edwin morgan lecture - shelter scotland · 2013-01-30 · so we are absolutely delighted that the...

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EDWIN MORGAN LECTURE

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Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name’s Graeme Brown, I’m Director of Shelter Scotland. I want to welcome you, first of all, this evening to this lecture. But I also want to welcome the thousands of people across Scotland and indeed beyond who I know at this moment are actually watching us via live video streaming.

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Housing and having a home matters. Having a home and where you live are two of the most important factors which will actually shape all our lives.

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It impacts upon your ability to get a job and get income, it impacts upon your health, it impacts upon your safety, your education. And it impacts upon the environment that we all grow up in.

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And having a home is absolutely key to a future Scotland, where we will be wealthier and fairer, we will be healthier, we will be safer and stronger, and where we’ll be greener and smarter.

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In other words, the Scottish Government’s National Strategic Objectives.

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And that is why we are holding this, the first Shelter Scotland annual lecture this evening. Because having a home matters.

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And because it matters for people across Scotland that all of us actually have a home.

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So we are absolutely delighted that the First Minister has kindly agreed to actually deliver this evening’s lecture.

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And I’m also delighted to introduce to you an old friend of Shelter Scotland, a close friend of Shelter Scotland. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Richard Holloway.

Introduction by Richard Holloway

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Thank you Graeme, good evening, First Minister and ladies and gentlemen.

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Talking of the great English poet Philip Larkin, Margaret Drabble said of him that he reconciled us to our ills by the scrupulous way he noticed them.

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One of the great purposes of art is to show us the complexity of human nature so that we can recognize ourselves and be reconciled to our condition.

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But that is not the only purpose of great art. Another purpose serves not to reconcile us to our own ills, but to provoke us to anger about the ills of others and challenge us to work for a fairer society.

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Edwin Morgan was a master of both of those moods. In his poetry we encounter a depth of compassion for the poor and vulnerable that at times is almost unbearable.

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Here’s an example, from his poem which I’ve edited down ‘In the Snack Bar.’

A cup capsizes along the Formica,

slithering with a dull clatter.

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A few heads turn in the crowded evening snack-bar.

An old man is trying to get to his feet

from the low round stool fixed to the floor.

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Slowly he levers himself up, his hands have no power.

He is up as far as he can get. The dismal hump

looming over him forces his head down.

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He stands in his stained beltless gabardine

like a monstrous animal caught in a tent

in some story. He sways slightly,

the face not seen, bent down

in shadow under his cap.

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Even on his feet he is staring at the floor

or would be, if he could see.

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I notice now his stick, once painted white

but scuffed and muddy, hanging from his right arm.

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Long blind, hunchback born, half paralysed

he stands

fumbling with his stick

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and speaks:

‘I want - to go to the - toilet.’

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It is down two flights of stairs, but we go.’

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The poet assists him and describes the slow, complicated descent to the lavatory in the basement and continues:

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I set him in position, stand behind him

and wait with his stick.

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His brooding reflection darkens the mirror

but the trickle of his water is thin and slow,

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an old man’s apology for living.

Painful ages to close his trousers and coat -

I do up the last buttons for him.

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After helping him to wash and dry his hands, they start climbing the stairs.

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Morgan goes on

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He climbs, and steadily enough.

He climbs, we climb. He climbs

with many pauses but with that one

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persisting patience of the undefeated

which is the nature of man when all is said.

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And slowly we go up. And slowly we go up.

The faltering, unfaltering steps

take him at last to the door

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across the endless, yet not endless waste of floor.

I watch him helped on a bus. It shudders off in the rain.

The conductor bends to hear where he wants to go.

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Wherever he could go it would be dark

and yet he must trust men.

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Without embarrassment or shame

he must announce his most pitiful needs

in a public place. No one sees his face.

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Does he know how frightening he is in his strangeness

under his mountainous coat, his hands like wet leaves

stuck to the half-white stick?

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His life depends on many who would evade him.

But he cannot reckon up the chances,

having one thing to do,

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to haul his blind hump through these rains of August.

Dear Christ, to be born for this!’ 4

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There is anger as well as compassion in that poem; but for real anger you have to go to the Glasgow sonnets. Here’s one of them,

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and I warn you that the opening line contains a four letter word:

A shilpit dog fucks grimly by the close.

Late shadows lengthen slowly, slogans fade.

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The YY PARTICK TOI grins from its shade

like the last strains of some lost libera nos

a malo. No deliverer ever rose

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from these stone tombs to get the hell they made

unmade. The same weans never make the grade.

The same grey street sends back the ball it throws.

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Under the darkness of a twisted pram

a cat’s eyes glitter. Glittering stars press

between the silent chimney cowls and cram

the higher spaces with their SOS.

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The fact that the poet can bring beauty out of a classic Scottish slum should not disguise the fact that his words challenge us to make a better future for our children:

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The same weans never make the grade.

The same grey street sends back the ball it throws.

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Morgan had a depthless compassion for the outsider, the rejected; and I suspect that one source of that raging kindness was his own experience as a gay man in a Scotland that waited till he was 60 years old

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in 1980 before decriminalizing homosexual acts. That’s another unfinished story of injustice, but thanks to the courage of the Scottish Government the last remnant of that ancient prejudice may soon be behind us forever.

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When we founded Shelter Scotland in 1968 in my living room over there in Jeffrey Street,

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I did not expect the campaign to be running hard 45 years later; but justice is never fully realized by any nation and has continually to be fought for.

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But there have been victories, none more significant than what is called the 2012 Commitment to assess 100% of all unintentionally homeless households as being in ‘priority need’ by the end of 2012.

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That commitment is one of the great achievements of the resurrected Scottish Parliament. Alasdair Gray, another great Scottish writer,

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told us to work as if we were in the early days of a better nation. Well the 2012 Commitment is already proof of that saying.

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So it is both a pleasure and an honour to me to gather these threads together in introducing tonight’s lecture. Whatever their politics, any fair minded person

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will admit that Alex Salmond is one of the greatest Scots of his generation. And that other great Scot Edwin Morgan

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certainly thought so, to the extent of leaving his party £1million in his will. That’s a big bung.

