26/04/2016 Scotland 2016

Are you having trouble getting on the property ladder?

Are we building the right kind of homes?

Tonight, on our final election debate, we're discussing housing,

something that matters hugely to all of us.

Here to face questions from our invited studio audience

For the Greens, we have Maggie Chapman.

Here for the Conservatives is Douglas Ross.

For the Liberal Democrats, Katy Gordon,

Let's get straight on to our first question.

It comes from Adam Lang who works for the housing

So last year in Scotland there were 36,000 homeless applications made.

Today there are so many waiting lists for a home and thousands of

children wake up in temporary accommodation. Given these

statistics, do the panel agreed that Scotland is currently in the grip of

a housing crisis? I think undoubtedly we face major

challenges. Over the last five years, we have built a record number

of houses, expanded the number of shared equity schemes in a shared

ownership, and we are now working in a major expansion of investment in

the private renting sector. It's going to take the work of all the

sectors debase up to the housing challenge in Scotland. I think the

priority has to be to build more houses, because clearly. The 150,000

on the waiting list, when you take at the double counting and the

exchanges, we need 120,000 new houses in order to house all those

people, and that's way over the next five years, we are increasing the

building way for affordable housing to at least 50,000 over that period,

as well as investing in 7500 help to buy projects as well as encouraging

the Private renting sector true various incentives. I believe that

will also produce up to 4000 new houses for rent. Is it a crisis? I

don't think it's a crisis in the sense that a crisis is when you

don't know what you need to do and when you're not taking any action.

We are taking action and when you compare what is happening to the

rest of the UK, as people will confirm, we are doing far more to

meet the housing need in Scotland, then any other part of the UK is to

meet their housing need. I'm not trying to downsize the challenge.

There is a huge challenge in front of us. Remember we have a rising

population, a population now at record level. These people need

housed. Secondly, we have the backlog that Adam referred to and

because of the long-term trade where fewer people are living in each

house, we will need to build more houses just to stand still. So it is

a huge challenge but one we are up for it. OK, Ken McIntosh, ID

statistics shameful? They are. I am surprised that my fellow panellist

is reluctant to use the word crisis. If you don't recognise the scale of

the challenge, it's difficult to face up to it. Adam representing

Shelter is right to place up to the most extreme, the homeless people

really struggling to find a decent home. It affects everybody. It's not

just the fact that the number of children has increased every one of

the last three years. It's across the last ten years. You find that

the number of people in poverty in Scotland is well over 1 million

people, a third of all households experiencing poverty. Sticking with

homelessness, they did pique when the Liberal Democrats were in power

in 2006. We had quite a lot of progress in tackling homelessness

and it was genuine cross party. Scotland was quite good at working

across party most of the time, but Scotland had slipped off the

political agenda, just as housing had. But housing had stalled and the

first thing we need was a cross Government strategy. There was a

much more we could do. For example, and I'm sure Adam would highlight

this, our local authorities are on the front line. The services they

provide in eventing homelessness, in intervening with people's lives, in

supporting the voluntary sector. We are often talking about people with

complex needs. The SNP Government have cut the funding to local

Government and that is the issue. Would you say it is a crisis, Maggie

Chapman? Absolutely, and to have so many people homeless and sleeping on

the streets or waking up in supported accommodation, is a

disgrace. Scotland is one of the wealthiest countries in the Western

world and to have that situation now in the 21st-century is an obscenity.

I think part of the reason is that when we try to tackle homelessness,

we don't always look at it holistically. There are several

causes of homelessness. We have seen over the last few years cuts to

adult, scarier, cut to support services. We have seen employment

become more and more precarious. Many people in work are only one or

two months away from not being able to pay their mortgage or they rent.

So it's not enough just to say, let's build more houses. We need to

look at this in the round and really support and invest in the social

care services we need. We need to make sure our employment and our

jobs pay people with a decent wage that they can afford to live. As

well as investing in a massive house-building programme, we need to

make sure it is truly affordable. Then we can actually make a start at

dealing with this crisis. Outcome to the other panel members in a moment,

but the man in the way Scott has his hand up. There is a page on BBC

Scotland news website in which Nicola Sturgeon says she is going to

end the housing crisis by building 35,000 houses you're on a year.

