 The next item of business is a statement by Kevin Stewart on ending homelessness together. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement, so there should be no interventions or interruptions. We only have up to 10 minutes, please, minister. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thank you for the opportunity to set out our ambitious plans to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. We have made significant progress in recent years in preventing homelessness, helping people before they reach a crisis. Homelessness applications have fallen by more than a third since 2010, with fewer families in unsuitable temporary accommodation, but we cannot be complacent. Everyone in this chamber and across Scotland has seen the rise in the number of people sleeping rough. That is, frankly, unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours, and we simply are not willing to accept that. In our programme for government, the First Minister set a clear objective to eradicate rough sleeping. She also committed to renew and redouble our efforts in preventing and reducing homelessness by establishing a homelessness and rough sleeping action group, creating an ending homelessness together fund of £50 million over a five-year period, and investing an additional £20 million in alcohol and drug services. One of the most important pieces of legislation that Parliament has passed was the homelessness act of 2003. I am proud of the fact that Scotland is some of the strongest rights for homeless people in the world, helping many people who become homeless back into settled accommodation and a stable home life. In the last few years, much has been achieved, a 39 per cent drop in homelessness applications since 2010, and fewer families in unsuitable temporary accommodation, such as bed and breakfast. The Government has also invested heavily to ensure that Scotland is a new generation of affordable housing, with 69,000 affordable homes delivered, an end to right to buy, and more homes on the way. All that helps to provide warm and affordable homes and reduces homelessness, but more needs to be done to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, and we need to recognise the causes and address the causes too. We know that the UK Government's programme of welfare cuts are making things worse, much worse. We have heard the evidence from homeless people, charities and, just last week, from the UK's national audit office, who concluded that the rise in homelessness across the UK is linked to the UK Government's welfare cuts. From the freeze on benefits to the benefit cap, from the changes to the local housing allowance, to the imposition of the bedroom tax, we have seen a series of harsh cuts made to the support people on low incomes rely on to keep a roof over their heads. The deliberate six-week delay before getting your first universal credit payment will make life even harder for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The choices—and they are choices—that the UK Government has made aren't just morally wrong, they are also economically wrong. Pushing people into crisis and homelessness impacts on public and charitable services and serves as a barrier to those seeking to work or to keep a permanent tenancy. We know that councils and third sector organisations provide life-saving and vital support, and we want to do more to support what works and ensure the joined-up approach that people need. The time is right to build on our strengths and raise our ambitions. We must work together to ensure that our homelessness services have good links to other services, particularly mental health and addiction services. The £20 million announced in the programme for government for drug and alcohol services will boost capacity in the system. Close joint working across housing, social care and health will be crucial in maximising those additional resources to ensure that it supports people with some of the most acute need for joined-up support. Also important is our commitment to transform the use of temporary accommodation, ensuring that vital safety net works as well as possible for those who need it. We want our system to be a safety net that provides high-quality, safe and temporary accommodation to those who need it in a crisis situation. To that end, from October and following parliamentary scrutiny, we will reduce the time spent in unsuitable accommodation for households with children and pregnant women. Our commitment to delivering 50,000 affordable homes over the course of this Parliament will also play a significant part in reducing homelessness, but we know that housing itself is only part of the solution for many people. To meet more complex needs, all of our services must be better aligned, ensuring that stronger links between housing, mental health, justice, addictions, children's and young people's policies and the care system will all be essential to this endeavour. It is crucial to improve prevention and deliver better outcomes for those who feel that they are stuck in a cycle of homelessness and poverty. To achieve our aims and ambitions, as stated in the programme for government, we are taking forward two major initiatives. First, we are creating an ending homelessness together fund of £50 million over a five-year period to support homelessness prevention initiatives and to pilot solutions to deliver results. The substantial increase in funding demonstrates our absolute determination to tackle homelessness as a crucial part of building a fairer Scotland. Secondly, we will establish a short-term homelessness and rough sleeping action group to lead change and improvement in that area of work. It will develop recommendations in the actions, services and any legislative changes that are required to end rough sleeping and to transform the use of temporary accommodation. I am pleased to announce today that the chair of that group will be John Sparks, chief executive of the homelessness charity crisis. I recently met John and we agreed that there are four questions for the group to consider. What can we do to minimise rough sleeping this winter? What can we do to eradicate rough sleeping for good? What can we do to transform temporary accommodation? And what can be done to end homelessness in Scotland? That group will first meet in early October, drawing its membership from the public sector, third sector, social enterprise and academic experts in that area. John and I are clear that that group will be focused on solutions. We will of course also ensure that the findings from the local