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Tonight these men are brought together to honour a great Scottish institution, valiant in its fight for social justice, Shelter Scotland.

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I think it was Mario Cuomi, Governor of New York State, who said politicians campaign in poetry but they have to govern in prose.

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Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard the poetry [laughter from audience], I now give you the First [laughter from audience] I now give you the First Minister of Scotland to deliver, in prose, The Shelter Scotland Edwin Morgan Lecture.

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Please welcome the First Minister.

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Well Richard and friends, Eddie Morgan came out as gay when he was 70 years old. He came out as an SNP supporter when he was dead. [audience laughter]

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Luckily for us all, Eddie came out as lots of other things during his remarkable life.

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He came out as a tribune for the poor and disadvantaged, as a believer of radical social change.

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He came out of course a staunch Glaswegian and I’m grateful for this story, which I’m about to retell.

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Which summarises the extent to which Eddie would defend his native city.

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A few years ago, The Eddie Morgan Archive was opened at the Scottish Poetry Library but Eddie wasn’t convinced he should go.

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Because he thought the archive should have been in Glasgow [audience laughter]

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So in the end, showing a political deftness of touch, he decided to go, after all it was his archive

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but he wore a t-shirt under his jacket with a Tunnock’s caramel wafer on it [audience laughter] together with the slogan

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Glasgow takes the biscuit [audience laughter].

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Now Eddie was well known for his taste in t-shirts. That was his way of ensuring that Glasgow was properly represented at the opening and a desire to have the last word.

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I found myself thinking about that story as to this day that we decided to devote to housing.

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I was delivering this lecture in Edinburgh tonight. But knowing what Eddie had done with opening his archive I sort of swithered, should I wear the Tunnock’s t-shirt. But I decided instead

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to go to Glasgow this afternoon to open a fantastic combined heat and power project., which I’ll describe later on. So that was my

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particular attempt to reconcile my presence in Edinburgh with Eddie, who most certainly have said, despite his love of Shelter that this lecture should have been held in Glasgow tonight.

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Now Auden wrote of Yeats after he died “he became his admirers”.

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And of course what he was doing was describing how a poet’s words live on, in the hearts and minds of the people who read them, even after the poet’s death.

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Now Eddie Morgan had legions of admirers, in Scotland and around the world. We admired his intelligence, his wit, his compassion, which is so evident from

his poetry.

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These qualities made him an overwhelming, obvious, resounding, candidate to be Scotland’s first “makar”, or national poet when the post was first created after devolution.

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And of course his friend Liz Lochhead is now our maker, on Eddie’s death.

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And they make it a great honour to be asked to give this inaugural lecture in Eddie Morgan’s honour.

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Now Richard has just quoted the second of Eddie’s Glasgow sonnets. I’m delighted it was you that

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quoted it, I might have been tweeted if I had quoted the first line of the Second Sonnet.

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Eddie once said that he had used a Shelter Scotland report as one of his source materials for the first Glasgow sonnet, which describes a tenement where

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“four storeys have no windows left to smash…

Of that black block condemned to stand, not crash.”

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It’s one indication of how strongly Eddie engaged with, supported, the work done by Shelter in Scotland – both in campaigning for a fairer Scotland and of course equally importantly

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in providing housing advice and assistance for those who require it. And I am grateful, very grateful indeed for Shelter for organising this evening’s lecture.

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One hundred years ago, in September 1912 the Asquith Government established a Royal Commission into Housing in Scotland.

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The Commission didn’t report until 1917, but it did it was damning in its conclusions.

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It spoke of “gross overcrowding… occupation of one room houses by large families…, clotted classes of slums in the great cities.”

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And concluded by saying that “the State must at once take steps to make good the housing shortage and to improve housing conditions.”

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And so one year before Eddie Morgan’s birth, in 1919, The Housing and Planning Act, the Addison Act as it was known, was passed. And that was followed by the Wheatley Act of 1924, which improved the subsidies for house building, and the Greenwood Act of 1930.

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Today incidentally, when I visited that combined heat and power scheme in Glasgow, that one of the organising, organisations, one of the associations was the John Wheatley, the Wheatley organisation.

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And one of the participating companies was SSE, Scottish and Southern Electricity. It’s true of course ladies and gentlemen that of all the great, left thinkers, practitioners, politicians who emerged in the inter-war period, the

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ones who achieved the most substantial results were Tom Johnson, whose portrait adorns the living room in Bute House, who founded among other things, the hydroelectric board which eventually became Scottish and Southern Electricity.

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And John Wheatley, who was responsible for the start of the housing revolution, which changed conditions that people were facing in Scotland. For decades people in Scotland talked about living in Wheatley houses.

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The legislation that followed from the investigation had a major impact. Professor Tom Devine has written of the 1919 Act “No single piece of legislation has

contributed so much to the shape and development of urban Scotland in the 20th century.”

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Prior to the First World War, only 1% of families in Scotland were housed by local authorities. But during the period between the wars, 70% of the new homes built in Scotland were owned by local authorities. And immediately after World War Two, that became 80% of the homes that were built.

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Now these houses were significant improvements on what had preceded them, the high density tenements. The two storey, semi-detached houses became more normal.

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Many people would argue incidentally that the houses that were built through these Housing Acts were a great improvement on those which succeeded them as well as those that preceded them.

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But certainly nobody would claim that the 1912 Royal Commission and the Addison Act achieved all of their aims. As the Glasgow sonnets show – written 50 years later - the “homes fit for Heroes” vision after World War 1 was never truly realised.

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However progress, substantial progress, enormous progress, amazing progress was made. And perhaps most importantly, out of that, a fundamental principle was established and accepted in Scotland – that the standard of housing reflects on society as a whole, and that the state through one means or another, has a role to play in securing good and healthy homes for all.

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Now this month, just over a century after that Royal Commission was first established, as Richard noted, we are able to mark an achievement. It’s one of the most significant commitments ever made by government, to assist homeless people.