Unfortunately, is dated the 31st of October 2000 and seven. Mr Neil,

given that you failed miserably to address the house-building crisis in

Scotland, can you tell us how many affordable homes you are going to

build in the next five years and why we should believe you? Very

briefly... Can I say, at the start of the last Parliament we would

build 30,000 new houses and we have almost built 32,000, even though our

tax has been cut. Over the next five years, were going to increase that

to at least 50,000. But it's not just the affordable housing. It's

also the other sectors. We need every year to build in total about

24,000 new houses in Scotland. OK, I need to take more views from the

panel. Katy Gordon? Alex, it you're saying 30000 and Trump in that as a

great target. In 2011, you said you were going to build 30,000 social

rented homes. Within a few weeks of winning the election, you change

that to affordable. Actually, it's dishonest because you have change

the target to get to what you're saying. Let's stick to homelessness.

It is a crisis. There has been a 13% increase in young people in

temporary accommodation. I also think there are issues to do with

what the causes of homelessness are. And also mental health difficulties

and addiction. Actually, what we need to do is ensure that with

mental health we are tackling this before it gets to the crisis point.

We want to put mental health professionals in GP surgeries so

they are available in their daily life. We should put it in the

prisons, because that is a big area of difficulty. We want to put them

in police stations and A We want to make sure that those areas are

covered, but in terms of addictions, we need to treat that more as a

health issue than a criminal or offending issue, make sure that the

prisoners get much more effective through care and after-care, because

that is the point where they might lose their homes. One of our

candidates was a homeless teenager himself and he had talked to us very

movingly about what he felt he needed when he was a teenager to get

out of that situation. As a result, we've come up with a whole range of

supported housing centres across Scotland with the wraparound care,

so support for training as well. Douglas Ross, ID statistic shameful?

Absolutely, and the only party that is adjusting it is not a crisis is

the party of Government. It should be recognised by everyone that these

figures cannot go unnoticed. I think that everyone will also agree we had

to build more homes. We want to build 100,000 new homes over the

next Parliament. But we had to put the bricks in place to allow us to

do that. It's not just housing alone but everything connected to it. It's

looking at planning regulations, making it easier for developers,

whether they be local or the Government, private developers,

allowing them the tools to build these new homes that be so urgently

require to start to deal with the problem that Adam has raised.

Because that will only scratch the surface. There are far more areas we

have to go into as well. A gentleman who has been featured in the front.

Mr Neil, for nine years you have frozen the community charge and

actually, basically, if you had been inflationary rises in the community

charge, perhaps we would see new houses being built. I think it's

shameful that you can stand there and say is not a crisis. Indeed, it

is. The gentleman in the back at the red. If you could make points,

rather than asking more questions. I like the word shameful. Attacking

SNP by building houses. The problem is that in the last term of Labour

Government they built six council houses. That's a disgrace, part of

the disgraceful record of Labour in Scotland. The lady in the middle

here. I think there is a lot of talk about the numbers of housing and

whether that's affordable housing for sale, but I think we need to

move beyond just talking about the numbers and look at how we can

deliver those, particularly given the homelessness statistics, and

also looking across all ten years, at how we can deliver enough homes

for the people that need them. The lady in red. I have three issues to

raise. See on your issue of private sector. Very briefly. Profiteering

in the private sector is horrendous. The rents are huge. People can't

afford to save for a mortgage for a house because 30 to 40% goes on

their rent. In the homeless sector, the landlords that profit from HM

owes are making money every year by renting out hobbles for homeless

people. I think you need to address both profiteering issues there and I

am very disturbed by the emphasis on the private sectors. I'm also

disturbed by your statement is in people who are homeless as people

who are alcoholics and have mental health problems. Not all of them do.

We will have to move on to our next question for the panel that comes

from Calum Liddle. What will the panel do for young

professionals like me who I locked out of the housing market

inexpensive rented, private accommodation, a generation who want

to settle, who want to live in their very own home? Maggie Chapman, what

would you do for some body like Calum? We need to make sure that

housing is about providing homes for everybody. The current situation in

the UK, housing isn't about that. It's about financial speculation. We

have seen in the UK over the last 30 or 40 years, the housing market

being the driver of the economy. We have seen all the parties here

pumping up the housing bubble, driving up prices, making sure many

people can't afford to buy homes, can't afford to rent affordably,

that is what we need to do. It is not normal to treat the housing

market in the week -- in this way. The UK is alone in Europe in this.

