 I would like to raise a serious concern that proper parliamentary procedure has not been followed ahead of these Conservative party business debates. As you may know, members across the chamber outwith the Conservative party did not have any official advance sight of what the second of today's party business debates would be until after 1pm yesterday, late in the parliamentary working day, and we're only informed of the topic of the debate when a pre-prepared briefing from Scottish Lands and the States and the Scottish Association of Landlords landed in members' inboxes at 3.40pm the day before. Further, the Conservative party appears to have issued a press release to the media containing details of today's motion before that motion was agreed by the Parliamentary Bureau that the Conservative party— Ms Roddick, can we listen to the member please with a degree of respect, Ms Roddick? The Conservative party thought it appropriate to communicate parliamentary business to landlord, lobby groups and the press before this Parliament is a matter of profound concern. Indeed, given that the Tory MSP Stephen Kerr has previously stated in this chamber that it is a matter of fundamental respect to the Scottish Parliament that business is communicated first to the Presiding Officer and members, as opposed to the media or interested stakeholders, it is only appropriate that I raise this point of order, requesting an apology from the Scottish Conservatives so that proper democratic process and the integrity of the Scottish Parliament is not further undermined. I thank Ms Roddick for the advance notice of her point of order. Guidance does determine that the Government must respect the place of Parliament when making announcements. There is no formal arrangement as such in relation to opposition parties. I can inform members that there was a delay on one of the motions being circulated while issues of admissibility were being considered. As a matter of courtesy and respect, however, it would have been preferable had the details of these debates not appeared in the public domain before the wider Parliament was informed of these topics. Can we move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion 7.613, in the name of Miles Briggs, on homeless emergency? I would invite members wishing to participate to press their request to speak buttons now or as soon as possible. I call Miles Briggs to speak to and move the motion around seven minutes, Mr Briggs. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. What is regrettable is the fact that, once again, it is only because of opposition debating time that Parliament is able to debate the crisis facing individuals and families across Scotland today. Sometimes, in politics, the Government of the day needs a wake-up call, and ministers need to pause and understand that the Government is failing to deliver on its outcomes, and indeed is failing the people of Scotland. One such example was the drug deaths crisis facing our country. As health spokesman for the Conservatives, I led debate after debate in this chamber at the time when the cabinet secretary was actually cabinet secretary for health, warning ministers that they needed to stop and understand where drug deaths had escalated to in this country, and the crisis facing individuals, families and drug services across our country. That fell on death for years, as ministers pirated out the same line saying that everything was fine, that opposition parties were wrong. Indeed, very much like the Scottish Government's amendment for today's debate, but the reality on the ground was very different. The result being that in Scotland we now see a record number of our fellow Scots dying from drug-related deaths, which has escalated year on year under this Government. After SNP ministers cut the drug budget and, following outrage from the public, the First Minister accepted that SNP ministers had taken their eye off the ball and were finally forced to pause and declare a public health emergency. The same, I am sorry to say, is the case for homeless people across Scotland today and the housing emergency that our country faces. After 15 years in office, it is clear that we are facing a homeless emergency and a housing crisis. It is not just Scottish Conservatives who are saying that and calling for action. Shelter Scotland has repeatedly called on ministers to declare a housing emergency. I thank those organisations, including Shelter, who provided helpful briefings ahead of today's debate, but also very much for the life-saving work that they undertake across all our communities, especially here in the capital. It is no exaggeration to say that this SNP-Green Government is indeed presiding over a national housing crisis. Whilst much of the media attention recently has focused understandably on the SNP-Green ministers' abject failures in health and education, the housing emergency has for far too long gone under the radar, but it is very real and demands urgent government action today. I believe that it is completely unacceptable that in Scotland today there are 47,000 people currently registered as homeless and a third of a million of Scots on social housing waiting lists, including close to 100,000 children and more than 24,000 disabled people. There are also more than 600 armed service veterans registered as homeless today, something that should not just embarrass us all as a nation, but more importantly, should shame the SNP-Green Government into action. To have been shamed and taken responsibility, does he accept that the principal responsibility for armed forces veterans lies with the UK Government and the MOD? The responsibility for housing lies exactly with the member and the Government as well in this Parliament. This is what this debate is all about, but as I was going to say tragically as well, last year we saw one of the highest numbers of deaths among people experiencing homelessness as well. Since this SNP Government took office, it has failed to meet all its home building targets on time, and there is little hope of the situation improving when we see John Swinney's most recent budget outlining an additional £170 million cuts in the housing budget. As Shelter Scotland says, we are deeply concerned at the significant 16% cut to the housing budget in 2324, which has the potential to completely derail the Scottish Government's ability to reduce housing need in this parliamentary term. On top of that, we have seen this Government with policy interventions, which are also being counterproductive in the housing sector as well and damaging for tenants in the long term as well. Ultimately, reducing private rental stock and leading to housing developments being paused and shelved all adds up to a perfect storm, and it cannot be allowed to continue. The fact is that, in Scotland today, every 18 minutes, a household becomes homeless. Last year, in Scotland, 13,945 households were living in temporary accommodation, with 14,372 children made homeless last year. That needs to change, and it starts with ministers accepting that they have failed to deliver solutions over the last 15 years that they have been in office. The housing emergency in Scotland has never been about houses. It is about people. It is about the young family renting a run-down flat wondering if they will ever be able to afford a home of their own. It is about the record number of children in Scotland today living in emergency temporary accommodation, forced to change schools every time that they move. It is about the failure of the SNP Green Government to meet their affordable home targets, and it is very much about the need for a Scottish Government that, at the very least, acknowledges the housing emergency and for an all-government approach to start developing the solutions that we desperately need. I believe that the housing policy decisions being taken by the SNP Green Government are now making the housing emergency worse in Scotland today. It is time for the SNP Green Government to pause and to reflect on the fact that Scotland is facing a housing emergency, and for this Parliament to collectively act to save lives and also to work to give everyone in Scotland the same and safe home that they deserve. I move the motion in my name. Very much, Mr Briggs. I now call on