Reform’s plan to fix Scotland’s housing emergency

SCOTLAND HAS  the highest level of homelessness since records began, with 40,000 adults and 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation. Shelter believes this can be fixed by building 15,000 affordable homes per annum over the next five years.

Reform agrees this 75,000 target is eminently achievable, accounting for only three per cent of Scotland’s 2.5m households, and we will ensure local authorities, through the planning system, are empowered to deliver it.

But in our most deprived communities, the limited new supply of affordable housing is being given to strangers in priority to locals. In Scotland before 2022, a homeless person could not apply to a council for housing unless they could demonstrate they had a “local connection” to the area.

But since this was abolished by the SNP, council services across Scotland have come under enormous strain, as they are now legally obliged to find temporary accommodation for all applicants presenting as homeless, having to pay for rooms in B&Bs, hotels or private rental accommodation while their application is processed and forcing local authorities to continually raise council taxes to pay for this ballooning cost.

Glasgow has become the asylum capital of the UK

By contrast, English councils are required to house a homeless person only if they “normally reside” in that council area, which is defined as either six months’ residence in the area during the past twelve months or three years’ residence during the previous five years.

Whereas some English councils temporarily suspended the requirement for a local connection during the covid pandemic, they have all since restored it, which is why Scotland is currently housing ten per cent of all asylum seekers in the UK.

In particular, Glasgow has experienced an explosion in homelessness applications from outside of Scotland. In 2022, only 35 applicants presented to the council without a local connection, whereas since 2023 there have been 4,449 such applications, of which 76 per cent were from outside Scotland.

The result is that Glasgow has become the asylum capital of the UK, housing 6 per cent of the UK total. But the same problem is repeating across Scotland with many local authorities declaring a housing emergency by being forced to prioritise social housing for asylum seekers over local families already on the waiting list.

Enough is enough. This is not fair. Our working-class communities are at breaking point.

Reform UK will restore the requirement for a local connection in Scotland to apply for housing and end Glasgow’s status as a dispersal city. Reform will restore community cohesion by putting locals first.

Reform UK’s ambition is to restore civic pride in our towns and cities by creating vibrant community hubs for Scots to live in harmony and cohesion. The new deal for local authorities will allow affordable housing to be built on town centre brown-field sites for local working families, with compulsory purchase powers granted over vacant and non- town centres, maintained properties.

Reform will allow local people more say in the design and form of their communities

An innovative, long term funding model with UK pension funds will be developed by Reform UK to build a sustained supply of social housing owned by the local authorities. A small site policy in local development plans will encourage local SME builders back into the market and we will introduce a progressive Rent-To-Buy model targeted at young people, first-time buyers and working families.

We will build on the concept of Local Place Plans to allow local people more say in the design and form of their communities, even down to street level, through a review of current planning laws.

We will cease any new building regulation and stop local planners getting in the way of sensible local development. These policies will ensure that our town and city centres come alive again, buzzing with families, pensioners, workers and visitors combined.

The SNP has saddled the private rental sector with regulation after regulation, driving down supply and driving up rents. The shortage has been stark for smaller properties essential for young people, with the proportion of 25-34 year-olds forced to live with their parents having increased by almost 40 per cent since the SNP came to power.

The SNP’s regulations have especially discouraged long-term lets, creating a perverse incentive for landlords to pivot to providing only short-term lets, and for property developers to concentrate on building only hotels and student flats. As a result, Scotland’s towns and cities are turning into staging posts for a succession of transient visitors rather than cohesive neighbourhoods for people to put down roots.

Reform UK will repeal the SNP’s regulations for all new tenancies, while keeping the terms of existing tenancies unchanged, making homes both plentiful and more affordable for the Scots who need them most.