Mike Dailly: Scottish housing Bill lacks substance
Student loans aren't enough to live on.
Accommodation costs can be prohibitive. The cheapest option is a bedroom in a shared private rented sector (PRS) flat.
In Glasgow, that will cost £350 to £500 per month, excluding bills.
The student loan works out at £700 per month.
The average rent for university halls of residence is £632 per month, inclusive of electricity/gas.
That's pricey but not as costly as 'purpose build student accommodation' (PBSA). These are the sparkly buildings that have sprang up across the city over recent years.
A room in a shared PBSA flat in Woodlands (bills included) is £1,135 per month, or £13,624 for 51 weeks.
An en-suite bedroom in an upmarket PBSA flat in Partick will set you back £1,377 per month, or £16,524 per annum. Double occupancy comes in at £23,317.
Two questions: who owns these properties and who can afford them?
Unite Students is the largest owner, manager and developer of PBSA in the UK. It provides homes to 68,000 students across 152 properties in 23 university towns and cities.
The Unite Group, which trades as Unite Students, was founded in 1991 and is listed on the London Stock Exchange's FTSE 100.
In 2020, Unite bought its competitor, Liberty Living, for £1.4 billion.
The target rental group is clearly international students looking for high-quality, well-managed properties to rent whilst at university.
The PBSA sector has led a privileged life – excluded from the laws and regulations that apply to PRS landlords in Scotland. That was until last week.
Conservative, Labour and Green MSPs on the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee successfully voted to end the paragraph 5, Schedule 1 exemption for PBSA landlords in the 2016 Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act.
The Scottish Government will no doubt try to reverse this at the final stage 3 consideration of the Housing (Scotland) Bill. However, without the Greens or the Lib Dems, they won't have the numbers.
I welcome removal of the exemption but it's fair to say the Bill itself is fairly timid and more about tinkering than much else. If the Bill was a sandwich, its filling would be lettuce.
Indeed, as rent control legislation is about open market rents, it's entirely feasible that a rent officer or tribunal would conclude PBSA rents are generally fair, having regard to the type of accommodation in the local PBSA market.
The Housing Bill is one of those pieces of legislation that talks the talk but doesn't do much walking. It needs to do much more.
It seeks to reform rent pressure zones (RPZ) in the 2016 Act. There has never been a RPZ in Scotland.
Local authorities would be required to carry out an assessment of rent conditions in their area and make a recommendation about whether Scottish Ministers should impose rent controls in all or part of the area.
There would be a mandatory requirement for local authorities to re-assess conditions in relation to rent on a cyclical basis. To put it another way, pencils would be sharped pointlessly and then set aside.
At present, a landlord can do one rent increase every 12 months. The Bill proposes that there should be no rent increases within the first year. That seems sensible. And that's about it.
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