City’s housing crisis won’t be solved by a lame duck Scottish Government - Susan Dalgety

Scottish Government’s Housing Minister Paul McLellan and Council’s Housing Convener Councillor Jane Meagher take a look at the recently refurbished houses in Murrayburn

Not only are the council forced to spend eye-watering sums giving people a roof over their head, often the accommodation they are offered is below the legal minimum standard.

Reports in this newspaper last week revealed that the city council is currently using 30 illegal properties – unlicensed houses of multiple occupation – to provide accommodation for some of the city’s 5000 homeless households.

How can this be when Edinburgh was revealed, only recently, to be the best UK city outside of London for growth and economic performance?

And we are a healthy city too, with researchers pointing out that Edinburgh has the highest percentage of citizens in good health of the 11 UK cities they examined.

Yet, despite our health and wealth, the council is forced to spend £50 million a year on sub-standard accommodation for thousands of people; money that would be far better spent on building or buying affordable homes for rent.

The city’s housing chief sounded desperate in her response to the report. “We can’t continue forever with this situation,” said Councillor Jane Meagher, adding “We are talking about human beings and responsibility for them and their welfare, as well as the welfare of the city.”

Indeed we are Councillor Jane Meagher, indeed we are. But hand wringing won’t build a single home.

To be fair to Edinburgh councillors, they alone can’t fix the city’s housing emergency. It is a national problem and only a joint effort involving the Scottish Government, councils, social housing providers and the private sector will sort this.

And I don’t mean more glossy strategies, full of empty promises, I mean action.

Whether it is fast-tracking the planning process for housing development, as the UK Government has promised for England, or investing the bulk of our national capital budget in a major housing programme, something has to be done.

The SNP government has less than two years to run until the next Holyrood elections in May 2026. It is a lame-duck administration, led by a man who most of the time looks and sounds as if he would much rather be in his Perthshire home with his family than in St Andrews House, running the country. But until 7 May 2026, John Swinney is in charge.

In his Programme for Government speech a few weeks ago, Swinney highlighted his government’s efforts to “enable people to have a safe and secure place to call their home”.

Warm words, but as Shelter Scotland director Alison Watson later pointed out, the proof of the First Minister’s intentions will come in the budget, due to be published on 4 December.

“If the Scottish Government is serious about tackling the housing emergency, then it needs to set a meaningful target for delivering social homes by the end of this parliament and reverse recent brutal cuts to the housing budget,” she said.

She’s right of course. But does John Swinney have the political will to make housing his number one priority?