Latest news with #HousingBill
The National
19 hours ago
- Business
- The National
New holiday home tax proposed to protect Gaelic language
Increased taxes for holiday homes and Airbnb-style short term lets have been put forward by the Scottish Greens as a way of tackling the housing crisis in Gaelic communities, as well as supporting young people who wish to stay in the areas they have grown up in. Ross Greer, the party's finance spokesperson intends to force a vote on the proposed taxes when Holyrood considers amendments to the Housing Bill this autumn. READ MORE: Anas Sarwar urged to break silence on Labour's 'nuclear tax' for Scots The amendments would allow ministers to apply a 'special' surcharge on those purchasing holiday homes or other additional properties in areas with high levels of Gaelic speakers, including Skye and the Outer Hebrides. Commenting, Greer said: 'Gaelic is an essential part of Scottish culture and national identity, but it is on the verge of extinction as a living language. 'We need to take bold action immediately, or the decline will be impossible to reverse. The Languages Act is a good starting point, but we know that one of the biggest threats to the language is the housing crisis in areas like Skye.' His proposals follow the passing of the Scottish Languages Bill, which allows for communities where Gaelic is widely spoken to be designated as 'areas of linguistic significance'. Additional charges on holiday home purchases would apply in areas with this designation, including Skye, where average house prices are around £60,000 higher than the national average. A local councillor reportedly estimated that almost 60% of properties in the area were either holiday homes or short term lets, forcing young people off the island and putting the survival of Gaelic as a community language at risk. A lack of affordable housing is often cited as one of the main factors in Gaelic being on the verge of extinction in historical Scottish communities. 'Young Gaelic speakers are being forced out of the last communities where it is still the spoken language because holiday homes and Airbnb-style short term lets have driven up house prices to levels they cannot hope to compete with', Greer continued. READ MORE: Consultation launched on new Jeremy Corbyn party 'As a result, they are forced to move to areas where they cannot use Gaelic in their everyday interactions. This is one of the biggest threats to Gaelic's continued existence. 'My proposals would make it harder for wealthier people to buy up second homes and short-term lets in Gaelic-speaking communities and in turn make it easier for locals, especially first-time buyers, to secure their own home." Greer added: 'Changes to council tax already delivered by Scottish Green MSPs reduced the number of second and holiday homes across Scotland by 2500 last year, freeing up more properties for people who need a home to live in. 'We can build on this success with further targeted actions and ensure that our Gaelic-speaking communities can thrive rather than be treated purely as holiday parks for tourists and the super-rich.'
The National
21 hours ago
- Business
- The National
Greens propose holiday home taxes to protect Gaelic language
Increased taxes for holiday homes and Airbnb-style short term lets have been designed to tackle the housing crisis in Gaelic communities, as well as supporting young people who wish to stay in the areas they have grown up in. Ross Greer, the finance spokesperson for the party, intends to force a vote on the proposed taxes when Holyrood considers amendments to the Housing Bill this autumn. READ MORE: Anas Sarwar urged to break silence on Labour's 'nuclear tax' for Scots The amendments would allow ministers to apply a 'special' surcharge on those purchasing holiday homes or other additional properties in areas with high levels of Gaelic speakers, including Skye and the Outer Hebrides. Greer said: 'Gaelic is an essential part of Scottish culture and national identity, but it is on the verge of extinction as a living language. 'We need to take bold action immediately, or the decline will be impossible to reverse. The Languages Act is a good starting point, but we know that one of the biggest threats to the language is the housing crisis in areas like Skye.' His proposals follow the passing of the Scottish Languages Bill, which allows for communities where Gaelic is widely spoken to be designated as 'areas of linguistic significance'. Additional charges on holiday home purchases would apply in areas with this designation, including Skye, where average house prices are around £60,000 higher than the national average. A local councillor reportedly estimated that almost 60% of properties in the area were either holiday homes or short term lets, forcing young people off the island and putting the survival of Gaelic as a community language at risk. A lack of affordable housing is often cited as one of the main factors in Gaelic being on the verge of extinction in historical Scottish communities. 'Young Gaelic speakers are being forced out of the last communities where it is still the spoken language because holiday homes and Airbnb-style short term lets have driven up house prices to levels they cannot hope to compete with', Greer continued. READ MORE: Consultation launched on new Jeremy Corbyn party 'As a result, they are forced to move to areas where they cannot use Gaelic in their everyday interactions. This is one of the biggest threats to Gaelic's continued existence. 'My proposals would make it harder for wealthier people to buy up second homes and short-term lets in Gaelic-speaking communities and in turn make it easier for locals, especially first-time buyers, to secure their own home. 'Changes to council tax already delivered by Scottish Green MSPs reduced the number of second and holiday homes across Scotland by 2,500 last year, freeing up more properties for people who need a home to live in. 'We can build on this success with further targeted actions and ensure that our Gaelic-speaking communities can thrive rather than be treated purely as holiday parks for tourists and the super-rich.'
