"The lack of the provision of sufficient numbers of adequate housing is a sign that all is not well ... in the Scottish economy."
"The right for everyone to have access to a safe, warm, affordable and adequate home should be considered foundational to policy-making in Scotland. To invert Aneurin Bevan’s principle that to build a house one must first get everything else right; the lack of the provision of sufficient numbers of adequate housing is a sign that all is not well elsewhere in the Scottish economy. For too long, housing has been seen as a capital investment, a hedge against inadequate pensions or a vehicle for private profits on the backs of tenants who could not access social housing or could not buy a home for themselves. Social housing has become a “tenancy of last resort” – almost a dumping ground for those failed by the system where it once was and should be again the primary mode by which housing is delivered in Scotland. If anything, it is the private rented sector that should be the “third option” after social rent or home ownership. Common Weal welcomes this consultation into tenants rights but we are concerned that it will result in many of the same arguments arising as they have many times in the past and will result only in action several years hence. In the mean time, rents will continue to rise and people will continue to suffer from seeing the collective wealth of the nation accumulate with those fortunate enough to have pulled the housing ladder up around them. In particular, any future attempt to bring in Rent Controls must acknowledge the fact that rents have risen considerably in the years since the last, failed attempts and we must receive from the government a commitment that rents will be able to be reduced, not merely frozen or their rate of increase capped."