, that we will be grappling with this afternoon and in the debates in the weeks and months ahead on housing. The recommendation of that Royal Commission was a massive programme of council house building, while maybe even a moderate programme of council house building would be welcome. We meet this afternoon, knowing that 10,500 households are homeless and are in temporary accommodation in Scotland, and over a quarter of those households have children. I put it then to the Scottish Government that what chance have we got of closing the educational attainment gap when too many of our children live in substandard and overcrowded accommodation? That is why this month's shelter has called for a new homelessness strategy. It is looking for political leadership from this Parliament today to galvanise action with a common vision and a common goal. Given the force of argument, put forward by the one organisation that is best placed to comment on this matter, I am going to assume that the Government will recognise the need for just such a strategy and will act immediately to establish a group to take this forward. The second point that I want to make is this. We do not just need a technological or one-off fix here. We need a long-term plan for public housing in Scotland, one that produces a mosaic of homes that work rather than a monolithic top-down housing system, which does not. It means giving a greater say for tenants and workers alike in how public housing is provided so that tenants are able to do much more than merely complain. If you want the confidence of the people, you must have confidence in the people. It means creating towns for people with homes and so people back in our town centres, not concreting over the green belt. It means looking at repair and improvement. It means redubbling our efforts to return empty homes to use and it means looking at new instruments like pension fund investments to supplement public support. Deputy Presiding Officer, we are debating housing here today but we need decisions on housing taken locally. We need to move away from local administration back to local government. Elected councillors devising local solutions to local problems, which is why I was delighted that, last month, North Lanarkshire Council announced its plan to build an extra 1,000 new homes. It is why I am calling today for the letter issued by the Scottish Government to local councils in which it was warned that every housing development above 100 houses would be automatically called in. That letter should be rescinded. When I came into office, I abolished that. That has already happened. I apologise to the minister for that and I am delighted that he has corrected me. The final point that I wanted to make was that, over the time that the current housing crisis has deepened, total employment in construction in Scotland has fallen. It has fallen by 16,000 over the past five years, with a half of that drop of 8,000 jobs going out of the industry over the past 12 months. You do not need to have studied John Maynard Keynes' general theory on employment, interest and money from cover to cover to work out that there is an obvious place for central and local government intervention here. If the housing targets were exceeded, as the minister has claimed again this afternoon, then, on this evidence alone, it is clear that the housing targets were set too low. We need more ambition in our plans for Scotland's housing. We need the renewed political will to make tackling homelessness a priority. We need a boost in construction jobs, socially useful jobs, good jobs, local jobs and trade union jobs as part of an anti-osterity agenda. We need a more decentralised, localised democratic approach. If we secure that, we will have begun to serve the purpose for which this Parliament was created and the purpose for which we were elected. I call Kate Forbes. We are followed by Maurice Corry. Ms Forbes, please. It has been 17 years since a house was built in Staffin on Skye, and it has been 10 years since the school role boasted 50 children, now down at 14 pupils. One local business can cite five separate examples when it failed to recruit or retain staff because of a lack of housing. Meanwhile, the population fell by 5 per cent in four years from just over 600 residents in 2009 to over 550 in 2013. Before you tell me that that is the trend in rural Skye, the population in Portree, a mere 30 minutes south, has risen by 11 per cent in a decade, and it is no coincidence that the population has risen as the houses have gone up. Portree has been the beneficiary of significant housing development in the last few years under the last ambitious SNP Government, because the opportunities that this Government's targets will provide to my constituents cannot be overestimated. In my travels and conversations, housing is repeatedly raised as one of the single greatest needs for rural Scotland. High prices, low availability and poor stock are the three key factors that push my constituents from the rural areas of Scotland to its urban centres. I welcome every new house built in rural Scotland because it means another family whose children go to the local school, another retired couple who can remain part of the community and another individual who is driving forward the Highland economy. I welcome the Government's commitment to build 50,000 new homes, but almost even more than that I welcome the £25 million of rural housing fund, which takes into account the unique issues that rural homes face. Let me sketch out four unique issues in rural Scotland that a specifically rural housing policy should address. First, there is a much higher proportion of second homes in remote rural areas at 7 per cent versus 1 per cent in the rest of Scotland, and that naturally makes it harder for residents to access housing. However, I want to add that this is not a simple picture, especially after a summer when the Highlands has hosted unprecedented numbers of tourists who require accommodation. In fact, across Skye and Badenoch, there is not enough tourist accommodation. That is why organisations such as Great North Lodges, based in Avymor, are absolutely vital to our Highland economy in managing 32 self-catering lodges, encouraging local spend and employing a vast network of cleaning and maintenance staff, as well as full-time staff, which provide employment in an area that needs jobs, and are to be commended for their work. In a constituency like mine, there are not always easy answers, which is why a nuanced and considered approach to this is needed and more houses need to be built. Secondly, 2012 figures show that average prices in accessible rural areas are a staggering £49,000 higher than the rest of Scotland. Thirdly, more than three quarters of housing is owner-occupied in remote rural Scotland, versus just over half in the rest of Scotland. Fourthly, as has already been touched on, as a rule, housing is far less energy efficient than in the rest of Scotland. 15 per cent of the housing stock in rural areas is in the lower bands, compared with only 2 per cent in the rest of Scotland. That is a key reason why 22 per cent of those living in remote rural areas such as my constituency are in extreme fuel poverty, compared with 9 per cent in the rest of Scotland. However, by 2021, this Government will have spent £1 billion in tackling fuel poverty. It is not just that housing is less energy efficient. 