Housing (Scotland) Bill - use of powers: consultation analysis - final report

Footnotes

1 Further information on the Bill’s passage through Parliament can be found on the Scottish Parliament’s website.

2 Housing (Scotland) Act 2025

3 To avoid confusion, the legislation is referred to as ‘the Bill’ throughout this analysis, as this reflects how the questions in the consultation were phrased.

4 A small number of blank responses (i.e. responses that had answered no questions and made no comments) were removed prior to the analysis.

5 There were also some other instances where respondents had shared information and submitted similar or, in a small number of cases, identical responses. This included a small number of Developer and Private landlord and Individual respondents. Given the small numbers, for the purpose of the analysis these are included as non-campaign responses.

6 Where permission to publish has been given, these responses will be made available on the Scottish Government’s website in due course.

7 Although this section draws only on comments made at Questions 16-31 regarding rent caps in rent control areas, many of the issues were also raised in relation to MMR and BtR properties and may also have been covered in the analysis of Questions 1-15.

8 It was not always clear whether respondents were referring to all tenancies in rent control areas or were calling for a universal system of rent controls.

9 However, as the parent of the subsidiary, the RSL is regulated by the SHR and is responsible for the subsidiary.

10 RSL parent bodies have responsibility and control over any subsidiary and must report (via an Intra Group Agreement) to the SHR.

11The Housing (Scotland) Bill, as introduced, applied rent control provisions to PRTs only. As PBSA (and university owned halls of residence) are excluded from being PRTs, they were not included in the rent control provisions in the Bill. During its consideration of the Bill at Stage 2, the Committee agreed to amendments that would extend some elements of the rent control regime to student tenancies. Although the amendments did not extend restrictions on rent increases to student tenancies, this raised concerns that further amendments could come forward at Stage 3 that would do so. After this consultation closed, amendments were passed by the Scottish Parliament at Stage 3 of the Bill process to remove the references to student tenancies that were added at Stage 2 from the rent control measures in the Bill. The final form of the Bill, as passed by the Scottish Parliament on 30 September 2025, does not extend the rent control measures to student tenancies.

12 RSL parent bodies have responsibility and control over any subsidiary and must report (via an Intra Group Agreement) to the SHR.

13 The consultation on the Draft Energy Efficiency (Domestic Private Rented Property) (Scotland) Regulations sought views on proposals to make available a cost cap exemption. The consultation closed on 29 August 2025.

14 It should be noted that a Stage 2 amendment to add a definition of “rent payable” in relation to the provisions on designating a rent control area to exclude from rent payments for utilities which are made to the landlord was later reversed by the Scottish Parliament at Stage 3.

15 Question 11: Excluding mid-market rent and build to rent/purpose built private rented accommodation, are there other categories of housing provision that should be exempted from rent controls?

16 Meaning the landlord is paying the council tax.