20th
Jan 2022
A Scottish newspaper believes there is a strong possibility of the SNP/Greens ‘partnership’ proposal for the introduction of rent controls could be kicked into touch, because of the many BTL elected politicians voting against the plan.
The newspaper has claimed that around 20 per cent of Scottish parliamentary politicians are in fact PRS landlords.
In the newspaper’s article it reported there could be ‘a risk’ to the proposal of rent controls despite around 80 per cent of MSPs not being landlords.
The article then lists the landlord politicians, eight of which are Scottish National Party MSPs.
One of the listed SNPs politicians, Michelle Thomson, pulls in a guesstimated ‘£30,000’ per year income from her three rental apartments and three rental homes.
However the Scottish Labour Party which fully supports rent controls has five MSPs in their ranks who are landlords.
The newspaper claims that: “Campaigners say the stark figures show that the density of parliamentarians who are involved in the rental property market is a ‘serious impediment’ on their ability to act in the interests of tenants.”
The Scottish ruling ‘alliance’ of the SNP and Greens is currently holding a formal consultation for its drastic plans to completely reform the PRS with rent controls at the forefront:
The consultation include the proposals of:
• national rent controls;
• restricting evictions during winter;
• increasing penalties for illegal evictions and stronger enforcement;
• introducing a new Housing Standard to apply to all homes;
• giving tenants greater flexibility to personalise their homes and keep pets;
• establishing a private rented sector regulator to uphold these standards and ensure the system is fair for both landlords and tenants;
• setting minimum standards for energy efficiency, making homes cheaper to heat while contributing to Scotland’s climate change targets.
During the festive season Paul Sweeney, Labour’s shadow minister for public finance and employment in the Scottish Parliament, demanded that rent controls must be introduced as soon as possible when tweeting:
“We need rent controls in Scotland, and we need them now. For too long, landlords have had total control: ratcheting up rents well above wages while neglecting maintenance.
“Together we can end the rip off rental market in Scotland and provide good quality housing for everyone”.
Richard Merrick of PIMS,said: “ Although calls for rent control is ‘boiling over’ in Scotland and could be very likely implemented and if so it will be no surprise when UK cities such as London and Manchester clamouring to introduce the same controls as their councils are run by a party in favour of this.
“Rent controls have been proven to make it worse for tenants and may cause many landlords to ‘up sticks’ and sell up and putting the onus squarely back onto councils to provide housing they simply haven’t got.”
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