47 per cent of remote rural stock is deemed to be in a state of urgent disrepair compared with 36 per cent in the rest of Scotland. The Government's ambition in the last Parliament and this Parliament is absolutely vital, not just at yes. I thank Ms Forbes for her very well-thought-out speech. One of the things that the Government is doing is being innovative. Would Ms Forbes welcome the fact that Lochaber housing associations are to get moneys through a charitable bond to build 50 new houses in Fort William? I cannot stress enough how absolutely delighted I was to see that announcement, because, as I was just going on to say, housing stock for my constituents is not just about a roof over your head. It is about safety, security, health, children in schools, a job, businesses growing, and it is part of a much, much bigger impact on rural Scotland, so yes, I welcome that. I have identified some of the very real pressing reasons why I welcome this Government's priority and why I welcome a specifically rural fund to meet the issues that my constituents face, so thank you very much to this Government. Thank you very much. Maurice Corry is before Andy Wightman. Since 2007, the SNP has overseen a 40 per cent drop in house building in Scotland, meaning that there are less homes for families right across our country. That 40 per cent drop means that we have ended up in a situation where, according to the Scotland Institute, there are now 74,000 households in Scotland suffering from overcrowding. During the recess that I recently had, I visited the Keepmote site in Garfield Street in Greenock and met with Lynx housing in Lus to see social housing developments. I was impressed with those developments when addressing which, indeed, address the local community needs. The SNP's failure on house building has meant that, according to the charity shelter, the number of people needing to live in temporary accommodation isn't coming down, and there are now over 5,000 children now living in temporary accommodation in Scotland. When you consider that, over 25 per cent of people in temporary accommodation here in Scotland are having to use BNBs and hostels, you can see why this is such a big problem. The only real way to solve those problems is clearly to start building more homes in Scotland, and that's why the Scottish Conservatives are committed to supporting the building of 100,000 new homes over the lifetime of this Parliament, at least half of which should be affordable housing. Whilst we knew more homes in actual fact over the last nine years, house building in the private sector is down by 44 per cent. Action must be taken to remedy that, and I recommend that the Scottish Government takes some suggestions out of the Scottish Conservatives manifesto to help to encourage the house building private sector and encourage local authorities to compile publicly available brownfield land registers, which would allow house builders both big and small to explore those options and their options more easily. Along with the presumption in favour of planning applications on brownfield sites, when there is a major housing element included in the application, those proposals would be a significant amount of help to house builders here in Scotland. Moving on to the planning system, I think that it is wrong that the Scottish Government is overturning half of local councils planning decisions. The SNP top-down approach to planning permission is, I believe, wrong and misguided. We shouldn't be aiming to take away power from those that are most affected by planning decisions but in powering them. That's why the Scottish Conservatives believe that simplifying the planning system and speeding it up is of the utmost importance. Not only would it support house building in Scotland by making the system easier to navigate, it would also make planning decisions easier for the public to understand and remove some of the confusion and stress that can be felt by local communities when trying to understand why decisions can take so long to be made and why they are made in certain ways. Not only should we build new houses, we should also ensure that the housing that we have in Scotland is more effectively managed and used. For example, there are an estimated 27,000 empty homes in Scotland. Those are a wasted asset and bringing them back into use will be a good first step in providing more housing for people of Scotland. Including that is housing for armed forces veterans and in particular disabled veterans. The Scottish Conservatives have also called for constrictions that are placed on allocation of housing from central legislation to be removed. I think that everyone would agree in this chamber that the allocation policy, which would be good for my constituents in Dombarton, Velolive and Helensburg, Greenock and Luss, for example, might not work as well for other members' constituents in other parts of the country. An allocation policy should therefore be decided with those who are most affected by it being the local communities. That is why I want those decisions taken at a local level. I thank you very much, I call Joan McAlpine, to be followed by James Kelly. Can I just say—I may as well just say this rather than say no—James Kelly, Alec Cole-Hampton, Ben Macpherson, because of the kindness and good heart of your preceding speakers, you now all have six minutes. Andy Wightman, please. I welcome this debate on housing and I want to, in my contribution, cover three key challenges that this Parliament has got the capacity to deal with. One is affordability, second is housing land supply and the third is the question of existing homes. First, on affordability, Scottish Greens take the view that everyone should have access to affordable houses. All houses should be affordable, but they are not. Average prices in Scotland are now double what they were in 2003 and have risen at twice the rate of inflation and outstripped average earnings by even higher a rate. As the Financial Times wrote in January 2015, in a leader column, I quote, the politics of building more houses is as torturous as the economics is clear, but the current state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. What Britain needs is a Government— Mr Wightman could ask you just to move your microphone a little closer for the OR so that he can hear your dulcet tones. Thank you very much. As the Financial Times wrote in January 2015, I quote, the politics of building more houses is as torturous as the economics is clear, but the current state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. What Britain needs is a Government brave enough to trumpet the virtue of falling house prices and to make it happen. That is why I am pleased that the Scottish Green Party is, I think, the first political party in Britain to have argued that average house prices in Scotland need to fall if we are serious about affordability. With average house prices around six times average earnings, that is clearly not the case at the moment. The second area is housing land supply. As has been pointed out by a number of contributors to this debate, house building targets set in 2007 by the previous SNP administration have not been met. That, in our view, in large measure is due to a failed model of new house building dominated by the speculative volume house building industry. That stands in stark contrast to the rest of Europe, where self-procured housing is at a rate of well over 50 per cent in most countries. In Berlin, for example, the city council helps groups of families or older people build apartment blocks to meet their housing needs. Across Germany, the inflated value of land, which is consequent upon receiving planning permission, is capped at existing use value, meaning that 90 per cent or so of housing investment goes into high-quality homes that are energy efficient and last far longer than the typical design life of new-build houses in the UK. That is one of the reasons why German house prices in real terms are the same today as they were in the early 1970s, where Britain's house prices have multiplied by five, a key reason why Germany is far more productive and prosperous country. To achieve a more efficient land supply for housing means allowing public authorities to once again acquire land at existing use value, as was the case prior to 1959, as remains the case in Germany. It means to ending the nonsense that government does not interfere in the private market. In the Scottish Government response in February this year to the recommendations of the commission on housing and wellbeing of a national target of 23,000 new houses per year, the Scottish Government argued that, and I quote, we do not set targets for overall housing supply, as that depends heavily on the activities of the development and house building industries and is largely outwith Scottish Government control. That followed the then housing minister Margaret Burgess's answer of 29 January to a written question from Liam McArthur MSP, and I quote, In Scotland we expect the private housing market to operate wherever it can without government intervention. In my view, it is surely time to admit that this lesia fair approach to housing has failed. It is one of the reasons why in my constituency in the waterfront in Edinburgh there are acres and acres of land lying unused, derelicts that should have houses built on them, much of which is owned in the British Virgin Islands. That brings me to the third challenge, which is existing homes. Presiding Officer, all parties in this chamber are committed to action on warm homes, and that is very welcome, but the scale of the challenge is significant. 