20. Housing for Scots First 🟢

By 31 March 2026, the Affordable Housing Supply Programme had completed 35,368 homes toward a 110,000 target for 2032. In 2025–26 it finished 6,832 and started 7,421. On 31 March 2025, 180,074 applications on local-authority and common-housing-register lists were reported. Housing law is devolved. A “locals only” or “under-35s first” social-rent rule is not.

Current reality

Legal and institutional position

Housing, planning, the AHSP, social-allocation law and first-time-buyer equity schemes are Scottish.

Section 20 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 requires social landlords to give reasonable preference to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness and have unmet need; people in unsatisfactory housing with unmet need; and existing social tenants in homes the landlord treats as under-occupied. Landlords must not rank by length of residence. They must not downgrade an applicant solely for living outside the area if the person works or has a job offer there, is seeking work, needs to move for family or care, or has special social or medical reasons.

Local connection can still be given positive weight through Local Letting Initiatives, provided the statutory groups still receive reasonable preference. Age discrimination in allocations is barred except for housing designed or designated for a particular age group. The Equality Act 2010 and the public-sector equality duty apply. Income cannot be used to exclude applicants from consideration.

Homelessness duties sit in Part 2 of the same Act. Immigration and asylum accommodation remain reserved at the edges; they do not give Holyrood a nationality quota for social lets.

The latest official numbers

AHSP to 31 March 2026.
Cumulative toward 110,000: 35,368 homes — 27,297 social rent (77 per cent), 5,089 other affordable rent (14 per cent), 2,982 affordable ownership (8 per cent). Target: at least 70 per cent social rent and 10 per cent rural and island.

2025–26 AHSP.
Approvals 6,787 (+42 per cent); starts 7,421 (+37 per cent); completions 6,832 (−8 per cent). Completions are the lowest since 2015–16, excluding the pandemic year. Approvals and starts still 47 per cent and 38 per cent below 2019–20. Social rent: 85 per cent of approvals, 84 per cent of starts, 79 per cent of completions (5,388).

All-sector new build, 2025–26.
Completions 17,268 (−10 per cent); starts 14,955 (−4 per cent).

Lists, 31 March 2025.
180,074 applications on 26 local-authority or common-housing-register lists — highest since 2013, +2,228 on 2024. Excludes six stock-transfer authorities, including Glasgow. Double-counting is possible. Of the reported total, 30,635 (17 per cent) were transfers and 149,439 (83 per cent) were waiting-list entries.

Lets, 2024–25 (local-authority stock).
26,602 permanent lets; 49 per cent to homeless households; 25 per cent waiting list; 21 per cent transfers.

Homelessness to 30 September 2025.
April–September: 17,291 households assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness (−2 per cent). Snapshot: 18,092 households and 10,480 children in temporary accommodation (series highs; +9 per cent and +1 per cent). Average stay on closed cases: 237 days. 10,710 instances of temporary accommodation not offered; 3,635 unsuitable-accommodation-order breaches. 33,006 open cases.

First Homes Fund.
Opened 24 June 2026. Up to £10,000 equity, property up to £300,000, first-time buyers who have not owned anywhere. Government expectation: up to 2,000 households in an early phase; around 50,000 over the Parliament, on a stated £500 million envelope.

Budget.
AHSP 2026–27 about £926 million; multi-year public package described as up to £4.1–£4.9 billion toward further delivery in the spending-review window.

How it is experienced in daily life

A homeless household can wait more than seven months in temporary rooms while 49 per cent of council lets already go to that statutory group. A local applicant without that status waits behind it. A first-time buyer can use a £10,000 stake on a home at or under £300,000; many local prices sit above that. A rural site costs more per unit and still counts toward the 10 per cent share.

How it got here

Need-based allocation was written to stop queue-jumping by residence time. Homelessness duties then filled a large share of lettings. Delivery peaked before 2020, fell, and has not recovered, even as approvals turned up in 2025–26. Cost inflation and thin trades did the rest. Ownership schemes sit outside section 20, which is why they can target first-time buyers.

What has already been tried, and what that showed

More grants produce more approvals with a lag. Completions can still fall. Local Letting Initiatives work only if the overall policy still satisfies reasonable preference. Pausing ordinary lets to clear temporary accommodation, as some urban authorities have done, trades one queue for another. An equity loan of £10,000 does not create a £300,000 house.

