Scots MPs vote against declaring housing emergency across Scotland

dailyrecord.co.uk:

An attempt by Scottish Labour to declare a housing emergency in Scotland has failed.The party sought to follow Argyll and Bute and Edinburgh city councils with the declaration, but their motion fell at Holyrood by 63 votes to 51.Statistics released in August found 32,242 households were assessed as homeless in 2022-23 – an increase of 10% in just one year.A total of 15,039 households were living in temporary accommodation – including 9,595 children – as of March 31 of this year – an increase of 6% compared to the previous year.Speaking in the debate on Wednesday, Labour housing spokesman Mark Griffin said: “What I want to talk about here is this Government’s responsibility, this Government’s action – or actually inaction – which has led to the housing emergency that it seems the entire country accepts we’re in the grip of apart from this Government.”Mr Griffin and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar earlier met with staff from the charity Shelter Scotland and heard stories of someone sleeping in an out-of-use caravan and a woman with three children who was “moved from hotel to hotel”, with no changes made to rooms despite one of her children using a wheelchair.Mr Griffin told MSPs: “Most shockingly, we heard of a woman who has been in temporary accommodation for 10 years.“What was worse, that woman has a six-year-old child – that six-year-old child has spent their entire life in temporary accommodation, that six-year-old has no concept of what a safe, secure place to call home is.”The stories he heard, Mr Griffin said, were an “appalling indictment”, and he said it is “beyond belief” that the Scottish Government “cannot accept” there is a housing emergency.Responding to the motion for the Scottish Government, housing