85 per cent of homes that will exist in 2050 have already been built, and with much of the housing stock in poor condition, and in particular with particular problems associated with the communal tenement property, a major effort is required to bring existing housing up to modern standards, and I was glad to hear John Mason make that point. Part of that, in my view, will involve rethinking how we regard housing, not as private property, but as part of the public infrastructure of our cities and rural areas. Many of the tenement property in Edinburgh was built 100 or 200 years ago, and with the right care and maintenance will last another 100 or 200 years. In other words, those are assets to be maintained and refurbished in the long-term public interest, and not for short-term financial gain. That is why, among our proposals in our manifesto, we are a not-for-profit repair service and a new housing investment bank. Beyond the quality of existing housing, there are also issues related to how existing housing is used. A constituent of mine here in Edinburgh commented in the Guardian last week that he was the only resident of his tenement stair in the grass market. The rest are Airbnb flats, second homes or student lets. He said that we are heading to a place where we have little in the way of community anymore. That could be resolved by changes to the planning regime to make a range of residential use, student accommodation, holiday homes, retirement homes etc, subject to planning consent, so that housing allocation can be better governed to maintain communities and better target different housing needs. Presiding officers, our Scottish Greens are ambitious for housing. We need to transform our whole approach to housing in this country and challenge the model that we have inherited, a model that I would argue is failing and one that is not delivering for growing numbers of our constituents. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I welcome the chance to speak in this afternoon's debate on housing investment, a significant issue for constituents in my predominantly rural region. I want to begin by picking up on the idea of the right houses in the right places. Our rural housing strategy builds on the premise that communities should be empowered to define their own immediate local requirements and longer-term aspirations. A community-led approach is vital to understanding the unique dynamics that inform access to housing in Scotland's more rural places. For example, in Dumfries and Galloway, it tends to be the case that private landowners will have a greater role in the provision of rental accommodation. Added to that, a higher proportion of holiday homes and empty properties inevitably create additional pressure on the already limited housing supply. That is why I want to talk about the Dumfries and Galloway Small Communities Housing Trust, an organisation that works with small rural communities to identify exactly what they think are the right houses in the right places as part of a wider drive for rural regeneration in the region. The trust works to increase provision of a broad range of affordable housing across all tenures in rural areas. In only a short period of time, they have developed an extremely productive working relationship with both the Scottish Government and local strategic partners in housing and communities. Their approach provides an exemplar of partnership working, which understands local challenges but is not constrained by them. So, where appropriate, they will work with large private landowners on the application of the rural housing burden, therefore maintaining long-term affordability in private projects. The trust is also responsible for the delivery of the £25 million rural housing fund in Dumfries and Galloway, and the fund was launched by the Scottish Government in April to increase supply of affordable housing in all tenures in rural Scotland. The fund is available for three years and provides capital support for new housing and refurbishment projects, as well as smaller contributions towards feasibility studies that were relevant. The rural housing fund across Scotland is open to a wide range of applicants, and we need to actively encourage Scotland's rural communities to come forward and apply for a decent share of the funding. Clearly, community-led development has its own challenges, but thanks to the engagement efforts of the Dumfries and Galloway small communities housing trust, housing projects are beginning to emerge, which have the potential to increase the capacity of local development trusts and secure the longer-term sustainability of small communities. At this stage, the trust is providing support to seven applications that have progressed beyond expression of interest stage and the future development of a number of other bids. Of the seven live applications, six are from community development trusts, and those applications are benefiting from the feasibility and project development element of the rural housing fund in order to facilitate community-led housing while addressing specific local demand and minimising the risk for communities. The other application relates to a private landowner. The projects are diverse in nature, promoting a range of different approaches to rural housing, including new-build housing in partnership with the Housing Association, the purchase and refurbishment of long-term empty homes, the refurbishment of an ex-police station, seeking asset transfer from the local authority, and new-build housing on land made available via the national forest land scheme. The trust values the flexibility of approach around the rural housing fund and says that it is particularly important for addressing small-scale localised rural housing needs, particularly when the intervention is community-led. The trust also reports that there is a close alignment between the rural housing fund and the new Scottish land fund, which in turn is allowing community-led housing projects to address the key barrier availability of land. To conclude, I am delighted that the Scottish Government understands the unique challenges faced by rural communities. We do not just want our rural areas to survive, we want them to thrive. That is why I welcome initiatives such as the rural housing fund, which allows communities to take the driving seat on innovative housing. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this afternoon's debate. I believe that housing is one of the most important issues that the Parliament will consider. It is not just the case of trying to ensure that we have enough homes in the country that are wind and water tight for our citizens to stay in. It is the implications of some of the other issues that we consider as parliamentarians. Poor quality housing and lack of housing can drain the ability of people to advance themselves in terms of education. It can also have an impact on the health of the families that are impacted by poor housing and, therefore, undermine the health service budgets. Another area where there has been a real growth in recent years, sadly, is that of mental health, where poor housing has been a contributory factor. In terms of my contribution, I want to look at some of the issues around housing, touching on how that has affected the private rented sector and exploring how we need to have a proper honest and open debate if we really want to tackle the issues that face us in terms of housing in Scotland. John Mason warned opposition politicians about saying that there is a crisis in housing in Scotland, so I want to alarm Mr Mason or any of the SNP-backed benches to be talking about a crisis, but it is important to look at some of the statistics and what that means on the ground in Scotland. There are 150,000 people on housing waiting lists, and 30,000 of those are homeless and 10,000 in temporary accommodation. In Glasgow, 24,000 people on the waiting list, 4,500 homeless and 419 homeless. That picture is replicated all over the country. If you take the example of Rola Glyn and Canberra Slang housing association with 651 people on their lists and are only able to rehouse 45 of those, then there are real issues across the country. If you look at that compared with the number of houses that have been built, not just in the last year but in the course of recent years, progress to be kind has been very slow to say the least. In 2015, there were only 16,000 housing completions. That is 40 per cent below pre-recession levels. It is not enough to meet the challenges of the growing waiting lists that we face. That has an impact also in feeding into the private rented sector, where 28 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds hold a mortgage. That is the lowest rate that it has been for some time. It is 15 per cent lower than at the start of devolution. Again, the lack of housing and affordable housing pushes up rents. The average rent in Glasgow for a two-bedroom flat is now £668. People have been put under real pressure. We need to be open and honest about that. The minister made a very earnest speech, as you would expect. He is new to the brief. He praised up the Government's record. He talked about what his plans were, but we need to be honest that we have some real issues that we need to face. If we are looking ahead, there are real challenges because of the way budgets are going to be constrained. The Fraser of Allander Institute report this morning said that potential cuts coming down the line of £1.6 billion for the Scottish Government between now and 2021. A billion pounds of those are potentially faced by local government. That is on top of hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts for local government in recent years. Therefore, it is no surprise that, if you look at today's statistics, completions for councils and housing associations are down by 20 per cent. It is no wonder that they face those financial challenges. I think that the SNP needs to be honest about those. I thank Mr Kelly for giving way. Starts are up, and I think that this is the most important thing as we go forward to make sure that new start housing continues to increase. I am pleased that housing associations and councils are stepping up to the plate in that regard. Mr Kelly. The minister might delight himself with standing up and quoting that statistic. See you on the ground, people come to your surgeries staying in overcrowded accommodation. They come to your surgeries with houses that are not fit to live in because there are darkness. There are real issues here that you need to acknowledge as a Government minister. You also need to be honest about the finances going forward. The scale of that finance means that, if the SNP is really serious about achieving the targets that they have set out, they need to look at progressive taxation. That was an issue in the election. We honestly put forward our programme and said that we needed to expand the public purse in order to deliver public services and not have an anti-austerity agenda. It is not enough simply to just complain about what the Tories are wrongly allocating you from Westminster. You need to look at what your powers are and what you are going to do about them. Summing up, Deputy Presiding Officer, we face a massive crisis, and it is time that we had an open, honest debate not only about how we solve the housing issues, but about how we fund it going forward. Thank you, Mr Kelly. I call Alec Cole-Hamilton to follow by Ben Macpherson. I welcome the cross-party consensus that this motion seeks to foster. In particular, I would like to thank the minister and indeed the Scottish Government for meeting Liberal Democrat calls for an island housing fund. The challenge before this chamber is great, but simply if we are to meet the national housing crisis, we need to work together towards a comprehensive national homelessness strategy in Scotland. The reform of housing law to give people the right to a settled home was a landmark achievement in tackling this crisis, and progress has been made, but it is incumbent upon us to build on those achievements to ensure that we see a real change for those who need it. Over the next five years, we must work together and put party differences aside to that end. I welcome the Government's motion, but I would encourage it to go even further. Building 10,000 houses a year will go a long way to addressing needs, but, as Pauline McNeill said in her speech, this must not be the limit of our ambition. Every month that goes by without action makes it harder to achieve. 150,000 households are on council housing waiting lists, and despite having gold priority in my constituency, they miss out time and time again as houses come up. According to Shelter's latest report, over 5,000 children are in temporary accommodation. That is up 13 per cent from last year and sets us back still further in our efforts to meet our obligations to article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite the best efforts of the Scottish Government backed by parties from across this chamber, we are slipping ever backwards in that crucial agenda. Scotland is facing a perfect storm of unaddressed needs and, indeed, rising demand. The level of urgency is so profound, and I welcome that commitment to build 50,000 homes, but that must be the benchmark from which we seek to rise. That will only work for those in need if we meet the vision of those campaigning across our housing sector to make sure that it benefits the sharpest end of those in our society. We must do all that we can to make sure that those who are in need of a home are not given a disservice by this Parliament if we simply did descend into a Dutch auction about numbers alone. It is absolutely right that we address the rurality problems described by Kate Forbes, and, once again, I give thanks to the Minister for the Island communities that will be helped by an island housing fund, given the acute needs caused by address where there are transportation problems and building problems in those areas. The thing in particular that I want to address in my remarks today is that whole systems approach. We have heard a lot about the problems that walk hand in hand with housing need around fuel poverty, digital inclusion and other areas of social inequality in our society. That must be a whole systems solution, and I welcome the approach to that in the Government motion. To break that down into granular detail in my constituency, we need to talk about building communities and not just houses. I will give you some examples. The Garden City proposal for guile falls into the footprint of ladywell medical practice. If that comes on stream, that will deliver a further 4,000 patients into a doctor's surgery that is already on its needs. Other