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Last Wednesday, the Scottish Parliament passed the legislation that means that from the end of this year we will meet, as a parliament, our historic 2012 homelessness commitment, which was set out first in the 2003 legislation.

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This evening I want to explain why the 2012 target is important in its own right, because of what it means to thousands of vulnerable individuals who will benefit

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from it. But I also want to set it in the context as part of a wider programme to prevent homelessness, to increase the supply of affordable housing, and to ensure high standards in social housing. And finally, I will talk about the commitment to social justice which has characterised in my estimation, the Scottish Parliament since its, since its reconvening in 1999.

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The secondary legislation passed on Wednesday has the effect of removing the current distinction between the priority cases of homelessness, such as households with dependent children, and those that have until now only been entitled to temporary accommodation, such as single people.

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It’s worth reflecting for a moment just what the accomplishment of that target means. In 2002 for example, around 10,000 households were classed as non priority homeless cases.

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That’s worth thinking about. The concept of someone being a non priority homeless person to realise what an affront the categorisation is to a civilised society. All homelessness must be of a high priority.

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But in 2002, 10,000 households each year had no guarantee of settled housing - and the damaging consequences that followed on from that for their self-esteem, their employment prospects and their health were there for all to see.

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Now over the last ten years, as the local authorities around Scotland have prepared to meet their new legal duty, the number of non priority cases has fallen

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to around 3,000 a year. Next year, by the Act, it will be reduced to zero – all people who unintentionally become homeless will have the right to settled accommodation.

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Now the 2003 Act was initially the result of the work by the Scottish Homelessness Task Force. Shelter Scotland of course were represented on the task group, and I’m delighted that one of the other members, Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, now of Heriot Watt University, is also here this evening.

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It was enacted with cross-party support under a previous administration – and implemented by successive governments working together with local authorities and organisations such as Shelter. The Act is now internationally recognised as a landmark piece of legislation. It is one of the finest examples of the Scottish Parliament using its powers to meet progressive aspirations of the people.

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However although the fulfilment of that 2012 commitment is worth celebrating, it should be seen as marking a milestone rather than a destination.

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The 2012 commitment, after all, determines how we should treat people who have become homeless. However it is much better for society if we can prevent or stop people becoming homeless in the first place.

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Since 2010, five regional housing options hubs, as they have become known, have been established across Scotland as part of a new approach to preventing homelessness. The hubs work together to share good practice and to help

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households who are in danger of becoming homeless. Rather than only processing an application for homelessness, local authorities now consider all of a household’s circumstances in order to see how they can be best supported.

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We have to monitor, fully, the impact of the hubs over time. However the results so far of this approach – this emphasis on prevention - suggest that it is working. Over the last several years, while recorded homelessness in England has increased, in Scotland the number of people assessed as homelessness fell by 17% between 2010-11 – from 41,000 to 34,000.

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And I’ve checked these statistics very carefully, ladies and gentlemen. [audience laughter]

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And figures last month indicate that in 2012-13, there has been a further 10% drop in the same period last year. Now it still means, of course, that far, far too many people are becoming homeless each year – but the trend, particularly against the prevailing circumstances is an encouraging one.

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And combined with that emphasis on reducing homelessness, we are also increasing the number of affordable homes.

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By the end of this parliament, we intend to deliver at least 30,000 new affordable homes, two thirds of which will be for social rent. Almost 7,000 homes were built last year – that’s above the target, and it’s about 40% more than in 2006-07.

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Of these 7,000 affordable homes, 1,000 were council houses. And since everybody’s interested in figures, I can confirm that that marks a 63,100% increase [audience laughter] on the annual rate of construction under the previous administration, when 6 council houses were built in four years – all of which were in Shetland.

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Well Tavish Scott was Deputy First Minister, was he not? But nonetheless, the housing, the council housing which had dominated the landscape of housing after the First World War and the Second World War, had shrunk to effective zero, to near zero. And now is undergoing a revival.

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And that’s the circumstances which allowed that revival to take place, must surely be the decision to end the right to buy for new tenants in new houses. The councils are infinitely more likely to be interested in building new homes, now that they know that the homes cannot be sold. Council house construction last year therefore was at its highest level for some 20 years.

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Now that’s economically important – it supports the construction industry, it boosts overall economic demand. But the £760 million which will be invested in affordable housing over the next three years will support around 8,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the construction and related sectors each year.

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More importantly however, the provision of a decent affordable accommodation is also one of the hallmarks of a humane society. And as part of that, in addition to increasing the supply of housing, we want to maintain and improve its standard.

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The Social Housing Charter which came into effect this year has an important role in this. The Charter sets clear standards and outcomes which can be enforced by the new Scottish Housing Regulator. By doing so, it gives more power to tenants, while also enabling landlords to explain what they are achieving for their customers.

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There is also an important issue relating to sustainability when we think about standards. As I mentioned earlier, today, I visited the Cube Housing Association in Glasgow to see the district heating network that they have installed for the 1500 homes in the Wyndford housing estate in Maryhill.

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This is a combined heat and power system at the edge of the estate provides hot water and electricity, all of the houses in the estate have now been fitted with insulation.

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It is a great example of work that brings multiple benefits. It supports employment over the last year as the work’s been ongoing; it provides warm, dry houses; it reduces overall carbon emissions and – very importantly – energy bills. The Wyndford Estate is likely to reduce fuel bills for residents by up to 25%.

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There are some drawbacks of course to this great initiative. As you’ll know the Wyndford Estate is right next door to the flats that is the venue, is the location for the BBC Still Game series. And these flats are also being clad with insulation. Which means of course that Jack and Victor won’t be able to reasonably moan

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about their house being frozen in this year’s Hogmanay Special. [audience laughter]

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So on the one hand, this amazing scheme provides affordable heat and power for 2000 houses across that estate, on the other hand one of the plots of a great television series will have to be amended. [audience laughter]

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But while I was in Maryhill this afternoon, in due homage to Eddie’s Glaswegian origins, I was able to announce a further investment of funding to promote district heating. This funding provides capital grants for private homeowners at the Estate, to enable them to benefit from the district heating scheme. It allows us also to bring forward and extend the district heat network being installed for the Commonwealth Games village in the East End of Glasgow. Which will become housing after the Games. And it provides a grant to help Fife Council’s renewable district heating network in Dunfermline, so that it also covers Queen Margaret Hospital. An example of how public services and housing and investment should combine together to give an effectively heated hospital as well as effectively heated homes.