We need to make sure housing is about delivering homes, not

financial commodities and speculation. Making sure the rental

sector is fair. We fought very hard with grassroots campaign, like the

ribbing went camping, for rent controls. -- like are red -- like

the rent camping we had. There is no requirement for rent controls. We

need bring controls to be a reality. But Calum wants to buy a house. We

need to make sure house places are not exorbitant. We do that not only

through creating more supply, so building and freeing up land and

derelict Brownfield sites for housing, but making sure financial

services support that, not channelling money on a conveyor belt

from most of us to the wealthiest 1%, which has happened for the last

40 years, and it is not good enough. Douglas Ross? I am pleased to hear

for yet of eating a number of the points in the Conservative

manifesto, opening up Brownfield sites about increasing supply and

high we can address part of the problem. I was in a similar

situation to you, Calum, I bought my first house with my wife, and it is

important, because instead of being high rents, you can see a future,

you have your own bricks and mortar, something we should all aspire to.

The Scottish Conservatives and site of the border, the Help to Buy

scheme was part of that, helping people get on that first step of the

housing ladder, extremely important for young people like yourself. In

terms of Calum, the most immediate thing is, we have relaunched the

Help to Buy scheme, providing substantial help for first-time

buyers, so you can get up to ?40,000 in shared equity, up to one fifth of

the cost of the house. The big problem for a lot of people like

Calum is getting the deposit, it is not paying the mortgage. Often you

can pay the mortgage because interest rates are at their lowest

for years, it is getting the deposit. The shared equity scheme,

as well as Help to Buy, helps us overcome that problem. With that

scheme, first-time buyers can't be helped onto the housing ladder. On

top of that, the shared equity scheme. On top of that, we encourage

Rent to Buy, so people can rent for a period, some of that going to

water deposit then, at the end of four or five years, you can convert

a rented house into a purchase house, helping people like Calum.

