Scotland’s Housing Bill has been diluted to keep landlord lobbyists happy rather than focusing on renters’ needs, according to a Green MSP, who also says landlording is ‘not a real business’.

Maggie Chapman (main image) believes landlords enjoy a “totally disproportionate” voice in the corridors of power and says the SNP’s light touch approach to regulations means the PRS has become unsustainable for far too many people.

Writing in The National, Chapman explains: “Too many renters have been treated like cash cows for far too long, being made to suffer instability in order to prop up a broken system.”

She says the latest rent control plans, which include a cap on above-inflation rent hikes, fall a long way from what’s needed. “Stabilising rents at unaffordable levels is no use to anyone, apart from landlords,” adds Chapman.

All too often, underfunded local authorities find themselves struggling to meet their obligations to those without shelter, leaving third-sector organisations to pick up the pieces where the government has failed, she says.

Rent controls

Instead, the Greens want the Scottish government to introduce a permanent system of rent controls, which Chapman says are perfectly normal in many countries, whereas in Scotland, too many landlords are happy to take a “pay it or someone else will” attitude while raising rents and eroding conditions.

Chapman believes the promise of secure, affordable housing and better rights for tenants should not be viewed as radical, but rather as the standard values that the bill was initially designed to provide.

She adds: “Those who can afford to buy up and rent out multiple properties ought to invest elsewhere in real business, releasing much-needed homes for renters who would love to own property, but cannot save for deposits because their money is going towards growing the passive income of someone else – their landlord.”