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The funding announced today is just part of a much wider. More than 400,000 homes have benefited from cavity wall and loft insulation measures in the last four years. We are investing a quarter of a billion pounds in this spending period to make Scotland’s housing warmer and more energy efficient. In addition, we recently announced a Warm Homes Fund to provide loans for renewable energy schemes promoted by local authorities and housing associations.

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The contrast with what’s happening elsewhere should be evident. Funding in England has just been cut from £350 million to zero in terms of the fuel poverty

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initiatives. And that’s at a time when energy prices are affecting household incomes, when the construction sector needs to be supported and when carbon emissions need to be reduced. We will continue to maintain and take a different approach to housing, to sustainability and to protecting people as far as is within our power to the consequences of the decisions that are being taken currently at Westminster.

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When you address homelessness and promoting affordable housing, Scotland has clearly benefited from the Scottish Government’s ability, under successive administrations to adjust policy to suit Scottish needs. And I want to, in terms of this lecture, to develop that in terms of a number of other policy areas.

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Last month the Scottish Government instituted a living wage of £7.45 per hour covering 160,000 people in Scotland working for the National Health Service, central government agencies and public bodies. The decision this year will benefit 3,000 people, and will help address in-work poverty.

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There’s a whole raft of measures as part of what I describe as our policy of the “social wage”, part of a contract between the people of Scotland and their Government.

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The idea of the social wage is the idea of providing, defending and extending core universal services, rights and benefits – these include university tuition, prescriptions, personal care for the elderly, a council tax freeze to protect household budgets, a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies in the Scottish Government and Health Service.

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Incidentally the last of these doesn’t mean that there’s no reduction in public service workers, but what it does mean, the no compulsory redundancies pledge, is it gives security to people in planning their household budgets. It is a significant

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step at a time when the Scottish Government’s non-health revenue budget is being cut by 14% in real terms over the next two years.

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Now the people who benefit from the social wage. The benefits to old age pensioners are the right to travel – and I’m interested and I’m constantly surprised by being told that the trouble with the free bus pass for pensioners is that there’s lots and lots of millionaires who are busy travelling on the buses around Scotland. Well in Edinburgh where the bus service is absolutely fantastic, that’s perhaps the case.

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But I’ve still to meet these extraordinary people who are travelling on the public transport on their bus pass but they’re actually millionaires. It’s not just the right to travel, it’s the freedom from fear of not being able to fund their care package in infirmity.

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The benefit to society of course is fewer geriatric beds, an enormous cost in our hospitals, as we instead fund people to stay in their own homes through the free personal care initiative.

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The right of free medicine, apart from being the original vision of Aneurin Bevan in the Health Service of course means people on £16,000 a year don’t have to choose between their prescribed medicines, don’t have to choose which medicine they’re going to take – as any pharmacist would tell you was happening under prescription charges.

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And the right of tuition fees, in a year where we now know that applications to universities in England declined by 13% - that’s one three, 13%, this year, while applications to Scottish universities are at record levels. The right to a free education, which affects of course 26,000 college students as well as university students, the right to free education is a contract which enables people to earn and redeem their obligation to society, that they benefit from training in terms of a fair taxation system that allows them to repay the benefits they’ve obtained through their education.

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We intend to extend the principle of the social wage to families needing childcare by enshrining in law the commitment all three and four year olds, and all looked-after two year olds, will receive a minimum of 600 hours of early learning and childcare.That will sit alongside the Family Nurse Partnership programme, and family centres - which have a growing role in providing infrastructure and support to young mothers and families.

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The work to build a fairer nation – under this Scottish Parliament and its predecessors – is now under very substantial threat.

34:13.000,34:41.000

The UK Government’s welfare reform programme, and I have to remind myself to stop calling it the welfare reform programme, because whatever else it might be, I mean reform suggests this is a long-called for crusade to iron out inequality in the system. But the welfare changes, reductions, cuts have the potential to be devastating for the income levels of the most vulnerable members of our society.

34:42.000,35:34.000

I’ve been an MP, and an MSP, a constituency member for some 25 years. I have over that period managed to build up somewhat of a reputation as a constituency member of parliament. Most of that reputation actually belongs to Citizens Advice

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Scotland – because I found out from an early period in my work as a constituency MP that without Citizens Advice being available in Peterhead, then I couldn’t possibly, with the staff available, and me available, processed, the number of calls on my attention. But the Citizens Advice Scotland were able to provide the support mechanism so we could work in orchestration. So that organisation I respect enormously over the last quarter of a century, for keeping me in a job as a constituency member of Parliament.

35:35.000,35:41.000

They warn that the welfare changes “are going to have a catastrophic effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Scots.”

35:45.000,35:59.000

Shelter Scotland, another organisation which I respect deeply, in evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare committee in May, argued that “the first and second wave of cuts brought in by the Welfare Reform Act will seriously undermine the housing safety net.”

36:00.000,36:14.000

Last week, Crisis, the charity for single homeless people, attacked the UK Government’s proposals to abolish housing benefit for under 25s, saying that, quote “It would be unworkable and irresponsible to withdraw housing benefit from under-25s at a time of high rents and youth unemployment.”

36:16.000,36:59.000

So, it cannot be otherwise, if you plan a change which is going to remove by 2014 some 10% of the income of the poorest sections of society, then the consequences of that are going to be very very substantial. Consequences to the people affected, consequences to the economy. Because whatever else the poorer sections of society is, are they are not people who tend to save their

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income. So the result in broad economic terms will be accent the deficient demand that the economy is suffering from at the present moment.

37:00.000,37:13.000

But the moral effects, the significant effects, the social effects are going to be huge and substantial and how can they be otherwise? When that level and percentage of income is going to be removed from many of the poorer members of the community.