Maggie, very briefly? On the Help to Buy schemes, that sounds good, you

get support and money, but it means, when you look at our house, chances

are you are up against someone else also on that scheme, so that does

not do anything to tackle on affordability, it does not bring the

starting house down. These are for new-build houses! But economists

tell us about the cost. Do your detail and Hallmark! This can push

prices up. Katy Gordon? Help to Buy can help some people. But we have to

be careful, because interest rates being low at the moment, we don't

want to encourage people to take on too much debt, because if rates go

up significantly, just a word of caution, but in principle Help to

Buy is a good idea. But we also want to potentially use some of it to

introduce a help to renovate scheme, maybe if you buy something not

particularly great, you can be helped to renovate that, giving a

wider range of options. Ken McIntosh, the average age of

first-time buyers is 30, typical deposit 20%, what would you do to

help someone like Calum? You are right, Calum, and as homelessness is

one manifestation of the mess where in, such a painful thing, experience

is unfortunately all too common. One report today says there are 276,000

young Scots under the age of 34 living with their parents, a quarter

of all Scots. It is up 5%. Another is the doubling of the private

rented sector, your generation! It was just under 50% of people your

age used to own their own home, it is now down to 25%. Sorry, 30%. Your

generation is being frozen out. And it is bad for you, and Europeans who

want to share in their dreams. Homelessness is one manifestation of

the crisis, but not owning your own home... So what would Labour do? We

offer a policy on this, at ?3000 boost to buy your first home. Alex

Neil is right, the deposit is the big hurdle. People say they are

trapped in expensive private rent and cannot save for a deposit. If

you save ?100 per month, a modest amount, we will give you an extra

?3000 over three years, and if you add that to Right to Buy or the ISA

scheme, that can help give you your first deposit and fulfil your

dreams. Gentleman at the back? They Help to Buy, potentially giving

?40,000 to someone, isn't this artificially increasing housing

prices, creating another bubble? Lady next to you? When Help to Buy

was launched anyone could take part. So a second time buyer, 13 buyer, as

long as you did not own a property, not aimed at first-time buyer, so

money given to aid was given to people who had a house and sold one

then bought another. There was no security of the 20%, which is now

15%, so you could not sell on that amount of money and raise further

funds to secure more homes for others. Help to Buy is under control

and more than it has been, 15% deposit, the value of houses have

come down, but at the start you did not do it properly, following what

happened down south and did not make your own path. The young woman in

the front? We are still talking about buying houses, a lot of people

are stuck renting, the average fat is ?700 in Glasgow! How can someone

get to the point to buy a house? You should be looking at the private

rented sector as well. The woman in the middle? I see a lot of carrots

being dangled. There are viewers tonight in the homeless community. I

have lads in bed and breakfast watching, it is ?300 per week per

person that they are, and also when talking about affordability, how can

people work? We are is the incentive to work when people are homeless and

they are paying in temporary accommodation three times the amount

of a council house? The other looking to vote for the very first

time and to be honest they have been let down by Labour, by

Conservatives, all the same rhetoric, and the need to be able to

believe in truth and politics and the morals back into politics, and I

need you to speak to them tonight, we have people put their fault, that

you are thinking about them. -- where people put their fault. Thank

you, Calum, tempted by anything you heard? I appreciate the SNP and

Labour appreciate the deposit is a problem. This generation to be frank

have been done over by a generation given the opportunity to be land for

hobbyists, incredibly damaging to people my age. We are chasing tales

here, as much as you save up for a deposit, the prizes for houses are

going up. There is a duty now. The market has failed. The state has to

come forward and be brave and give people the right to have their own

home. It is not asking for much! It should be a fundamental right for

your own house, decent and warm house. Thank you. The next question

comes from for a care bellow. -- The next question is from

Flora -- Scarabello. was it right to cancel Right to Buy?

This was scrapped by the SNP government. Was that a mistake?

Introducing Right to Buy, how it was introduced by Margaret Thatcher was

a mistake, which is why we have this present crisis. The SNP, unlike the

previous Liberal and Labour authorities, we have abolished now,

as of two months' time, Right to Buy, already... Sorry? It is

soothing 15,500 houses in these social sector today that would

otherwise not be there. Had those still been there for rent we would

not have the kind of challenges we have been talking about tonight. It

was absolutely the right thing to do, it was a contributing factor to

the major challenges we have and long waiting lists we have. It was a

Conservative government that got it in, Mr Gates -- that brought it in,

was it a mistake to scrap it? It was, it allowed people to aspire to

home ownership. But what about the impact on council housing? Alex Neil

thinks you cause a problem with the Right to Buy, but people in council

houses cannot buy those, so they continue renting it. Those houses do

not become free. Just people aspiring to own their own homes are

renting. It is a correct policy. Ken McIntosh, was it a mistake? The

problem was not Right to Buy but failure to build. By Labour? It is

interesting. Well, at the moment, on average we are building 15,000 homes

per year across Scotland, the lowest level since 1947. Under Labour, the

average build was 20 5000. We build houses and time under Labour. This

get real! The reality has been on the private occupation sector. When

it comes to social housing, mainly we what homeless people need, the

Labour Party wrecker was abysmal. We have built 6500 council houses, you

build six in eight years! This is totally misleading, implying that

the only social rent is a council house. Councils had debt when Labour

came to power and could not look after their own stock. Gordon Brown

lifted the whole of Glasgow's ?1 billion stock date, and we put all

of the energy into housing associations, building tens of

thousands of socially rented housing. We are just not building

enough housing. I will bring in the rest of the panel, Maggie Chapman,

was it a mistake to cancel Right to Buy? Not at all. We have seen the

focus on home ownership and you mentioned that everyone should have

the right to own their own homes and again the UK is the outlier, across

Europe the UK has the highest home ownership rates. We see renting as

something bad, that is a disgrace! The rental sector is a crucial part

of the housing supply. We have seen 40 years of free-market, no state

intervention, no real control of the housing market, leaving us that the

highest cost of housing in Europe at the lowest quality. One statistic,

if we look at 1971 figures, German houses now cost in real terms the

same as in 1971. Yuki houses now cost between four and five times

what they did in 1971. -- British houses. That has not created jobs,

into the productive economy, but into financial speculation. The

housing bubble burst in 2008 and it will burst again if we do same

thing! Katy Gordon, the Liberal Democrats position?

We have those who feel that renting is the most important and those who

deal the aspiration to bite. We have to balance that with a housing mix.

Fundamentally, the lack of supply of affordable housing is at the heart

of much of the difficulty. If there were more houses available, the

prices were potentially be lowered. So was it a mistake to scrap Right

to Buy? I think it had run its course. It met the aspirations

though of people who wanted to own their own homes. That is a

generalisation, but I think it is important to say that some people

will always want to aspire to buy and others would much prefer to

rent. I think we need to make sure that renting does have a respectable

aspiration. Because you are always going to have people who may be

because of their lifestyle, it is a different thing they want to do. The

fundamental issue is that we do need to build more affordable homes.

