Labour unveils ‘seismic’ housing plans

Tackling Scotland’s housing emergency should be Labour’s flagship policy with changes to the system that would have a “seismic impact”, the party has proposed.

A Housing Commission report commissioned by Scottish Labour calls for the party to make the crisis its “flagship interventionist policy” to tackle poverty and inequality across Scotland.

A Scottish Labour government should be prepared to “take a direct operating role” in the housing market to try to ensure a “rebalancing of the public and private sectors in housing”, with the creation of a new government department committed to drive house-building and increase the supply of homes, it said.

The report also proposes building an additional 60,000 social homes over five years

The Chairman of the Housing Commission, Professor Stuart Gulliver, said: “This is an ambitious, radical and costly housing programme that will certainly take more than one parliamentary cycle.

“However, there’s no doubt that this radical platform would have a seismic impact on the Scottish housing system.”