the cabinet secretary to speak to and move amendment 7613.2 for around six minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. You would have thought from that speech that the Tory cost of living crisis has no impact on people's ability to afford their home or indeed the increase in homelessness, and the fact that there was not a reference to the cost of living crisis really tells the chamber everything that they need to know about the motivation for this debate. It is a national priority of this Scottish Government to tackle homelessness, end rough sleeping and transform temporary housing, and our ambition to ensure that everyone has a safe and warm place to call home. I am proud that this country has some of the strongest homelessness legislation in the world for people experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness, and we are going further. Local authorities already have a legal duty to provide advice and assistance to anyone at risk of homelessness, and people have access to permanent accommodation and law. We also announced last week that we would introduce prevention duties in our forthcoming housing bill, and we will introduce a right to housing in our planned human rights legislation. Our proposals for our human rights bill will seek to incorporate the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including the right to adequate housing as far as possible within devolved competence. Ensuring that people are aware of their rights and when to exercise them is an important part of building the Scotland that we want to see. We also propose new duties on public bodies to ask and act to prevent homelessness so that prevention of homelessness is key, and the risk of homelessness is acted on regardless of the service first approached. That is key to our no wrong door approach, and taking a joined-up and early intervention approach aims to strengthen existing practice, improve consistency and deliver long-term savings and benefits to services, as well as reducing instances of homelessness. Let me now turn to the issue of temporary accommodation. While the latest statistics show that the use of temporary accommodation in 20 local authority areas has actually gone down, I am well aware that there are far too many households in temporary accommodation at the moment. The majority of households in temporary accommodation are in council or housing association homes, with two thirds of families with children in temporary accommodation and social rented homes. I am particularly concerned at the increase in the number of children in temporary accommodation. However, the Scottish Government is firmly committed to reducing that, and that is why, of course, we established an expert task and finish group, chaired by Shelter Scotland, who I would also want to pay tribute to their work and with the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers. That group is expected to deliver its final report next month, which will make recommendations on homelessness services, social housing and managing the current stock. It will bring forward innovative ways in which to reduce the numbers in temporary accommodation and the length of time households spend there. That will enable us to support those areas with challenges and ensure that they can learn from others who have made progress. The simple question is why are so many in temporary accommodation and why are they in it for so long? That is a question that we should already know the answer to. A lot of work has gone on to really get underneath why people end up in temporary accommodation. Those are multiple reasons. Partly, the increase has been through Covid and people were taken into temporary accommodation. There was a big jump in temporary accommodation use for all of the reasons that we understand. The cost of living crisis is without doubt having an impact, and we need to get the supply right. The member will be aware of the positive construction industry, the cost of inflation and everything. The materials labour has put pressure on projects, but we maintain our commitment to 110,000 homes by 2032, with 3.5 billion investment over this parliamentary term, and working with partners to make sure that not just the supply of new build but the acquisition of existing properties off-market can help to move people in to settled accommodation. In the time that I have left, I want to talk about the actions since the 2018 recommendations of our homelessness and rough sleeping action group, which we accepted in full and informs our ending homelessness together action plan published in 2018 and refreshed in 2020. The plan is supported by stakeholders and ensures that we are working in partnership to reduce and prevent homelessness. We are doing what they have asked us to do, and it is making good progress. The number of people sleeping rough in Scotland continues to fall. We have taken important steps towards strengthening rights for tenants and preventing homelessness, and we are leading the way in the delivery of affordable homes far more than anywhere else in the islands. Where homelessness does occur, the Scottish Government continues to promote a housing-led approach with a focus on rapidly rehousing people in settled accommodation, and that is why we are providing local authorities with £52.5 million for rapid rehousing and housing first to ensure that people are given a settled place to live as soon as possible. Our actions are backed by funding of over £100 million to £25.26 million with two action plans. I am well aware that the current cost of living crisis places people at more risk of homelessness, which is why the Government took action to support people in the rented sector through our cost of living tenant protection Scotland act, which I am sure will talk about more in the next debate. We have also taken more actions that I will touch on further in my closing speech. No one in Scotland should be at risk of homelessness, and we will do all we can to prevent it and support people, but it is also the case for people who are at risk of destitution because of their immigration status. It is very disturbing that the UK Government does not allow people with no recourse to public funds to access homelessness, support and other essential services—something that could be changed urgently, and I would urge them to do that. I move the amendment in my name. To speak to and move amendment 7.613.1, up to six minutes, please, Mr Griffin. Thank you, Presiding Officer, for the purpose of this debate and the following debate at draw members' attention to my legislative interest, which shows that I am on of a private rented property in the North Lanarkshire Council area. We welcome today's debate on Scotland's homelessness emergency, and we will support the motion at decision time today. Last February, the cabinet secretary led a debate on the prevention of homeless duties. Speaking about our world leading legislation, the £100 million end in homelessness together fund and our refreshed action plan. However, since then, although the situation has gotten worse, applications are up, and so are the number of children in temporary accommodation. Families who simply want the right to save, secure and affordable housing are the stability that they need for a normal work life, a school life or a normal family life, but instead they are going without that most basic need. During that debate last year, countless colleagues raised the issue of council budget cuts affecting the ability of councils to tackle the crisis, and those decisions have consequences. Here in Edinburgh, where the homelessness crisis is at its worst in terms of gross numbers, the council is running out of road in dealing with the crisis. In November, it reported a projected homelessness gap of £19 million, doubling year on year. Today, Unitkin, the chief executive of Sirenian's, reports rough sleeping numbers in Edinburgh are back to 30 to 40 a night. I wonder if the member raises an important point. I wonder if he would recognise that a lot of that is driven by people with no recourse to public funds who are destitute. It is an issue that we need to resolve. The UK Government has to also help to resolve that matter, but if you look at who that increase relates to, unfortunately a number of them are