Rates of core homelessness are substantially lower in Scotland (0.57% of households) than in England (0.94%) and Wales (0.66%).  In March 2021, the numbers in temporary housing stood at over 13,000. This is well above the previous peak of 11,665 a year before. 

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.

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.

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.

― According to the latest figures, 26.5% (or around 649,000) of Scottish households live in fuel poverty while 7.5% of households (183,000) live in extreme fuel poverty. This is unacceptable in contemporary Scotland.

― The Scottish Government should abandon its staged approach to housing energy efficiency improves as it creates ongoing (rather than one-time) upheaval for construction companies and adds to the problem of retrofitting existing buildings to the most efficient standards.

―  We have identified no examples of low-carbon heating being taken up on a large scale without government assistance.

― The primary barrier to the roll-out of low carbon heat is financial. Efficient schemes like renewably powered district heating will have to be government financed.

― Without significant government planning, individual households are likely to decarbonise their heat using heat pumps which, while an improvement over fossil fuels, have significant downsides – not least, their collective impact on the electrical grid.

― In principle, Common Weal supports mandatory improvements for houses owned by owner-occupiers and private landlords however we note a number of problems with the proposals covered by this consultation.

― We object to energy efficiency being measuring using Energy Performance Certificates due to the severe shortfalls in the methodology used to determine them.

Initial rents should be set against a points system to reflect the value of the property. Rent increases be capped at a rent affordability index to ensure increases do not push tenants into hardship. A move towards indefinite tenancies as default, away from short-term contracts. Ensure that all tenants are entitled to a hardship defence in relation to evictions. Create a Scottish Living Rent Commission, to oversee these recommendations and to serve as a centre of expertise for the Scottish Private Rental 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.

The United Kingdom’s housing policies have been ideologically-driven, and have led to the current crisis of strangled investment, under-provision and a general flow of power and money from civic society to the wealthy. UK housing has suffered greatly from its politicians’ fixation with a single form of home and tenure, the mortgage-backed and privately-owned home.