Swinney should be ‘ashamed’ of housing record, says Sarwar

The First Minister should be “ashamed” of his Government’s housing record, Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said.

During the final First Minister’s Questions session of the year, Mr Sarwar pointed to figures released this week which show the number of new social homes which began construction in the year to September was the lowest in almost three decades.

He also pressed the Government on the 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland, citing the case of a family in Glasgow who had spent 13 years in temporary housing and another in Edinburgh who have been in the same situation for nine years.

“John Swinney should be ashamed of the SNP’s record on housing and the damage it is doing,” Mr Sarwar told MSPs.

“To prove it, there are 10,000 children across Scotland living in temporary accommodation. Flats, hotels, B&Bs and hostels.

“Some of these families have been moved from place to place more than a dozen times, never settling, never unpacking, never knowing where they will be next.

“Years without a home.

“How many Christmases must a child spend without a home before John Swinney admits that his SNP Government has failed?”

Mr Swinney said his Government is “increasing the investment that’s available for housing”, adding that work is under way to bring vacant homes back into use – with more than 2,000 homes made available for use in the last financial year.

He added: “What we’re also doing, and what we see in the data that was published earlier this week, with the increased budget the Government has put in place, there has been a 61% increase in the last quarter in the number of approvals for affordable housing, and that’s resulted in an 18% increase in the number of starts in the July to September period.”

The near two-thirds increase in approvals the First Minister referenced relates to a jump from 889 in the third quarter of last year to 1,431 in the third quarter of this year.

However, the data is shown to be remarkably inconsistent, with the last four quarters showing 1,083, 2,158, 550 and 1,431 approvals respectively.

Mr Sarwar sought to paint the Government’s record on housing as one part of its “failure” to support children.

“The truth is John Swinney cannot defend his record when it comes to failing Scotland’s children,” the Labour leader said.

He also pointed to the eventually scrapped policy which downgraded the exam grades of children during the pandemic, teacher numbers, falling college budgets and school violence.

“Failure is no longer the exception for this SNP Government, it is the rule,” Mr Sarwar said.

He said things are not improving for children under the SNP, “they are getting worse”.

Responding, the First Minister told the Labour leader his refusal to back the Government’s budget was “shameful and embarrassing”, and he accused Mr Sarwar of “moaning” about the situation in Scotland instead.

“While he wants to raise my record about supporting children in Scotland, the Education Secretary was on her feet in Parliament on Tuesday setting out record levels of literacy and numeracy in our schools, attendance rising in our schools, teacher numbers rising in our schools, the attainment gap narrowing in Scotland further,” Mr Swinney said.

“I’m proud of the fact that on my watch, child poverty in Scotland is falling and is at the lowest level in 30 years.

“If Mr Sarwar wants to know how he’s getting on, he might want to have a look at some of the substance of the Ipsos Mori polling last week, because when the public in Scotland were asked ‘who do you trust most to manage education and schools in Scotland’, trust in the SNP was rising and trust in the Labour Party was falling.

“The Labour Party is making absolutely no progress.

“If he thinks it’s just education, it’s also on health, trust in the Labour Party to solve the issues in the health service falling, trust in the SNP rising.

“Why? Because waiting lists are going down, waiting times are going down, GP numbers are going up.

“We’re delivering for the National Health Service.”