communities—South Queensferry and Kirkalliston—are set to nearly double in size due to housing proliferation, yet despite paying Edinburgh council tax, they are not served by affordable direct public transport links into the city on a parity with other suburban communities. Our fair affairs campaign has already gathered nearly 2,000 signatures. Finally, the proposals for development at Cammo would seem homes built on much-loved green belts, which at a stroke caused yet further gridlock at Barnton, which is the main junction on one of the most congested stretches of arterial route outside of the M25. Do not get me wrong, Liberal Democrats are not opposed in any way to development, but it must be intelligent housing development that we see brought forward. Building huge dormitory estates on the outskirts of cities without a thought given to the impact on local services, transport and infrastructure will only give rise to the manifestation of yet further inequalities in our society. That is why this week I have written to the Cabinet Secretary and Ministers asking whether the Government will consider legislation to amend the Town and County Planning Act 1997 to compel developers through section 75 orders on planning gain to construct primary healthcare facilities and developments of a certain size and to factor in pressure on arterial routes. The reality is that we need to be much smarter in our housing, and housing is at the centre of solving the crisis of inequality that we see right across Scotland. We need to see it as an enabler of giving people a better quality of life wherever they are. It is only by having good quality housing in the right place, with local services, transport links and broadband connectivity that meet people's needs, that we can ensure that we deliver transformative change across this country exactly where it is needed. Ben Macpherson, who is the last speaker in the open debate, can I remind members that all who took part in the debate must be in the chamber for the closing speeches that follow us next? Mr Macpherson, I warmly welcome the debate on housing, which is consistently raised with me in surgeries and by-constitutions in a top priority in my constituency. The journey towards ensuring that everyone in Scotland has access to a warm, well-designed, good-quality and affordable home is, of course, an on-going process and is a shared aspiration for us all, as has been articulated in the chamber today. Today marks another positive step on that journey, with ambitious and achievable proposals from the minister and with a firm commitment from the Scottish Government to build at least at least 50,000 affordable homes over the course of this parliamentary session, including 35,000 affordable homes for social rent. This investment will provide accommodation for families and individuals and those in need, and it will also deliver invaluable economic stimulus in those challenging financial circumstances. The need to build more homes is particularly pressing here in Edinburgh, as is articulated by Alex Cole-Hamilton, where the population is growing so strongly. I have the privilege of representing Leith, which is the densest urban area of Scotland. It is vibrant, diverse and bustling, and it is undergoing a process of renewal but will never lose its character. I also have the honour of representing North Edinburgh, a very strong community that is also in the process of regeneration, facing challenges but undergoing positive change. My constituency is already meaningfully benefiting from Scottish Government investment in affordable housing. In collaboration with the City of Edinburgh Council and various housing associations and developers, more affordable homes are being delivered in North Edinburgh and throughout Leith. For example, it was announced today that 236 new affordable homes will be built at the Shrubhill sites, which I warmly welcome, and I hope that the minister enjoyed his visit to Leith this morning. As well as having a positive benefit in itself, public sector housing investment is having a multiplier effect. It is helping to boost employment, providing opportunities to small businesses and, in my constituency, helping the vibrant creative industry to grow and develop. Public sector investment is also attracting new private interest in investment. For example, in recent weeks and months, I have been in discussions with social entrepreneurs and charities about proposals for innovative housing and regeneration projects in Leith and across North Edinburgh, including at the waterfront, which Andy Wightman rightly highlighted earlier. I look forward to supporting those initiatives as and where I can in the coming months. What is happening in my constituency is demonstrative of the fact that the Scottish Government's commitment to house building is having a positive economic effect, as well as a meaningful social impact. It is encouraging confidence and creativity, as well as building homes for the public good. That is why I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to invest £3 billion in housing throughout this parliamentary session—£3 billion. That capital investment will not only provide more places to live for our fellow citizens, but it will also create 14,000 full-time equivalent jobs and generate £1.8 billion of economic activity a year. That is positive demand-led economic growth, with multi-dimensional social benefits in challenging economic times. Together with measures to support the industry and help people into home ownership, Scottish Government capital investment in housing is having and will continue to have a transformative effect. That is despite Brexit the challenges of austerity and significant cuts to Scotland's capital budget in recent years. Recently, I met with The Rock Trust. It is a remarkable organisation doing inspiring work to support young men and women in our communities who, usually through no fault of their own, have become homeless. Young men and women who have grown up in austerity have often been subject to negative consequences of welfare reform and are part of a generation where the cost of housing is a major problem. We must always do more for vulnerable people in our society, and the measures proposed by the Scottish Government today to build 35,000 homes for social rent will make a difference for younger citizens, families and individuals. Through investment and legislative changes, whether that be to planning or around land reform, private sector rents or measures to address fuel poverty, the Scottish Government's programme for housing is reassuringly realistic and inspiringly ambitious. It will deliver new homes, investment in current housing stock, improved urban environments and helpful economic stimulus. It will help to create sustainable growth, promote social justice, strengthen communities and tackle inequality. For those reasons and others, I commend the minister's bold agenda and look forward to working with the Scottish Government, other MSPs, Edinburgh City Council and housing associations and others to help to deliver more affordable housing for the people that I represent in Edinburgh North and the Leith. Thank you very much. I move to winding up. I call Alec Rowley to wind up for Labour. Mr Rowley, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Today has been a positive debate, I believe, and there is a consensus within this Parliament that we need to take action to address the housing crisis that we have in Scotland. Without getting into the blame, who is to blame for what, the facts speak for themselves, the statistics speak for themselves, and we do have a housing crisis in Scotland that needs to be tackled. I welcome the tone of the minister's introduction speech and, certainly, I can say that Labour in this Parliament is absolutely committed to working with the Government to deliver 35,000, 50,000, and, hopefully, we could go further. However, I know from my experience previously in Fife Council