One of the most fundamental human needs is that of decent shelter, but, as the collapse of the housing market continues, Scottish families are finding that they do not have the same protections from repossession as their counterparts in the rest of the UK.
Statistics from the Scottish Courts Service show that there were over 1,000 actions for home repossession in September. Each of these cases represents not only a personal tragedy for each of the families involved, but undermines our capacity as a society and an economy to get back on our financial feet again.
The UK government has acted decisively to reduce repossessions by imposing a new duty on lenders and courts in England and Wales to demonstrate that repossession is genuinely a last resort.
The housing charity Shelter has described the new English pre-action protocol as ‘ground-breaking’. It means that lenders must show they have considered all possible alternatives before going to court, or costs will be awarded against them.
The effectiveness of pre-action protocols can be demonstrated through the 11 per cent fall in the number of eviction actions following the UK justice ministry’s introduction of an Eviction Pre-action Protocol in England and Wales.
In Scotland, there is no such right, and no plans from the SNP to legislate for this right. Banks are entitled to raise repossession proceedings if a home owner is just £1 in arrears. Furthermore, there is no automatic right to legal aid as there is in England and Wales.
The Scottish government has announced support for a national debt helpline, and this is a welcome step, but the SNP could do much more to prevent Scottish families being thrown out onto the streets.
The rationale behind health secretary Nicola Sturgeon’s refusal to even consider implementing similar guidelines in Scotland to ensure that repossession is also a last resort here appears to be as straightforward as an infantile refusal to take Westminster’s lead on this matter. Although a reluctance to square up to the vested interests of the big financial institutions on behalf of the voters they represent may also be an element in their refusal to address this vital issue.
These financial institutions have received billions of pounds from the taxpayer, and while this was necessary in order to shore up our financial system, it should be used to ensure a change in the attitudes of these institutions towards customers who have trouble making their own payments. This is happening at Westminster, but in Scotland, it seems that the SNP would rather continue to kowtow to the institutions who must take significant responsibility for creating this situation in the first place.
Scottish Labour are leading calls for the Scottish government to introduce new court guidelines on repossession, and this has been supported by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Green party and independent MSP Margo Macdonald. Recent events have shown that Scottish Labour can build a progressive consensus at Holyrood to stand up to the discredited neo-liberal approach of the SNP.
At this time, so many families, so much of society, is vulnerable. We need to find new ways to organise our financial systems to build a sustainable financial system which operates for the good of the many, but to do that, we need a government who is willing to lead, to stand up to vested interests and to protect those who need it most. The SNP is not only incapable of being that government, the SNP has not even the will to try. Abandoning Scottish families at this time is not something the electorate will easily forget.