Housing system ‘simply broken’
A HOME should be a basic and fundamental human right. But instead in Scotland we have a housing system that is simply broken.
Ending the housing crisis in Scotland is the first step towards eradicating poverty and inequality in our country.
The failure to build enough social homes alongside soaring property prices has seen more and more people find themselves in an underregulated private rented sector where bad landlords can treat people appallingly.
Building more public homes and tackling rip-off rents and agency fees will create better homes for bringing up our children.
It will reduce the cost pressures of housing and it will provide a supply of sheltered housing, too, which will be in growing demand with our ageing population.
The weather of the last few weeks has been atrocious – imagine being evicted on the whim of a bad landlord during a snowstorm,
That’s why I pushed Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s Questions to not only review the scale of rough sleeping in Scotland but to consider a total ban on winter evictions.
But we need to go further. Our broken housing system needs radical change. That means investing to build more homes, but also reform to give people rights in the private rented sector.
This change can’t wait. That’s why at the Scottish Labour conference this weekend, I announced that Labour had begun work on bringing forward a “Mary Barbour law” – legislation named after the leader of the Glasgow rent strikes – to reform the private rented sector.
Our proposed law would control rents to protect tenants. No one should be forced to rent a home that pushes them into poverty or falls below the standards needed to protect their physical and mental health and well-being.
We won’t wait for change from the SNP Government. We will deliver real change now through Holyrood.