When Scotland declared a national housing emergency in 2024, the challenge was already well understood. Rising homelessness, record use of temporary accommodation, falling housing starts and growing affordability pressures all combined to create a perfect storm. The question was never whether action was required, but whether the Scottish Government would be prepared to prioritise housing delivery as a central economic and social objective.
Despite a call to action in the Housing Emergency Action Plan (HEAP) which was published in September 2025, all tenure new housing starts have continued to plummet. Against that background, the Scottish Government's Programme for Government 2026-31 is noteworthy not simply for what it says about housing, but for the extent to which housing now appears to sit at the heart of broader government objectives around economic growth, poverty reduction and public service reform.
For those involved in planning, development and housing delivery, the Programme contains a number of important signals, but, as ever, the question is whether those signals will translate into the scale of intervention needed to move Scotland beyond emergency response and into sustained housing recovery.
Housing is now being framed as economic infrastructure
One of the most significant themes running through the Programme is the clear linkage between housing delivery and economic growth. The Scottish Government has placed economic growth alongside child poverty, climate action and public service reform as one of its core priorities and has committed to removing barriers to investment, increasing investor confidence and supporting growth across Scotland's regions.
The housebuilding sector has long argued that housing is too often treated as a policy outcome rather than being seen as essential economic infrastructure. Requests for housing to be classed as infrastructure as part of the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 fell on deaf ears. Yet labour mobility, inward investment, city centre regeneration and the delivery of major energy and infrastructure projects all depend upon an adequate supply of housing being available.
The Programme's emphasis on growth creates an opportunity to reposition housing delivery as a prerequisite for economic success rather than simply a consequence of it.
The challenge, of course, is implementation. A commitment to growth only helps housing delivery if difficult decisions are subsequently taken in planning, infrastructure investment and local authority decision-making.
Planning reform remains central to the Government's response
Planning continues to occupy a prominent role in the Government's housing strategy.
The Planning and Housing Emergency: Delivery Plan identified that planning must play an active role in facilitating homes and addressing constraints within the system, but recognised ongoing concerns about complexity, delays and the unpredictability of the planning process and identified further planning reform as part of the response to the housing emergency.
The latest Programme for Government includes a wider commitment to removing barriers to investment and adopting a more pro-growth approach which should, in theory, underpin, or at least sit alongside, decision-making on planning applications. But the planning system is only part of the problem. Infrastructure constraints, viability pressures, funding challenges, skills shortages and market conditions all influence delivery. Focusing only on planning reforms risks the wider barriers to delivery remaining unresolved.
More Homes Scotland and delivery reform may prove more significant than planning reform
Arguably the most important structural development since the housing emergency was declared has been the Scottish Government's decision to establish More Homes Scotland.
Launching More Homes Scotland in January 2026, the First Minister described a "whole Scotland" approach to accelerating housing delivery and outlined plans for a new agency capable of bringing greater simplicity, scale and speed to delivery. Among the functions being considered were land assembly, intervention in stalled sites and acting as a centre of expertise.
While subsequent ministerial updates indicate that development of the agency has continued to be a major priority, with the Scottish Government presenting it as a key mechanism for tackling the housing emergency and increasing delivery across all tenures, the fact that the agency will not be fully operational until 2028 remains a cause for concern.
An organisation capable of coordinating land, infrastructure, funding and delivery could potentially address issues that planning reform alone cannot solve. At the recent Homes for Scotland Annual Conference, representatives from Homes England and the Irish Home Builders’ Association outlined national interventions which have helped create conditions in their respective jurisdictions to support the local delivery of more homes.
It’s critical that More Homes Scotland receives sufficient powers, resources and commercial expertise to become a truly transformative delivery agency and not just another layer of institutional complexity.
Funding commitments are encouraging but questions remain
The housing sector's criticism of recent years has often focused on funding uncertainty: not knowing from one year to another what funding will be available.
The Scottish Government has now committed at least £4.1 billion over four years towards the delivery of affordable housing and the 2026-27 affordable housing budget has increased following earlier reductions.
Ministers have highlighted multi-year allocations and ambitions to increase housing delivery across all tenures while expanding acquisition and void programmes intended to bring homes back into use more quickly. While those measures are welcomed, it may not be enough as the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations warned £8.2 billion was needed over the same period to meet increasing levels of need.
And funding alone will not resolve the viability challenges facing many developments. Rising construction costs, infrastructure requirements and increasingly complex regulatory obligations continue to affect the delivery of project. The housing emergency is ultimately a supply issue and supply depends upon viable development.
Local authority reform and a "yes" culture
The Programme for Government proposes a major shake-up of local authorities, with a three-month period of consultation already underway. The indication is that the First Minister wants stronger, more strategic regional partnerships to drive economic growth and investment. From a planning perspective, could we finally see the legislation on regional spatial strategies coming into force?
There is no doubt that local authorities remain central to housing delivery. They prepare local development plans, determine planning applications, deliver infrastructure, allocate affordable housing funding and increasingly act as development partners.
To date Ministers have been unwilling to intervene in local decision-making, but it is clear that the Programme is promoting a pro-active approach and a greater focus on outcomes. The Programme is advocating for an “activist Government”. If that “yes” culture is not shared by planning departments and infrastructure providers, we could see more Ministerial intervention at a local level.
But if the Scottish Government is serious about economic growth and housing delivery, local authorities will require not only policy direction but also capacity, resources and the confidence to make decisions since a pro-development narrative without local authority capacity will have limited impact.
Will these measures help address the housing emergency?
Scotland's housing emergency has built up over many years and cannot be solved through planning reform alone. Land supply, infrastructure funding, viability, local authority capacity, construction costs and regulatory complexity must all be tackled together.
The Programme for Government demonstrates a greater recognition than previous policy statements that housing delivery, economic growth and public service outcomes are interconnected. Commitments around funding, housing delivery, planning reform and institutional change all move in the right direction. Armed with the right firepower and flexibility, More Homes Scotland could be a real activist in the housing sector and create the conditions for lasting change.
As such, the Programme for Government contains reasons for cautious optimism. Whether it marks the beginning of the end of the housing emergency will depend not on the ambitions set out in the Programme, but on the decisions taken locally and nationally in the months and years ahead.
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