Housing Supply

As an amendment to motion S4M-11023 in the name of Margaret Burgess (Housing Supply), leave out from "is and will remain" to end and insert ", as evidenced by its treatment in previous budgets, has been a low priority for the Scottish Government and that this is demonstrated by the sharp fall in housing association construction, the fall in sheltered housing numbers against an ageing demographic and only a modest increase in public authority construction; believes that spurious comparisons with other parts of the UK, where needs and priorities are not comparable, are simply an attempt by the Minister for Housing and Welfare to deflect attention from the failures of the Scottish Government to deliver a comprehensive housing policy that delivers homes and sustainable communities; further believes that the Scottish Government's obsession with public spending and public borrowing as its preferred means of funding affordable housing has blocked progress toward private and institutional investment in the sector, which by now should have provided tens of thousands of affordable homes for rent in the highest pressure areas of Scotland, and calls on the Scottish Government to stop blaming both a housing policy of the 1980s and the UK Government for its apparent inability to meet its housing obligations while people languishing on housing waiting lists pay for this failure."