Let's hear from the audience. You have talked a bit about the housing

debt. Glasgow has had there is abolished, but what about the rest

of the councils? In Edinburgh, we are seeing that there is a complete

housing crisis. And just wondering, who is going to actually tackle this

debt problem, because it has obviously come from the Right to

Buy, where the money should have been spent on reinvesting into the

housing, but that has just not happen. What are we going to do

about this debt? Man behind you with his hand up. I must disagree with

the gentleman there that housing associations was by the back door, I

don't think that is true. The necessity to have mix of rental and

opportunities for people to buy. There are a number of factors that

affect the ability for associations to build those homes. These issues

include infrastructure and land. Along with measures being generated

from England such as welfare reform. By the panel was committed to doing

whatever it takes to insure that there was affordable homes do get

built? First of all, we have now got a record subsidy per housing

associations and councils to build the new homes. We've got a strategy

in place to recruit the additional people we need to build them. We

have an infrastructure fund to help break the deadlock in

infrastructure. The answer to your question is a very definite yes.

Katy Gordon? Absolutely, yes. There is no point in saying we are going

to build 50,000 new homes every don't put the money into it. We need

the balance and we are going to a future investment fund part of which

will go into housing. We also need to support private rented sector and

it may be to do with land value, taxation. We need to incentivise

more private house-building also. Douglas Ross? All the parties are

promising more houses to be built over the next five years. The point

you are making about these sites are important. It is getting that to the

local plans, getting the public onside early to ensure there is a

streamlined planning process. That is crucial. If we show housing

associations and private builders that they can get through planning

in a stew mind way, that will encourage them to build as well. I'd

agree on is committed to building affordable homes? Actually, we say

in our manifesto is we want to build affordable homes. What is other

people mean is a price that is 80% of the market value. That equates to

roughly six times the median income of a hassle. That's not affordable.

That 80% of market value is not affordable. We really, really need

to address that. That is why it our commitment is by social rental

homes. Can I just hit one other thing? One of the things again that

the UK used to do up until 1959 that we don't do any more is treat land

that is not built on as just having its land value, not the

post-development potential. We want a land price freeze to ensure that

councils, housing associations can buy land at that land value. It is

much lower than the market value and will free up money to build more

homes. Ken McIntosh, our Scottish Labour are committed to affordable

housing? Absolutely. Not only that, I figure is for 60,000. The reason

is that it was identified by need by Shelter. They recognised that we

need 12,000 homes a year. Not the bigger that SNP are aiming for. --

figure. That is what the Government can deliver to housing associations

and councils, but we also have to adopt and support all tenure

support. You are right to identify planning. We would give councils the

opportunity to free up the land. We must recognise it as a boost to the

economy. These are jobs, this is money in the local economy. This is

the way Scotland can control their

future. We have a question now

from Donald Edwards, who's a tenant of a resettlement

centre for homeless men. Why is it such a long and

complicated process for the homeless to gain social housing? Why is it

such a long, compensated process for the homeless to gain social housing?

Katy Gordon? The answer is that it shouldn't be. It needs to be

straightforward and clearly there are issues to do with how you can

access it. There are processes to be gone through but it should be made

more straightforward because it is criminal that we have so many

homeless in this country and we should be doing everything we can to

tackle that homelessness. I have spoken already about some of the

potential causes for homelessness, but I think that fundamentally we

need to have a commitment to ending homelessness. We did have that

before and we need to have that running through all of our housing

policies to make sure that we are not leaving people either in badly

conditioned homes or in bed and breakfast accommodation, or worse

still, on the streets. We do have a whole range of things we want to do.

We are focused particularly on a specific centres we want to create

for young people, but there is no reason why we can't do more than

that. I think it's important that we have wraparound support as well, so

we are providing that support. But many of these processes are far too

complicated and we should be tackling that to make sure it is

more straightforward. You got a crisis at the moment with homeless

people with HIV, which has gone up six times over the last year, six

times as much. And that's not been addressed either. Can I say, since

2012, this was the legislation that Ken referred to earlier, since 2012,

anyone who presents himself to a local authority as homeless is

entitled, it's not an option, to get accommodation. Sometimes they have

to go into a temporary accommodation until the council can find settled

accommodation, but they are entitled to settle 's accommodation. I think

the one area where we need to do it a lot more is in terms of supported

accommodation will stop because I actually agree with Katy. A lot of

people do have more than the housing problem. They have other issues as

well. Some people need much more supported accommodation in Scotland.

