If politics doesn’t change housing, housing changes politics, MSPs hear

Failing to improve housing in Scotland could see voters “begin to change politics”, MSPs have been told.

The country’s housing system has been struggling in recent years, with slowing housebuilding figures and record homelessness applications leading to the Scottish Parliament – and a number of local authorities – declaring a housing emergency this year.

And on Tuesday, a leading academic warned the inability to afford housing could lead to a rising tide of populism, pointing to the victory of President-elect Donald Trump in the US election last week.

Duncan Maclennan, an emeritus professor in urban economics at Glasgow University, appeared in front of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, where he said housing minister was a “terrible” and “impossible” job.

“What you can see, I think, at a very big picture level – if politics doesn’t change housing, housing starts to begin to change politics,” he said.

“If you do an analysis of where the Liberals in Australia lost seats to Labour, and indeed the Greens, in the Australian election, they were in seats where there was a very high proportion of renters and young people who couldn’t buy.”

Prof Maclennan added: “If you look at the roots of populism, if people actually look at what drives the Donald Trump train, housing and an inability to buy housing is a really important part of that discussion.”

In a separate panel session, MSPs heard that the key issue with Scotland’s housing sector was the difficulty for developers to obtain planning permission.

Jennifer Kennedy, the director of public affairs at trade body Homes for Scotland, urged the Government to “stop talking about Westminster, Brexit and inflation as the root cause of the housing emergency”.

“Yes, they’ve all been important,” she added.

“But… in terms of what’s inhibiting housing delivery at this present time, it’s the planning system and the regulatory environment and these are issues that are well within control of the Scottish Government.”

Ms Kennedy pointed to a report by the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) on the UK-wide housing market, which she said found the “lack of predictability, the length, cost and complexity of the process and the insufficient clarity and consistency within the system” was hampering housebuilding.

She added that her organisation wanted a temporary return to the presumption in favour of sustainable development in order to “get homes through the system and spades in the ground to deliver the homes that people need”.