our silent seekers and people with no recourse to public funds, and we need to sort that. It is clearly an area that we need to sort, and the cabinet secretary will know from our time on the Social Security Committee in the last session that this party is firmly committed to see reform of that no recourse to public funds, especially when it comes to wider social security. If that is contributing factor to that, that needs to be dealt with urgently, but it is clearly not the only factor, and there are others who are part of that increase in the number of people who are rough sleeping. In this city, a third of those in temporary accommodation across this whole country are in this city, and they stay in temporary accommodation for almost a year. Further, a number equivalent to the whole population of Stirling made a homeless application last year, and children included on those applications about 13,000 is the same as all of the children in St Andrews. I note the cabinet secretary's amendment about supply figures, and I'm sure we'll touch on that more in the next debate. In short, I agree with my colleague Miles Briggs that the Government has taken their eye off the ball on housing. The tenants' rights minister last week confirmed that this Government has run out of steam with neither the will or the skill to tackle the homelessness emergency. The ban with the Government's claim to deliver new homelessness duties, including on this Government, was used to pass the rent freeze and evictions moratorium legislation, so that it delays the housing bill further into the autumn. Our amendment calls on the Government to get serious on homelessness by designating a single housing minister with overall and direct responsibility for tackling Scotland's housing emergency and meeting people's housing needs. That's a call that's backed by the social sector, by the house building industry and by a wide range of those with an interest in the sector, because housing and homelessness needs to be prioritised by this Government because the current arrangements are not delivering. Those prevention duties are needed now, including on the Government, because it seems to be contributing to homelessness. A Government that thought £2,500 was a reasonable level of arrears to evict. A Government that four months ago announced an extension to the tenant grant fund eligibility but refused to renew funding and only updated the rules two weeks ago. When statistics show that 14 councils have spent upwards of their allocation and 19 have less than 10% remaining, who then is that fund left to help to keep a roof over their heads? Time and time again, the Government has shown that it does not have the capacity that is not serious about tackling this emergency. It even deleted the word emergency from the motion today. Another issue that I raised with the minister during the passage of the rent-free bill, and we met and discussed, was the issue of in situ purchases. I feel that that is urgent and we need to see progress because landlords and their agencies and representatives keep telling us that they are looking to sell up. Why then are grant rules for the housing supply programme not designed to acquire those tenancies and stock? It could help landlords to seek an exit but it could also keep people in a home. No, I am afraid that he is just winding up. He is beyond his time already. I would be happy to meet again and talk to the Government particularly on that issue. The case remains that this requires for a home to be made vacant and for that to be achieved, someone is likely to be made homelessness. I realise that I am fast when at a time but fundamentally council needs the funding to tackle this issue properly and I move the amendment in my name. I now call Willie Rennie for up to four minutes please, Mr Rennie. Action plans, action groups, task and finished groups, rights to a home, joined up work and no wrong door. This is a spaghetti soup of a plan. The reality is that we have a crisis and the slick presentation of policy does not build any new homes. To be fair, there is new housing, as I have seen in my constituency. We have seen it in Garbridge, in Gaudry and also in St Monant. It is the first development of the type for some time and it hides the reality that the Government is in trouble on meeting its housing targets. The minister indicated that in her contribution that she is behind on the pace of progress that needs to be made. The SFHA has rightly pointed out that there has been a 16 per cent cut in new staffs that only 5,000 homes have been built so far. We need to build 110,000 homes by 2032. They reckon that by 2026 we need to build 38,000 and we are not on track for any of that. The sector will also have told Willie Rennie that the key issues are Covid recovery, the cost of materials and labour, Brexit and, indeed, the inflation running rampant through costs. I am sure that they have told him, because that is what they have told me, that those are the key issues. Yes, of course, but she needs to build houses or people will not get the homes. So what action is she going to take to address that, rather than just complaining about somebody else making mistakes elsewhere? What action is she taking herself, other than all the sound bites of the slogans that she gave me earlier on, and especially when she is considering making £112 million cut to the capital budget to build homes? That is not a response to all the issues that she rightly identified in her contribution in my intervention. The action that the Government is taking as a result of this crisis does not match the problems that we are facing. Demand is huge. I have seen people living in animated suspension for years on end, desperate for a home. They do not have enough points, they have maybe got 40 or 50 points. Nowhere near the 100 points. Even those on 100 points do not get a home. Thousands are in that situation for years upon end. That is no way to live a life or build a family. If you look at the number of children in temporary accommodation—again, life in suspension—those numbers have doubled, and you can wait for up to two years in temporary accommodation. I was not surprised that Shelter took Fife Council to court in Cercodi just last year. I was not surprised that they did that, because they were infuriated that families were in that position for so long, and they succeeded. I can tell you, Fife housing is now in utter chaos, desperate to get new temporary accommodation, because all that temporary accommodation has been turned into permanent accommodation. It is good for those families, for everybody else it is going to be a challenge, but what has been the response from the Government? Not one single thing, not one response to that successful court case. We need a Government that gets real about the problems on housing in this country, because people, unlike everybody in this chamber, who has a home, are desperate out there to get something. It has been going on and building up for years upon end, but the Government's response is £112 million cut to the capital fund to build homes. It is way behind on its target to build 110,000 homes by 2032, but you would not think that from the response from the minister. I think that she needs to get real. We will now move to the open debate, speeches of up to four minutes, and I call Jeremy Balfour to be followed by Emma Roddick. It is undeniable that we are facing an emergency when it comes to housing. There can be no dispute that the situation is spiralled out of control with this SNP green Government. Since Nicola Sturgeon came to power, the number of households living in temporary accommodation has increased just over 10,000 people to almost 14,000. In the past year, the number of homeless households and homeless applications in Scotland have both increased by 3 per cent, and applications have taken an average of 19 days to be assessed, and yet this Government is cutting local government funding. Even after there has eventually processed many homeless families in my region of Llorian, I have been sent 150 miles away to emergency accommodation in Inverness. There is almost 100,000 children on Scotland's social housing waiting list. 21st century SNP Scotland, that number is simply unacceptable. There are commonly over 24,000 people with disabilities on social housing waiting lists, and the longest a person with a disability has been waiting on a council list is 60 years. 