The Bill currently places a stronger importance on preventing homelessness through ‘ask and act’ duties on social landlords and relevant bodies, such as Health Boards, Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, to ask about a person’s housing situation as early as they can and act to avoid them becoming homeless wherever possible.

Scottish Government amendments to the Bill, developed with help from homelessness charities including Crisis, will ensure people get the help they need. They will also require a range of services to do more to prevent homelessness and to co-operate, share information and will be specific on what is required of them to help people remain in their homes, supported by £4 million pilot programmes in 2025-26.

Mr McLennan said: “We want Scotland to be a world leader in homelessness prevention. We already have the strongest homeless rights in the world, but we want to go even further. These changes to the Housing Bill will increase the likelihood that people will receive help before reaching the point of crisis.

“Making sure everyone has the right to a safe and stable home is essential to the Scottish Government’s priority of ending child poverty and the Bill will play a role in reaching that goal.

“Working closely with our partners including Crisis, we have developed a set of amendments that further strengthens rights and gives people the help they need by ensuring that preventing homelessness becomes a collective responsibility across society.

“These amendments will have a lasting, positive impact for many households, and I urge Parliament to back them when they come to a vote.”

Crisis has backed the minister’s call to urge MSPs to vote for the measures.

Maeve McGoldrick, head of policy and communications for Crisis Scotland, said: “Time and again on our frontline services, we see examples of people who have been forced into homelessness in circumstances where we know, that with the right help, it could have been prevented.

“We strongly welcome the proposed amendments, made by the Scottish Government, to strengthen the prevention measures outlined in the Bill. We believe these measures will ensure the new prevention duties are much more robust, that the infrastructure needed to make this work will be in place, and that the individual will have stronger rights when it comes to good quality support. 

“We are urging MSPs from across the chamber to back the sections of the Bill aimed at preventing homelessness – if enacted properly, these new protections could help Scotland build one of the most progressive homelessness systems in the world.”