‘Brutal’ cut to affordable housing budget should be reversed, MSPs told

Cuts to affordable housing funding in the Scottish budget are “brutal” and should be reversed, a charity has told MSPs.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said good quality housing is needed to tackle poverty.

In the draft Scottish budget published in December, the affordable housing supply budget was cut by almost £200 million – more than a quarter in real terms.

On Tuesday, Holyrood’s Finance Committee heard evidence from a number of groups as it scrutinised the budget.

Chris Birt, associate director for Scotland at the JRF, said the draft budget was “very disappointing” and the Scottish Government had made the wrong choices even considering the tight fiscal situation it faced.

He was asked about his written submission to the committee, which stated: “It it is therefore baffling that the affordable housing supply programme should be the victim of such a brutal cut as the one announced in the 2024-25 draft budget.

“To slice a quarter from the budget, in the face of both the immediate and longer terms issues facing the housing sector in Scotland, is surely something that will have to be reversed during the Parliament’s scrutiny of the budget.

“If this is a hard choice as part of the budget it is the wrong choice.”

During his appearance before the committee on Tuesday, Mr Birt was pressed on what alternative choices ministers he thought could have made to either raise money or cut elsewhere.

He said: “Council tax is a very obvious one. We’ve talked about council tax reform for years and everybody has dodged it. Let’s stop dodging it.”

However, Mr Birt praised the Government’s approach to social security for disabled people, in response to a question from MSP John Mason who noted the overall social security budget has gone up “dramatically” from about £5 billion to £6 billion.

Mr Birt, who has called for the Scottish Child Payment to be increased further, said it was necessary to break with the “dehumanising” welfare system for disabled people in the rest of the UK.

Looking at a separate element of the budget, Professor David Bell, of the University of Stirling, told the committee: “Ostensibly it doesn’t look like the budget particularly favours economic growth.”

He was asked about the revenue from the ScotWind offshore leasing round, with MSP Michelle Thomson saying some of it had been applied to current resource spending.

Dr Bell likened the ScotWind money to a sovereign wealth fund and said it should have been used for the benefit of future generations.

He said: “To be equitable, you should spread it not just on the generation that has been lucky enough to have the revenue gathered.

“As with oil, there seems within the British Isles to be a willingness not to think in those more longer term perspectives.”