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Landlords must lose the fight over Scotland's rent controls
Last year, the government declared a national housing emergency, recognising record levels of homelessness, the toll high rents are taking on tenants, social housing waiting lists of nearly a quarter of a million across Scotland, and disrepair rampant across our housing stock. Yet as Professor Duncan Maclennan points out, the 'housing emergency' is a misnomer. Read More: This so-called emergency did not happen overnight; it has been created by design through the privatisation of our housing stock and unregulated growth of the private rented sector. Scotland's tenants have faced the hard end of these economic decisions for decades, and bold structural solutions are urgently needed in response. Tenants don't have time to wait. Rent controls, as outlined in the Housing Bill, are an important first step towards ending decades of housing misery. Robust, universal rent controls which have the ability to bring rents down could begin to transform our housing system by making private rented accommodation more affordable and disincentivizing exploitative landlordism overall. It's important to state that forms of rent control seen in recent temporary measures have included too many loopholes for landlords to exploit. Any exemptions to upcoming rent controls would create a multi-tier system, leaving thousands of tenants open to unregulated rents and undermining future policy efforts. The current consultation on rent controls has laid bare the Government's intention to appease landlords by introducing significant exemptions to rent controls. Ruth Gilbert, national campaign chair of Living Rent (Image: Newsquest) At this last hurdle rent controls are under threat. Since the government first committed to rent controls, the landlord and developer lobbies have eroded support for proper regulation of the private rented sector among politicians. The constant barrage of criticism - combined with empty threats of a mass exodus of landlords - have pushed a pliant government into conceding to appease the market at the expense of tenants. The most egregious exemption proposals concern 'build to rent' developments. The government has proposed a suite of amendments designed to encourage these sorts of developments, but this dangerous trend towards large-scale private developments is not something they should sensibly support. Build to rent properties are expensive, and beyond the reach of most tenants. Anyone who has walked through either Glasgow or Edinburgh recently will have seen these buildings springing up alongside billboards that promise convenient locations, fun perks, and luxury accommodation. Worryingly, this is just the start of the build to rent boom, over 3,800 units have been built, and there are 12,767 still in the pipeline. This explosion of the sector should highlight that it does not need any further government incentives. Indeed, across the UK the industry received over £1bn in investment from North America in the last quarter of 2024 alone. Developers' push for exemptions only highlights the business model they are touting. The bill, as introduced, already allows for above inflation rent increases, and so lobbyists' greedy demands for more exposes a model that is more concerned with creating dividends for overseas investors than delivering on the needs of Scotland's people. The government is deeply misguided if it thinks that expensive, luxury accommodation is going to fix our housing emergency. These are development sites which can and should be used for much-needed and genuinely affordable housing for social rent. Also proposed for exemption are mid-market properties. Mid-market tenants are some of the most vulnerable in our housing system. Apparently designated for tenants with low to middle incomes, mid-market properties exist to ensure that those unable to afford rents in the private sector and who cannot access social housing are able to better afford their housing costs. By threatening to exclude mid-market tenants from rent controls, this will see mid-market landlords able to increase rent however high they like with tenants left with no recourse to challenge it. For example, this summer at Water Row mid-market development in Govan, tenants were hit with a 10.6% rent increase after being given a rent increase of 39% before they had even moved in. The rent increase was delivered despite a previous commitment to keep rent below the local housing allowance. However, tenants had no legal recourse to challenge. It was only through Living Rent members organising together and fighting back did the landlord eventually concede and cancel the rent increase. This government needs to stop listening to the empty threats of landlords and legislate to protect those who have been most impacted by decades of mismanaged housing policy. Scotland's tenants need universal and comprehensive rent controls that bring rents down. Anything short of this will ruin the housing bill, undermine the possibility of a more just housing system for years to come, and damage the wavering trust that Scotland's tenants have that politicians will take the urgent action needed to end the national housing emergency. Ruth Gilbert is the national campaign chair of Living Rent
The National
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
Banning a protest group as authoritarian as it gets