37:14.000,37:23.000

Now, it’s not just talk from the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government – we are doing what we can to mitigate some of the effects of the welfare reform.

37:24.000,37:43.000

And it is a mitigation. Because I make no pretence that we can wave away the social and welfare changes that are taking place. But we have, jointly with COSLA, agreed to meet the cost of the UK Government’s cut to council tax benefits - protecting more than half a million people on low incomes across Scotland.

37:44.000,38:01.000

If you asked me to say it, I would never have thought that a Conservative government would have willingly devolved anything to the Scottish Parliament and so I was surprised a couple of years back to find out that the devolution of council tax benefit was very much in their plans.

38:02.000,38:21.000

And then I discovered it was to be a devolution of council tax benefit, with a 10% cut. They were doing the same thing to the English local authorities, incidentally,

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as they were doing to the Scottish Parliament. And then it all made sense – the circumstances in which the Conservative government would devolve a major issue of policy to Scotland is if they can attach a 10% cut to that devolution.

38:21.000,38:34.000

Well, jointly with COSLA, we have agreed to meet that cost. So alone in these islands, council tax benefit will be maintained for people on low incomes, for half a million people on low incomes across Scotland.

38:35.000,38:46.000

We have created the Scottish Welfare Fund, reinstating the cuts to the Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants made by Westminster, and that will protect an additional 100,000 vulnerable Scots.

38:47.000,38:58.000

But make no mistake - although we can take some steps to mitigate the impact of welfare reform, this is mitigation – it’s not a solution.

38:59.000,39:16.000

The situation with housing benefits is particularly ridiculous. The largest difficulty with costs in rising rental prices is obviously in the city of London and other aspects of the south east of England. Housing benefit expenditure in Scotland, in real terms, increased by less than half the rate of the UK as a whole.

39:17.000,39:32.000

In Northern Ireland, where welfare is devolved, the Assembly there will continue to pay the housing element of the universal credit directly to housing providers, rather than paying it to tenants. And it has been widely and rightly, praised for doing so.

39:33.000,40:00.000

With the same powers, we could take some steps, at least, to protect vulnerable tenants and safeguard housing provider incomes. But this underlines the absurdity of housing benefits being reserved. However the overall impact of welfare reform

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demonstrates a wider point - that the way to ensure that we have a welfare system which matches our values and priorities, is to take control of that welfare system.

40:01.000,40:18.000

It was the argument of which Eddie Morgan believed strongly - and is that the people best placed to make decisions about Scotland’s future are people who choose to live and work in Scotland. Nobody will care more about this country’s future. And nobody will care more about how to create a just society.

40:19.000,40:59.000

Ladies and gentlemen I want to close by quoting another one of Eddie’s poems. This is a poem which does contain a number of four letter words but none of them are swear words. [audience laughter] This is what he said to the Parliament as it moved from the General Assembly Hall to the Holyrood building in 2004.

Eddie said:

… We give you our consent to govern, don’t pocket it and ride away.

We give you our dearest deepest wish to govern well, don’t say we have no mandate to be bold.

41:00.000,41:10.000

I think setting and achieving the 2012 homelessness target is a good illustration of the fact that the Scottish Parliament on occasion has accepted a mandate to be bold.

41:11.000,41:46.000

I’m sure Eddie, if I’d been able to ask him, as the Makar at the present moment, and I said ‘Eddie do you fancy writing a poem about that Act? Maybe a Sonnet number 3?’ Then I think he may well have agreed. And what he would have

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produced was not something that said this was the end of the story or the achievement of all the aspirations, he would have produced something which said ‘Look this is something which should be congratulated’ and then he would have chided us for the things we weren’t doing.

41:47.000,42:20.000

The Scottish Parliament, with Acts like this, places an emphasis on social justice, on protecting the common weal of Scotland. In a small nation such as ours, deprivation and disadvantage are no great distance from any of us. There’s no community that is a huge distance from another. In a small nation, just like a village society, it is difficult, though not impossible, but difficult to walk by on the other side. It’s more natural to extend a helping hand.

42:21.000,42:42.000

So the Scottish Parliament has used its powers, by and large – and this is our Parliament as a whole that I’m talking about, not one particular party - for progressive purposes. Not just in setting and achieving the 2012 homelessness target, but also introducing the right to personal care, ending tuition fees and protecting the National Health Service which is worthy of the name, National Health Service.

42:43.000,42:55.000

It has, like Eddie Morgan, rejected the idea of communities where, in the words that Richard quoted earlier, “The same weans never make the grade/ The same

grey street sends back the ball it throws.”

42:56.000,43:07.000

My view is when people decide in two years time, one of the arguments that will sway them to vote yes is the argument that independence will give the powers we need to address inequality.

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43:08.000,43:28.000

The Scottish Parliament has made a start in building a fairer Scotland – one where all weans do have a fair chance to make the grade. With the right powers, we could come closer to completing that job. And live up to the challenging legacy of Eddie Morgan. Thank you very much. [applause]

43:47.000,44:03.000

[Richard Holloway] Thank you First Minister. A challenging and generous speech. We’ve got about ten minutes for questions and there are wandering mikes, so could you please put your hands up, those who – there’s one there, yes? And there’s a mike just beside you.

44:11.000, 45:22.000

First Minister, thank you for your talk. I’m Alastair Cameron from the Scottish Housing Action. And having been involved since 2002, 2003 in seeing this target come, I’m very happy to congratulate you on a job well done. And in the next breath to chide you. You rightly talked about the importance of preventing homelessness. But I think that an important insight is that preventing homelessness doesn’t prevent housing need. And therefore we need enough homes for people to move into. And our view is that governments of both colours have not built enough affordable homes over the ten years in which the target has been presented. So we’re now faced with a position where local authorities are putting people in temporary accommodation, they’re staying there longer because there aren’t the houses for them to move on to, they’re using temporary homes, which should be used as long term homes and so on. We have to start making the most of all the housing stock that Scotland has, for the people who need it most.

