Housing inaction

Take the “reintroduction of council housing”. The implication is that no affordable housing was being built before the SNP government.

However, looking at the total of council and housing association homes, in 2006-7, 5,584 such homes were started in Scotland; in 2007-8, 6,234. Numbers have declined each year since, with only 2,781 started in 2012-13. That some of these are “council” should not be allowed to obscure this decline.

Even with “homeless priority”, in Edinburgh families are waiting in temporary accommodation for between eight months and a year to get a permanent tenancy.

One constituent, after receiving notice to quit from her private landlord, has been given temporary accommodation in Wester Hailes, although her children are at school in the east of Edinburgh. She is faced with getting them up at 6am to reach school by public transport, or moving schools, maybe twice.

A single father with two daughters is trying to go self-employed while paying a high private rent. His prospects of a council or housing association tenancy are years away, because he is not “homeless”.

Nor is “ending council house sales” going to help either of them and many others like them.

It doesn’t take effect until 2017 but sales have already dropped since discounts were reduced in 2002. With only 87 sales in Edinburgh last year this is only scratching the surface. Nor does every sale foregone turn into a house available for let.

The usual Scottish Government response is to blame Westminster. But why not prioritise housing now? Maybe we could free up councils to raise council tax a little to borrow to build more homes. Or maybe the Scottish Government could use its tax varying powers to increase funding for new housing.

Sheila Gilmore MP

Labour, Edinburgh East