What needs to happen

The improvement in measurable terms

• Completions rising from 6,832 toward a rate that can hit 110,000 by 2032 without a last-two-year spike.
• Temporary-accommodation households and children falling from 18,092 and 10,480.
• Published shares of lets by statutory preference, local-connection LLI, and first-time-buyer ownership.
• Rural and island outturn at or above 10 per cent at rural grant rates.

Sequence

Hold the 2025–26 start rebound through to completions. Align grant benchmarks with tender prices. Release public land at prices a social scheme can stand. Expand LLIs on new sites. Scale First Homes only where lenders and stock exist. Do not rewrite section 20 as a substitute for supply.

Workforce, capital and standards

Bricklayers, joiners, quantity surveyors, planning officers. Retrofit of existing stock competes for the same trades. Voids and empty homes are stock that does not need a new foundation.

What would count as success in twelve months

• 2026–27 completions above 6,832
• Temporary accommodation below the September 2025 snapshot
• First Homes Fund outturn against the early 2,000
• An official table of LLI lets versus statutory lets

What can be done under current powers

Who holds the lever

Scottish Ministers: AHSP, grant rates, First Homes, statutory guidance. Local authorities and RSLs: allocations, LLIs, SHIPs. Planning authorities: land. Colleges and CITB: trades.

The statute, budget or direction

Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 ss.20–21 and Part 2; 2014 Act amendments; NPF4; AHSP resource-planning assumptions; First Homes scheme rules.

What is already possible and unused

Standard LLI clauses on grant-funded schemes. Higher grant in high-cost rural areas (item 16). Public-land disposal at affordable residual values. Faster determination for compliant affordable schemes. Empty-homes work. Ownership and mid-market routes that section 20 does not bind.

What would still be true if management improved tomorrow

6,800 completions do not clear 180,000 list entries. Reasonable preference still applies. £10,000 does not close a £100,000 deposit gap in the hottest markets. Construction inflation still bids against grant.

Where the limits are

Law and reserved powers

Housing is devolved. A nationality preference, a blanket under-35 social-rent rule, or ranking by years of residence would fail current statute and equality law. Asylum accommodation rules remain reserved.

Money

£926 million is large and still finite. 50,000 extra homes above the existing path is a multi-year Budget choice, not a residual.

Workforce and capital

Starts can rise before trades and materials are in place to finish them. That is how 2025–26 produced more starts and fewer completions.

Time, geography, UK-wide systems

Urban emergencies and island unit costs are different problems. Mortgage rates and materials prices are not set in Edinburgh.

Political difficulty, kept separate from legal impossibility

Choosing housing capital over other lines is politics. Writing an unlawful “Scots first” allocation policy is not an available shortcut.

What is not yet known

2026–27 completions. First Homes Fund take-up after June 2026. A national LLI monitoring series. Whether 110,000 by 2032 is recovered from the 35,368 already banked. Glasgow demand, which the 180,074 figure excludes.

Honest summary

Achievable now. Raise AHSP completions. Use LLIs lawfully. Target ownership schemes at first-time buyers. Cut voids. Publish who gets lets.

Only partly achievable. Clearing six-figure lists at 6,800 homes a year. A social-rent queue ordered only by youth or only by locality.

Would require reserved change. Not the AHSP, planning, or First Homes. Only a housing system that tried to rank by nationality or to rewrite reserved asylum accommodation.

Colour mark: green. Delivery and lawful local-connection design are already Scottish. Green is not a claim that 35,368 of 110,000 is on track, or that the title of this item is a legal allocation rule.

What this item does not settle. It does not treat “Scots first” as a nationality test. It does not add 50,000 homes as a new target. It does not pretend homelessness preference can be wished away while 18,092 households sit in temporary accommodation.

The test is whether the next official year completes more homes than 6,832, whether temporary accommodation falls, and whether first-time-buyer and lawful local-connection routes take a larger, published share of the homes that actually exist.

Connection

Item 13 is the family household that needs the home. Item 16 is rural cost and the 10 per cent share. Item 7 is the trades pipeline. Item 15 is the household under strain. Public finances pay the grant. The Independence Debate is not required for section 20 or the AHSP.

People’s Future Scotland