 The next item of business is consideration of business motion 2343 in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out changes to this week's business. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request to speak button now. I call on George Adam to move the motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am moved. Thank you, Minister. No member has asked to speak against the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 2343 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The motion is therefore agreed. The next item of business is topical questions in order to get in as many people as possible. I would be grateful for short and succinct questions and responses. I call Pauline McNeill. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that people are shutting down their electric and rationing their energy use in the face of rising charges. Cabinet Secretary, Michael Matheson. Everyone needs a safe one place to call home, but we know that energy price rises are causing concern, especially for households who are in or at risk of fuel poverty. Regulation of the energy market is reserved and therefore we need action from the UK Government. The Scottish Government is doing what it can by making £10 million available to help people struggling with their heating costs. That is in addition to the £25 million that we are providing to local authorities to tackle financial insecurity and a further £6 million that we are providing to third sector partners. Pauline McNeill. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary for that answer. A report by the wise group found that people who live in homes with electric heating are most likely to ration use or self-disconnect. The group said that the energy crisis has left people unable to boil a kettle or cook their dinner. For those who said that they ration or disconnect their electricity heating, 75 per cent do so at least every week. That is in just Gatwick Glasgow alone. Customers have been told of spending the day sleeping in a bag just to stay warm. I am sure that the cabinet secretary will agree with me that this is an absolute scandal, and I worry for ordinary people as the forecast for prices begin to rise. I want to ask the Government why they abandoned their plans to create a publicly owned company and downgrade it to an agency to advise on energy efficiency. I want to ask the Cabinet Secretary if we can have a further discussion about this proposal. If not, how does the Government propose to make accessible energy with the powers that it has to ensure that cheaper community-owned heating, for example, is more widely available to people who need it? I am aware of the report by the wise group that highlights a number of very serious concerns about those who are being forced into fuel poverty as a result of the escalating costs of energy prices. However, the energy market is regulated by the UK Government and is out with the conference of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. What are we doing to try to help to address this? We are providing additional £10 million to specifically target those who are at risk of self-disconnection as a result of the costs that they are incurring due to the increase in escalating fuel prices. We are doing that through the fuel bank network, which is a specific fund and a specific organisation that works with individuals and families who are experiencing these financial difficulties. In relation to the public energy company, as we said in our manifesto, this year and also in our programme for government, the scale and nature of the ground in which we are now dealing with this issue has significantly changed. We now have our net zero commitments that require us to decarbonise over a million domestic homes between now in 2030 and 50,000 non-domestic premises. We need to take concerted action in order to achieve that in a way that is consistent with delivering a just and fair transition without causing individuals to be forced into fuel poverty. That is why the committee today I set out to the net zero committee the way in which we are now undertaking that consultation and agency, which will be responsible for co-ordinating that approach to achieving our net zero objectives. However, the energy markets need to change. The existing system is unsustainable. I have raised that with the UK Government, and what we now need is we need concerted action in their part in order to address what is a growing crisis right across not just Scotland but across large parts of the UK. Pauline McNeill. Let me be quite clear with the cabinet secretary. I endorse entirely what you said about the energy market needs to change. We are absolutely at one on that. I just wonder if you would be clear to Parliament if you closed the door completely on a public-owned energy company with all the challenges that that presents. I would like a yes or no answer to that. As the cabinet secretary says, many of the poorest in our communities have involuntary become the greenest because they are forced to cut their energy as you previously heard. Many excluded from net zero initiatives, two thirds of respondents in the report fell unable to consider buying an electric vehicle or installing more efficient energy heating. I ask the cabinet secretary how will the Government go about specifically helping low-income families to share in the benefits of a move to a net zero economy. Scotland has a successful record on renewables, which I applaud. How can ordinary people with low income share in that success? On a specific point about the public energy companies, as I have said in Parliament previously at the committee, what we are looking at is how the public energy agency can help to support the development of what is heat as a service. That is one of the reasons why we have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Danish Government because of its experience in taking forward district heating programmes and the use of heat as a service, which allows local energy providers within communities to develop and provide energy to a specific local community. That is one of the elements of the remit within the public energy agency. In the prospect of developing some form of local public energy company, there is scope to look at that through the agency's role in considering those issues. On the specifics around the shift towards decarbonisation and moving more towards electric-based energy, one of the issues that needs to change is the existing obligation system within the energy market, which places a greater level of obligations on the electricity side of the market, which, as a result, forces up the price of electricity, which is one of the areas that we have called upon the UK Government to review and consider how that can be changed, because it is then causing electricity prices to be artificially higher than they need to be as a result of those obligations. On the specific point around low-income families, within our heat and building strategy, we set out a range of measures that we are going to take forward, including how we make sure that the transition to zero-emission technologies for heating is one that is just and fair and that we do not find individuals being forced into fuel poverty as a result of having to change their electricity or their heating system, and that is exactly what the heating and building strategy aims to achieve. Before I move on to the next question, can I please ask for more succinct questions and responses, and I call Liam Kerr. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It's a supplemental to that topical question. Simply, Minister, what assessment has been carried out regarding the set-up costs of the National Public Energy Agency? Cabinet Secretary, that piece of work is on-going at the present moment, which is why we lodged a consultation today. As I said, that will be up and running in its full sense by 2025, and it will be in its virtual form over the course of the next year in order to start what is an important area of work. That would set out in detail as we move forward with the programme. Thank you. Maureen MacNeer. