McLennan under fire as housing figures plummet – Daily Business

Housing minister Paul McLennan was facing further criticism today after the number of new builds across the country fell sharply again last year.

Official figures for 2023-24 show the new housing supply in Scotland plummeted by 16.4% – a drop of almost 4,000 homes.

The slump from 24,348 to 20,364 brought further condemnation of government performance. Mark Griffin, Scottish Labour housing spokesman, said: “These damning figures show that it is SNP incompetence at the heart of Scotland’s housing emergency.”

“Paul McLennan isn’t up to the job as Housing Minister and John Swinney is too arrogant to listen to those sounding the alarm about this devastating housing emergency.”

Mr McLennan said he recognised “these are exceptionally challenging times” and defended the government’s “strong track record” on affordable housing.

“It is encouraging that affordable housing starts and approvals have increased in the year to December 2024, and we will continue to work with partners to increase these levels even further through our £768m investment this year, an increase of £200m when compared to last financial year.

The government delivered 136,000 homes between 2007 and 2024, with 97,000 of those for social rent.

“That’s 47% more per head of population than England and 73% more than Wales as of March 2024,” he said.

“Since we declared a housing emergency last May we have been working at pace with a range of stakeholders across the housing system to take urgent action.”