Meeting of the Parliament 30 September 2025
I am happy to close on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives.
The bill has had a long and difficult journey to where we now find ourselves. It was 10 months ago that we started stage 1; stage 2 covered numerous weeks of meetings of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee; and stage 3 has taken up almost three full days of parliamentary business.
However, the legislation, despite all the time that we have spent on it, still does not represent the response to Scotland’s housing crisis that we so badly need. Despite all that time, we will not see one single home built as a result of the bill, and it also risks fracturing the lives of hundreds of thousands of privately rented households in Scotland.
Many stakeholders, including organisations such as Scottish Land & Estates and the Scottish Association of Landlords, have continued to warn that the rent control proposals in the bill will hurt supply in the private rented sector. Members on the Conservative benches have raised concerns about those proposals since the start of the process, and we have spoken about examples in countries such as Sweden and Germany, where rent controls did not lead to proper investment in housing. The SNP’s failed experiment with rent caps in 2022 has not stopped the Government trying to make those damaging measures permanent. As I said, stage 3 has been a long time coming, and yet the bill will not contribute anything.
In the debate, Meghan Gallacher said that improving the supply of houses should be a driving factor. That is not happening, but the bill will put in place permanent rent controls, which is misguided, as it will ensure that investment does not take place. Rent controls do not make homes. The bill will see fewer houses built and homelessness continue to grow. It is a missed opportunity. Councils will struggle to cope, and the bill will not do anything to help the housing emergency.
Willie Rennie spoke about stamina. We have had a huge amount of stamina in going through stage 2 and stage 3, but the outcome is disappointing. What we have achieved is a long way from building confidence in the sector. It is not what the sector needs—the balance is not there, and planning is still a barrier. What we needed was confidence, stability and security, and we have none of that.
Edward Mountain spoke about the way in which landlords have been demonised in the bill process, and the language that has been used. The needs of both residents and tenants and landlords need to be looked at in the long term to ensure that things will get better. In reality, the bill will not make things better—it will mean that there are still inequalities. Edward Mountain highlighted the finding that 33 per cent of landlords no longer want to continue in the business, and that is not the balance that we want to see.
In the debate, we have heard a narrative that pitches tenants against landlords. As I have said, that is not the narrative that we need to hear, but it is the inference from the proposals in the bill. Despite the Bute house agreement ending more than a year ago, the SNP appears to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the narrative that rent controls need to be in place.
It is time to talk about that narrative. We need to talk much more about the solutions that are needed. We need an attempt to increase the housing supply, and we have tried to move that forward. The bill was an opportunity to realise that and to deal with the housing emergency, but it has catastrophically failed to achieve what was set out. The bill is a missed opportunity, and it will risk making the housing crisis even worse—[Interruption.] For those reasons, Scottish Conservatives will certainly not support the bill at decision time—[Interruption.]