It’s clear people are struggling with housing and getting access to decent public services. I hear it all the time, particularly from younger families who can’t find anywhere affordable to live in Edinburgh or elsewhere. We need to ask ourselves why this is happening. It’s not about who lives here, but about years of underinvestment in the places where we live and work.
Our public services are stretched, yes. But that’s a symptom of successive governments failing to plan ahead and properly fund them. We haven’t built enough homes, especially affordable ones, and the ones we do build are often poor quality and expensive to heat. We haven’t invested in the public transport, schools, and hospitals needed to support growing communities. Blaming people who come here to work or seek safety is a massive distraction from these real failures.
What we need is a national plan for sustainable housing and infrastructure.
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We've seen decades of underinvestment, and it's not just housing. Think about school class sizes. Mine are getting bigger, and we're struggling to give every child the attention they deserve because the funding for new classrooms and teachers just isn't there. That's a direct consequence of not planning, and it affects everyone, not just the builders.