60 years. An FYI from Edinburgh City Council read, the longest waiting time a self-assessed disabled applicant has had on the common housing register for social housing was 1 March 1963. What we would call this an emergency, or perhaps even worse, an embarrassment to this Government? This Government should be ashamed, ashamed that each of those numbers represents an individual or a household that has been let down, ashamed that we represent a staggering number of children who do not enjoy safety and security of a stable and warm home, and ashamed that we are seemingly doing nothing to fix it. Warm words do not build houses. I am afraid that I do not have time, but this is not a new emergency. We have heard a yet again from the Cabinet Secretary blaming everybody but herself and her Government. The writing has been on the wall for a number of years. The Government has consistently missed its house building targets, allowing the supply of quality affordable housing to plummet during their time in power. I am afraid that the outlook for the near future is not much better. With the introduction and new extension of rent control measures, we have already seen the knock-on effects of policies that stock landlords from renting out their properties. I am already hearing from a number of stakeholders in my region of Llorian and particularly here in Edinburgh that they are saying that they are no longer going to do this as a viable option and they are going to sell further reducing the number of homes available for roads who need it. Let us be clear. Those who are bearing the cost of these policies are not wealthy companies who could potentially afford a price rise. It is the smallest scale landlords who simply cannot afford to continue renting their properties out while losing money. I am the most vulnerable in our society who cannot find a stable place to live due to the shrinking market. I hope that the Scottish Government will wake up, will take a long look hard at itself because the responsibility of this emergency lies squarely at one person's feet, the Scottish Government and no one else. Many will know that I have a personal interest in the topic of homelessness and a lived understanding of it and how important it is to tackle. I know that you lose a lot when you are homeless. That could be possession, security or even your sense of self. Homelessness is not a given. It is a symptom of something else. It is evidence that someone has fallen through a net. Maybe they have to wait six weeks before they get a universal credit payment, maybe they lost their job due to shameful UK employment rights or maybe they were failed by insecure housing. Despite what the Tories will try to tell us later today, this cannot be addressed solely by building more homes. The Scottish Government is building more homes, delivering nearly 113,000 affordable homes since 2007. It is committed to £3.5 billion of spending on the affordable housing supply programme, but all of that is made harder when our colleagues and the Conservatives insist on propping up a UK Government that has just cut our capital spend on housing by 3.4 per cent in real terms. More importantly, the SNP Government has taken a progressive approach to tackling homelessness, looking at the drivers and preventative measures and increasing affordable housing availability by tackling the loss of residential properties to holidaylets and second homes, keeping people in the homes that they have already got and supporting people who are at risk of ending up in poverty. We have recently seen some great steps forward being taken in this Parliament. Licensing for short-term lets, which are eating up housing in communities across my region like many of those in Skye, which Conservatives voted against, the rent freeze, which Conservatives voted against, and a moratorium on evictions, which the Conservatives voted against. We have to be clear, yes, I will. I am grateful for the member for taking his intervention. Will she realise that both those pieces of legislation have had to firstly be challenged by bodies outside of this Parliament but also that the Government has had to delay another piece of legislation by six months because it is unworkable by councils? I think that the period of time between now and when the housing bill is introduced is exactly why emergency legislation was brought forward. I just think that it is a shame that the Conservatives would not support this interim measure, which we know is already supporting people to stay in the houses that they have. We have to be clear that the biggest drivers of poverty here today, housing costs, food costs are linked to inflation. Inflation that has been caused by reckless UK Government decisions. My constituents are paying the price in a steep one for preposterous levels of Tory economic mismanagement. Inflation is eating up the Scottish Government's budget and the budgets of households across the country, no matter how well off they were just a year ago. With the best will in the world, that cannot be entirely undone by a devolved Government, especially one up against an increasingly litigious Whitehall that stands ready to knock back legislation that it does not like. We are all getting used to it and it seems almost normal, but if you take a step back, you realise that it is a ridiculous concept that we are making decisions here—progressive decisions such as the rent-free, new deal for tenants, anti-poverty measures such as the Scottish child payment—but doing all that within a financial context that has been set by a right-wing Tory Government elsewhere, one whose ideas have been overwhelmingly voted down by Scotland over and over again is a nonsense. At this point, the UK looks like a rejected idea for a political dystopian novel. Everything we do comes with a but. Here in Scotland, the average first-time buyer spends around £100,000 less for a property than in England, but mortgage rates rose substantially after the UK Government's mini-budget last year. The Scottish Government is tackling poverty with the Scottish child payment, welfare fund and more, but the two UK Tories insist on a five-week wait for universal credit, more sanctions than ever before, a benefit cap and a penalty for being under 25. The Scottish Government is introducing duties to prevent homelessness, but UK Government decisions keep pushing folk towards it by making life more expensive and harder to avoid. Ms Roddick, could I ask you to bring your remarks to close because your time is past? However bold and ambitious our housing policy, Scotland is at the mercy of UK Government decisions and this only reinforces the urgent need for independence. Thank you, Ms Roddick. I now call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Fulton McGregor at Ms Chapman. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'd like to begin by thanking all those across Scotland who work day after day, night after night, to prevent homelessness and support those at risk of homelessness or who are homeless. In particular, I'd like to thank Crisis and Shelter who do this work and have provided briefings in advance of today. It is important, I think, to acknowledge just how connected having and staying in a home is to so many other aspects of life, health and wellbeing, social care, employment and so on. Tackling homelessness is not just about providing homes. We do have a problem with homelessness in Scotland and I don't think anyone here is trying to deny that. It should be obvious that the pandemic and the current cost crisis certainly have not helped, but what is very clear indeed Shelter says this explicitly and I quote, the housing emergency has been with us since long before the Covid pandemic hit and long before the current cost of living crisis. Decades of political and economic choices have led us to where we are today. I know I'm not alone in thinking that the Tories have cynically appropriated the Shelter campaign. Miles Briggs has called on the Cabinet Secretary to acknowledge the scale of the problem and outline immediate plans to tackle homelessness and accelerate home building. But if you look at what Shelter's