Clause 11 — Housing costs
Bill Presented — European Convention on Human Rights (Temporary Withdrawal) Bill
4:00 pm
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East, Scottish National Party)
In his discussions, will the Minister make it clear that the Scottish Government have pointed out that some 70,000 families will be affected by this proposal? There was a huge imbalance between the 95,000 properties that are under-occupied and the 26,000 that are over-occupied, and the cost to people in Scotland and the Scottish economy will be around £54 billion a year. That does not seem to make sense, particularly when he could not answer the point made by Sheila Gilmore, which is that if his policy works there will be no under-occupancy to penalise.