Lothian MSP Miles Briggs has slammed the Housing Minister over his statement to the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday last week saying “Paul McLennan should be ashamed of his out-of-touch statement, which seems to be an embarrassing attempt from the SNP to congratulate themselves on their own failures.”
Mr Briggs highlighted the damage that rent controls have done to the rental sector, as well as the disastrous impact of SNP Ministers slashing £200 million from the housing budget.
Edinburgh, Midlothian, West Lothian and East Lothian have received a total of 6,513 homelessness applications in the last year. The number of live homelessness applications across the four local authorities is 9,971.
The shockingly high number of children living in temporary accommodation, across Lothian local authorities, has risen to 3,700, well over the a third of the total number of children living in temporary accommodation across Scotland, 10,110.
Miles Briggs spoke in Labour party business on Housing last week to again raise the issue of homelessness as well as lack of appropriate housing stock in Scotland.
Lothian MSP, Miles Briggs, said: “Over the last eight years in which I have served as an MSP, I have never seen a more out if touch statement delivered by a Government Minister.
“After 17 years of this SNP Government homelessness across Lothian is dramatically worse than when the SNP came to power.
“The number of children living in temporary accommodation is shockingly high, with local authorities in Lothian having over a third of all children living in temporary accommodation across Scotland.
“SNP Ministers have made blunder after blunder leading to a national housing crisis, which could have been avoided with better leadership.
“We urgently need to see a new Scottish Government, with new ideas to start tackling Scotland’s homelessness crisis.”
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