The Scottish working class is facing a desperate housing crisis. Official levels of homelessness in Scotland are now at their highest levels since records began in 2002, with 28,882 households assessed as homeless in 2022. The housing charity Shelter figures for 2022 show that one family became homeless every 18 minutes, with 39 children a day losing the roof over their heads. This bleak picture is the result of decades of privatisation of and deliberate underinvestment in social housing by successive Labour, Conservative and Scottish National Party (SNP) governments alike.
The decimation of social housing began with the introduction of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government’s Right to Buy (RtB) scheme, which saw almost half a million (494,580) council homes in Scotland sold into private ownership (at a heavily discounted price) between 1979-80 and 2014-15. Housing policy was devolved to Scotland in 1999, but RtB continued under successive Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition Scottish governments. Despite the SNP forming a majority Scottish government in 2011, it did not abolish the policy for a further five years. Today just 24% of homes in Scotland are social housing, compared to 54% in 1975.
The squeeze on social housing was further exacerbated by the handing over of council-run homes to housing associations promoted by the 1997 Labour government. In 2003, Labour-controlled Glasgow city council handed over the entirety of its remaining council housing stock of around 81,000 homes to housing associations, the largest public housing stock transfer in Europe. In exchange, then Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown wrote off Glasgow city council’s £900m of housing debt.
The results of the erosion of publicly-owned housing are grim, with homelessness in particular on a sharp upward trend. The latest figures show that:
- 14,458 households were living in temporary accommodation in September 2022 – 40% higher than the number recorded in March 2014;
- in September 2022 there were 9,130 children living in temporary accommodation, the highest figure on record, and double the number in March 2014;
- 183,185 households are on council housing waiting lists – up from 130,000 in 2019 – including 24,209 disabled people and 95,293 children.
- Glasgow city council reported in January that housing associations across the city held 64,500 applications for social housing on their registers in 2022. The SNP-led council plan to build just 6,500 ‘affordable’ new homes by 2028.
Despite repeated promises to tackle this housing crisis, it is clearly low on the list of the embattled SNP’s priorities. Nothing meaningful was said about housing or homelessness during the SNP candidate elections in March. The Scottish government’s has promised to build 110,000 ‘affordable’ homes by 2032, approvals for building homes in the social rented sector have stalled. Ministers have refused to intervene over local authorities in Scotland using debt enforcement agencies and courts to chase homeless people for more than £33m in rent arrears debt accrued while living in temporary accommodation. While many have welcomed the extension of a claimed ‘eviction ban’ by the Scottish government to the end of September 2023, it fails to protect the most vulnerable – those with arrears of over six months, or social housing tenants with rent arrears over £2,250. The housing charity Shelter says it runs the ‘real risk of making Scotland’s existing homelessness crisis even worse’.
Meanwhile, as across Britain, damp and mould continue to endanger the lives and wellbeing of tenants. Between 2021 and 2022, 14,451 reports of damp and mould were submitted by council or housing association tenants across 22 of Scotland 32 councils, a fifth higher than the previous year. Social landlords, including Scotland’s biggest housing association The Wheatley Group, have refused to pay for remedial work. In December 2022, an entire family was hospitalised with breathing difficulties and infections caused by their mouldy, damp, cold West Dunbartonshire council home.
SNP promises – not worth the paper they’re written on
In March 2021 the SNP government published its ‘Housing to 2040’ programme. The aims included ‘eradicating child poverty and homelessness, ending fuel poverty, tackling climate change and promoting inclusive growth’. This was followed in September 2021 by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s promise to deliver 110,000 new affordable homes by 2032, with at least 70% to be for ‘social rent’.
The latest affordable housing supply statistics, published on 28 March 2023, shows that compared to 2021, there was a 23% (1,175 homes) drop in the number of social sector homes being built in 2022 and a 22% (1,860 homes) drop in the number of homes approved for construction. This was the lowest annual figure for home approvals since 2013.
Almost £177m has been cut from the ‘More Homes’ programme (from £744.3m in 2022/23 to £567.5m) in the Scottish government’s budget for 2023/24 with the Chartered Institute of Housing warning this would undermine efforts to tackle homelessness.
Glasgow multimillionaire owner of City Refrigeration and long-time Labour Party donor Lord Willie Haughey has promised 11,000 ‘affordable’ homes in Glasgow in the next nine years as part of a £1bn vision. Haughey’s ‘affordable’ (£700 monthly rent) is an insult. The average monthly rent for a three-bedroom Wheatley Home (formerly known as Glasgow Housing Association) is around £372.
The Scottish government (with the SNP now in partnership with the Greens) is loaning millions of pounds to housing associations to build homes. Over £69m has been loaned to Wheatley despite its plan to bulldoze 600 social homes on the Wyndford Estate in Maryhill, Glasgow, ‘replacing’ them with 300 homes, many of which will be for ‘mid-market’ rent. In 2022, Martin Armstrong, the then chief executive of The Wheatley Group, earned an annual salary of £418,000.
The reality is that the building of publicly-owned, safe, decent and genuinely affordable housing on a mass scale is the only solution to the housing crisis in Scotland. The SNP will not provide it. We have to fight for it.
Dominic Mulgrew
