Scottish Government looks to accelerate laws to freeze rents and halt evictions

The Scottish Government will introduce emergency legislation at Holyrood next week to freeze rents and ban evictions and the Bill is likely to be passed in just three days.

The Scottish Parliament’s business bulletin shows a motion will be voted on that would make the Cost of Living (Protection of Tenants) (Scotland) Bill emergency legislation – expediting the process of the legislations passage.

If MSPs vote in favour of the motion, the parliamentary schedule suggests stage one proceedings will take place on Tuesday afternoon, with a committee of the whole Parliament conducting stage two proceedings on Wednesday before a final vote on Thursday.

The Bill is yet to be published, but Nicola Sturgeon announced in the Programme for Government earlier this month that rents in the private and social rental sector would be frozen, with legislation being introduced to backdate the freeze to September 6.

“In what is perhaps the most significant announcement I will make today, I can confirm to Parliament we will take immediate action to protect tenants in the private and in the social rented sectors,” the First Minister said in the announcement.

“I can announce that we will shortly introduce emergency legislation to Parliament. The purpose of the emergency law will be two-fold.

“Firstly, it will aim to give people security about the roof over their head this winter through a moratorium on evictions.

“Secondly, the legislation will include measures to deliver a rent freeze.”

The Programme for Government document said the Scottish Government plans to “introduce emergency legislation to protect tenants by freezing rents and imposing a moratorium on evictions until at least March 31 2023.

“We also intend to act to prevent immediate rent increases”.