that being able to deliver that level of housing is not without its challenges, and that is why we have said that we need a national housing strategy, a plan for Scotland in terms of housing, and, sitting alongside that, we need councils to be empowered to establish local housing partnerships that can deliver. Back in 2011 and 2012, when I was the leader of the Labour group in Fife, we put forward a proposal in our manifesto to build 2,700 houses for rent in Fife over a five-year period. I am happy to say that Fife Council is on target and will deliver that 2,700 houses by April of next year. It was the experience of that that led me to produce a paper that talks about housing crisis and why we must build more public sector houses in Scotland. That paper sets out that experience and how we need to drive it sets out the facts as to why we need to drive forward. However, one of the things that I highlight in that paper is that, when I was in Paisley last year, I met a family who had moved from a cold, damp house into a new housing association house in Paisley. The family explained to me that the daughter suffered continually from asthma attacks and was very often taken to hospital. Since they moved into their new house, with the fuel efficiency and everything else that they are, the little girl had not had once to go back to the hospital. James Kelly's point about how housing is the most important issue or one of the most important issues that we will debate in here, because the way that it impacts on all other social policy that we will also have responsibility for in here is absolutely correct. However, that family also told me that, in terms of their monthly income, they paid in their old, damp, cold house 25 per cent of that income for heating and fuel costs. When they moved into the new house, that shifted to less than 5 per cent of their total household income. If we are serious about tackling inequality and poverty, then we have to tackle Scotland's housing crisis. That is absolutely the case. It is also the case that we should not somehow forget homelessness. I would have to say that this year I started to become concerned when I was reading different things for charities about the number of rough sleepers, and I found it very difficult when I went to try and find the statistics to see how many rough sleepers we had. That is why I was pleased, as Richard Leonard and Alex Cole Hamilton have mentioned, to welcome Shelter Scotland's campaign, Homelessness, far from fixed. It is far from fixed. They have launched this campaign, and I hope that, across the chamber, we can recognise that homelessness is far from fixed, and more must be done to eradicate the unacceptable situation that far too many people in Scotland still today in 2016 find themselves in, homeless. We need to give a commitment to tackle that. On the input from the Conservatives, where Alex Johnson spoke about it, it was a critique of the SNP record today, and he spoke about looking at other ways that he has been able to secure funding. I draw attention to Unison Scotland, and I hope that the minister has read the Unison Scotland proposals where they look at the pension funds. That is certainly one way in which we can start to look at more investment through the pension funds. On establishing those local partnerships, it is about getting it right, because homes for Scotland quite rightly say that we also need to look at not just homes for rent but homes to buy. We need to encourage that process, and I am sure that we will say a lot more about the planning processes in Scotland in the coming months as we move forward. However, in terms of the capacity to deliver those 35,000 social rented houses and the 50,000 affordable houses, the capacity to do that in terms of where Fife was was because we had such a dip in the private market. If we got private housing moving tomorrow and we started to build the 50,000 houses in the private sector that Alex Johnson talks about, we would have a major problem in terms of capacity, because we have a skills gap in Scotland in the building trade. Therefore, by being able to set out a clear strategic plan, a national house build programme for Scotland, we are able to start to plan, we are able to work with all our partners in terms of the colleges and start the builders, the private sector. As Fife showed, we can create apprenticeships, create local jobs and support local companies. It is about that type of partnership. It was Emma Harper who talked about the need to involve more local housing associations and gave examples from her area by creating a local housing partnership in every area. It is not about creating bureaucracy. All of that is already there. It is about bringing together the housing associations with the local authority. It is about getting the people in the same room, sitting around the table, whether that is the planners, those who own the land and starting to be able to move the agenda forward. That is the example that I would give Fife. I would give credit to Fife. They have built 2,700 houses over the past five years. Let us look at that example and let us get forward working together to tackle the housing crisis in Scotland. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to close this debate today on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. As we have heard from my colleagues in the chamber, the Scottish Conservatives believe that it is necessary to build 100,000 new homes over the Parliament across all housing sectors. Secondly, it is essential that the Government ensures that nobody lives in a hard-to-heat home, a policy that is assisted by ensuring that Scotland invests in clean, secure and affordable energy. Having the ability to call a place home is one of the most instinctive human aspirations that I can think of. The shortage of housing across all sectors of the market is concerning for all, but not least for young people and growing families. I have lived everywhere. I have been a tenant of Glasgow City Council, I have been a homeowner and I have rented privately, but my concern now for this generation is at what point is my 22-year-old son going to be able to get on the housing ladder in any capacity? Whilst I recognise the Scottish Government's attempt to combat Scotland's housing shortage with its commitment to 50,000 affordable homes over the next parliamentary session, 35,000 of which will be social rented homes, I will repeat the sentiments of my colleague Graham Simpson and that we need to see real action from the Scottish Government. I think that it would be fair to say, following its failure to meet its original 2011 manifesto target, of building more than 6,000 new social rented houses a year, that we can be slightly cynical about the Scottish Government's ability to fulfil its own policy promises, saying in 2015-16, for example, that this figure had dropped to less than 3,500 in the year. John Beeson, I thank the member for giving way. Will she welcome the abolition of right to buy, which has been a real boost? Ms Wells? John, as I was actually saying, is the SNP promised 30,000 socially rented homes. We have heard here today that they said that they have met their target by 10 per cent. However, when they came into power, they lowered the target to 20,000 new homes and they created 10 per cent more than that. I think that we are quite aware that the Scottish Government likes to move their goalposts in order to make targets. I would like to turn my attention now to the region that I represent, and that is Glasgow for those who do not know. Glasgow City Council's draft housing strategy for the next five years reveals that between 2001 and 2011, owner-occupied sector in the city reduced by 1.2 per cent, and for the social rented sector, that was a huge 10.6 per cent reduction. In an area like Glasgow, where social rents make up a larger percentage of housing stock, and an estimated 36 per cent of its 300,000 residential properties, the