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.

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.

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.

― The response is strongly of the view that the Scottish Government has significantly under-estimated the financial, resource and time costs involved in using Energy Performance Ccertificates as a basic measure of energy efficiency.

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.