Thank you for the opportunity to talk to the committee about developments across the housing sector. Housing is and will remain a priority for the Government. Access to good-quality housing is a vital part of the Government’s drive to secure economic growth, promote social justice, strengthen communities and tackle inequality. Over the lifetime of this session of Parliament, planned investment in affordable housing will exceed £1.7 billion. That investment will maintain momentum in the housing programme and deliver vital support for construction and house-building companies throughout Scotland.
We are on track to meet both our affordable housing targets: the five-year target to deliver 30,000 additional affordable homes by March 2016, and the target of ensuring that 20,000 of those will be houses for social rent. Three quarters of the way into our five-year programme, we have delivered 22,762 affordable homes, and 15,903 of them are for social rent, which is almost 80 per cent of our social rent target.
The private rented sector is an integral part of the Scottish housing system. We intend to improve security of tenure for tenants while providing appropriate safeguards for landlords, lenders and investors, so we are developing proposals for a new private tenancy system. Our consultation on a new tenancy system closed on 28 December. We received 2,543 responses, which we are analysing. We will ensure that stakeholders are consulted throughout the policy development process.
The Scottish Government’s sustainable housing strategy sets out our vision for warm, high-quality, low-carbon homes that contribute to the establishment of a successful low-carbon economy. Living in the right home with suitable physical features is clearly important, as is having the appropriate support services. The right support can be the key to enabling older and disabled people to live safely and independently at home. If suitable accommodation and support are not available when someone is ready to leave the hospital, their discharge can be delayed, which impacts on the patient’s wellbeing and on hospital bed availability. Reducing the number of people waiting to be discharged from hospital is a key priority for the Government.
As we announced yesterday, we will invest a further £100 million over the next three years as part of our overarching commitment to integrating health and social care services across Scotland. Housing has a contribution to make and we are working with the housing sector on proposals to deliver appropriate housing support and services.
In November, we held a major housing conference, which more than 250 stakeholders attended. The vision for housing in Scotland remains the same, but we are looking at new ways to deliver it. We are working closely with the housing sector to develop a five-year joint delivery plan for housing, which we hope to publish in spring 2015. I am happy to provide the committee with more information on the plan as it develops.
I wrote to the committee on 18 December in response to its follow-up review of the 2012 homelessness commitment. I am pleased to say that the recently published statistics show a further decline of 3 per cent in the number of homelessness applications. We are moving in the right direction and the prevention approach to homelessness is working. Tackling homelessness remains a priority and our work on it will continue.