RICS response to Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2024 - 2025

The First Minister, John Swinney delivered his first Programme for Government at Holyrood yesterday.

The 2024-2025 Programme for Government comes at a particularly challenging time for Scottish Government, with Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government announcing on Tuesday that £500m of cuts would need to be made to balance the government's budget.

Speaking after the announcement, Robert Toomey, Senior Policy Officer, RICS Scotland said: “Given the economic challenges facing the Government, it’s positive to see the ongoing commitment to decarbonising Scotland with the introduction of the Heat in Buildings Bill and the promise of a Green Industrial Strategy paper.”

“On housing specifically, the £600 million investment into affordable housing in 2024-25 is particularly welcome. Nevertheless, we await details on amendments to the Housing Bill in relation to rent controls, a challenging area that has led to difficulties for the private rented sector and tenants alike.”  

Below is an overview of some key announcements within the Programme for Government.

Built environment

• Investing nearly £600 million in affordable housing in 2024-25. The majority of this will be directed at boosting social housing supply – keeping rents lower and benefitting around 140,000 children in poverty each year.
• This includes up to £40 million to bring existing homes into affordable use through acquisitions, and where appropriate also bring long term voids back into effective use.
• Committing £100 million to grow with institutional investment to at least £500 million, supporting the construction of around 2,800 mid-market rent homes.
• Tackling the challenge of unoccupied housing by updating guidance to encourage councils to focus their resources on homes that have been empty for longer than 12 months. Government will also consult on modernisation of the compulsory purchase system.
• Ensuring the planning system responds to the housing emergency. Government will support planning authorities to allocate a pipeline of land for new homes and promote consistent monitoring of its delivery.
• Establish Scotland’s first Planning Hub to build capacity and resilience, and to improve consistency and efficiency in decision-making. The Hub’s initial priority will be to help planning authorities make quicker decisions on hydrogen planning applications, with a plan to support wider developments including good quality homes and onshore wind.
• Support early adopters to deliver Masterplan Consent Areas – these will frontload some consents including planning permission in defined areas, making them more attractive to investors and supporting the delivery of major projects, including national developments, Green Freeports, and green data centres.
• Accelerate progress on cladding, commencing the newly passed Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act, delivering assessment, risk mitigation and remediation measures in affected properties on a prioritised basis, and, subject to the devolution of power, introducing legislation for a Scottish Building Safety Levy to raise funds for this effort.
• Through the Housing Bill, boost tenants’ rights and include provisions for long term rent controls. Government will bring forward amendments to the Bill that will clearly set out how rent increases will be capped in areas where rent controls apply, in a way that provides certainty for tenants while also encouraging investment.
• Launch a planning apprenticeship programme to invest in new talent to create a pipeline of skilled future planners

Land & Rural

• Continue to support crofting and croft businesses. Further to the consultation on proposals for crofting law reform, Government will now analyse and publish responses and bring forward legislation.
• Progress the Land Reform Bill which will further improve transparency of land ownership, help ensure large scale land holdings deliver in the public interest, and empower communities by providing more opportunities to own land and have more say in how land in their area is used.
• Conduct a review of all the community rights to buy – which give communities more options than ever before to take ownership of land and assets – reporting in December 2025
• Bring forward a Natural Environment Bill to establish the framework for statutory targets to restore and protect nature.

Decarbonisation and climate change

• Scottish Government will shortly publish it’s Green Industrial Strategy.
• Bring forward a Heat in Buildings Bill.
• Conclude the review of the New Build Heat Standard in response to concerns raised regarding the use of woodburning stoves and bioenergy. Expected to conclude by December 2024.
• Develop and publish sectoral Just Transition Plans – for energy, transport, built environment and construction, and land use and agriculture
• Accelerating investment to support the offshore wind sector, with a commitment of up to £500 million over five years, aiming to leverage at least £1.5 billion of private investment.
• Delivering a co-ordinated programme to attract investment in priority areas of net zero, housing, and infrastructure by implementing recommendations from the Investor Panel and aligning government and public bodies behind this approach.
• Developing two Green Freeports, in Inverness and Cromarty Firth and the Forth estuary, and establishing two new Investment Zones, in Glasgow and the North East of Scotland
• Fully engaging with the UK Government on its plans for renewable energy, such as GB Energy, Clean Power 2030, and any plans to explore mandating community benefits, to ensure they deliver for Scotland.

Skills

• Reform the education and skills funding system so it is easier to navigate and responsive to learners and skills priorities – breaking down silos and reducing bureaucracy – introducing a Bill to simplify the post-school funding body landscape.

Key upcoming bills

Building Safety Levy
Subject to the devolution of the necessary powers, the Bill will establish a Building Safety Levy in Scotland, equivalent to a Levy that will be introduced by the UK Government in England. The Levy will provide vital revenues to support the funding of the Scottish Government’s Cladding Remediation Programme

Crofting
This Bill will support the sustainability of crofting, make crofting regulation less onerous for active crofters and the Crofting Commission, and allow crofters to innovate, diversify and adapt to help meet future climate and environmental challenges.

Leases (Automatic continuation etc.)
The Bill takes forward Scottish Law Commission recommendations to improve, simplify and update aspects of the law of commercial leases, particularly in relation to the circumstances in which leases continue after their termination dates, so that it meets the needs of a modern Scottish economy.

Heat in Buildings
This Bill is part of the Scottish Government’s wider response to the climate crisis. It will include provisions to prohibit the use of certain direct emission heating systems after 2045 and to require certain properties to meet a minimum standard of energy efficiency. The Bill will give Ministers powers to make regulations specifying how these measures are to be implemented including powers to ensure that the requirements on building owners are fair and proportionate.

For further information, please contact Scottish Public Affairs Lead, Robert Toomey at rtoomey@rics.org