government committee's inquiry and homelessness are taken into account, both in the context of the rapid work to be undertaken by the homelessness and rough sleeping action group and in the longer term work of the homelessness prevention and strategy group. The committee's exploration of people's experiences of accessing homelessness services and the underlying issues that contribute to housing problems will be valuable in developing the solutions that are needed to achieve our collective ambitions. During my time as minister, I have spoken to people experiencing homelessness and housing professionals. It is clear to me that to achieve our aim, we need services that really place the person at the centre and treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve. That is why I have asked John Sparks to ensure that talking to people with direct personal experience of homelessness is central to the new group's work. The role of councils will also be crucial in helping people to access their rights and need commitments from all levels of government, particularly against the background of austerity and welfare reform. We will continue to work positively and closely with COSLA and councils through the existing homelessness prevention and strategy group, which is jointly chaired by the Scottish Government and COSLA, to understand how we can support councils to deliver their statutory duties on homelessness and go even further to realise our ambitions. Irradicating rough sleeping and tackling homelessness is about individuals. It is about their fears and challenges, but also about their hopes and aspirations. It is the right thing to do both for those individuals, for our communities and for all of our futures. Building on existing strengths and learning from successes such as housing first and multi-agency partnerships provides a huge opportunity to take action, to reduce homelessness and to improve outcomes for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is an opportunity that we must seize, channeling the determination, wealth of ideas and passion on this issue across Scotland to make lasting change. Success, Presiding Officer, will rely on all of us working together across the homelessness sector and wider than that too, to take focused action and to drive relentless progress towards that ambition. The minister will now take questions on the issues that were raised in his statement. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. His conversion to a sort of national strategy is long overdue. This is a major issue that concerns us all and should not be happening in a modern day Scotland. Shelter Scotland claims that every 19 minutes a household in Scotland becomes homeless, a shocking statistic. We have a homelessness crisis and preventing it will save money in the long term. Now I do welcome the fact that the minister has committed to working with the local Government Committee, who are doing our own inquiry into homelessness. I do welcome the formation of the strategy group. It is certainly a start, but can the minister say who else is in the group? Will shelter be there, if not, why not? How was the £50 million figure arrived at? How long will the group run for? When will they report? If they first meet in October, how are they going to make even the slightest dent on rough sleeping this winter? While cutting time in temporary accommodation would be most welcome, what is the target for that? A number of questions there, Presiding Officer. Let me start with the reason for this group. This group is about taking action on rough sleeping and homelessness and taking it as soon as possible. Mr Sparks and I are quite clear that one of the first questions that has to be answered, as I said, is what do we do during the upcoming winter to support folks who are currently rough sleeping to make sure that they are right and to make sure that the current shelters that we have in the country are able to deal with all the difficulties that folk face. That is question 1. The action group itself, as in the name, is a short-term action group. Mr Sparks is determined as I am to get answers to those questions as soon as possible, and they will report back mid next year. The group itself will be made up of a number of individuals, as I pointed out in my statement, from across areas that deal with homelessness at this moment in time. From public bodies, from the third sector, from academia, from folk who have lived experience of homelessness, that group will encompass a wide range of knowledge and a wide range of views. I can assure Parliament that we will announce the membership of that group as soon as we have confirmed with everyone who is being asked to join it that they can take part in that group. Pauline McNeill Thank you. I welcome much of the minister's statement, and I believe that it is about time that there was a national strategy on homelessness, so there is much to welcome. We will also work with the Government 100 per cent to halt the roll-out of universal credit and the six-week delay. We are with you on that. However, not all the figures are going the right way. Homeless applications are going up 10 per cent where applicants slept rough the night before. Will the minister accept that rough sleeping is going up and not down? Night shelters report that there has been a 94 per cent increase in the last two years, and charities are playing the role that the Government should be playing. Will the minister accept that rough sleeping has to be a priority? The role of local authorities, which is welcome in the statement, is crucial, but I am sure that the minister will recognise that there has been a cut to local authority budgets since 2011 of £1.5 billion and £170 million only last year. Will the minister commit to protecting local authority budgets that are stretched to deliver on homelessness? Without local authorities, we cannot deliver. I welcome the whole heart of the comment on the housing first model, and I hope that the minister could report back on that as soon as possible. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I certainly welcome Ms McNeill and the Labour Party's support on universal credit. Having to wait six weeks for any payment whatsoever could really destroy people and their families while they have to wait. I really do think that the UK Government has much to answer for in terms of its welfare reform proposals, which have been extremely damaging. I think that the national audit office report itself highlights the fact that, initially, the Department of Work and Pensions did no analysis on the impact of housing benefit reform. The subsequent research that it commissioned, which was at the instigation of opposition parties, did not establish how many of the household clothes that were now homeless would not have been homeless if it had not been for those reforms. The analysis itself was probably not worth the doing. I urge members to read the national audit office report, which is absolutely damning about the UK Government's situation here. Can you hurry along, please, minister? Presiding Officer, I know that there are many areas to cover, but let's turn to housing first. Housing first has worked in Glasgow and is working in other areas now. There is joint up working, which is not termed as housing first, which is also working extremely well. I think that we should learn from those exemplars and do what we can to ensure that local authorities have the knowledge to instigate housing first in other such schemes in their areas. Well, we are pushed for time. We have less than 15 minutes, so unless people are succinct, folk will get missed out. Can I have Bob Doris, followed by Alexander Stewart, please? Thanks, Presiding Officer. In relation to housing first, Tourney Point Scotland is actively involved in piloting the housing first model. Under initial evaluations, evidence is 50 per cent of participants demonstrating sustained positive change. Can I ask the minister how the Scottish Government can assist with potentially upscaling the housing first model at a significant upfront expense, but in the longer term it may improve outcomes and save public money? I thank Mr Doris for his question and interest. The upscaling of housing first, as Mr Doris rightly pointed out, is being piloted in Glasgow where it is to replace supported accommodation. We will look to the experiences there and elsewhere in Scotland where housing first is being trialled and decisions will be informed by those experiences. One of the most interesting things that is going on at this moment is analysis in Renfrewshire, which is doing analysis on costs and implementing housing first. I think that it will be shown that housing first is a spend-to-save proposal, which will actually save the public purse, but beyond that it will be getting things right for individuals who actually need that help. It is not just about the cost of the public purse, it is about the human cost of not doing this properly. Alexander Stewart, followed by Gail Ross. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The role of councils will be crucial in this process. What can the minister say to reassure us that front-line staff will be trained and given the resources needed to assist with prevention? Kevin Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As part of our housing options work, which has been on-going, which is to spread the wealth of knowledge and to export best practice, Government has committed to bringing forward a housing options toolkit, which will help front-line staff to deliver what is required for each individual. Over the course of the summer, I have met a number of organisations, including youth organisations such as LGBT Youth Scotland's Homelessness Commission in Aft The Streets and other organisations, to ensure that that toolkit contains all the right information and that folk who are working on the front line know of the experiences that they are likely to come across on the front line. Beyond that, Presiding Officer, I think that the key thing is the exporting of good information and best practice. The housing options hubs are doing good work in that area. I would be happy to discuss that further with Mr Stewart when he meets me tomorrow. Gail Ross, followed by Elaine Smith. The minister will be aware that homelessness can often be hidden in remote and rural areas, where we might not see as many rough sleepers, but things like sofa surfing are a huge problem, particularly for young people. Can I confirm that the ending homelessness together fund pilots and initiatives will take into consideration the unique challenges of rural homelessness? Kevin Stewart will look at a range of issues relating to rough sleeping and homelessness, drawing on all the available evidence and the views of people with direct experience. I recognise the particular challenges of rural homelessness, where homelessness exists but may not be as visible as it quite often is in urban areas. One of the key priorities for the group and for the fund is to help to address the complex issues that we face, no matter where we are in Scotland. I assure Ms Ross that the group will certainly be looking at that, and we will be getting to grips with the understanding of the problem of hidden homelessness, including sofa surfing, as Ms Ross has mentioned. Elaine Smith, followed by Andy Wightman. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I am pleased that the minister recognised the work that was undertaken by the local government committee. The number of children in temporary accommodation increased by 16 per cent last year. What plans does the Scottish Government have to make sure that we do not see that number increase further? The First Minister and the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Constitution Presiding Officer, one family or one pregnant woman in unsuitable temporary accommodation is one too many for me. At the moment, 82 per cent of families or pregnant women who are in temporary accommodation in the social rented sector are not having to rely on other means. I want to see that figure expand. 82 per cent is not good enough, and the action group will look at that in some depth. As I said in my statement, we are going to bring forward the changes to the unsuitable accommodation order, which will reduce the use of inadequate temporary accommodation from 14 days to 7 days. That will be under parliamentary scrutiny in October, and we should initiate that quite quickly after that. I know that Ms Smith has a great interest in that issue. I have met her previously about that, and I am more than willing to do so again if she wants to talk in further depth, Presiding Officer. The minister reminds us in his statement of the commitment to deliver 50,000 affordable homes and claims that it will play a significant part in reducing homelessness. Given that there are more than 100,000 people on housing waiting lists, can you explain precisely what part the 50,000 homes will play in reducing homelessness? I remind the chamber that not everyone who is on a waiting list at this moment in time is homeless. Folk are on the waiting lists