Coalition and Compromise — The Five Years Ahead for the Built Environment

The battle for Bute House is over, with a Scottish National Party (SNP) victory with 58 seats, though no overall majority. Reform UK and Scottish Labour tied for second, with 17 seats each. The Greens did very well, with 15. The Lib Dems made gains, giving them 10 seats and the Conservatives lost 19, dropping down to 12 seats.

The headline from all of this is that the SNP remain in power, though they are somewhat diminished, missing out on their aim of securing a majority and with it a mandate for a second referendum (though with the Greens on 15 seats, there is a comfortable pro-independence majority in Holyrood). Elsewhere, the results show that there aren’t really any fringe parties anymore, with each having a sizeable representation, able to influence policy to a greater or lesser degree.

Given this political reality, this article will take a look at what the next 5 years of policy making in Scottish Government could look like in relation to the built and natural environment, looking at the SNP’ s manifesto commitments and how they could be shaped by the other parties in Holyrood.

The Built and Natural Environment under the SNP

The SNP’s manifesto sets out an ambitious agenda for Scotland’s built and natural environment over the next five years, with housing delivery, infrastructure investment and net zero central to its plans for economic growth and social development. Proposals including a £4.9 billion commitment to deliver 110,000 affordable homes, the creation of a new national housing agency – More Homes Scotland – and increased investment in infrastructure and renewable energy.

Planning reform, regeneration and land reform are also expected to play a major role during the next parliamentary term. Commitments to simplify planning processes, reform Compulsory Purchase Orders and tackle vacant and derelict land point towards a more interventionist approach to delivery. The heritage sector is also referenced, with proposed reforms to tenement law following the Scottish Law Commission’s report on compulsory owners’ associations.

Alongside this, the manifesto reinforces Scotland’s continued push towards net zero through support for renewable energy, clean heat and major infrastructure projects. The Heat in Buildings Bill is set to (finally) be reintroduced to parliament and it seems likely that previous policy areas such as EPC reform and the formation of the Heat and Energy Efficiency Technical Suitability Assessment (HEETSA) will continue.

With the recent announcement of Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP as the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Housing (an area she started her career in at the Chartered Institute of Housing), the next five years could bring significant opportunities to help shape and deliver Scotland’s housing, infrastructure and sustainability ambitions, though housing delivery was notably absent from the SNP’s first 100 days in office pledge.[1]

However, as the SNP didn’t achieve a majority, the next section will look at how their manifesto ambitions could be tempered by some of the other major parties in Holyrood.

Coalition and compromise?

Without a majority, the SNP will be deciding how they wish to govern over the next five years. They could govern as a minority, making individual deals with relevant parties in order firm up support for their legislative agenda. This has the benefit of not being constrained by a formal arrangement but comes with a great deal of risk too, potentially exposing them to policy gridlock if the opposition parties unite against them. Alternatively, they could enter a deal (formal or informal) with an opposition party, as they did previously with the Greens (Bute House Agreement). This gave the government a firm legislative footing with an agreed upon agenda, as well as a formal pro-independence majority in Holyrood; however, the agreement ended in acrimony in 2024 after significant policy-divergence, with the First Minister at the time, Humza Yousaf saying the agreement has “run its course”.

A future arrangement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens, whether through a formal coalition or a confidence and supply agreement, could have a significant impact on Scotland’s built and natural environment over the next parliamentary term. This is perhaps a likely scenario, given that both parties are pro-independence, and there is considerable policy overlap between the two parties. Nevertheless, as nothing has been settled at this stage, we will turn to look at how Holyrood could reshape the pace, priorities and regulatory environment surrounding the SNP’s built and natural environment policy agenda. With an emphasis on the Greens, we will assess how the major parties’ manifesto commitments align or diverge from what the SNP have committed to delivering.

The housing emergency and the PRS

With the Scottish Government declaring a housing emergency in 2024[2] and housing starts and completions continuing to fall across Scotland[3], housing delivery should be a core component of the next parliament, however; it is also perhaps the clearest example of where the SNP and the Green Party align in principle but differ in emphasis. The SNP manifesto places strong focus on increasing housing supply across multiple tenures, backed by a £4.9 billion affordable housing commitment and the creation of a national housing agency, ‘More Homes Scotland’. The Greens, meanwhile, place greater emphasis on social housing, tenant protections and development standards, with less focus on market housing delivery and private sector investment.

As a result, a strengthened Green influence within government could shift the balance of housing policy further towards social housing delivery, stronger regulation and higher development standards, potentially at the expense of broader tenure diversification or accelerated private sector-led delivery. This may particularly affect large-scale speculative housing development, where additional sustainability, planning and infrastructure requirements could place further pressure on development viability.

Nevertheless, Scottish Labour, Reform UK and Scottish Liberal Democrats were all clear in their manifestos that housing delivery is a priority, with Scottish Labour committing to establishing a housing investment bank, which aligns closely with the SNP’s housing agency announcement. Scottish Liberal Democrats committed to delivering 25,000 homes built each year, and Thomas Kerr MSP, outlined that Reform agrees with Shelter Scotland, that 15,000 new homes a year is what’s needed. Support from any of these parties could help the SNP deliver on its more maximalist housing delivery pledges.

Another factor of the housing emergency is the Private Rented Sector (PRS). An agreement between the SNP and the Greens would see a more interventionist approach in this area. Both parties support rent controls, but the Greens have consistently advocated for a more interventionist approach, including expanded rent caps, longer eviction notice periods and stronger tenant protections. The continuation, or expansion, of rent controls could increase pressure on parts of the PRS, particularly smaller landlords and some institutional investors, at a time when supply constraints already exist in several Scottish cities. Supporters of these measures argue they are necessary to improve affordability and tenant security, while critics warn they could discourage investment and reduce rental supply over time.