45:23.000,45:56.000

And we see houses in the private sector, standing empty, cause they can’t be sold. And we see rocketing private sector rents. In England the National Housing

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Federation showed that 37% rent increases over the past 5 years – and it’s not so very different in Scotland. I wanted to know what you thought a Scottish government can do to help make the most of the private sector, and is there anything we can do about the rents which are being charged in the private sector that quite frankly, people cannot afford?

45:57.000,46:42.000

The best traditions as I was suggesting, of Eddie’s that’s how we would have responded to last week’s legislation. To the improvements there have undoubtedly have been, I mean the figures speak volumes at the present moment, and we’re running into a hurricane of welfare changes, ladies and gentlemen. But at least we’re running into the hurricane with the homelessness statistics going in the right direction, not the wrong direction, as they’re going south of the border. The target of 6,000 affordable houses a year is a decent sized target in comparison with – yes I know it’s not enough – but it’s a lot more than there was.

46:43.000,47:26.000

And it’s not, you know that’s the minimum guarantee. It’s not a ceiling. And the various initiatives started that Nicola Sturgeon is taking forward in terms of finding ways to lever more houses, incentivise the building of more houses in a whole variety of ways. And to try and anchor investment so that more investment can be attracted into housing, these will continue to take place. The Scottish Futures Trust, as you know, has done some excellent work to building schools in an extremely effective way.

47:27.000,47:51.000

Looking very closely at the Scottish housing market and initiatives and schemes and wheezes and devices. And you may say well just build the bloody houses, which would be a very fair thing to say – we don’t do that because we’re living within a budget that is hugely confined, particularly in capital investment.

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47:52.000,48:15.000

And therefore we have to find lots of mechanisms to get around the obvious. I mean, if you take John Swinney’s latest letter to George Osborne today, then of course housing is the features, oh yesterday it was, features largely in the demand for additional capital investment. So it could be a lot simpler and a lot easier if you could say right, in addition to all these wheezes, because many of these are good things to do by the way, they’re good ways to lever and engage

48:16.000,49:04.000

investment into housing, will just make sure we do some direct building, which of course was the aim and intent and reason for reviving council house building in Scotland. So, you can depend, in terms of the more to do half of your question that we’re incredibly conscious of that, and want to do it, are open to ideas. I’ll look carefully at ideas for private rental sector rents and see if there’s anything more to be done, or could be done. But I will look absolutely at any way to lever in more effective, ways to make the available finances go further, you can be sure, certain about that.

49:05.000, 49:47.000

Can I just say one word about the district heating – the scheme in Dunfermline and the scheme in Glasgow, you know that’s not the last word on this. I mean. We’ve done some things connected with this, particularly with energy, our renewable programme. Greta in Scotland, but district heating, we’ve not been good at traditionally. Now the district heating we did have, I’ve been reminded by Shelter, wasn’t the best advert for district heating. But combine heat and power has huge potential for making many of the homes in Scotland secure, habitable and warm. The joke about Jack and Victor was a joke, but it’s also true.

49:48.000,50:22.000

I asked officials today to give me a figure, not a 25% - the average saving on a household heating bill for that group of flats in that community in Glasgow in

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Maryhill. And they couldn’t do it. And I got quite annoyed – I said ‘Well why can’t you do that, I mean that’s a simple thing, I just want a figure, I want a human figure- how much am I going to save on my heating and electricity, as a result of this district heating scheme?’ And the reason that they couldn’t give me a figure was that many of the people involved weren’t heating their homes.

50:23.000,50:44.000

They were heating one room. So for some people, it’s not going to be a matter of saving money, it’s going to be a matter of heating the house, rather than heating one room. And while I’m often impatient with officials who won’t give a straight answer in terms of things, I thought that answer was actually a substantial explanation.

50:45.000,51:21.000

Incidentally one of the tenants told me three hundred quid, but [audience laughter] it was the thing. But as we’ve known in the past in Scotland, we’ve had substantial homelessness, with empty homes, not just in the private sector, in the public sector. And so the security of the housing stock, making it not just weatherproof but heatproof is also a big thing. And also it has the opportunity. Because what’s enabled that to happen is obviously finance from the energy and fuel budgets as well.

51:26.000,51:32.000

[Richard Holloway] And this is First Minister’s Question Time, but the answers are quite long as well. [audience laughter] Is there another question? Yes, yes?

51:33.000,52:18.000

Hi First Minister, myself and my family became homeless in February. Since then, we have now thankfully, thanks to Shelter’s help, been given permanent accommodation. Myself and my husband are desperately looking for jobs to be

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able to provide for our two children. But we are also really really concerned that once we get a job that for the first two months we’re not going to be able to afford the rent, the council tax or the usual household bills. Is there anything that could be put in place or is in place to help, obviously families get back on their feet after being homeless?

52:19.000,52:37.000

I think it’s, and also the transition of people into work, you know. When you know Ian Duncan Smith says ‘we want to make work pay’, actually people agree with that. I agree with that. Most people in this room agree with that.

52:38.000,53:56.000

And if you want to make work pay, then one of the ways to do it, would it not, of making those out of work suffer, in order to make work pay, to make it a good incentive, let’s protect people from the transition into work. So’s benefits are not withdrawn like that, [claps hands] they’re withdrawn in a way that allows people to adjust to their new circumstances. That would be a cracking way to help people back into work. And if we want to incentivise people, well let’s incentivise people. Not scare the living daylights out of them. So I think it’s a very good point that you make. Bearing the t-shirt, because part of the organisations like Shelter, the legislation which enables people to secure permanent as proposed to temporary accommodation. It is there, but legislation is only important as it’s implemented, and its’ organisations like Shelter that keep the legislation honest. The legislation, the framework, Shelter is in a fantastic position, which is why they’ve campaigned long and hard for this objective.

53:57.000,54:04.000

But equally without the campaigning organisations, the legislation wouldn’t be enforced, it’s a two-way process. Good luck in your prospects.

