Housing secretary pledges almost £5bn for housing over the next five years

Scotland’s housing secretary has pledged almost £5 billion of cash over the next five years to build around 36,000 affordable homes.

Setting out an emergency action plan, Mairi McAllan told MSPs that housing supply was under “unprecedented strain”.

To help with this she promised the Scottish Government will invest £4.9 billion over the coming four years, adding this could provide “up to 24,000 children with a warm, safe home”.

More details of the funding will be announced in the forthcoming spending review, but McAllan said the money would be a “mixture of public and privately leveraged investment”.

Looking ahead to the first three years of the next Scottish Parliament, she said SNP ministers wanted to increase delivery across all parts of the housing sector “by at least 10% each year”