It has been a defining catchphrase of his leadership: denigrating protest movements and using it to criticise any form of solidarity or direct action from Labour members and elected representatives – up to and including banning his Cabinet members from joining striking workers on picket lines. It's all part of this right-wing Labour Government's attempts to erode the basic democratic right to protest, whether through its refusal to repeal authoritarian anti-protest and anti-trade union laws brought in by the Conservatives, or their use of these laws – and even anti-terrorism laws – to silence and restrict pro-Palestine voices who are speaking out against our government's complicity in Israel's genocide in Gaza. The latest escalation came yesterday when the Home Secretary set out plans to ban Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist organisation, after its protests attempting to disrupt the supply chain of the military-industrial complex complicit in genocide. READ MORE: Iran announces it has attacked US forces stationed at air base in Qatar For the Government to use anti-terrorism laws to ban any peaceful protest group which makes life inconvenient for them is as authoritarian as it gets and should scare us all. It may not be a cause you agree with being banned today, but who knows what they'll ban tomorrow? And for this to come from a Labour Government is simply extraordinary. Labour's detestation of protest isn't just morally wrong, it's also deeply foolish. The framing of protest vs power is a false dichotomy – the most radical societal improvements came about due to protest movements. The women's suffrage movement used both peaceful and violent protest methods to fight for their right to vote. Basic employment rights, from the five-day working week to the creation of the minimum wage, came after years of co-ordinated campaigning by the trade union movement. Even the NHS didn't just pop into the government's head without prompting. A number of campaigning organisations including the Socialist Medical Association and the National Union of Students campaigned for a national health service long before it was founded by Aneurin Bevan. (Image: File) It is only because in each of these cases the governments of the day had no choice but to listen to the voices of the people they were elected to represent that we now have rights, freedoms and public services we today take for granted. More recently, we have seen the impact protest movements can have by working alongside political parties to deliver genuine improvement here in Scotland. The Housing Bill making its way through Holyrood contains measures for the implementation of rent controls in the private rented sector, and though the bill is imperfect, we wouldn't even be discussing rent controls let alone being close to implementing them were it not for the tireless efforts of tenants' union Living Rent. It's also true that the bill in its current form wouldn't exist were it not for the Scottish Greens, who were able to amplify the voices of renters across the country by taking the demands of Living Rent and including rent controls as part of the Bute House Agreement. Similarly, free bus travel for under-22s was an issue campaigned for by a number of organisations including student groups and the Scottish Youth Parliament, while the recent commitment for free bus travel for asylum seekers came about after campaigns by the Maryhill Integration Network, the Scottish Refugee Council and others. Both of these campaigns were amplified by the Scottish Greens and won as a result of both on-the-ground protest and campaigns, and political negotiations by elected politicians. Simply put, all of these transformational policies came about because the Greens recognised the need to be both a party of protest and a party of power – whether that is power within government or the power that comes from constructive opposition. Greens uplifted the voices of campaigners and protesters – in many cases with Greens among the ranks of protesters themselves – and helped win genuine, tangible change as a result. In some of these cases, such as free bus travel, the adoption of the policy by the Greens came about as a result of grassroots campaigns by internal groups like the Scottish Young Greens. All of this is to say that any politician – Starmer or anyone else – who denigrates or minimises the role that protest has to play in our politics, either doesn't understand where power lies in a democracy, or they do and they are scared of it. It's no wonder governments in Westminster have sought to attack and minimise the ability to protest – they know it works. The UK Government continues to be complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza despite it being both morally reprehensible and deeply unpopular among the general public. A YouGov poll last week found that a majority of the UK public opposes Israel's actions in Gaza, with just 15% supporting them. And 65% want the UK to implement the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit the UK. It makes sense then, for a deeply unpopular Labour Government elected on just 33.7% of the vote to aim to criminalise direct action against its complicity in this genocide by proscribing Palestine Action and cracking down on other forms of protest. They know that if the people of the UK were free to voice what we really think, and act in the moral interest, the Government simply wouldn't stand a chance. Protest is, and always will be, a vital part of our democracy, no matter how much Labour and the Tories try to erode it. It reminds politicians that power in this country belongs to the people – we merely lend it to them at the ballot box. It's the reason for so many of the vital rights we hold today and it'll be the reason for more in the future, not least Scotland's independence. Politicians of all colours would do well to remember this.
