Greens key in bid to declare housing emergency

Scottish Labour will this week make a second attempt to declare a housing emergency.

The party will use its debatingtime tomorrow to push the Government to acknowledge the extent of the crisis in housing across the country.

A number of local authorities, including the two biggest in Glasgow and Edinburgh, have already made such a declaration in the face of increasing homelessness figures and a lack of supply.

The party has also urged the Scottish Greens to back the motion, after having voted against a similar attempt while the party was a partner in the Scottish Government.

The vote could be the first John Swinney faces losing since taking over the reins of the Scottish Government if the Greens and the rest of the opposition parties decide to back Labour. But it is understood the SNP’S former coalition partners have not yet decided on how they will vote.

Labour housing spokesman Mark Griffin said there was “no doubt” Scotland was “in the grips of a housing emergency”. “The SNP Government has not only ignored this crisis, but actively fanned its flames with its brutal cuts to the housing budget,” he said. “Tackling this housing emergencyis key to dealing with the cost-of-living crisis and driving down poverty – the SNP cannot remain in denial about the scale of this emergency.

“The Greens have an opportunity to hold the SNP Government to account for a litany of failures on housing, including plans to tear up the Bute House Agreement affordable housing pledge.

“I urge all parties to stand up for struggling Scots and back this motion.”

Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie said: “Housing is a right, and everybody should have a warm, safe and affordable place to call home.

“The levels of insecure housing and homelessness in Scotland are a moral disgrace.

“When the Scottish Greens were in government we introduced a groundbreaking emergency rent freeze and protections that went far beyond anything that has happened in any other part of the UK, and far further than anything that the Labour Party is proposing.

“We need to build on that progress with the Housing Bill that I introduced and that is working its way through Parliament.”

Scottish Lib Dem communities spokesman Willie Rennie said: “The SNP Government has refused to acknowledge the housing crisis. Ministers have taken an axe to the housing budget, presided over record high levels of homelessness and let the number of affordable housing approvals fall to its lowest level for more than a decade.”