They say 24 hours is a long time in politics, an adage that has never been truer for Scottish politics than in the last week of April 2024. The dismay with missed climate targets moved quickly from sabre rattling and a threatened members vote in the Green party to an unceremoniously sacking of the two Green party Ministers and the implosion of the Bute House Agreement that led to their appointment, followed just a few days later by the resignation of Humza Yousaf as First Minister and another SNP leadership race.
The SNP must now find a new leader by 27th May in order to avoid an election. The country, perhaps a little dizzy at the speed of developments rightly wonders: what next?
This crisis presents an opportunity across the housing sector for what many are already calling a ‘reset’ on housing policy, regardless of who leads the next phase in Scottish politics.
There is no doubt that tensions have been fraught and in a state of decline between the Scottish Government and the housing sector in the past three years.
The introduction of short-term rent freezes and long-term rent controls without sufficient consultation impacted both social and private rented sectors negatively, with the latter reporting higher numbers of landlords selling up because of the impact this has had on their ability to afford to provide rental homes, thus compounding a dire lack of available housing across the country and across sectors.
Several local authorities have declared housing emergencies, and the most recent budget in December announced there would be devastating cuts to the affordable housing programme, which will mean that house building targets become more of a pipe dream that an achievable aim.
The New Deal for Tenants was central to the Bute House Agreement and was spearheaded by Patrick Harvie MSP in his capacity as Minister for Tenants Rights. His shock expulsion from government was welcomed by many in the housing sector and it is they who will now be watching with interest and wonder if a different path will emerge and if so, what this will look like?
Some areas where an opportunity to reset and re-group include:
- Tone and rhetoric: It is fair to say that the private rented sector is entitled to feel that it has been painted as something of the villain in the housing story of the last few years, despite the factor that the economic crisis has impacted all areas of the housing market, and a lack of pace in building new affordable homes has contributed just as much to the issue.
As with all areas of political rhetoric at the moment, a move away from polarisation and towards collaboration would go to great lengths to help move on from this battle. Representatives of all areas of the housing sector would gladly welcome more conversation, consultation, and collaboration both across the sectors and with government to address the housing emergency that this country faces.
- Re-assessing budget priorities: The budget in December made baffling cuts to the housing sector spend which will only serve to slow the pace on the provision of more affordable housing. Re-directing funds towards the housing budget would be a clear signal of the next government’s commitment to ending the housing crisis in Scotland.
- Revised and realisable efficiency standards: Climate targets served as the loose thread that pulled the tapestry of the Bute House Agreement apart. However, there is no doubt we face a climate emergency alongside a housing emergency, and in an ideal world we would progress both objectives with equal vigour. As housing providers face strained finances and uncertain futures, any climate related housing initiatives by a future government, whether for new or retrofit, purchase or rent, must be clearly communicated, achievable, and supported by a package of government funding for what should be an investment in the next century of housing in Scotland.
- The Housing (Scotland) Bill: Including proposals to introduce a ‘New Deal for Tenants’ designed to redress the balance of power between PRS (Private Rented Sector) landlords and tenants; protecting tenants from purported egregious rent increases, further regulating the powers to evict, empowering tenants who request to make changes within their rented home, protecting tenancies for victims of domestic abuse and enhancing the homelessness prevention duties of public bodies.
There is much to be admired about the New Deal for Tenants in its concept and in much of what it tries to enact; in all the noise there has been in the run up to the draft release, no-one was suggesting that tenants should not be empowered to challenge unlawful or unreasonable actions and behaviours by the small number of rogue landlords still operating under the radar. Indeed, many in the sector do not deny this behaviour does exist, however, they are as equally frustrated that appropriate action is not being taken.
But a great deal of what was admirable and desirable about the new deal became drowned out in the, them versus us, environment in which it was drafted. It is a central tenet of any successful change management project, that for all parties to buy in to changes, they need to feel part of the process. Many landlords and their representative bodies would argue that this was simply not the case and easily be traced back to the earlier point raised about collaboration and consultation. There is undoubtedly a need for a New Deal for Tenants, building one in partnership with all the parties that will be involved in its execution, is key to ensuring its success.
The next 28 days will be an interesting time in Scottish politics. However, the housing sector has an opportunity to move on from a lengthy turbulent and difficult period with government to work in collaboration with the next Holyrood administration, to re-affirm its commitment to providing enough affordable and efficient housing so that the end of the Bute House Agreement can coincide with the end to the term housing emergency in modern Scotland.
This article was written by Julie-Ann Cloherty, Learning and Development Officer at Share. All information contained within this article was correct at the time of writing.