impact is much greater. That pressure could be felt nowhere more than Govan Hill, where I recently met members of the community campaign group to discuss the issues affecting an area that has unfortunately become infamous in Glasgow. After meeting with a number of residents during a walkabout, their main concerns were of the appalling living conditions, caused by dilapidated properties, fly tipping in the backcourts, vermin and crime. Above all, however, and no doubt due to the lack of options with regard to affordable social housing, rogue landlords charging ludicrous rents came top of their list for gaining poverty in the area. Could I just finish making this final point? That is why I was very pleased to see the First Minister last week on site in Govan Hill, a affordable housing scheme, and why I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to building 50,000 extra affordable homes. However, I feel that there is much more to be done, Mr Stewart. Thank you, Ms Wells, for taking the intervention. Govan Hill has invested significant sum of money in taking over some of the properties there to make sure that folk are living in reasonable conditions. Can Ms Wells agree with me that that investment is welcome, that there is more to be done, but that, in co-operation with Glasgow City Council and Govan Hill Housing Association, we have made major efforts in that regard? I have been in Govan Hill and I know that the Government is putting money into Govan Hill. I know that a £9.3 million initiative was done in Govan Hill on the enhanced area of four blocks of houses. However, it is a bigger problem. I welcome the fact that we are putting further investment in, but I still think that we need to be doing more in Govan Hill and areas like it throughout Glasgow. However, I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government is putting the effort into the area. I would also like to say that, following on from what Alex Cole-Hamilton had said as well, when we are building houses, we need to look at the community that we are building them into and we need to put community at the heart, whether it is social housing or private housing. I was at one of the housing associations with the minister during the recess and it was CalMackey housing, which I think that we both agreed was a great development, but we have very much seen that the community was at the heart of it, and I would like to see more of that going forward. I also want to stress today the importance of setting numerical targets for increasing housing stock across all tenures by working with the private sector. It is estimated that around 1,500 private houses are built in Glasgow every year, a level of which we have not seen since 2008-09 recession. Worringly, for Scotland as a whole, statistics reveal that private house building is down by 44 per cent since the SNP came into power in 2007. As has been proposed by the Scottish Conservatives today, we need to look beyond the 50,000 affordable homes and create an extra 50,000 homes in the private sector over the next five years. We need to be creative in how we do this and we have proposed a number of policies that would assist with that. That could be done, for example, by providing grants to private landlords to build new properties in exchange for them letting out properties at affordable rents for a given time period and making use of empty properties and bringing them back into use. In Glasgow alone, it was estimated that, as of March 2016, nearly 1,900 properties were lying vacant for more than six months. We have already heard today that Glasgow has got a waiting list of 24,000, and that is only going to increase. Further to that, as Maurice Corry pointed out, we would also like to encourage local authorities to compile publicly accessible brownfield land registers, allowing house builders small and large to explore their options more easily. The final point that I would like to make is the need for the Scottish Government to prioritise making sure that no one in Scotland lives in a hard-to-heat home. Shockingly, nearly a third of households in Scotland live in full poverty. While the Scottish Government has proposed a £0.5 billion investment over the next four years, the Scottish Conservatives have recognised the importance of that issue by proposing the spending of £1 billion over the next five years. As Alex Johnson also mentioned, energy efficiency could be incentivised through the LBTT discounts and efforts should be made to create a dynamic energy mix policy so that fuel policy can be eradicated in Scotland, or that it will start to decline. In short, the Scottish Conservatives want to see an emphasis on increased housing stock across all tenures, as well as a concerted effort on eradicating fuel poverty. Thank you, Ms Wells. I call on Constance to wind up for the Government, Cabinet Secretary, till 5.30, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Any debate in housing is always much more than a debate about bricks and mortar, important though they are. The breadth and depth of issues that we all need to understand, that we need to address, and in particular understanding where we need to go further and where we need to go faster are people have touched on issues in and around infrastructure, construction skills, finance, issues about access to land and, of course, planning. Many speakers across the chamber have rightly spoke about the links between housing and social justice, our economy, our environment, fuel poverty, the attainment gap and tackling health inequalities. Many members have also welcomed the rural housing fund and, of course, Mr Stewart's announcement today that there will also be an island housing fund that will sit alongside that, recognising the very unique needs of our island communities. I want to start by being very clear to Alex Johnson that our target is at least 50,000 affordable homes. 35,000 of that will be for social rent. I am somewhat puzzled by his contribution where he and the Tories made no specific commitment to social rented housing. It is somewhat of a cheek of the Tories to complain about reducing budgets and subsidies when there was, indeed, a 26 per cent reduction to our capital budget. Of course, the Tory Government withdrew the green deal, which meant that there was a loss of consequential funding that could have been used for fuel poverty, certainly. Add a feeling, Mr Johnson, to take the bait. I along with everyone else in this chamber realise that there was a squeeze on finances that took place back during the financial crisis. However, it was this Government in a previous incarnation that chose to target the housing budget in a single year for 40 per cent cuts. You did rain back from that because you realised how deep they were, but it was this Government's decision. It was also this Government's decision in the last Parliament to invest £1.7 billion, which supported 30,000 affordable homes. It was also the Government's decision to invest £3 billion to ensure that we achieve 50,000 affordable homes. It is also this Government that chooses to invest £35 million a year to mitigate policies such as the bedroom tax, which is always mitigating welfare reform. Of course, it cannot have a debate about housing and a debate about a whole-systems approach to tackling the need for more housing without acknowledging the detrimental impact of Westminster's austerity and welfare reform, which most certainly has a contribution to make to rising evictions. When the biggest reason for rising evictions is people unable to pay their rent. A more conciliatory note, Colleen McNeill acknowledged that the 50,000 target was ambitious and that it would indeed be quite an achievement if that were to be achieved. Of course, Richard Leonard encouraged us all to be more ambitious, but what Colleen McNeill said certainly struck a chord with me that we do in this chamber need to focus on the how as well as the numbers, and that is a very