SNP candidates’ plans hint at a fundamental housing policy reset - David Alexander

The campaign to become the new First Minister has covered many topics but the most glaring omission until this week has been housing. Apart from Humza Yousaf’s recent random intervention about refurbishing empty houses in the Highlands, housing has not featured in the campaign.

But the announcement this week by the two remaining SNP leadership hopefuls – Kate Forbes and Ash Regan – is a sign that housing would be a priority if either of these candidates were to win the election.

Both Ms Forbes and Ms Regan have a similar idea to establish a Scottish housing agency (to be called ‘Homes Scotland’) to oversee and drive the building of thousands of homes to buy and rent.

It would prioritise the release of land to local authorities and developers and self-builders – and cut red tape to speed up the planning process.

David Alexander is CEO of DJ Alexander Scotland Ltd​

This tacit admission by both candidates that the existing SNP government had broadly failed in providing enough housing over the last decade is hinted at by Ms Forbes who stated: “Housing needs to be regarded as a necessary infrastructure in building a better Scotland and not a privilege outwith the reach of so many in our country.”

“A secure, comfortable and low energy home needs to be accessible to all in a future Scotland, we have the people, the materials, and the land, we just need the vision, will and organisation.”

She further stated that by creating an external body tasked with increasing capacity to “build houses for both rent and sale; it could act as an agent for expanding construction skills apprenticeships to tackle skills shortages. In other words, it could be a central feature of supply chains in Scotland able to respond to changing needs.”

Taking housing out of the five-year political cycle would free up the external agency to plan for the long term without considering electoral implications. This would enable housebuilding to shift from being a politically driven policy to being one about improving infrastructure, strategic planning, and developing a steady flow of affordable, accessible housing to buy and to rent.

Scotland’s housing strategy needs to be taken out of the five-year political cycle

A proper housing strategy would inevitably cover several electoral timescales with planning over a ten or even 20-year period with target-lead proposals to ensure that planning regulations, land development, and financial incentives are developed to encourage the right homes in the right areas both to reflect the current and future needs of Scottish society.

Ms Forbes has called for a “reset” of Scottish politics and policies. This is surely the right idea as the current piecemeal approach to housing, and other policies, has not worked in the last decade and has resulted in the problems we now face in the sector.

We need a long-term, fundamental rethink on the delivery of housing for homeowners, for tenants in the public and private sector, and in the way that new housing is delivered.

Housing needs to be a major part of any incoming First Ministers plans. New social and private building developments with large scale infrastructure investment would produce jobs, create wealth, and provide homes for people who want to work and live in Scotland.

This is not some pipedream as it was not so long ago that housebuilding in the private and social sector was more than double the annual rate we currently have. New housebuilding completions peaked in 1970 with 43,126 homes compared to 21,143 in 2021.

Many more houses are needed now because of lifestyle changes which mean that almost 80 per cent of Scots live in households of one or two with just five per cent living in homes of more than four people. The result is that we need more houses not just because of population increases but because the existing housing stock is taking fewer people than it did 20 or 30 years ago. Only by understanding the sociological and geographic shifts in housing and responding to them will we be able to address the fundamental issues impacting the Scottish housing sector today. Kate Forbes’ and Ash Regan’s proposals may be the first positive step in addressing these issues.

David Alexander is CEO of DJ Alexander Scotland Ltd