Scotland’s land and future development

Planning and land reform is also likely to be a prominent policy area over the next 5 years. While the SNP is already proposing reforms to Compulsory Purchase Orders and targeted planning reform, policies shared by a number of parties in Holyrood, the Scottish Green Party manifesto goes further by prioritising brownfield development, discouraging land hoarding and supporting Compulsory Sale Orders. Combined with a continued land reform agenda and stronger support for community ownership, this could lead to increasingly complex land assembly, valuation and ownership structures across both urban and rural Scotland.

For developers and landowners, this may create greater uncertainty around viability and site acquisition, particularly where new levies, sustainability obligations or land-use restrictions are introduced. At the same time, it could also open the doors to an expansion of community ownership and development opportunities, opening land ownership in Scotland, which is said to have one of the most extreme concentrations of land ownership among developed countries.[4]

The Green Economy

Where several parties are most closely aligned is on decarbonisation and the transition to net zero. The SNP’s support for renewable energy, clean heat and industrial transition aligns strongly with the Greens’ ambition to accelerate building decarbonisation and reduce fossil fuel reliance. In turn this is supported by the Scottish Liberal Democrats and Scottish Labour, albeit Labour takes a more balanced when advocating for the future of Scotland’s energy mix with less emphasis on whole-house retrofit strategies. A future agreement between the parties could therefore result in faster movement on measures such as the Heat in Buildings Bill.

Nevertheless, while there’s close alignment between several parties in this area, both Reform UK and the Scottish Conservatives have made clear that there should be a sharp climbdown in net zero-focused policy, with Reform UK’s Scotland manifesto committing to ‘Scrap all SNP Net Zero related targets, subsidies and quangos’. Both parties will use their sizeable representations in Holyrood to frustrate the Government’s agenda on net zero.

Existing assets: Conservation, building safety and standards

Tenement maintenance was front and centre for many parties in regard to their ambitions on protecting Scotland’s existing assets, with the SNP, Liberal Democrats, Labour, and Greens explicitly mentioning supporting reforms to help tenement flat owners organise repairs in their manifestos. Given this level of cross-party consensus – with Graham Simpson MSP (Reform UK) convening the Tenement Maintenance Working Group in Parliament – it is hoped action can be taken during the lifetime of this parliament.

Elsewhere, the SNP and a number of other parties emphasised combining regulatory reform with targeted intervention, particularly around building safety and housing quality. The Greens’ manifesto stands out for its emphasis on stronger regulation, including the creation of a demolition levy^[5], infrastructure levies and wider property tax reform, policies which could influence development behaviour by encouraging retrofit, reuse and circular economy approach over demolition-led redevelopment.

Prioritising skills

Skills and workforce policy is one area where there is significant opportunity for alignment across many parties in Holyrood, with most parties recognising the need to address skills shortages and support workforce development, particularly in construction and green jobs. All parties, bar the Scottish Conservatives and Reform UK, link skills policy to the net zero transition, with the Liberal Democrats, SNP and Labour specifically mentioning the construction sector. The Conservatives and Reform focus on broader education reform and addressing labour shortages, with a distinct focus on apprenticeships and adult re-skilling. We await further detail on the SNP’s national skills plan, which will hopefully have the built and natural environment as one of its central pillars.

Ultimately, the shape of Scotland’s built and natural environment over the next five years will depend not only on the SNP’s manifesto commitments, but on the political compromises required to govern without a majority. Housing delivery, planning reform, net zero, land reform and workforce development are all areas where there is varying degrees of alignment, and tension, across Holyrood.

A closer relationship with the Greens could accelerate policy on decarbonisation, retrofit, tenant protections and land reform, while potentially increasing regulatory pressures on development viability and the PRS. At the same time, support from parties such as Labour or the Liberal Democrats on housing delivery and infrastructure investment could help the SNP progress some of its more ambitious growth-focused commitments, while headaches will inevitably be caused by the Conservatives and more pointedly Reform UK and policies related to Net Zero.

What is clear is that the next parliamentary term is likely to be anything but, with policy divergence, resignations, defections and macro-economic shocks likely to be in abundance.

[1] First Minister John Swinney’s speech on the SNP’s plan for the first 100 days of the next parliament — Scottish National Party

[2] Scottish government declares national housing emergency – BBC News

[3] Affordable Housing Delivery in Scotland Falls Sharply as New Home Completions Drop 13% – Housing Industry Leaders

[4] Who Owns Scotland 2025 – Land Matters

[5] Scottish government urged to protect Scotland’s built environment from unnecessary and ‘cheap’ demolition | CIOB

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Robert Toomey is a Senior Public Affairs Manager for the Royal Insitution of Chartered Surveyors in Scotland. Robert has responsibility for RICS’ public affairs remit across the built environment, including residential, commercial and land & rural. He also has a UK-wide public affairs remit for sustainability. He holds an MSc in Global Environment, Politics and Society from the University Edinburgh and a BA (Hons) in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Liverpool. Robert is a BEFS Trustee.

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This blog is part of BEFS ‘Joining the Dots’ series exploring interconnected policy areas. See the first blog for an introduction to the series. 

Get in touch – to find out more about BEFS work or to discuss a particular topic or policy area email us at info@befs.org.uk or contact the Team. 

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