54:05.000,54:53.000

You talked about new houses. But what do you plan to do about houses that are deemed liveable, that are riddled with mouldiness and dampness and we’re given

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explanations like it’s ourselves who are causing problems, condensation. So therefore they’re not a priority to be re-housed under homelessness. My daughter’s got asthma, getting extremely bad, they’re on steroids and with whatever else. These houses aren’t suitable – they’re clad and they’re still not fit for people to live, even families to live in – I’m just wondering is there going to be any improvements in them, or is it just new houses and these houses are still going to be there and people paying good rent for them, but obviously it’s affecting daily life

54:55.000,55:21.000

I’m a life-long asthmatic. And right through all the time I’ve been interested in politics and housing I’ve understood this really well because any sign of dampness and [clicks fingers] most asthmatics go off just like that. So the point about being in damp conditions is a very very heavy point for me personally, as well as understanding it.

55:23.000,55:37.000

I’ve actually been told by an environmental health person as well as the housing and anybody else that they’ve sent out, that dampness and mould doesn’t affect asthma or cause it [First Minister laughs] in any shape or form. I think I might have that in writing somewhere as well. So what do you say to these people that are keeping you in your house, taking your rent money off you and expecting you to just…

55:45.000,56:02.000

Send them directly to Scotland’s leading asthmatic, First Minister of Scotland [audience laughter]. I’d be interested to have the name of … I can debate exactly with this person. Believe me that dampness is one of the key configurations of asthmatic attacks and obviously the infection that goes with it.

56:03.000,56:15.000

There’s other things as well, but it’s one of the keys. And not all – obviously damp can be caused by poor designs and defective designs

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56:16.000,56:26.000

I was told at the time that this house had 35 years plus still to house people and families, I mean, what does somebody in my position…

56:27.000,57:00.000

I’ve been waiting for my doctor to tell me I’ve got 35 years plus [audience laughter]. But I mean it, the, as you’ve probably indicated, I am confident in terms of the project that I opened today, that many of the houses that had apparent problems, through the you know, storage heaters , and people not being able to afford that. You know the things you’re talking about is almost like the things people there would be told. Like their dampness problem is a result of them not turning on their heater, as opposed to not having an affordable situation where they could turn on their heater.

57:01.000,57:16.000

I was actually told to open up my windows – two years ago I think that was, in the middle of January. With the really bad snow – I had two kids under 10 and was told to open up my windows…

57:17.000,57:31.000

What I can promise then is that if we can, particularly the person that told you about asthma, I would like to get into a personal dialogue with this person to see if I can persuade them that there might be a different way to approach it [Richard Holloway says ‘Scotland’s leading asthmatic’ , audience laughter]

57:32.000,57:32.000

[Richard Holloway] Another one up there?

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57:33.000,57:52.000

Janine Larette from Lintel Trust and Weights Construction. Surely there’s a better way the Scottish Government could bring empty, structurally sound homes

back into use? Not only meeting needs of increasing housing supply, but also providing much needed construction jobs.

57:53.000,58:00.000

There’s a better way to do it? I was hoping you were about to suggest it. What is it?

58:01.000,58:04.000

No I don’t have that. The answer is maybe there’s a better way of…bringing – I mean I just watch in my job houses being demolished

58:09.000,58:32.000

And looking at statistic, I’m well aware of the economic climate, spending constraints, not going to sit here and moan about funding cuts. We’re building 14,000 homes and I reckon we’re demolishing that, surely there’s a bit of research to be done, in ways of bringing these homes back in that are structurally sound?

58:33.000,59:16.000

Well I’ll offer to do some more revision to see if there’s some, to see if there’s a better way. There are some – as I said again in the speech, the Wheatley Act, the Wheatley houses, were better built than many in the 1960s and 1970s, without any question whatever. I mean I grew up in one of the Housing Act houses and that will last a lot longer than 35 years from now, donkeys years, but clearly there are

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some defective designs in Scotland. And we’re not solely to blame for that, that happened just about everywhere.

59:17.000,01:00:05.000

I agree there probably are substantial number of good quality houses that are, that have been condemned for no other reason than the repair investment wasn’t there to bring them back into use. I will look into that. But if you do come up with the answer on that, I’d be, like. Alec O’Neill and Nicola Sturgeon and myself are absolutely open to any ideas that would increase the housing supply, whether through renovation, or through building. And I mean, I won’t go through the full list of things. What we are doing, the initiatives, a significant one, once we get it proofed.

01:00:06.000,01:00:42.000

We also have a certain reluctance in some issues, not to shout aboutthings too much, else it’ll get the kibosh from our friends in the Treasury. Because a lot of them involve ways of levering in finance, but particularly on reconditioning and renovating homes. Incidentally, the best way to create jobs through construction actually is maintenance and repair, and that is for a variety of reasons, one of which is that maintenance and repair contracts will tend to be more local in terms of the contracts that are used, in terms of impact on communities.

01:00:43.000,01:01:12.000

I speak as somebody whose first job in construction, of a very few jobs I had in construction, was getting £5 a house for taking wallpaper off Preston Terrace in Linlithgow as it was being renovated. Which I thought was fantastic in the first house – after doing a bit of spraying a bit of water all the wallpaper came off. And then the next house I realised that about 50% of the houses of Preston Terrace had varnish on. Which made it suitably impossible.[First Minister laughs]

01:01:19.000,01:01:36.000

Thanks. Hi, I’m Willie Sullivan from Electoral reform. Don’t worry, not going to ask you anything about electoral reform. I just, I’m thinking what I’ve read about the

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Wheatley housing and after ’45 the state acquisitioned or compulsory purchased land at next to no cost. Is that an option for being able to build more houses?

01:01:38.000,01:02:43.000

The… I don’t think our key problem just now is zoned land for housing. Even in the private sector there’s a fair amount of land banks available, but on specific situations, compulsory purchase orders can be used in specific instances – they can be used, and if there was a requirement to do it, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be done. If there’s specific examples, areas of… from what I understand, from what I understand, the major complaint of councils is not that they don’t have accessible land to build, or for that matter. And it’s maybe a discussion for housing association on a slightly different position in some cases. But I’ll look at the economics of securing land to see if there’s anything can be done in that respect.