important point. It is important that we recognise all of the underlying issues, as well as the Tories and others, that we did indeed have a financial crash in the worst recession since the depression. Nonetheless, in terms of modern apprenticeships and construction, that is back to pre-recession levels, so that should be welcomed. I would also like to gently point out to Richard Leonard when he was giving us a very interesting historical perspective on housing and the role of this Parliament in its origins. I have to remind him that it was this Government that had the courage and took through the legislation to abolish the right to buy, therefore guaranteeing—or safeguarding—15,500 homes over the next decade for future generations. There are a number of really good points made about the role of local authorities, and I think that Edinburgh Council, North Lanarkshire Council, Fife Council to name, but a few should be commended for the progress that they are making and, indeed, their ambitious targets at a local level for affordable housing. I think that the important point of learning, in particular from Fife Council, is how they took an all-council approach and galvanised efforts across the public sector in terms of reaching out and making ambitious targets. I am delighted that they are making good progress on that. I think that there is much for other councils to learn from councils that have been quite trailblazing in this area. Not surprisingly, Presiding Officer, we have had much discussion about planning. Let me just quickly say that it is the aim of this Government to simplify and strengthen our planning system. Mr Stewart, over the summer recess, announced that there would be 10 immediate points of action falling from the review on planning. We will, of course, bring forward a white paper before the end of the year, and that will be an important point for Parliament to focus on prior to the introduction of the planning bill. Of course, there will, indeed, as evidence of imminent action, be pilots on simplified planning zones. I want to stress that, as a Government, we want to support more housing across all tenures. That is why we have invested heavily in the help-to-buy scheme that has supported 22,000 people, three quarters of whom are young people between the ages of 18 and 34 to purchase a home of their own. I would not accept Andy Wightman's description that our approach is just accepting of the lazy fare, private sector. I think that what we are trying to do, sensibly and pragmatically, is to focus on the levers that we have to support in particular social housing. I agree with his point that we have to see housing in all its forms and all its tenures as part of our public infrastructure that contributes to the public good. I want to mention the points that have been made about homelessness and, indeed, fuel poverty. I want to reassure people that, far from it, homelessness is not forgotten. Alex Cole-Hamilton mentioned the landmark legislation that we have pulled together to introduce in this Parliament, but, of course, it is what happens on the ground that is absolutely crucial. Yes, homeless applications have reduced, households assessed as homeless have reduced, but I will not demure from the fact that we have some road to travel before we eliminate and eradicate homelessness in Scotland. With regard to children in temporary accommodation, while the number of children in temporary accommodation has reduced, I do not want to see any child in Scotland in temporary accommodation. We have to recognise that there will be women and children who will seek refuge, women and children and families and men who will be faced with emergency situations, and there will be no alternative other than to have to access temporary accommodation, but we must make sure that temporary accommodation is, for the shortest time possible, and is of a suitable quality. In terms of fuel poverty, fuel poverty is indeed 35 per cent in this country, and if it were not for rocketing fuel costs, it would be about 9 per cent. I am glad that there is a cross-party consensus for a warm homes bill, and it is important that we listen to the findings of the strategic fuel poverty group and the rural fuel poverty group prior to introducing our warm homes bill later on in this Parliament. Alex Rowley and James Kelly touched upon some of the annual housing statistics that are out today. I say that there is much to be welcomed in those statistics. They present a strong platform to build upon to make further progress, but they identify some challenges. They identify challenges around new housing supply, new build completions, which most certainly will have to focus on mines and certainly underlines the point where we have to increase our endeavours and we will have to monitor progress very carefully across all tenures. However, it is fair to say that housing starts are up by 4 per cent, and that is higher than at any time since the financial crash, and affordable housing supply over the year has increased by 26 per cent. The Government has an excellent record in delivering affordable housing. In the last Parliament, we exceeded a target of 30,000 affordable homes by 10 per cent, and that was because when we met our target, we most certainly did not stop there. The figures speak for themselves from 2007 to March 2016. We delivered 60,704 houses compared to 38,015 delivered by our predecessors in 2000, 2001 to 0607. Our predecessors, of course, had the privilege of rising budgets. We, of course, have managed to deliver more affordable housing on average up by 24 per cent per year at a time where our capital budgets have been slashed at a time of financial austerity and crisis, and, of course, we await the outcome with Brexit. Since 2007, we have indeed built more homes per head of the population in England and Wales, and comparisons with our nearest friends and neighbours may not be the be-all and end-all, and they should not be the limit of our ambition, but they are nonetheless interested and important. The higher per capita rate of house building in Scotland has enabled 44,600 more homes than would otherwise have been built at the lower per capita English and Welsh rate. 44,600 homes are equivalent to a new town, the size of Paisley, probably a point that would have been made by George Adam if he had spoken in the debate. Let me end by stressing the point that we will be building on the 33,000 affordable homes achieved in the last Parliament with £1.7 billion investment, ramping that investment up to £3 billion, despite the uncertainty of Westminster austerity and Brexit, and we are absolutely determined to deliver at least 50,000 affordable homes, an ambitious target, an affordable target and a target that I believe is achievable. That concludes our debate on more investment, more home Scotland. We now move to decision time. There are three questions to be put. The first question is that amendment 1392.3 in the name of Alex Johnson, which seeks to amend motion number 1392 in the name of Kevin Stewart, is agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote is as follows. Yes, 29, no, 94. There were no absensions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 1392.4 in the name of Pauline McNeill, which seeks to amend motion number 1392 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote is as follows. Yes, 27, no, 67. There were 29 absensions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The final question is that motion 1392 in the name of Kevin Stewart on more investment for more homes be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. We shall move to a vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 1392 in the name of Kevin Stewart is as follows. Yes, 93, no, 30. There were no absensions. The motion is therefore agreed. That concludes decision time. We will now move to members' business. I would ask members to try and leave quietly. We will take a few more minutes to change chairs.