During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday December 11, Sir Keir Starmer said: “In Scotland, housebuilding has ground to a halt.”
Evaluation
The number of houses being started and completed in Scotland has fallen this year, in a downward trend, and there have been reports of building at sites stalling. However, it has not “ground to a halt” – during the last quarter with available statistics there were still more than half the number of houses being started as in 2022.
The facts
In July, Homes for Scotland (HfS) – an association of housebuilding businesses – reported that it had analysed data showing that “around 5,000” homes under construction were “on sites that have stalled” following funding cuts in the Scottish Budget. HfS also noted that the figures for starts and completions were “in rapid decline”.
The Scottish Government publishes quarterly statistics on housebuilding in the country. The most recent data release for the building of housing across the public and private sector goes up to the end of June 2024, so covers the first and second quarters of the year. This contains the figures for both the number of houses completed per quarter as well as the number of houses upon which construction has started in the quarter.
There were 4,554 houses completed in the second quarter of this year, an increase on the first quarter (4,366) but lower than every quarter of the preceding year. Over the past 10 years the highest quarter for completions was Q3 2022, with 6,469 recorded, putting the most recent figure at 70% of the decade’s high.
The data on housing starts shows 3,344 constructions began in the second quarter of this year. This makes it the fourth consecutive quarter to see a fall in the numbers, down from 4,508 in the same quarter in 2023. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations called this continuing decline a “collapse” in the industry.
It looks like a particularly sharp drop from the high of 7,004 homes started in the first quarter of 2021, although this is likely part of a post-Covid recovery which makes up for the lockdown-hit second quarter of 2020 when just 1,720 houses were started. Those particularly restrictive circumstances are the closest the industry has come to halting since 1996, when the data begins.
The average number of houses started per quarter across the past 28 years is 5,154.
No 10 Downing Street has been contacted for comment.
Links
Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) – 11 December 2024 (archived)
Over 1,800 Affordable Homes Stalled by Funding Cuts – Homes for Scotland (archived)
Housing statistics quarterly update: new housebuilding and affordable housing supply – gov.scot (archived)
New house building – All sectors starts and completions – spreadsheet (archived)
‘Collapse in housebuilding’ as homelessness surges to record levels – The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations Limited (archived)
