Nicola Sturgeon announces rent freeze for tenants in Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon has announced a rent freeze for public and private properties and a ban on winter evictions, in a package of measures “deliberately focused” on the cost of living crisis.
Describing pressures on household budgets as a “humanitarian emergency”, Scotland’s first minister set out the annual programme for government as the Holyrood parliament met for the first time after the summer recess.
The emergency legislation to protect tenants in private and socially rented homes comes only a few months after a similar proposal by Scottish Labour, to freeze rents for two years until rent controls are introduced in 2024, was voted down by SNP and Scottish Green MSPs.
Sturgeon also announced an increase in the Scottish child payment – which she called “the most ambitious child poverty reduction measure in the UK” – from £20 to £25 weekly for every eligible child from November.
But the SNP leader also warned of “hard choices” as she laid out the increasing constraints on Scotland’s budget, describing Holyrood’s powers over tax and borrowing as “woefully inadequate”, and warning “we cannot do everything that, in more normal times, we’d want to do”.
Inflation meant that her government’s budget today was “worth a staggering £1.7bn less than when it was published last December”, she told MSPs, underlining that hard-won public sector pay deals – concluded last Friday to halt a fresh wave of strikes – were costing £700m more than budgeted for.
Plans for an emergency budget review, intended to “maximise the help we can provide – while still balancing the books” depended upon the immediate actions of the new prime minister, she added.
“If Liz Truss decides to pay for irresponsible and regressive tax cuts by reducing spending on public
Read more on theguardian.com
