HOLYROOD’S housing brief, with a £3.5bn budget, means I can address the complexities underlying the universal human right to adequate housing fundamental to Scotland’s social wellbeing, economic growth and progress towards net zero.

Groups such as Homes For Scotland, with CEO Jane Wood, and Housing First, which works with the homelessness network, deal with a spectrum of need, including urgent housing to enable those in crisis to live with dignity.

For others, soaring prices in a distorted property market put home ownership beyond reach for younger individuals, families or those on average incomes (Scottish Poverty and Equality Commission Report). Lack of affordable rents challenges rural Scotland’s sustainability, while 35,000 empty homes require to be brought back into use.

East Lothian’s new homes, and new residents, underpin economic growth but also increase pressure on medical services and I’m meeting 20 East Lothian GPs to hear their personal priorities.

It’s claimed that holiday properties benefit the tourist industry, statistics needing measured and evaluated. Achieving an appropriate balance between holiday homes and affordable housing is a challenge elsewhere and, in fact, European colleagues consider that Scotland’s housing policy, which provides nine times more social housing than England, is head and shoulders above other countries.

Lord Frost and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly have claimed that Scotland shouldn’t deploy its own international perspectives but the initiative of Young Scots for Independence and organiser Olaf Stando, who arranged its first international conference, shows that a 21st-century country should be engaging at every level with its continental neighbours, exploring common problems and solutions.

Labour’s strategy for 2024’s Westminster election assumes that Scottish Labour votes are already ‘in the bag’, disregarding Scotland’s overwhelming support for rejoining the EU. If a second Brexit referendum were held, 72 per cent in Scotland would vote to remain (Panelbase survey, 2022). Pro-Brexit Labour, preoccupied with Red and Blue Walls, isn’t listening to widely shared views that Scotland’s future interests lie with modern Europe, not with Britain’s past structures.