Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2014
I say to the member that we did not listen to letting agents to get that information. The information is based on Scottish Government research, which shows clearly that 16 out of the 18 rental market areas have seen below-inflation changes in average rents.
Where rents are high or rising, the answer is to build more houses, not just for private renting but in all tenures, and we have taken decisive action on that.
We recognise that an inability to find affordable housing in Aberdeen has been causing difficulties in the recruitment and retention of key staff in the national health service and other parts of the public sector. Such workers are now set to benefit from various forms of affordable housing that will be developed on the Craiginches site in the city, which, importantly, will be targeted at them.
We have boosted housing supply budgets by investing £1.7 billion in affordable housing over the lifetime of this session of Parliament. Last month, we announced a £200 million increase in funding to stimulate Scotland’s housing industry.
Despite challenging economic conditions and despite Scottish budgets being cut, our rate of house building per head continues to outperform that in other parts of the UK. We have delivered more than 22,700 affordable homes, which is three quarters of the way towards our target of 30,000 affordable homes. More than 15,900 of those homes are for social rent, which is 80 per cent of our social rent target. I remind the Parliament that, in the last four years of the previous Administration, just over 20,000 affordable homes were completed. In the following four years, we increased that by 34 per cent. In fact, there was no single year during that period when this Government did not complete more homes.
The Scottish Government is working with our stakeholders to deliver better quality and more security in the private rented sector and to deliver the variety and number of affordable homes that are the answer to high rents in the sector.
I move amendment S4M-11763.3, to leave out from “notes with concern” to end and insert:
“recognises that, in May 2013, the Scottish Government published A Place To Stay, A Place to Call Home, which is Scotland’s first ever strategy for the private rented sector; welcomes the progress that has been made in implementing the strategy, in particular the publication by the government of the consultation on its plans to improve security of tenure for tenants in the sector while providing appropriate safeguards for landlords, lenders and investors; notes that, in most parts of Scotland, rents rose by less than inflation between 2010 and 2014 and that the consultation invites views on rent levels in the sector; considers that the government’s approach to reforming the private rented sector will deliver the outcomes sought by Shelter Scotland’s campaign, Make Renting Right; encourages stakeholders from all sides to respond to the government’s consultation, and looks forward to stakeholders’ views being reflected in the bill to reform private tenancies that the Scottish Government plans to bring forward later in the parliamentary session.”
15:29Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.