SCOTTISH Labour insisted today that there can be “no more empty platitudes from the SNP,” after winning a key vote on Scotland’s housing emergency.

In an amendment to the Housing (Scotland) Bill at Holyrood’s local government, housing and planning committee debated on Thursday, the party’s housing spokesman, Mark Griffin, proposed a duty on ministers to formally define a housing emergency, produce a strategy to address it and report on progress.

A national housing emergency was declared by the Scottish government last year, but numbers of children living in temporary accommodation have hit record levels, as rents continue to soar.

The SNP’s recent programme for government — cutting spending on social housing — was branded a “programme for homelessness” by housing charity Shelter Scotland.

SNP social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, argued that “it is extremely difficult to work on an overall definition of what constitutes a housing emergency,” but the amendment was passed with the backing of Labour, Green and Tory members by four votes to three.

Mr Griffin said: “A year ago, I forced the SNP government to admit the truth — Scotland is in a housing emergency.

“The SNP has been dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledge the scale of Scotland’s housing crisis and has continually abdicated their responsibility to fix it.

“When 10,000 children are in temporary accommodation and 40,000 people don’t have a home, we need action rather than words.

“There can be no more empty platitudes from the SNP — the SNP government will be held to account for their inaction in the face of the emergency they declared.
 
“I will keep fighting for a Housing Bill that delivers real change and for a Scotland where every child has the chance to grow up in a safe, secure home.”