Scottish Labour Party leader Anas Sarwar has called for the Scottish Government to implement an emergency rent freeze.

The freeze, which Sarwar wants to last for nine months with an option to extend to two years, would be part of measures to help combat the cost of living crisis.

He says exceptions would exclude landlords facing severe hardship.

The loose alliance of the Scottish National Party and Scottish Greens, which currently runs the Scottish Government, is pondering widespread rent controls across the country but has reached no final decision.

But Sarwar says: “The cost-of-living crisis is a national emergency on the scale of the pandemic – and dealing with it requires both of Scotland’s governments moving quickly and decisively.

“That is why Scottish Labour is calling for emergency legislation to be put before the Scottish Parliament now as the starting point for a response to help people without delay. We will set out areas now where Holyrood can act urgently to help people now.

“While bills spiral and wages struggle to keep up with inflation, the SNP has the power to help people but they’ve failed to take it. Nowhere is that clearer than rising rents, where just months ago ministers rejected calls for a freeze. Cash strapped tenants need help now, and no one should face being evicted because of this crisis.

“But now as people face unimaginable hardship they must think again and make these common sense changes at a time of national crisis.”

In June the Scottish Labour politician Mercedes Villalba, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, tweeted: “We can win a rent freeze for Scotland’s tenants. We can redirect money from private profit back into workers’ hands. Not an aspiration, nor a goal, not a fund nor a scheme. An automatic rent freeze now, this year.

Also on social media she said: “We cannot leave tenants without any protection from rent increases in the months ahead as the cost of living crisis deepens. The Scottish Parliament must do its bit for tenants and vote today for a rent freeze.”

At the time her attempt to get a rent freeze was rejected by the Scottish Parliament.