SNP shame in failure to tackle homelessness

IT’S almost two years since the SNP was forced to admit that Scotland has a national housing emergency. But the response of John Swinney’s government to what should have been a lightbulb moment has been pitiful.

- Meghan Gallacher

Housebuilding is at its lowest level for years. The result is that thousands of families, including, shamefully, more than 10,000 children, are stuck in temporary accommodation.

It’s not just that the SNP has failed to tackle this crisis. It has actively made the situation worse through a host of flawed decisions, including cuts to the affordable housing budget, rent controls and, most starkly, an open-door immigration policy.

Far from accelerating an urgently needed building programme, it has throttled the construction industry with red tape. Planning, cumbersome restrictions on where development is allowed, and excessively strict rules on energy have conspired to stifle housebuilding.

But one catastrophic decision, taken by the SNP in November 2022, has fuelled the housing crisis more than any other.

In a fit of virtue-signalling stupidity, Nationalist ministers dispensed with the so-called local connection rule, which had applied to homelessness applications across the UK.