The Herald Scotland
23-06-2025
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Mairi McAllan must end 'political choice of homelessness'
More than 16,000 households live in temporary accommodation, including 10,000 children, with another 5,000 children thought to be homeless. Gordon MacRae, assistant director of Shelter Scotland, accused Scottish ministers of 'maintaining' homelessness by managing the decline in the housing sector. He said the Housing Bill, currently being considered in Holyrood, fails to 'stop anyone becoming homeless'. In a scathing assessment, he said: "We have nothing on the table right now that will reduce the probability of homelessness occurring over the next 12 months. "This is a political choice. We have a programme for managing homelessness and managing decline in the housing sector." He added: 'The seriousness and the energy and relentlessness to drive change, I'm afraid it's not there. 'I don't think it's an unfair challenge to say that the Scottish Government's comfort zone is managing the problem not ending the problem and that is what we hope for with Mairi McAllan.' Read more: He said Ms McAllan must reduce homelessness and increase the number of council and social homes by the end of the parliamentary year. 'This is the opportunity that is available to her but it requires political choice to do things differently and up until now ll of the working groups, all of the meetings – and there has been many of them since the declaration – have really focused on doing better with what we have. 'We need to accept that there is not enough homes, there's not enough good quality services to stop the continued growth in homelessness. 'We also need to accept that if homelessness increases, then the harm increases. More people will die, more people will be on the streets, more children's life opportunities will be reduced because of the experience of homelessness.' Last month, it was revealed that every council except Edinburgh will receive less money for social housing this year compared to four years ago. Scotland declared an official housing emergency in May 2024, following in the footsteps of a dozen councils, including Glasgow and Edinburgh. Ms McAllan's predecessor Paul McLennan informed the First Minister he did not wish to continue in government following a brief period of ill health. Since taking office, Ms McAllan said she will "advocate for the greatest possible funding" for her new portfolio. In response, Ms McAllan said: 'Having a safe, warm and affordable place to call home is critical to a life of dignity and opportunity. Therefore providing this and tackling the housing emergency head on will be my top priority. "It will be essential in ensuring everyone in Scotland, and in particular our children, have the opportunity to thrive and I am focussed on delivering that real change. 'A major key to tackling the housing emergency is delivering affordable homes - and fast. We have a good track record in this, but we must now step up our efforts. "To that end, we will invest £768 million this financial year in the affordable housing programme, including £40m targeted towards acquisitions to support the local authorities to tackle the most sustained homelessness and temporary accommodation pressures. 'I am also focussed on preventing homelessness in the first place. Local authorities will be provided with £15 billion this financial year for a range of services, including in homelessness services. "There is also an additional £4 million invested in the Ending Homelessness Together budget for 2025-26 to help local authorities, frontline services and relevant partners prepare for the new measures in the Housing Bill - measures which will help to prevent homelessness before it occurs. 'I am squarely focussed on the task in hand, am open minded about how to approach matters and look forward to working with Shelter Scotland and others in this vital task.' Ms McAllan faced criticism last week after she was unable to say how many people in Scotland were on a social housing waiting list. She told STV News: 'It's not that I don't know it, I don't have the figure with me today.'