01:02:44.000,01:02:58.000

And incidentally, why don’t you explain at some point, if you’ve got a minute, to John Prescott, how ATV works, because he, he seemed very perplexed about it last week on the telly. [First Minister laughs] Until somebody reminded him that he’d actually introduced it when he was in government.

01:02:59.000,01:03:03.000

[indistinguishable]

[Richard Holloway] And then we’re going to have to wind this up - we’re already over.

01:03:08.000,01:03:52.000

My name’s Sheila Young, I work for Standard Life and I was really pleased to hear what you said about the… a living wage, and it’s a policy that we pursue, not just for office staff but also for our catering staff. But I’m interested in the fact also – I have young adults in my family who find it very difficult to get work and in particular, secure work. And you’ve welcomed to Scotland, quite rightly, companies that are providing secure jobs. But an example – I live in Dunfermline, and the example is Amazon – which we all know the arguments about their taxation position. But also, they not only pay wages well below the

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living wage, but also operate on these contracts where if there’s not enough work, people are sent home part way through the day without pay.

01:03:53.000,01:04:19.000

And I just wondered what your message is to companies that put people in that position? I was thinking about the woman who spoke earlier, when you’re thinking about entering back into work, you find it hard to get a job, you’ve got rent to pay, but a huge and enormous range of jobs are now very insecure. Zero hours contracts, low pay. I can’t see that my youngsters are going to be able to get out of that trap for many years to come. And social housing, private housing, requires good tenants who can pay a good rent. And if employers won’t pay a fair wage, that’s very very challenging.

01:04:20.000,01:04:21.500

I was going to ask Richard was it Saint Augustine about the bit about the patience to change what you can change, the patience to understand what you can’t change, and the wisdom to know the difference, is that right?

01:04:22.000,01:04:39.000

[Richard Holloway]It wasn’t Saint Augustine, it was actually the founding father of Alcoholics anonymous. [audience laughter]But it’s a very good prayer.

Nah, he said lots of dodgy things, but not that.

01:04:50.000,01:05:32:000

Well what Saint Augustine was reputed to say but didn’t… in other words, I can introduce the living wage for Scottish public sector. Well actually that’s not true. I can introduce the living wage for the central governmental sector and the health service. And we’ve done that. We can probably, almost certainly persuade, or, no

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that’s the wrong word, encourage, that’s the right word, those who receive government contracts, that this is something that would be thought to be a very good thing.

01:05:33.000,01:07:24.000

For them to be doing and because there’s an incentive for them to be doing it. In terms of general private sector, I can tell you I don’t control them. The living wage, which I think has been a fantastic campaign, and incidentally has been accepted in, in times where there’s effectively been a wage freeze for 3 years in the central government service. But I haven’t heard a word of complaint here by the services – a year in the living wage. On the contrary, the unions and civil service are supportive of the initiative, very supportive. So I think it’s a bit like the almost prayer from Saint Augustine. That says until I, I don’t control –and I don’t control the minimum wage. I think the minimum wage should be higher. It needs to be particularly equalised with young workers as well. I don’t think anyone would argue the minimum wage. If we remember back, when it was introduced, it was a huge argument about the impact it would have on the economy. I don’t think anybody seriously claims that any more. Or maybe one or two people do, but for other reasons. But the living wage is a lot of currency going for it at the moment, and I think we should try and spread it through the public sector. Local authorities, by and large are falling into the, are coming into line with the minimum wage, I saw Highland for example, the other week, had voted in favour of introducing it.

01:07:25.000,01:08.53.000

And I think you’ll see something which should spread through society. And another thing I think about, you know, … companies. There is a… any company that is in the public eye in terms of the, whatever trade they’re in, retail, online trade, I mean, there is an element to which the people’s choices will be dictated by their behaviour and although when

[recording jumps]…

that was the cheapest thing cause of circumstances for myself and my family anyway, but not everybody’s in that position. I think reputation counts for a great deal for public facing companies. Reputation I think’s very important. But we’ll keep introducing the living wage, it will spread like the enlightenment through

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society. And I think I’ll probably, I’ll need some coaching on Saint Augustine. I miss his Thoughts for Today. I remember, he told me before we started today that Richard used to be a very regular on Thoughts for the Day. And he told me they started to effectively have a good look at his Thoughts for the Day in case they were too radical or polemical – as opposed to being what, religious? Didn’t they hear about this guy Jesus, wasn’t he kind of radical and political? Anyway, I hope that we can persuade the BBC to reinstate you, your views and thoughts of the day at some point. And then you can do one on Saint Augustine.

01:08:54.000,01:10:50.000

[Richard Holloway] Lots of things have been attributed to Saint Augustine that he didn’t say. Because he was that kind of guy. I once sent a saying that was attributed to Saint Augustine to the great Augustinian scholar Henry Chadwick. And he knew everything Augustine had ever written and he wrote back to me and said ‘No, he did not say this, but it was the kind of thing he might have said had he thought about it. [audience laughter] Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a very generous bit of the First Minister’s time. It was a stimulating lecture, and a historic lecture, bringing Shelter with Eddie Morgan and Scotland’s First Minister together, I think you have to admit there was a wee bit of smuggled politics in, but there was even more humanity and I think we’re all agreed that Scotland has a will to be a fairer and juster country, and I think the combination of Eddie Morgan, Shelter and the First Minister’s lecture tonight will give us all an impetus to work hard for indeed, a juster society. Before I ask you to applaud the First Minister, there’s one other thanks I have to offer, and that’s to the Scottish Poetry Library that Eddie Morgan took exception to because it was down the Royal Mile. But the woman who runs it lives in Glasgow, so he should have been quite happy about that. But thank you to the Scottish Poetry Library for giving us material which is out there in the display cases, first editions of Eddie’s work. Have a wee look at it as you go out. He really was a colossal Scottish treasure and his poetry of course, still lives. Thank you for coming tonight, and thank you First Minister for being so generous with your time – we’ve been enormously benefited by it. Thank you. [audience applause]

edwin morgan lecture - shelter scotland · 2013-01-30 · so we are absolutely delighted that the...

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