You mentioned, for example, people with a health problem, HIV. There

are people with other kinds of problems, it might be an addiction,

and this is not a generalisation at all. There needs to be special help

for those people with an addiction or with a mental health problem or

other issues. It might be a single mum who needs special help with

employment, training and a whole range of other things. One of our

priorities for the next five years will be to substantially improve the

availability of supported accommodation, and that also will

make it much easier for homeless people to get into a permanent

house, because we are not doing that fast enough for those people at the

present time. But the reality and the rules don't match. It doesn't

work. Let's hear from Brian Reid, acting

manager of The ARCH resettlement How long and compensated a process

is it? -- complicated. There are many aspects to homelessness and it

does take a holistic approach. Just to touch on one aspect, as a team,

what we are finding just now is the delay for current tenants to be

given their own tenancy. As of last July, the casework team strike,

which lasted four months, ended, and we have seen a sixfold from when

someone gets presented, I think it's 12 weeks, that is way beyond that

now. Tenants that we have, it's taken them six months to even get a

caseworker. Before, it was relatively straightforward. Now they

have been fobbed off, passed off, and it has taken about six months.

It's just far too long. OK, that's the situation in Glasgow. Ken

McIntosh, is that acceptable? Absolutely not. This comes back to

the point I was making at the beginning about what kind of society

we want to have, relation between the taxes we pay and what we

receive. When you would use taxes for the rich and cut public

spending, the people that suffer most are always be vulnerable. They

are always the one to get squeezed out. As it is, you could do so many

technical things, improve the standards of accommodation you are

offered. Instead of getting the least popular comedy dampest most

rundown properties, you could drive up standards that way. But most

important of all is I we prepared, as a society, to pay taxes and

expect a level of public services. You either get conservative tax cuts

for the rich, which the SNP will not overturn, or you go with Labour. Or

the Lib Dems, to be fair, who are talking about putting a penny on tax

and you get a ?500 million boost. Let me put that point to Douglas

Ross. You are clearly very passionate about the problems facing

homelessness. I come from Moray. I know it's given in every area but I

was very encouraged today about the staff in a homeless centre. They

were talking to people about trying to get off the homeless list and

getting back into work. But all this time is far too long if you are

homeless so you have to have a next step to go on to. I think we would

all agree that it has to be faster. I do think there are some examples

of councils that are trying their best. But what about Ken McIntosh's

point about funding this as a priority? But there are simply no

houses for people. What we have from Adam Wright at the beginning of this

programme, there are not enough houses for people. I just want to

finally come to Donald's point that something has to be done. There are

too many people like yourself who are waiting on the list for far too

long. It is Douglas' Government who are cutting the money. I would like

to hear from Maggie Chapman now. He cannot continue blaming Westminster.