plan actually says, it is quite clear and again, I quote, any effort to address the housing needs of people in Scotland will work best if the UK Government also uses its powers to improve the benefit system and tackle energy prices, end quote. Shelter has called for the end of all subsidy for home ownership projects and mid-market rent. The plan says we should and again, I quote, redirect all subsidy from the Scottish Government's affordable housing supply programme exclusively to homes for social rent. Public subsidy should only go to social housing. Shelter is saying that the more than £1 billion investment earmarked for private developers and home ownership support should all go to the not-for-profit sector. In their words, at a time when costs of delivering social housing have risen dramatically, it can no longer be justified to divert finite public subsidy to benefit private sector developers. Shelter's campaign also highlights the damage to our own—to our housing supply done by the Tory flagship policy, supported by successive Westminster Governments, the right to buy. This removed nearly 500,000 homes from the social sector. Shelter is calling for the appropriation of empty homes in the private sector, directing them to those in need. Like Shelter, I believe that homes should be for living in, not for profit. I don't think anyone thinks that the party opposite genuinely believes that. I have yet to hear anyone in the Conservative Party back all of Shelter's proposals. Let's look at how the Conservative UK Government has exacerbated the issue for more than a decade. Its attack on social security, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, cuts to universal credit, freezing of the local housing allowance and so much more, austerity, its relentless campaign of othering and marginalising people seeking asylum, and its continued opposition to deal with the loss of homes to holidaylets or the second homes market. Those all paint a very clear picture of Tory priorities for society. So, while claiming to care about the homelessness crisis, they have consistently acted in ways that make it worse. What we need is action. That is what the Scottish Greens, through the Bute House agreement with the Scottish Government, are doing and will continue to do. We will tackle empty homes and increase availability of homes in rural areas. We will embed homelessness prevention and housing rights in law. We are already delivering housing first with local authorities and protecting people from eviction and extortionate rent hikes, and there is more to come. Yes, we have our work cut out for us. No, none of this will be easy, but it is right that we work to deliver homes for living in, not homes for profit, and that we tackle homelessness in the round, ensuring that all of the elements of support are accessible and available to those who need it. I do not think that the Conservative party opposite can say the same. The issue of homelessness is one that unfortunately affects people and families across every city, town and village in Scotland. As we have heard already from the cabinet secretary, it is an objective of the Scottish Government for everyone in this country to have a safe, warm and affordable home that meets the requirements. The numbers, as we have also heard, are of course indeed stark just now. According to Crisis, the national charity for people experiencing homelessness, it received 35,230 applications for assistance from homeless households in 2021-22. A few months ago, the conducted a survey that firmly highlighted the role that the cost of living crisis has played in exacerbating the homelessness issues that we are speaking about today. The survey found that almost half of respondents had mortgage or rent increases in the previous 12 months. Just under 10 per cent of low-income renters in Scotland are behind in their rent, but perhaps most shockingly a third of respondents in Scotland acknowledged that they will likely need to skip meals to keep up with housing costs. The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone, but it must be highlighted that it is disproportionately impacting those on the lowest incomes. That includes tenants who are already struggling with housing costs, people out of work and people who are unable to work for reasons out with their control. People in those households already find it very hard to manage rising bills. Any further financial pressure will, no doubt, push more people towards homelessness. The simple fact is that we are all, in this country, paying the price for grotesque economic mismanagement at the hands of the Tory Government in Westminster. The Tory members will say, we are just looking for somebody else to blame, but they are the cold, hard facts, and I have to give credit to the Conservative party for bringing this forward because they cannot be accused of playing safe ground anyway. So far, inflation has sold to its highest level in nearly 40 years, hitting 10.5 per cent in December. Brexit has added almost £6 billion to UK food bills in the two years to the end of 2021, disproportionately affecting the poorest households. I see that Mark Kearney was out again today criticising the Brexit decision on the UK economy. In response to the autumn statement last November, the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted that the UK was now reaping the costs of a long-term failure to grow the economy, which was worsened by a series of economic-owned goals by the UK Government. While we continue to list ways in which we are all suffering due to the Tory economic mismanagement, I will instead comment on ways that this Government has yet again sought to mitigate against those economic woes inflicted upon us. People renting their homes will be among the hardest hit. Tenants, especially in the private rented sector, spend a greater proportion of their income in housing than people who own their own homes. As we have heard already, the Scottish Government took the size of action, legislated accordingly and introduced both our rent freeze and a moratorium on evictions. The aim of this bill was to protect tenants during the cost crisis. I should also add that Tories in this chamber were the only party to vote against those measures being introduced. In addition, the Scottish Government has also extended the eligibility criteria for a tenant grant fund, which allowed local authorities to use any remaining funds to help households with arrears resulting from the cost of living crisis. Other measures include the £84 million in the budget for discretionary housing payments in order to directly ease the impact of UK Government policies, such as, of course, the bedroom tax. The Scottish Government is also investing £2.6 million to mitigate the benefit cap, helping over 4,000 families to meet their housing costs. In addition to policies such as the Scottish child payments, which I know will make a great difference to many of my constituents in Coatbridge and Crescent, it is ironic that I have come up to phone minutes, and I have still got loads to say about it. I am afraid, Mr McGrath, that you will have to say for another day, because you will need to conclude, thank you. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In conclusion, try, as the Scottish Government might, to help combat poverty and homelessness, that the actions are consistently undermined by the UK Government's, frankly, cruel welfare policies, which actively push people into poverty. We are at the mercy of the UK Government decisions, and that, in my view, increasingly would seem that of many others. Mr McGrath, I had asked you to conclude for that, and that really means to conclude. Thank you very much indeed. I now call Sharon Dowie to be followed by Collette Stevenson. I just would advise members that we have no time in hand, so Sharon Dowie to be followed by Collette Stevenson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. At the outset, let me make this clear. Whatever words the SNP Government chooses to use to make this situation sound better than it is, Scotland is in a housing emergency on their watch. 