Celebrating the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership

As an amendment to motion S6M-13967 in the name of Gordon MacDonald (Celebrating the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership), leave out from “, which it understands has invested over £3.7 million” to end and insert “; notes the view that joint efforts to bring long-term empty properties back into use must continue, with over 46,000 properties reportedly still identified as empty or void across Scotland, including 7,200 in the City of Edinburgh Council area; acknowledges the Scottish Labour Party’s plan to bring empty homes back into use by working with local government to buy up neglected and empty homes, offering them for discounted sale, and creating a positive cycle of affordable home ownership; understands that the Scottish Labour Party supports increasing council tax on empty homes, with any revenue raised to be used to increase the supply of houses; notes the Scottish Labour Party’s plans to give local authorities powers of compulsory sale and rental orders, in order to force empty homes back into use, and replace blights on communities with warm, safe, affordable homes; further notes the condemnation of the Scottish National Party administration’s reported decision to cut its affordable homes supply programme budget by almost £200 million in a single year; considers that this is a devastating blow to the supply of the homes that it considers are needed for the reported 10,000 children in temporary accommodation, 30,000 households assessed as homeless, and everyone else in Scotland in need of a home, and notes the belief that ending the housing emergency requires an increase in housing supply across all tenures.”