Maggie Chapman. Thank you, Shelley. I think it is a disgrace that we

cannot home everybody in the 21st century. We should be making sure we

can deliver on that basic human right. We must be willing to pay for

it. Homelessness is bad for everybody, not just the people who

end up on the streets, you end up in temporary accommodation. As I have

said before, we need to make sure that housing is really about giving

people somewhere to live and not about financial speculation. But it

is about paying for the services that prevent people from ending up

homeless in the first place. We need to make sure we have the taxes

coming in to paper the social care that we need across society, not

targeting any one sector of our communities. Because homelessness

cost everybody more money and prevention will actually save us

money in the long term. We have seen in the welfare reform that has come

to Scotland over the last few years, no real reduction in how much we

spend in public services, but we have shifted where we spend that

money. It is all in emergency care. We need to make sure we are

preventing homelessness in the first place. I think all these points are

very welcome and I welcome the fact that there is this focus on

homelessness and housing because it is long overdue in Scottish

politics. But I think there are two things that really need to happen in

the next parliament if you're going to make a meaningful difference to

these situations. One is that we need a sustained commitment to these

manifesto pledges. It can fall off the radar two years into the

parliament. It has to be a sustained commitment. The second is that I

really feel we need a new homelessness strategy, a cross

departmental strategy to try and wrap in just how complicated and

issue this is. I would welcome any commitment or thoughts on the panel

about making that a reality. A lot of nodding head and I would

like another question, which comes from Beth Stevenson. The Scottish

Parliament has increasing numbers of devolved powers, particularly around

tax-raising. The Scottish Government replaced Stamp Duty with Land and

Buildings Transaction Tax. Was this otherwise decision -- was this

radical enough? It was an improvement. The LBTT is and

ultimately an improvement. The old system created these tiers, we do

could be an extra 3% in tax on value, it is a far more gradual

approach which is an improvement and more progressive. As someone who

believes in progressive taxation, I welcome that. Could it be more

radical? There are many things we could do in terms of approach to

property and land value in terms of transparency of land ownership and

using land more wisely. I hope that agenda can continue. At the moment I

find a lot of the policies of the SNP are tentative, they are not

radical, the tin to step in the right direction occasionally,

reflecting their BLEEP they are more populist than radical. -- reflecting

the are more populous than radical. Our approach to taxation and

property general stands against the SNP. The SNP said they would abolish

council tax but have gone back. They call that regressive as not fear on

working people, but have kept it. We will have a revaluation and

introduce a new tax on property and put the burden back on income, the

most important contribution to beat. We are talking about the Land and

Buildings Transaction Tax. Was it radical enough, Maggie Chapman? No,

it wasn't. The thing that is most unfair is the cheapest house in

Scotland pays proportionately 15 times more tax than the most

expensive. That is just wrong. Any tinkering around council tax, as we

have here, just reinforces that. It was a Conservative tax designed to

take money away from most of us and channel it up to the wealthiest. In

the last Scottish Government's, there was discussion around tax

reform, and the Scottish Government's own advisers said we

needed bald action on tax reform. And we have not seen that. We have

seen the SNP shy away from scrapping their heated council tax. Which they

had promised to do in 2007 and we are still waiting. We need much more

bolder action and the Scottish Greens' ideas are radical and

transformative for society, not only to pay for public service is but

tackle inequality. Alex Neil, wasn't radical enough? And has it worked?

It has not brought in as much money as anticipated. The intention was to

help people on lower incomes and it has done that. Under the old Stamp

Duty, the minute you reach the certain level, you paid tax on the

whole amount, but John Swinney has made the first 145,000 three of

LBTT, the name we give to Stamp Duty, and it is much more

progressive as attacks today as a result of the action taken by the

NP. The Tories are complaining, because the top of the range of

those that can afford ?1 million, they are contributing 12% of LBTT,

which we think is fair, those are the broad shoulders and should

contribute the most into the coffers of the public purse. It is a much

fairer tax than what we inherited. And another big difference that you

have not noticed in terms of LBTT, in the last budget the Chancellor

put 3% additional Stamp Duty on investment in new housing. We have

not, we exempt any investment in new housing from institutional

investors, as a way of getting much more money into new housing

investment in Scotland. Is it a fairer tax? I want to come to a

point that Alex Neill said that Conservatives were aghast when

people in ?1 million house would be charged 12%. The original proposals

from the SNP were for properties just over ?250,000 to get 10%. It's

a strange you are now arguing that 12% on ?1 million homes... You made

a mistake, because the shortfall is ?34 million in the first full year,

that is from what John Swinney expected to what he got, telling you

of the problem. That tells you of a problem with it. Auden LBTT, is it

too radical or not radical enough? We want to continue 5% on LBTT up to

properties of ?500,000 and welcome the fact this listening government

listen to the Scottish Conservatives in the Scottish parliament and

reduced the tax for properties are around ?250,000, which would have

affected lots of people. Katy Gordon, was it a radical enough

proposal? Like many of the things the SNP has done it was not radical,

it was a step in the right direction, a sensible step, but I

would not call it radical. One of the things the lady asked at the

beginning of her question was about the use of the new powers that were

devolved and this is a real challenge in this election, a

question of not always blaming Westminster, and demanding more and

more powers, but we should use the powers we have. We have the ability

with income tax to do something about making the country the best

again. We have chosen in this election to do 1p on tax for

education but there are other options. I would just like to take

some points from the audience, the lady at the front? When people buy a

house it is a great opportunity to be more radical. Shouldn't we look

at, when looking at taxation, to look at making sure we bring that

housing up to the standards we expect for the 21st century?