330,000 Scots are stuck on social housing waiting lists, including nearly 100,000 children. There are almost 47,000 homeless people nationally, and there are almost 14,000 households in temporary accommodation, according to Scottish Government figures. Those numbers are so big that they are hard to even comprehend—never mind tackle—but behind every one of those figures are real people. Some of the most vulnerable in our society, including hundreds of veterans and many disabled people, forced onto the street, struggling families who need urgent help to make ends meet, young children growing up without a stable home and a roof over their head. The most worrying thing is that the number of people needing help is rising. This situation is getting worse, not better. The number of homeless applications from adults and children is rising, and homeless applications are taking longer to deal with. The number of homeless people dying has gone up by an estimated 50 per cent. This is not just a housing emergency, it is a national tragedy. All that is happening while there are more than 55,000 domestic properties across Scotland unoccupied, homes lying empty that could be in use. That should be a wake-up call to SNP ministers that something is deeply wrong with their approach. I am afraid that there is not any time so that the member would have to absorb the intervention. Sorry. This failure is the consequence of years of missing affordable home targets and broken promises to build enough homes for the social rented sector. It is what happens when the SNP Government takes its eye off the ball just as it did with Scotland's drug death crisis. Those national tragedies are linked. For all its talk of tackling poverty, the SNP Government has forgotten so many of Scotland's most deprived communities and most vulnerable people. SNP ministers live in a Hollywood bubble that seems to ignore the reality of what happens in working-class communities across Scotland. The First Minister grew up in Asia, but she has not done anywhere near enough to help people who still live there now. Shelter Scotland has said that Nicola Sturgeon should spearhead a Scottish housing emergency action plan, and she must listen. However, it cannot stop at just another plan or strategy or national mission. The SNP Government needs to do more than get a few good headlines. A nice press release will not put a roof over anyone's head. Some PR soundbites will not give people the homes they deserve and need. For once, the Government needs to commit to a clear target and actually deliver it. A realistic target with a clear, well-funded and smart plan to deliver it. That plan must produce more homes, especially affordable homes in social housing. It must reduce the bureaucratic hurdles and the issues that people face when trying to build. It must slash the red tape preventing empty business premises in some areas from becoming good quality homes. It must produce a framework to bring long-term, unoccupied properties back into use. Most of all, the Government must support Miles Briggs's motion and treat this dire situation as a housing emergency. The Scottish Government's vision is for everyone to have a safe, warm and affordable home that meets their needs. Since 2007, the SNP and Government has built over 110,000 affordable homes and is working towards delivering another 110,000 homes by 2032. In recent years, we have invested the millions to prioritise settled accommodation for all and introduced rapid rehousing transition plans. Councils have duties to anyone experiencing or threatened with homelessness to provide advice and temporary accommodation. While there is a large number of homeless people in Scotland, there is an important statistic to note. 20 years ago, 10 per cent of people had been rough sleeping the night before their homeless application. Last year, that figure was down to 4 per cent. That is welcome progress, but we cannot be complacent. Scotland has powerful protections in place for people experiencing homelessness, but, as is often the case, the best way to end homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. The Scottish Government will introduce new prevention duties in its forthcoming house and bill, and I hope that all members will support those. That is the SNP record. Let us look at the Tories. Last week, Miles Briggs highlighted the ambition for affordable housing in national planning framework 4, something that the Conservatives voted against. When the Parliament approved the 2014 House and Act 4, which abolished the right to buy to keep up to 15,500 homes in the social sector over the following decade, the Tories voted against that. With spiralling energy and food prices, the Scottish Government chose to implement a rent freeze to protect tenants and prevent homelessness, but the Tories voted against that, too. Thankfully, the Tories are outnumbered by progressives in this Parliament, but, unfortunately, Scotland also has a UK Tory Government that we did not vote for. A UK Government that will veto Scottish Parliament laws prioritises cutting taxes for the wealthy and has destroyed the economy and let inflation run away, something that will push more people into poverty. However, to reduce homelessness, we must tackle poverty. Many employers in Scotland now pay the living wage, meaning that people aren't enough to cover the cost of living. The UK Government has the power to make this the legal minimum wage, but they choose not to. The Scottish Government introduced the Scottish child payment, a game changer in tackling child poverty, but the UK Government cut universal credit. When the Tories introduced the bedroom tax, the SNP mitigated that, but that means that the public purse in Scotland is paying the price of the UK Government's disgraceful decisions. This Parliament can only do so much with one hand tied behind our back. It is a strange topic for the Conservatives to raise. The Tory UK Government's policies are causing misery and hardship on people right across the country, and their voting record in this Parliament is loaded against supporting tenants and keeping people in their homes. The Scottish Government will continue to invest in social and affordable housing and mitigate the worst effects of the UK Government's policies. The best way forward for Scotland is for this Parliament to have the full fiscal powers and levers needed so that we can get rid of Tory Governments that we do not vote for, end homelessness and build a fairer, more prosperous country. That can only be achieved by independence. We will now move to closing speeches. I note that one member who had participated in the debate is not in the chamber for closing speeches, which is a discourtesy to all other members, so I would expect that member to be duly advised and to make an apology. I call on Pam Duncan-Glancy to wind up on behalf of Scottish Labour up to five minutes. A warm, safe, affordable and accessible home is a human right, but for too many people, as we have heard today, in Glasgow and across Scotland, this is not a reality. Glasgow has the fastest increasing rate of homelessness in the country. Last year, there were nearly 7,000 homeless applications to the city council, and this has been getting worse every year since 2017. As the cost of living crisis drives more people into homelessness, I genuinely fear for the lives of people across the region if that is not addressed. Indeed, as research on crisis has found, a third of respondents in Scotland will need to skip meals to keep up with housing costs this winter. People are being forced to choose between heating and eating, and in Scotland in 2023, that is shameful. Urgent action is needed and that starts by making more homes available. There is simply not enough housing to meet demand. In response, the SNP raided the house building budget, cutting off supply when we needed it the most. It is not good enough. My region of Glasgow has one of the longest wait lists for housing in Scotland. In 2019, there were 20,000 people waiting for a home in the city, and figures consistently rising, as Sharon Dowey has noted. Although I appreciate the impact of Covid on construction, the truth is that there are not enough homes being built to meet the demand, and that was a problem before Covid. We cannot address that by building fewer homes, and with the number of new homes being built dropping by a third, I worry that people will be left out in the cold for years to come. We