A Conservative politician has named an individual who he claims is responsible for high rent rises and increasing homelessness.
Murdo Fraser, the Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament for Mid-Scotland and Fife, uses an article in The Scotman newspaper for a highly personalised attack on Green Party MSP and Scottish Tenants’ Rights Minister Patrick Harvie.
Fraser’s article responds to news that rents in the private sector are rising faster in Scotland than in any other part of the UK according to industry supplier HomeLet. This is despite a cap on rent rises introduced by Harvie, who has championed the policy as part of a loose alliance between his Green Party and the ruling Scottish National Party.
Fraser writes: “[Harvie’s] policy has instead led to dramatic rises in the cost of renting. It is the outcome of a series of policy interventions from an SNP-Green administration which has no understanding of how the private rental sector operates, nor indeed of the basic laws of economics.
“What we have seen over the past few years since the Scottish Government started intervening in the private rental sector is a reduction in supply of available properties, meaning that demand now substantially outstrips it. Letting agents report that whenever a property becomes available they are swamped with enquiries from prospective tenants looking for homes. That drives rents up.”
Fraser claims that a property development firm – Get Living – has dropped a proposed £200m investment for 1,500 homes in Glasgow, specifically because of Harvie’s policies. And he cites an individual constituent who Is self employed and may have to sell his small buy to let portfolio because of the rent cap, even though it is his pension provision for old age.
Fraser accuses Harvie of tacit support for illegal activity by environmental protesters and concludes his article by writing: “It is remarkable to see a government minister encouraging people to break the law. I wonder whether he would take an equally sympathetic view towards those furious with him and his government over his destruction of the rental sector in Scotland, and the expansion in the numbers of homeless people that it will cause.”
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