Shouldn't we be ensuring standards are brought up in energy efficiency

and that people invest in their housing when transactions take

place? The man behind? A lot of the parties have talked about the ways

we can build lots of new houses, but all of the challengers, the housing

challenges, we will not get past those just by building new housing.

That is important but not the only way. We have a real problem with the

existing stock, it is of poor quality, I would like parties to

apply the precision to new building to what they would do about the

existing stock. Just before we move on, Beth, what do you think about

what you have helped? But he might, I agree with Katy Gordon, which I

find surprising, the government could have made the decision more

radical, just the steps they have taken have been I would say

populist, they have gone the way people would have expected and not

made the decisions I would have hoped for, and that other people in

my kingdom industry would have hope they would have made to change

things, and push the market that is stagnant. This we have talked about

prices rising but it is not always like that, some aliens have

stagnated, preventing people from moving on and properties being moved

on. -- some areas have stagnated. I would like to move one question from

Alasdair Allan, what your question? Should we address a century of the

unionist declined by building a new town in either the Highlands

off-site West of Scotland? Jen McIntosh? Another new town? I like

the loaded unionist declined. We have had an SNP government for nine

years... Can I just finish one little addendum to the last point on

tax? At this election, you have had a number of tax proposals, the SNP

have proposed a tax cut to Erwin passenger duty. This is about

housing. We will use the save money to invest for first-time buyers like

Calum. The choice against first-time buyers and air travel users. What

about the new town? I am not a fan. We need new housing. At the moment

the planning system is too adversarial, I want to give

communities the chance to apply and lead system to find the space to use

the land and bring the houses we need. New towns? I am not against

them but I don't think that is the answer. Katy Gordon, with a new town

be the idea for the Highlands or the south-west? In the quality and

government at Westminster we explored the idea of Green garden

cities, so we are positive about the idea where it suits, but I am not

convinced putting a new tone in the Highlands will be most practical.

Surely we have to look at we are the areas of most need are. I'll think

more housing is building its weird it is needed, maybe not in one

specific Place. Maybe small developments in different parts of

the country. -- where it is needed. Douglas Ross? I am glad we have

someone from the Highlands to answer this. There are some proposals to

build new towns on the outskirts, such as outside of on. -- outside of

Nairn. Do you think it is a good idea? If the public support it, why

not? But I come on a housing council, so I have to be careful.

But this gentleman made a valid point about renting current homes.

There are 27,000 empty properties and if we can renovate them it is

not starting from nothing to sort out this housing shortfall. The

bricks and mortar, the skeleton is there, helping us address the

problems and also 65% of properties could also be affected for energy

efficiency. Maggie Chapman? The Highlands have been one of the

mostly populated parts of Western Europe since the Highland

clearances, which we should reverse, and make sure we have the

infrastructure and capacity to build communities when building houses,

not just houses, but things that come with them, schools, houses,

facilities across the board. So we need to make sure rural Scotland is

somewhere where younger people want to stay, if that is where they have

grown up, and we are at the want to move to. One of them limiting

factors is housing. Even if they can get a job, if broadband

infrastructure is decent, often housing is not adequate, so that is

one of the things we have to tackle, meaning investment in

infrastructure, building communities for families, not second homes, we

have not touched on that, never mind empty homes! But it means investing

in jobs and infrastructure in rural Scotland to reverse the Highland

clearances. Alex Neil, what about the new tone for the Highlands? Any

proposal needs to come from the community rather than imposed on

high from Edinburgh. -- new town. But we are operating on constrained

budgets and after all this discussion the priority must

absolutely be to build those communities that already exist to

provide the housing and facilities, the mini teas, to improve the

standard of living and quality of living for people living in those

communities. -- the amenities. But if people think they need the new

town it is up to people to come forward but that proposal, not have

it imposed by the private sector or government in Edinburgh. Almost out

of time. A couple of responses, first of all, the question? I am

surprised, we have NIMBY, NIMBY, NIMBY, and the exception is the

Green, very well done! As someone fiercely proud from Don freeze, I do

not think the new town would address the problem for us. -- from Don

freeze. It is about improving some of the areas. Some of those we

serve... There we will have to leave it, we are absolutely out of town.

That's all we have time for this evening,

on the last of our special election debates.

All that remains is to thank our panel,

the studio audience for their great questions

and of course you at home for watching.