By Bill Heaney
Nearly 10,000 children in Scotland will have no place to hang their stockings up this Christmas, never mind hanging them in a row.
And there are fewer and fewer chimneys for Santa Claus to climb down.
Labour leader Anas Sarwar told the Scottish Parliament: “People across the country are preparing for Christmas. It is a special time, but for many it comes at the end of a year filled with anxiety about their family finances.
“Over the past year, there has been a 30 per cent increase in the number of families at risk of losing the homes that they own and being made homeless. That is a direct result of a mortgage crisis caused by Tory economic chaos.
“The Scottish Government has a mortgage support scheme, but it seems to be in name only because, in reality, it has not supported anyone since 2015.
“It has committed to holding a review by the end of the financial year, but that is in April, and people are losing their homes right now. Why will the Government not stop the delay and support families before they lose their homes?
The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Shona Robison, told MSPs: “I agree with Anas Sarwar that many families are experiencing real pressure, not just at Christmas but throughout the year, as the Tory-caused cost of living crisis continues to bite and to affect their household finances.
Deputy First Minister Shona Robison and Labour leader Anas Sarwar.
“Of course, it was the economic catastrophe of Liz Truss’s mini-budget that caused many mortgage payments to become sky high, due to increased interest rates.
“We have spent about £3 billion of Scottish Government resources over the past year on supporting household budgets, the main measure being our investment in the Scottish child payment.
“We will continue, through our welfare funds and other measures such as discretionary housing payments, to support household budgets. On support for people with mortgages specifically, we will continue to look at what more we can do.”
Anas Sarwar replied: “The Government has a mortgage support scheme, people are losing their homes right now and are being forced into homelessness, and the Government will ‘continue to look at’ how it will implement that scheme.
“What is the point of having the scheme if it is not going to support people right now, when they are in such difficulty?
“Every family that loses their home risks joining the almost 30,000 families who are currently homeless in Scotland.
“More than 15,000 families across the country are staying in temporary accommodation right now, many of them in hostels, bed and breakfasts and hotel rooms.
“Shockingly, that means that 9,500 children will wake up on Christmas morning without a home to call their own.
“On average, families with children spend 347 days in temporary accommodation—that is almost a year. In some places, the figure is even higher. Is the Deputy First Minister not ashamed of that figure? How has the Scottish National Party Government allowed it to get that bad?”
Shona Robison hit back: “We are supporting household incomes beyond many of the areas in which we have devolved competence. The £3 billion that I mentioned earlier seeks to address things such as the bedroom tax.
“There are pressures on the Scottish budget from those things that we have to mitigate. However, I will be honest: we cannot mitigate everything, because we do not have the resources to do so.”
She added: “On the important issue of temporary accommodation, we are committed to, and are, acting on the recommendations of the expert temporary accommodation task and finish group, which we co-chaired with Shelter Scotland, and we are investing at least £60 million this year, through the affordable housing supply programme, to support a national acquisition plan.
“We are working with social landlords to deliver a new programme of stock management, and we are implementing targeted plans with local authorities that face the greatest pressure, backed by additional resources.
“A transition to rapid rehousing is the best way to reduce the use of temporary accommodation in the longer term. We remain wholly committed to rapid rehousing, and future budgets, which will be set out next week, will confirm that.”
Anas Sarwar replied: “That is, frankly, a shocking answer. After 16 years of SNP Government, there are people sleeping rough on our streets across the country.
“We have a housing emergency in Scotland—something that the SNP Government fails to recognise. There are 30,000 homeless households in our country, and that is the answer that we get.
“There are 15,000 families in temporary accommodation and 9,500 children without a home, some of them in hostels, B and Bs and hotels. There are 110,000 families on the housing waiting list, and a child is made homeless in Scotland every 45 seconds.
“We desperately need more homes, but the SNP Government cut the housing budget by more than a quarter, and now the number of new housing starts is down by 24 per cent. The Government’s incompetence has consequences.
“The Government might not want to take my word for it, but this is what Alison Watson, the director of Shelter Scotland, says about the effect of the SNP’s choices:
‘it means that an already devastating housing emergency will get worse and continue to devastate lives’.
” How many more families need to be made homeless before the SNP Government takes responsibility for the crisis that it has created?”