After introducing the Bill earlier this year to address the sky-high rents many people are paying, the First Minister gave in to pressure from the landlord lobby and signalled a U-turn, but he didn’t say what changes he would make.
Now, after months of uncertainty, we know the detail.
Local councils will still have to assess the rent levels in every part of the country, and can still declare a Rent Control Area where the evidence demands it.
But under the new plan, even in the areas with the highest rent, the rules will almost never be able to stop rents rising faster than inflation.
You read that right – even when the rents people are paying are extreme, the strongest action the Government will allow will keep your rent going up faster than food, energy and your other bills.
The only exception will be at times when inflation goes through the roof again, and even then, rents will still keep going up.
Rent control could be one of the most crucial steps that our Parliament takes to address the cost-of-living crisis and support people who are having their budgets stretched from all directions.
But this new, weaker system will not give tenants the security or stability that they need.
Housing campaigners and tenants have been crying out for an effective national system of rent control, but instead the SNP are appeasing landlords who are more worried about profit margins than the wellbeing of tenants.
Housing is a human right that everyone is entitled to, and there are landlords out there who understand that, charging a fair rent for decent housing.
Those landlords would have nothing to fear from rules that end exploitative rent levels. But let’s be clear, there is no shortage of bad landlords.
The Scottish Government talks about the need to eliminate child poverty, but the pay packets of people renting in our city have not matched the rent hikes they’ve faced.
This change of heart showcases the SNP’s failure to tackle one of Scotland’s pressing issues since they went back into minority government.
The cost of sky-high private rents hits household budgets hard, but it also has a real impact on the public purse.
Councils across Scotland have spent £720 million on temporary accommodation as a result of the homelessness crisis over the past year. The Scottish Government also spends nearly £100m a year on Discretionary Housing Payments.
Keeping rents down can help to ease these financial pressures, but instead the changes outlined by the SNP will mean more public money being used to bolster landlords’ income.
The landlord lobby likes to claim that rent controls will cut supply of homes, but we heard all of the same doom-mongering when I introduced the temporary rent freeze in 2022, and in fact the supply of rental homes across Scotland actually increased.
For decades, similar arguments were made pretty much every time regulation of the private rented sector has improved, and it has expanded hugely over that time.
Well-designed rent controls can and should work in tandem with building the homes that Scotland desperately needs.
The type and location of new homes is also important if we want to get the supply of homes right.
Investment in new homes shouldn’t just be about the numbers; Glasgow should be building the kind of affordable homes that are really needed instead of ones that are out of most people’s reach.
With many build-to-rent properties popping up all around the city at monthly rents for one-bed properties starting at £1400 a month, and with thousands of people on Glasgow’s waiting list for social housing, this is only lining the pockets of the developers.
Better rights for tenants should not be viewed as a radical idea, but rather as a basic value that our society stands by.
That’s what the Housing Bill was designed to provide, and that’s what Green MSPs will continue to push for when Parliament votes.
