How housing – and the lack of it – became an election issue

Most of the responses to housing pressures are devolved, meaning much of the election debate is about England.

Where politicians offer reformed versions of shared equity or a mortgage guarantee to ease the burden of that first purchase, these have been designed differently in Scotland.

A Housing Bill is making its way through Holyrood. That strengthens tenant rights, including the right to keep a pet.

The contentious part of the bill is in rent control. There has been a rent freeze and then a rent cap in Scotland but that was temporary and had to be withdrawn while a permanent replacement was drawn up.

Despite that cap, or arguably because of it, rents in Scotland have been rising faster than the rest of the UK.

Private landlords have been hiking rents between tenancies, getting ahead of a future cap on existing tenancies.

The question at Holyrood is: what happens to that rent cap plan now that Patrick Harvie and the Scottish Greens are no longer steering the bill?

The new, more business-friendly SNP leadership concedes the harm to investment in rental, increasing risk to the returns landlords can expect.