The Scottish Government has announced a package of emergency measures to help renters weather the cost of living storm.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, announced the emergency laws as she set out plans to deal with the “humanitarian emergency” caused by skyrocketing energy bills. The Government says the support measures will “reduce the hardship” faced by tenants, and “create breathing space for those in difficulty”.
Policies include a freeze on landlords raising rent and a ban on the eviction of tenants until “at least” March 2023, along with the freezing of ScotRail fares, also until March 2023 at minimum. The measures came into effect on 6 September.
The additional supports were laid out in the Scottish Government’s 2022-23 programme for government (PFG), published on 6 September. It said the measures were being provided to “help people through” the UK’s cost of living crisis. The PFG also includes a pledge to launch a campaign to bolster awareness of tenants’ rights, including the ability to challenge future rent increases once the rent freeze comes to an end.
In Scotland, the rental sector accounts for 38 per cent of households in the country, per the 2021 census. The social rent sector makes up 24 per cent of households, while a further 14 per cent of homes are rented from a private landlord. The rent freeze will impact both social and private tenants.
In recent years, rents have risen significantly for both social and private tenants. According to Government figures, on average across Scotland, renting a two-bedroom property privately was 25 per cent more expensive in 2021 than in 2010. In some areas, including in Greater Glasgow and the Lothians, the increase was even higher, with two-bed rents soaring by over 40 per cent in that time period. Between July 2021 and July 2022, there was also an increase in average private rents of 3.7 per cent, representing the largest annual increase since the ONS started publishing data in 2012.
Recent research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that a third of Scotland’s private renters were already living in poverty in March 2022 prior to the increase in the price cap on energy in Scotland in April.
Following the measures coming into effect last week, campaigners are now calling for the rest of the UK to make similar changes as the cost of living crisis continues to have a knock-on effect.
Campaign group Generation Rent said in a statement: “Every renter deserves certainty that they won’t be hit with further costs.”
“We need the same emergency action from Westminster #FreezeRentsNotRenters,” the campaign tweeted.
Yet fears have been expressed that the introduction of a cap on private rents could force more landlords out of the rental sector, exacerbating a worsening situation for renters in a market where there is an under-supply of homes.
A report released in March of this year found that Scotland faces a housing shortfall of up to 100,000 new homes, as reported in The Independent. The report said the country was in the midst of a “chronic housing shortage”, while industry body, Homes for Scotland, who conducted the research, said the undersupply of homes to rent was the result of “consistent undersupply” for over a decade.
While the UK Government recently launched a consultation on introducing a cap on rent increases for those living in social housing, the proposals do not include those renting in the private sector. The proposal would see a limit on rent increases on council and housing association houses to 3%, 5% or 7% from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, estimating that the cap would save social housing renters an estimated £300 per year.
While the freezing of rail fares was welcomed amid the cost of living squeeze, some campaigners claimed that more could have been done to tackle ScotRail fares; the franchise was brought into public ownership in April of this year.
“During this cost-of-living crisis, any measures are welcome, but we would like to have seen peak fares abolished, a reduction in fares for all, concessionary bus travel extended to rail. We need to run more trains with cheaper fares to encourage people out of cars and onto rail,” Aslef union district organiser Kevin Lindsay told The Scotsman.
At home in Ireland, years of housing undersupply, and an exodus of small landlords from the rental market, has led to severe difficulties for those seeking to rent. Just 716 homes were available to rent on 1 August across Ireland, and property website Daft.ie reports that rental prices here hit an all-time high last month, with supply plummeting to its lowest level since the website started tracking in 2006.
The cost of rental accommodation in Ireland has increased by 12.6 per cent compared to last year. Speaking on Newstalk’s The Hard Shoulder programme last week, homelessness campaigner and Catholic priest Fr Peter McVerry warned that Ireland has now “passed the tipping point” in relation to landlords in the market. His comments came as the Government could be poised to offer tax incentives to landlords if they offer tenants a longer lease, as part of the upcoming budget.
Fr McVerry welcomed the idea of the Government incentivising private landlords to provide longer leases, but he cautioned that there would need to be stricter conditions in order to protect tenants. However, Fr McVerry cautioned that reforms might come too late because many landlords are already leaving the market and will not return.
“I think with regard to the private rented sector, I think we’ve passed the tipping point actually”, he told the programme.