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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.
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How about freezing council tax - permanently
George that was my imnmediate reaction but you beat me to it.
AH well, freeze the rent they’d need to know what they are talking about, is it the rent’s that are already rock bottom and well below a market rent as a thank you for being so accommodating and fair or would it be the one’s that are charging Sky high rents that’s already gone through the roof as a reward and to keep them there.
I don't think that they are able to think logically.
They just see landlords as people who are legitimate to target continuously, irrespective of whether they are offering tenants a very good deal.
The could ease the pressure on Rents by removing some of the main causes contributing to the cost of Renting.
(1) Remove Section 24 driving out Landlords adding enormous costs to the supply
(2) Reinstate Section 21 fully that’s already caused thousands of landlords to sell up or switch to AirBnB.
(3) Scrap the licensing Schemes that have taken billions out of Private Rented Sector, so divisive, unfair where by it exempts some LL’s and targets others.
(4) Scrap Gove’s idiotic WHITE PAPER that already causing maybe.
There’s loads more without going on !,
Have you still no idea what’s been happening, freeze the rents not the causes.
Well said Michael!
If the new Prime minister would acknowledge immediately that the White Paper has already caused a 50% reduction in the number of landlords, and therefore admit that it was a mistake, then the private rental sector would be stabilised now. However, if the new administration carries on with the same agenda then there are going to be many more Section 21 notices served, the supply of flats is going to halve again, and rents will rise for that reason.
If they seek to tackle the problem by a freeze on evictions and rent controls then as soon as it is possible to do so again, landlords will get their properties empty in order to sell them. There won't be a private rental sector and there is not enough social housing to house everyone in need of accommodation.
The members of Generation Rent and Shelter are too young to remember what happened when the Rent Acts were in force, and therefore are rather ignorant. Even Baroness Alicia Kennedy is too young.
Notice he is not calling for the Scottish government to actually build more social housing !!! So it’s down to the PRS again 🤔
..but no call to freeze the price of what is causing everything to go up!!!
The BoE base rate is sending my mortgages up at an alarming rate & utilities are even worse - are we just seen as an easy target again?
How can they call for a Rent freeze without freezing base rate ?.
Better to freeze energy prices at the 2021 rate.
Much better to do that, but I don't think they will do it because there may be a gas shortage. We have a low level of gas storage and we import 50% of our gas from Europe which has relied on Russian supply.
However, there is a housing shortage, too, and a rent freeze will exacerbate that.
The SNP Government interference in the PRS, banning mutually acceptable fixed term tenancies in December 2017, has led to the current shortage of rental properties and thus higher rents, so Labour's answer is yet more Government interference!
Perhaps we need Nigel Farage as our new prime minister?
How refreshingly different! An ignorant politician (they all are) robbing one class or sector of working people and handing it to another group with all the fanfare of a great saviour. Look how clever I am, I've fleeced those nasty people who provide for themselves, pay lots of tax (and way more than they should, cos we EFF them up big time with S24) and they expect, ask and receive nothing from other working people, because they know that taking responsibility for their future, works and doesn't become a burden on others, and Sarwar does this just because he can. He's (Sarwar) an empty vessel with no contribution to make to the betterment for all, so he divides and conquers with his vacuous hate filled ideas to make some peoples lives miserable and impossible, so he can grandstand to the morons who v one for the likes of him and his ilk, clueless hate filled lefty activists. If he had an original and workable idea it would amaze everyone including him.
The funny thing is he's the son of a multi millionaire but ambitious politicians in Scotland know there's no point in being a Tory, so the less loony ones become Labour, leaving the SNP to embrace the ultra loony leftie brigade who would be Corbyn bed fellows in England.
Robert, when semi-religious dogma encounters reality in Scotland, reality loses out badly.
I feel for you, Nicola and Co don't really seen to give a damn about Scottish citizens, only their own mad agenda
First stage was scrapping short assured tenancies. Second stage was making all grounds for eviction discretionary. Third stage looks like rent controls. The thing is, recent rent increases in the central belt, especially Glasgow have followed years of stagnation. In Aberdeen, rents have just bottomed out after seven years of decline (roughly 45% drop since 2015). The Edinburgh situation has to have been exacerbated by landlords taking the obvious course of switching to more lucrative, less risky holiday lets, on account of the massive tourist demand. The writing is on the wall for the Scottish Landlord and the PRS will inevitably contract. It’ll be like going back to the 70s.
I agree.
Our first BTL flat in Glasgow rented for around £600 per month for nearly 15 years but over the last 15 years or so, the rent has increased by around 30% every time the Scottish Government has interfered, especially with HMO licensing for more than 2 unrelated adults sharing and in December 2017 with the outlawing of mutually acceptable fixed term tenancies.
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