Housing Stock Transfer

That the Parliament calls on the Scottish Executive to embark on a programme of council house building; believes that the chronic shortage of affordable new homes has led to a huge increase in house prices in Scotland; notes that the average cost of a new home is now £130,000 and thus excludes more than one third of Scots from owning their own homes; demands that the UK Treasury releases the funds already identified to provide the necessary social housing that local circumstances demand; believes that tenants across Scotland have repeatedly rejected housing stock transfer, seeing it as plain and simple privatisation; believes in the fullest democratic control and management of council homes by tenants; welcomes the decision of Midlothian Council to build 1,000 new houses; calls on the tenants of both Highland and Inverclyde councils to follow the example of council tenants in Edinburgh, Stirling and Renfrewshire and reject privatisation of their housing stock; believes that the promises made to Glasgow tenants by Glasgow Housing Association have not been kept, and believes that stock transfer, the Executive’s flagship housing policy, is now in tatters.