urgently need to get back on track. I agree with Willie Rennie that the action does not meet the challenge. The Government must make good on its commitment to deliver affordable homes by 2032 and address the fact that we need homes for people now. Ten years is a long time for anyone, but if you do not have a roof over your head, it can feel like a lifetime. For some, it could well be a lifetime. They cannot afford to wait for this Government to get its act together. The impact of the housing crisis is stark. As Miles Briggs said, this is about people though. We see it every day on our streets. Not having a roof over your head or living in inadequate housing robs people of dignity can lead to physical and mental ill health. People without homes can't struggle to access healthcare. They have nowhere to register for a GP and they have no address to apply for work from, and it can even lead to an early death. Life expectancy of a homeless woman is 43 years old. The lost opportunity is devastating, and I agree with my colleague Emma Roddick's characterisation that it is a symptom of failure. Against this backdrop, there are incredible third sector organisations in Glasgow and across Scotland stepping in to support people. Shelter Scotland, Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living, Housing Options Scotland, Living Rent and the Homeless Project Scotland, to name a few. They work tirelessly to represent and organise tenants, find homes and, in the case of the homeless project Scotland, feed people. We are so lucky to have them all, and I, like Maggie Chapman and others, want to pay on record today my thanks to them now, but they too are struggling. Sadly, though, for one organisation in my region, people are hard, the council and the SNP Government are far from helping them, they are making it worse. The homeless project Scotland provides an invaluable service to people in Glasgow. I visited them several times and I have seen it for myself. I have been blown away by the work they do and the people they help. They have been trying for months to find premises to allow them to carry out their vital work, and so far the council has been difficult at best and obstructive at worst. They desperately need a building. If people must rely on such services for food, the least we can do is to make sure they eat their meals in dignity and in shelter. I have previously written to the First Minister about this and I have repeatedly called on the Government and the council to do more to find a premise for them. Far from help, I was concerned to learn that a spokesperson from the council has been quoted in various news outlets stating that Homeless Project Scotland has been offered and rejected three offers of accommodation, but the project itself says that that is not true. I hope that going forward all correspondence on this will be honest and transparent. Worse still today, the project has reported the shocking news of more and more children queuing up, including in prams. For over a year now, they have been doing this outside, so I ask again that the Cabinet Secretary act to find them a building so that the people they help do not have to spend another night eating in the cold. If the First Minister visits them, she will see the work for herself. She will also see that they are helping more women and children and disabled people than before. As with all crisis, people facing inequality, as my colleague Jeremy Balfour has outlined, are hit the hardest. In closing, the picture is bleak, but there is some good news. There are steps that the Scottish Government can take. As is often the case, local activists, women and disabled people, homeless people themselves and third sector organisations have the solutions. The Government must step up and tackle the housing crisis, as the motion in my colleague Mark Griffin's name says. It must make a right to housing a reality by designating a single housing minister with direct responsibility to tackle the housing emergency. It must reverse the delay to the proposed housing bill. It must embed women's rights and all housing policy and strategy and take urgent action to ensure that accessible homes are delivered. Crucially, it must make sure that local authorities have the money they need to meet their commitments and address the blight of homelessness in regions such as Glasgow and across Scotland. We must all work tirelessly to do this, so that homelessness no longer exists and every person has a safe, secure, affordable and accessible homes. I and my colleagues on these benches will do that, and I hope that others across the chamber will do the same. Thank you, Ms Duncan-Clancy. I now call on Shona Robison, the cabinet secretary, to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Government, up to five minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I think that unfortunately this debate, and I think probably the next one as well, can be summed up by some of the Tory speeches essentially being against anything, attacking everything, no positive ideas, voting against every measure, like short-term lets, like helping tenants afford their homes and prevention of eviction, even NPF4, and yet they come here and lecture us on poverty and deprivation. They have absolutely no sense of self-awareness whatsoever. I want to move on to the housing budget, because it is important, as I had explained to Miles Briggs at the committee on Tuesday, and unfortunately he obviously did not listen about the reality of the facts of the housing budget. The housing budget remains the same at £3.5 billion over the course of this Parliament. The profiling of that budget will vary from year to year. Willie Rennie is not correct about £112 million cut. There is a net decrease of £36.87 million, a 4.7 per cent net decrease on the published capital figure previously, mainly due to cuts in the capital budgets from the UK Government and the challenges that brings. However, as I set out to the committee on Tuesday, that is being offset by financial transactions, a £15 million transfer from the energy budget and income from charitable bonds, but the £3.5 billion commitment for the housing budget remains the same over the course of this Parliament. Miles Briggs. I do not think that her own colleagues bought what she was saying at committee either, to be quite honest, and we need to make sure that we get more clarity on exactly where the Government thinks a cut is not a cut when it certainly is. However, in terms of this first debate, how bad do things have to get in Scotland for you to recognise that there is a homeless emergency today? First of all, I am happy to provide any information about the housing budget, and the £3.5 billion investment will remain the commitment over the course of this Parliament. I have never shied away from the fact that there are challenges, but the Tory party in here, and every Tory member, not one of you has had the guts to address the cost of living crisis. You try to airbrush it out of every debate, and it does not wash because if you ask people out there, they know who is to blame for their financial circumstances that they face at the moment, and it is those sitting over on the left of this chamber, ironically. The other area that I want to tackle today is the issue of delivery, and here is the stark contrast and the facts. Across the four years between 2018 and 2022, Scotland has seen 59 per cent more affordable homes delivered per head of population than in England. We have also delivered more than nine times as many social rented homes per head of population. I know that Tories do not like to have their own record of delivery exposed, but that is what it is. I know that it is a low bar, but to have nine times as many social rented homes per head of population and per capita spending on affordable housing is more than three times higher than the UK Government. I will take no lectures from the Tories on affordable homes whatsoever. Yes, we have more work to do to deliver more, and we acknowledge that, but I will take no lectures from the Tories on this whatsoever. However, if the Tories want to know what they can do to be helpful, then there are some real practical things that they can do and have a word with their colleagues down south, because there are three areas