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Anas Sarwar has pledged to kickstart a “housebuilding revolution” as Scottish Labour gears up for the Scottish Parliament election in May.
But his party’s record while in office between 1999 and 2007 has been criticised online, with claims that Labour failed to build affordable homes.
One claim, whichhasbeenwidely shared and repeated, stated that Scottish Labour built just six houses during its time in power.
“During Labour’s reign in Scotland 1999 to 2007 they built a total of 6 houses.” - Social media posts
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it False.
Evidence
This claim and others similar have been floating around for some time online. In response to the Labour announcement, SNP minister Mairi McAllan made a similar assertion, saying Scottish Labour had built “just six” council homes “in the four years up to 2007”.
When people talk about a government building houses, they are usually referring to social or council houses, which are impacted by government policy more than private developments.
The Scottish Government has a number of levers it can use to affect the number of social and affordable homes that are built, such as funding to support developers or the purchase of land, as well as subsidies for local councils to buy or build houses.
Councils can build social homes where the rent is controlled, as can housing associations, which manage social homes in areas across the country. Different councils have different policies for their social housing.
There have been a number of ways to measure social housing built since the Scottish Parliament was formed, and various strategies and methods for building the social housing supply have been employed by different governments in Scotland since 1999.
The claim that Scottish Labour only built six homes appears to be based on a statistic for council house building in a single year. In 2005/6, six council houses were started under the then-Scottish Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition government at Holyrood. In the two previous years none were recorded in the data.
WhenLabour and the Lib Dems were in government between 1999 and 2007, 340 council houses were started.
The reason we talk about houses being ‘started’, is because you can measure house building by starts or completions. ‘Completions’ tell you how many newly-built homes were made available for use during a time period, but ‘starts’ give a sense of how much building was actually initiated due to a government’s policy.
Local authority or council houses are just one method of building social sector homes. During the Labour government, the majority of homes were built through housing associations. A more rounded picture comes from looking at statistics for the ‘social sector’, which includes council and housing association houses, as well those built via other government departments and initiatives which have changed as housing policy develops.
The social sector statistics don’t give a full picture of all the homes that were made available either, as they don’t include so-called ‘off the shelf’ houses. This is when social housing providers buy property to then rent out for social homes, or when homes are renovated and brought into social use.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: False
It is not correct to say Scottish Labour built just six houses during its time in office between 1999 and 2007. There were only six council houses started in 2006/7, but across Labour’s time in government they started 340 council houses and more than 37,000 social sector homes, as the vast majority were built by housing associations rather than directly by councils.
Alastair leads our fact-checking arm, The Ferret Fact Service, and writes about disinformation and conspiracy theories. He also delivers training on media literacy and spotting disinformation. He spends his free time at gigs in basements.
Political parties have accepted thousands of pounds from lobbyists in recent years. Anti-corruption campaigners claimed donations buy lobby firms “privileged access” to politicians for their wealthy clients.