for various reasons for transfers to increase the amount of bedrooms or to reduce the amount of bedrooms, and not everyone on that list is homeless. However, this Government over the peace has already delivered 69,000 affordable homes since it has taken office. The 50,000 affordable homes target, 35,000 of those for social rent, has been recognised as the most ambitious house building programme since the 1980s. We have also put our money where our mouth is in this regard, with an investment of more than £3 billion during the course of this term in Parliament, and we will do all that we can to increase that supply. I would ask folk to remember that not everyone on a waiting list at this moment in time is homeless. Fulton MacGregor, followed by Mike Rumbles. Can the minister give an assurance that the push to reduce temporary accommodation will not be at the expense of moving people with other issues that should be addressed in advance with finding a permanent home such as debt, ill health or leaving an abusive relationship, and that we will not be replicating areas of England where you cannot refuse an offer of suitable settled accommodation? Kevin Stewart. That is a very interesting question from Mr MacGregor. My initial response is yes. We want time and temporary accommodation to be as short as possible, but I have been clear that the time needs to be used positively to identify appropriate, sustainable solutions. I will give an example. We have probably all had constituency cases where folk have gone into temporary accommodation social housing, where they have made an offer of permanent accommodation elsewhere, which is not suitable to their needs because they would be missing out on the family support that they require or other issues. It would be wrong for us to set a limit on the amount of time and temporary accommodation. It is much more important that we find the right solution for families at the very end and take cognisance of what they have to say rather than follow the English line, as Mr MacGregor has pointed out. Mike Rumbles followed by Jenny Gilruth. Does the minister believe that spending just £10 million a year for the ending homelessness together fund out of the £31,500 million in the Scottish budget is really the step change that we need to end homelessness? I would point out to Mr Rumbles that I have just mentioned the £3 billion that we are investing in housing over the course of this Parliament. Beyond that, the £10 million per year, £50 million, is additional money. There are already substantial sums spent on homelessness throughout Scotland. If memory serves me well, I think that at the Glasgow homelessness summit during the course of the summer, they estimated that they were spending something like £73 million on homelessness. That is additional money. We are putting our money where our mouth is. We have established the action group and we have put a budget in place before the action group has met. That shows our ambition to eradicate rough sleeping and to ensure that temporary accommodation becomes better. Can the minister outline his response to reports that half of all council tenants across 105 local authorities in receipt of universal credit are in housing arrears and how that will impact on future homelessness? I thank Ms Gilruth for that question. I refer back to the national audit office report that was published last week, which clearly shows that those dafft morally wrong welfare reforms are having a major effect on people right across the country. It is not just universal credit, it was the bedroom tax that we managed to mitigate and a number of other areas of business, where, quite frankly, the UK Government is failing in its duties. Beyond that, they know that they are wrong because they will not analyse what they are doing properly. Let us follow the policy line and beggar the consequences. I think that that is unacceptable and that this Parliament does and that the people of Scotland do too. The sooner that we have control over all benefits, the better. There will be a focus on pre-crisis intervention, where the potential for homelessness can be identified and addressed early and, in part, will require co-operation between Government departments. I think that if we are going to take a collective view in terms of dealing with this, the Tory benches should listen to what I have had to say around about social security, because at the end of the day a huge amount of the difficulties that we see across Scotland are folks who have been hit with sanctions or who have had their benefits cut or capped. I refer you, Presiding Officer, to a meeting that I had in Glasgow earlier on this year, where Glasgow City Council is identifying those folks who have been hit with a benefit cap who are in the private housing sector and trying to get them to move to the social housing sector in order for them not to enter into any crisis situation. It would be much better if that benefit cap was not in place, because neither Glasgow City Council nor other services would have to pick up the pieces that have been made by the Tories. To ask the Scottish Government whether the homeless and rough sleeping action group will examine particular housing challenges that exist here in Edinburgh, including the harmful and increasingly harmful impact of UK Government welfare cuts. I know that Mr McPherson has taken a great interest in the issue of homelessness in Edinburgh, and I am very pleased to be able to speak at a reception that he is hosting tonight for the Rock Trust. The short-term action group will identify actions that are required on rough sleeping and homelessness across Scotland, as I have said before. We will draw in all the research and evidence available to find solutions. We know that there are particular challenges in our big cities, including Edinburgh. We also know that that has led to the council and its partners, such as health working together, to develop innovative and positive practice here in Edinburgh, particularly for those with more complex needs. Beyond that, initiatives such as the social bite village have come to fruition here. The new group will help to identify what new practice exists. As I have said earlier, we will try to export that best practice right across the country. I hope that members will see real differences quite quickly from the work that the action group will be taking. That concludes questions on the minister's statement on ending homelessness together. We will move on to the next item of business. I give everyone a minute or so to change the seats appropriately.