The Scottish and Welsh elections are now less than 18 months away. It is never too early to start thinking about housing policies and ideas for a new government.

Dr Gareth James and Prof Ken Gibb wrote an ‘evidence manifesto’ in 2021 for Scotland (as Bob Smith and Pete Mackie did for Wales and thier ten evidenced themes led to a host of new networks across the housing sector, as well as opportunities to work with government on housing. They aim to do something similar in 2025 for the coming elections in 2026. They intend to hold an event on prospective housing policies for the new government later this year.

Reflecting on recent housing developments in Scotland is a sobering place to start. The majority of Scots live in local authorities which have declared a housing emergency. Homelessness is rising and growing numbers spend longer time in often unsuitable temporary accommodation which is symptomatic of wider system failure.

While it is encouraging to see the recent budget cut reversal by the Scottish Government, two years of cuts in an already difficult supply environment significantly undermined the sustainability and consistency of a long-term affordable supply programme, including shrinking the capacity of providers to deliver.

The new UK Government is prioritising the economic case for new housing supply, including social housing. The new government is developing a ten-year strategy for housing, there is a renewed emphasis on prevention, a commitment to homelessness reduction and PRS renter reform legislation is underway. There are also plenty of positive signals from HM Treasury about rebalancing state investment including housing, for instance, stable rent determination rules to support investment decision making.

This may mean more housing resources for Scotland, via Barnett, as well as more progressive public investment rules over borrowing. However, the UK Government will face the same challenges Scotland wrestles with over sustaining and delivering on housing strategy within a Parliament, let alone maintaining momentum over multiple parliaments.

A new Scottish government in 2026 will first need to address unfinished business. Can they commit to fully funding an affordable housing supply programme (AHSP) based on the new national affordable needs measures that will be delivered later this year?  Will they reboot the AHSP in line with our proposals last year for medium and long term reforms to support affordable supply?   Will they make the required investment in delivery capacity to make homelessness prevention and rent control Housing Bill proposals work? And, to make long term progress with housing emergencies across Scotland, will government encourage local strategy and delivery plans to take system level analysis seriously to diagnose local problems and solutions more holistically?

The UK Government’s priorities show that a 2026 manifesto can have longer term and bolder ambitions to use housing reform to lever wider social and economic change. What initiatives might we debate in the coming year to move things forward? Four possibilities include:

  • Increasing the supply of high quality, warm and affordable housing can generate upstream benefits for, among other things,  health, independent living and education. How can these preventative benefits be hard-wired onto the public spending case for more housing?
  • International evidence from the housing investment task force indicates that long-term successful models of affordable housing finance tend to have long-standing self-financing revolving funds (e.g. Denmark).  Can Scotland think long-term in this way?
  • As indicated by Housing to 2040, housing tax reform of devolved property taxes (council tax and LBTT) offers great opportunity to address wealth inequalities, improve housing market efficiency and rebalance the tax base. These are both badly-designed taxes in need of reform. Can Scotland now make genuine progress here?
  • Finally, what can Scotland do to incentivise and support residential net zero retrofit investment, particularly for private sector owners and in mixed tenure property?

This blog was originally posted on the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence website.

First published: 13 January 2025

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