An open letter to Shelter Scotland

Mark,

Unless Shelter Scotland have made statements that warrant the useful questions you have raised, it would be ungracious to place them in the frame as speaking for everyone seeking to dismantle the PRS. Gordon’s helpful response should be taken positively and treated as a conduit for communication with an organisation that clearly deserves a seat at the top table with policy makers.

Could this be an opportunity to bring both sides together and form some form of consensus between the factions? Homelessness is plainly an issue that any civilised society must address, and in reality it comes down to who pays. Government cannot simply step in and retrospectively seek to confiscate gains that accrued under its own earlier policies when it was actively encouraging the sector to flourish and to shoulder what had historically been a council’s statutory housing obligations.

In my view, housing the homeless should come out of general taxation so that the country can have a proper national debate about what is fair and right, and what contribution the homeless themselves should be encouraged to make through their own efforts. That would be a far healthier settlement for society and would avoid the constant infighting that now characterises the debate.

If government policy is to encourage the growth of a private sector and then progressively confiscate gains built up over many years — not just those made after the policy change — then the PRS needs to wake up and insist that government take back the housing obligations it has quietly transferred onto private landlords, within an economic framework that government itself has created and in which increasing numbers of people simply cannot survive, let alone thrive.

Reply to the comment left by Person Of The People at 13/03/2026 – 16:26
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. I agree that Gordon’s response should be treated as a constructive opening rather than a reason to harden positions.

My intention is not to place Shelter Scotland in a frame they do not recognise, nor to suggest that everyone concerned about the future of the PRS is motivated by hostility towards housing charities. The purpose of the article is narrower than that. It is to ask for clarity about the evidence behind policies that affect housing supply, investment and affordability.

I also agree with your wider point that homelessness is a serious social issue which any civilised society must address. Where we may have gone wrong in recent years is in allowing too much of that burden to fall indirectly on the private rented sector while public policy has simultaneously made long-term investment less attractive.

That is why I think Gordon’s intervention is useful. If Shelter Scotland wishes to distinguish between rent control, rent freezes, rent caps and other forms of rent regulation, that distinction deserves to be explored properly. Better definitions and better evidence would improve the debate for everyone.

Your point about who should ultimately bear the cost is also an important one. There is a legitimate argument that housing those in greatest need should be funded transparently from general taxation, rather than through a policy framework that discourages supply and then leaves councils and taxpayers dealing with the consequences.

My hope is that this can become a more serious discussion about outcomes. If organisations such as Shelter Scotland are willing to engage on that basis, I would welcome it.

Mark,

I thoroughly endorse everything you have said. Let us hope it might open up some positive lines of debate.

After years of managed decline the economy is now in a full-scale doom loop, and politicians need to grow up and stop approaching every issue through the narrow lens of point-scoring and vote-seeking. That does nothing to put the economy on a sound long-term footing. It only stores up greater problems, eventually leading to implosion and increasing civil unrest. Their answer so far has been to pass ever more confiscatory laws and regulations, and then attempt to contain the public anger by jailing protesters or denying them the right to be judged by their peers. That path can only end in tears.

You are the best person to lead this debate. Perhaps a train trip to Scotland as an Ambassador for Change — and sharing a Drambuie or two of the best with Gordon — might be a good place to start.

Reply to the comment left by Person Of The People at 13/03/2026 – 18:14
Thank you for the very kind words, I really appreciate that.

I share your hope that this might open up some more constructive lines of debate. Housing policy has become so polarised in recent years that even asking questions can sometimes be interpreted as taking sides, when in reality the objective should simply be to understand what works and what does not.

Your broader point about the long-term consequences of short-term policymaking is also well made. Housing supply, investment confidence and economic stability all operate on long time horizons, yet policy discussions often seem to revolve around the next electoral cycle rather than the next decade.

As for the train trip to Scotland, there is one small logistical complication; I actually live in Portugal these days! That said, if Gordon ever fancies swapping the Scottish weather for a little sunshine, I would be more than happy to meet him here and continue the conversation over a glass of something rather warmer than Drambuie.

In the meantime, I hope the discussion continues in the same constructive spirit that your comment reflects.

Mark,

I could say let’s not allow a few hundred miles keep you apart, but I can understand your reluctance to swap sunny Portugal for overcast Scotland — even for an overnight stay.

Perhaps instead we should invite Gordon to join you in Portugal and open a bottle of Mateus rosé — the classic nod to the old prawn cocktail, sirloin steak and Black Forest gateau era. Not exactly the height of oenological sophistication, but perfectly serviceable and capable of transporting one straight back to past times.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Let us hope that wiser heads prevail and that constructive discussion, in the interests of the whole country, ultimately carries the day.

Reply to the comment left by Gordon MacRae at 13/03/2026 – 14:16
This is a typical political response, kick the can down the road and don’t accept any accountability.

Instead of playing politics, how about engaging in the questions raised, as from your clearly non committing reply, your stance is that you have nothing to do with rent controls or their support?

You should sit down with some experienced landlords and without an agenda and try to educate yourself, because your one sided rigid view of your good doing is vastly out of touch with reality.

I would argue that policies such as:
1. Only allowing one rent increase a year and then kicking the can down the road for a year or so while a tribunal decides whether the revised rent is market rate or not AND only allowing the rent increase from the date of the tribunal’s decision is a form of rent control.
2. Only allowing access to YOUR investment via s8 and then deliberately not investing in the court system, so the tenant could be on the same rent for another year, until a court hearing, is another form of rent control.
3. Not being able to charge more for pets and children and to only be allowed to take 4 week’s deposit is also a form of rent control.

Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 13/03/2026 – 20:37
Ryan,

Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. I agree with much of what you say, particularly the point about the need for evidence-led discussion rather than simply assuming that particular policies will deliver the outcomes people hope for.

Gordon MacRae from Shelter Scotland very helpfully joined the discussion earlier and clarified that Shelter Scotland does not campaign for “rent control” in the narrow sense. That clarification is useful, although it also highlights why definitions sometimes become a distraction in housing debates.

The reason the article framed the issue in broader terms is that a number of policies introduced in Scotland over the past decade fall within what economists often describe as forms of rent regulation. Measures such as rent freezes, rent caps, rent stabilisation and rent pressure zones all influence how rents can increase, even if they are described differently in political or policy discussions.

Shelter Scotland has engaged with several of these policies in practice, including the emergency legislation during the cost-of-living crisis and earlier mechanisms such as rent pressure zones under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016.

However, the central purpose of the article was not really about terminology. The real question is about outcomes.

If policies that regulate rents improve affordability and stability without discouraging investment, the evidence should show that. If they have unintended consequences for housing supply, that should also be visible in the data.

That is why the article asked several specific questions about the evidence behind these policies and how the Scottish experience is being interpreted.

If Gordon or colleagues at Shelter Scotland are willing to share their perspective on those questions, I think many readers here would genuinely welcome the opportunity to understand that evidence better. It would be particularly interesting to hear which empirical studies or data Shelter Scotland relies upon when evaluating the long-term effects of rent regulation.

Constructive dialogue about housing policy is long overdue.

A quick Google search shows plenty of demands from Shelter England for rent control. I would question if they are really independent.

Reply to the comment left by Paul Essex at 14/03/2026 – 12:51
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/56636/documents/5259