There is so much wrong with our housing system, from needless homelessness to spiralling costs (which have shut a generation out of housing) to over-mortgaged homeowners struggling financially to the sheer environmental inefficiency of much of the housing we build to the failure to build homes how and where communities need rather than where a developer can make most money.
Energy – electricity, heating and transport fuel – is crucial for the modern Scotland we live in. But it can also be one of our biggest threats if we don’t get them right. It can harm our environment and play a major role in causing the climate crisis. ‘Energy inequality’ can harm the health of those who can’t afford to heat their homes. Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe which does not own its energy publicly and the only one that doesn’t own its own National Grid.
Video 1:35 minutes
21 Policies that would enable Scotland to meet our responsibilities as laid out by the 2021 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
Ben Wray analyses new data on the experience of living in Scotland’s private rented sector, and argues for reversing the trend under devolution of increasing privatisation of the rental market.
This paper makes the case for national rent controls and outlines the problems with the current system of rent pressure zones which have so far been inadequate at preventing the problems high rents and rent insecurity in Scotland.
Instead, rent controls could be designed around a points-based system links to the quality and amenities of a property (rather than market rates) and would be attached to the property rather than the lease.
A new Scottish Rent Affordability Index would peg maximum rents at affordable levels.
The 2040 “Vision” document sets out aspirations. The overall message, that a good home and community, as a human right, is a font of wellbeing, rather than an outcome of wealth-creation, is very welcome. The following suggests the levers necessary to deliver this and its associated aspirations. It also notes the places where associated policy initiatives and campaigns are advancing.
The proposals cover a wide range of policy areas including: Existing buildings, land and planning, regeneration, finance, leadership, diversification, technology and materials, and tax and wealth.
This paper presents a model for building an unlimited number of houses for social rent on a zero-subsidy basis using the Scottish National Investment Bank.
These houses would be built to extremely high standards of thermal efficiency and on a stable finance model ensuring costs to the tenant are far lower than the private market.
The case is made that this model could be used as a post-pandemic stimulus scheme which will reform and secure the housing and construction sector.
Good housing needs more than good housing policy: housing policy needs to be part of wider social changes towards a more equal, community-centred, environmentally sustainable society, but good housing policy can make an important contribution to those changes. Economic considerations remain key, but we need to transcend the destructive veneration of GDP.
This paper outlines a radically different approach to housing policy. It also looks at immediate improvements that will be steps on the way to more fundamental transformation.