How the SNP helped create the housing emergency they've belatedly declared – Jackie Baillie

The SNP not only ignored the housing crisis but actively fanned its flames

Last week there was no housing emergency in Scotland, according to the SNP. This week, they agree there is. Only the humiliating prospect of being defeated by Labour’s motion in parliament shook this retread administration out of its complacency. The SNP previously voted against a Labour motion declaring a housing emergency in November.

Back then, in coalition with the Greens, they wore their blinkered partisanship with pride. Now John Swinney has dropped his SNP lapel badge, claiming he wants to be consensual. The truth is the SNP need a reality check.

In the real world, several councils have already declared housing emergencies. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Argyll and Bute, Fife, and West Dunbartonshire warn they cannot meet their obligations to provide homes for the homeless. In Glasgow, a staggering number live in temporary accommodation with a total of 7,266 people, including 2,765 children, stuck between home and homelessness.

As well as declaring a housing emergency, the SNP needs to do something about it, like reforming the planning system (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Across Scotland, almost 10,000 children are struggling in temporary accommodation. Homelessness is at record levels, with 30,724 open applications as of September 2023, up ten per cent in a year. Rents are rising at record rates. Private rents rose by 6.8 per cent in the year to January. Mortgages remain stubbornly high after Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.

Get our weekly opinion newsletter for expert analysis from The Scotsman’s team of columnists

The number of affordable new homes being approved and started has hit a ten-year low and the Scottish Government’s affordable housebuilding target is unlikely to be met. The SNP not only ignored this crisis but actively fanned its flames. Despite all these mounting pressures, their 2024/25 Budget cut funding for affordable housing by £196 million.

There’s no point in singing the old song, as Social Justice Secretary Shirley Ann Sommerville attempted again this week, blaming Brexit and the Tories. There was a 4 per cent drop in the Scottish Government’s capital budget but a huge 26 per cent cut in the housing capital budget, demonstrating their priority is not housing.

Housing is a completely devolved policy area and the SNP have been in charge for 17 years. Perhaps the minister didn’t get the memo that continuity doesn’t cut it? The excuses are worn out when it comes to this defining crisis of our generation. Scottish Labour has urged all parties to unite and develop plans to address it. Recognising the housing emergency is only the first step. Now the SNP must set out a real plan to tackle it.

They could start by scrapping the brutal cut to the affordable housing budget. They could reform planning in order to boost housebuilding, and strengthen the Housing Bill to deliver a fair deal for tenants.

The SNP has buried its head in the sand for too long. That they are finally prepared to acknowledge the scale of this crisis is welcome, but they cannot deflect responsibility for their role in this crisis or prevaricate.

Tackling the housing emergency is key to dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. Social housing is the linchpin policy to tackling rural depopulation, growing the economy and getting people out of poverty. Now the SNP have woken up from their denial about the scale of this problem, after years of ignoring it, hiding behind bluster, and policy by press release, ministers might find the next stage difficult, but now the government has to act.

Jackie Baillie MSP is Scottish Labour’s deputy leader