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Houses are facing a perfect storm this winter, with rising energy bills and the £20 cut to universal credit. What support has the Scottish Government provided to families struggling financially during the pandemic? What further support will it provide this winter? What impact will the doubling of the Scottish child payment have on low-income families? We are providing a range of support to low-income families during the course of the pandemic, which includes the £130 low-income payment, which reaches around 500,000 households by the end of October this year. We are also putting £130 million in the pockets of families through the Scottish child payment and bridging payments. We have also recently announced further support through the £41 million winter support fund, tackling financial and fuel insecurity this winter. This week, we announced that we will double the Scottish child payment to support over 106,000 children from April 2022, and we will in time help to lift a further 20,000 children out of poverty. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported number of deaths of homeless people in 2020. It is hard to measure homeless deaths precisely. Experimental statistics published today by the National Records of Scotland are extremely concerning. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, and I want to offer my sincerest condolences to anyone who has lost a love one. It is unacceptable that lives are cut short in this way when, in many cases, homelessness can be prevented. Scotland already has some of the strongest protections in the world for people facing homelessness, and we need to go further. We are investing more than £50 million over this parliamentary term to end homelessness and rough sleeping, including support for rapid rehousing and housing first. We have committed to introducing new homelessness prevention legislation, and we are improving co-operation between health and housing services with specific measures to help those with more complex needs. Finally, combined with our determination to tackle drug-related deaths, back by funding of £250 million over the next five years, we are determined to support and meet the needs of people facing homelessness. Willie Rennie To be frank minister, 256 deaths on this Government watch is a national shame. Every single death is a tragedy and this is a shocking increase. Scotland already had the highest homeless death rate in the whole of the UK by far, so what is this Government getting so badly wrong? Cabinet Secretary As I said in my initial answer to Willie Rennie, I agree that every death is a tragedy and that is why we are taking the steps on tackling homelessness and tackling drug-related deaths. As I said at the end of my initial answer, that determination to tackle drug-related deaths is backed by £250 million of funding over the next five years. Angela Constance will make a statement later on on further information on residential rehab provision. We have taken considerable action to tackle homelessness, backed by substantial resources, including the support for rapid rehousing and housing first, which has been recognised as absolutely critical in getting people off the streets, getting them into settled accommodation and wrapping around the support that they need, because we know that giving people a key to a home is not enough when people have addiction issues or mental health issues, and that is why we are pleased to see that around 85 per cent of tenancies through housing first are being sustained, and that is an important way of supporting people to deal with a range of issues that they face. I gave the minister another chance. She still does not seem to have a clue what this Government is getting so wrong. The Scottish Government was astonishingly complacent after it gave almost people through the pandemic. It thought that 250 deaths show it is more than a roof that it takes to tackle homelessness. Aren't those 256 personal tragedies a reflection of years and years of failed Government policies on drugs, on mental health and on homelessness? I do not agree with that. We have a complex situation with people with a lot of complex needs, and therefore we have to address all those. The answer to that is things such as rapid rehousing plans and light housing first, which is proving itself to be a successful way of supporting people into accommodation but, importantly, wrapping the services around the person. Through the pandemic, working with third sector agencies, we have almost eliminated rough sleeping on our streets. That is important. I do not know why Willie Rennie is shaking his head at that. It is important that our third sector agencies are commended for the work that they have done on eradicating rough sleeping on our streets and supporting that work. On mental health, Willie Rennie raises an important issue here, because poor mental health can be both a cause and a consequence of homelessness. That is why we are working with NHS boards and others to address that. Our mental health transition and recovery plan sets out that we are taking in response to the pandemic, supported again by resources £120 million in funding, and that includes cross-government investment to support the integration of mental health and substance use treatment services. There is not one single solution to that really complex issue. We have to do all of those things and more. That is why the prevention duty is also important as we try to take those issues forward. One reason charities working with homeless people think that those statistics have yet again increased is the fact that people are spending longer in the homelessness system. In 2020-21, annual homeless stats showed that it was taking 248 days for homeless households to have their case closed. What actions will ministers take to put in place preventative measures to stop that happening? Will the Scottish Government today agree to Scottish Conservative calls for a full review of access to healthcare services for homeless people and those who are rough sleeping? Miles Briggs will be aware, as we have had this exchange on a number of occasions in the chamber, that some of the issues relating to moving people through temporary accommodation have been related to Covid because it slowed down the process of local authorities being able to free up accommodation and move people through temporary accommodation into permanent accommodation. Local authorities, with the support of government, are working through those issues. We are also working with local government to scale up housing first so that people with the most complex needs can access settled mainstream accommodation with the wraparound support that I spoke about earlier. That can reduce the time that people with the most complex needs spend in temporary accommodation. We are also, of course, have seen a move away from the use of night shelters and hostels into that more supported housing first accommodation. All of those things are important, and I am sure that Miles Briggs and I would support the efforts of the third sector in working to support our most vulnerable people. I would agree that every death of a person explains homelessness as a tragedy, and my thoughts are very much with those who have lost loved ones. Can the cabinet secretary outline what measures the Scottish Government is taking to tackle rough sleeping this winter? I would hope that no one is going to be rough sleeping this winter, and that is why we have services in place to support people all over the year and with additional services for people at risk of rough sleeping over the winter period. In line with our commitment to end night shelter accommodation over last winter and this winter, we have provided over £433,000 towards the operation of rapid rehousing welcome centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh, which will provide safe emergency accommodation to those who need it. We have also made flexible emergency funding available to front-line homelessness organisations across the country through our winter support fund. That will empower front-line homelessness workers to make immediate decisions centred around the specific needs of each individual and assist people to access support in a dignified way.