that they could take action now to absolutely help to move more money into homelessness. At the moment, we are having to make £83.73 million available to local authorities to spend on discretionary housing payments—$69.68 million of that—to fully mitigate the bedroom tax. That should be scrapped at source. An issue that I raised with UK Government ministerial colleagues just this morning and asked them yet again to scrap that at source, because that money could then be moved in to addressing homelessness—$6.15 million to mitigate the benefit cap. Why do the Tories scrap the benefit cap? That money could then be used for other purposes. Finally, £7.9 million to mitigate against the damaging impact of other UK Government welfare cuts, including the on-going freeze to local housing allowance rates. The Tory Government has frozen local housing allowance rates for three years, making it more difficult for tenants to afford their rents in all the areas that the Tory MSPs represent. Not a mention of that today if you're here. Why don't you have a word with your Tory UK Government colleagues and get these things fixed? That will help the homelessness budget, no-end. Thank you, cabinet secretary. I now call on Jamie Greene to wind up on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives up to six minutes, please. I stand to support the motion in Malysberg's names as the cries of where's willy ring out across the chamber. I'm sure we'll have a few words to say. There isn't much to be said that's already been said in this short but important debate, a debate that Shelter said that they were delighted to see being raised in the Parliament because the debate motions reflect many of the concerns that they hold their own words. That's something that members ought to have perhaps reflected on before some of the contributions that I heard today, because despite the inevitable cries of water boundary and I'll take no lectures that we so often get from the Government benches when we talk about serious social issues about this, I don't have a problem in saying that we are not in safe space, none of us are in safe space when we talk about issues like this. That is the whole point of using our debating time in this chamber to address these serious social issues, and that is why we make no apologies for raising it in this chamber today. We're using that precious time on housing and homelessness, which is why it's also equally depressing that there are so few members here to debate it with us. There are an estimate of 47,000 homeless people in Scotland, but I also want to point out that there are 600 homeless veterans in Scotland. I would say to Graham Day, who validly makes his point about all levels of government doing their very best for that cohort of people. I don't disagree. The worst thing the UK Government did was sack Johnny Mercer as the Veterans Minister. The best thing it did was reinstate him back as Veterans Minister, because I believe he's passionate about the subject, but, as passionate as he is, he cannot magic homes in Scotland which do not exist, and that's the problem. Of course, homelessness is not unique to Scotland, or the UK or indeed the western world, but it is one that is acutely felt here due to the tragic consequences which it has. National Records of Scotland report that the homeless death rate in Scotland is 35.9 per million, and that is more in double the right in England. Of course, it's not a race to the bottom, but that is a statistic that should concern us all. Consistently, drug misuse accounts for over half of Scotland's homeless deaths, a point made by Miles Briggs. Members are right to point out that this is a complex issue, because poverty, addiction and some of those wider economic factors all play their part in the scenarios that some people find in. I accept that many of those issues are governed by both devolved and reserved competencies, but it's simply wrong to say that this is a new problem, which is magic itself overnight. It's simply wrong to say that this is all Westminster's fault, it's all the Tory's fault. That's a very naive proposition, because it does not admit that there is a problem that has been a long time coming in Scotland over successive years and successive cabinet secretaries in this Government. Equally, homelessness can happen to anyone. The idea that it's somehow, so only those on benefits or on certain social classes or structures will end up in that scenario is equally a wrong assertion, because anyone—a well-paid professional—can find themselves homeless. The break-up of a relationship, the loss of a job, a mental health breakdown or finding themselves with an addiction problem, are not unique to social class, but it's how we deal with those problems that matter. Or is it the case maybe how we are not dealing with those problems? Building new homes, of course, is not the silver bullet. I admit that, but it is a good start, Cabinet Secretary. Shelter Scotland raised the alarm bells as far back as August last year with us. When they told us that, due to drastic underfunding of local councils, they are having to turn homeless people away, some of them are being sent to England for help, they pled for the First Minister's help. They called on her to get a grip of the crisis. Let's think about that language, the crisis. Because it is a crisis, I would say. Homelessness is not just about sleeping rough. There are huge amounts of people in temporary accommodation, as we've heard today. There are many couchs surfing, or relying on their friends just to get by. The implications of this are huge. Homeless children miss an average of 55 days of school per year due to disruption. Homeless people are five times more likely to be admitted to a mental health facility. They are twice as likely to end up in E and the shocking statistic that we heard from other members is that the average age of death for homeless women or men is just a few years older than I am, and that is something that should shock us all. However, it is fixable. Let's reflect when Covid landed upon, as many of us were in the chamber passing legislation at the time. What did we do? We managed to clear the streets of homeless people in a week by offering safe sanctuary under the premise of a pandemic. Everyone who wanted one had a roof over their head. Why did it take a pandemic for our collective willpower to get that fixed? Why were so many turfed out back in the streets at the end of the emergency? You don't need to build new homes to deal with that. All of us should have been shamed into that scenario. The fact that there are homeless people out there right now who had a roof over their head during Covid is a great source of shame on this Parliament. You don't need to build new homes. There are already homes out there, I would say. There are 67,000 unoccupied homes in Scotland. I spoke to a housing association in Greenock who are baffled. They have excess stock—I haven't got time—but they simply haven't got the funding packages in place to refurb them and get people into them. Recruiting refugees, living on boats, families, living in bed-sets, we've got the stock, they said, but the councils haven't got the money, they said. That's your problem right there in that one sentence. The problem is piling up. The amount of time taken to get out of timber accommodation is increasing, the amount of children's timber accommodation is increasing, the amount of people on social housing lists is increasing and we've got people entering the system, we've got people stuck in the system and there's a severe lack of housing available. If that's not an emergency worth debating, then I do not know what is. If it's not an emergency, then how bad does it have to get to be declared one? I'll close simply with this. All of the charities involved in this sector are doing great work. Shelter Crisis, Homeless Project Scotland, but they care less about the politics of this and they care more about the outcomes. They simply want politicians of all colours to listen to them and to act. We are listening, but is the Government acting? Thank you, Mr Greene. That concludes the debate on homeless emergency and it is now time to move on to the next item of business. I'll allow a very short pause for front-bench teams to change positions.