Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2014
I am glad to have the opportunity to debate the private rented sector. The sector’s growth might be news to some members, but the Scottish Government identified it as an issue as far back as 2010, when we recognised that an increasing number of people, including families, were spending part of their housing journey in the sector.
At that point, we committed to developing a strategy for the private rented sector and set out to do so by working with the Scottish private rented sector strategy group, which comprised stakeholders who represented tenants, landlords and others with interests in the sector. The result was the first-ever strategy for the sector in Scotland, which we published in May 2013.
The strategy set out our vision for the sector and identified three aims: improving quality, delivering for tenants and landlords, and enabling growth and investment to help to increase overall housing supply. In those aims, we recognise not only that the private rented sector plays a valuable part in meeting housing need for many people but that more could be done to make it more attractive to those who, for a range of reasons, prefer not to buy.
We have made good progress in taking forward the strategy. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2014, which the Parliament passed in June, will improve quality through a regulatory framework for letting agents and additional powers for local authorities to deal with poor landlords. The consultation on a new tenancy for the private rented sector, which I launched in October, sets out proposals to give tenants improved security of tenure.