Lorna Slater MSP
Co-leader of the Scottish Green Party
This week the Scottish Parliament will debate one of the most important pieces of legislation of this session, the Housing (Scotland) Bill.
The Housing Bill was introduced by Patrick Harvie MSP as part of the Scottish Greens’ New Deal for Tenants. It included rent controls, eviction protections and new rights such as the right to decorate homes and keep beloved pets.
At the heart of this bill is a simple but vital principle. That everyone should have a safe and secure home that they can actually afford.
For far too long, tenants in Edinburgh where I live and across Scotland have been at the mercy of a broken rental market. Average rents for a two-bedroom flat in Edinburgh have soared by more than 60 percent since 2010 and in some parts of the city the figures are even worse.
Families, young people and even those who have lived here their entire lives are being priced out of their communities, forced to choose between rent and other essentials.
This is why rent controls and stronger protections for tenants are so necessary. No one should be spending most of their pay packet just to keep a roof over their head, while landlords make record profits.
Homes are for living in, not for profiteering.
The Housing Bill is only happening because of the Scottish Greens. From the very beginning, we insisted that rent controls and new rights for tenants must be at the heart of the legislation. The Bill will help to redress the imbalance of power between renters and landlords, making sure that tenants have stability and security.
We are tabling amendments that we believe will make this bill even stronger and allow more security and peace of mind for individual renters and families. We hope that the government will work with us to make it as bold and robust a bill as it can be and that we can ensure Scotland’s renters are the best protected anywhere in the UK.
Rogue landlords have been allowed to get away with ripping off tenants for far too long. It’s easy to say the private rental market is broken, but it isn’t. It is rigged. It is doing what it set out to do which is enriching greedy developers and rogue landlords.
The current system has left renters vulnerable to sudden rent hikes and insecure tenancies. That is not good enough.
With this Bill, we can finally start to change that, giving people confidence that their homes will remain affordable and that they will not be forced out by unjust increases. We have the opportunity to start fixing a broken housing market that is punishing people all over Scotland. We must not water down or dilute our ambitions by building in loopholes, exemptions and handouts for big developers.
I am proud of the role the Scottish Greens have played in bringing this legislation forward, but passing the Bill is only the beginning. We need to make sure it is implemented properly and delivers the real change that tenants across Scotland so desperately need.
All families deserve financial stability. Nobody should have to worry about losing the roof over their head because their landlord decides to cash in. By backing this Bill, Parliament can take a major step towards making unaffordable rent hikes a thing of the past and creating a fairer, greener Scotland where everyone has a home they can afford.
This week, I urge MSPs from all parties – including the many that are landlords themselves – to support rent controls and protections for tenants. Edinburgh’s families cannot wait any longer.
Featured image via Justin Black / Shutterstock.
