The Scottish Greens’ manifesto for Holyrood 2026 proposes the most far-reaching overhaul of the economy north of the border. I’ve been urging the party’s critics, of which I am one, to understand its growing support in the opinion polls as a reflection of Generation Rent, educated professionals and semi-professionals under the age of 40 who are stuck renting in the private sector. The Green manifesto, unveiled on Tuesday, is an unapologetic pitch to these voters, with pledges on housing, health, childcare, and workers’ rights to address their key concerns.
Tenants would get the right to withhold rent where landlords fail to keep up with repairs and safety standards and would be entitled to four months’ notice before eviction. Landlords would be required to pay tenants two months of rent when evicting to resell or reoccupy a property and such evictions would be banned altogether in the first 12 months of a lease.
The Greens promise 78,500 new social housing units in the next five years, forcing owners of derelict land to sell up or rent for housing, and giving local authorities and social landlords first right of refusal when ex-council houses go on the market. Standards on net zero, building safety and accessibility would be strengthened and developers required to build social-rented units to the same standard, and with the same access to gardens and other amenities, as market-rate units.
While they could have gone further – housebuilding targets linked to local authority funding, planning objection fees, an under-occupancy charge – the party’s plans go some way to enhancing the rights of tenants, increasing building standards, and driving up supply. Unfortunately, the Greens remain wedded to counter-productive policies that would have the opposite effect. Expanding rent controls, which benefits existing tenants but drives up the cost of renting for everyone else, would make it even more difficult for young people to move out of the family home and find a place of their own.
Raising land and building transactions tax (LBTT) – Scotland’s stamp duty – will only gum up the housing market further. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) notes: ‘LBTT is one of the most economically damaging taxes… It makes it more expensive to trade up as your family grows and down-size as you age, and to move to take advantage of job opportunities or be closer to family.’
It’s easy to be taken in by the Greens on housing. They’re a bit like the Liberal Democrats that way: YIMBYs in the tweets, NIMBYs in the streets. Even so, the housing policies contained in this manifesto are highly imperfect but more promising than anything offered by the other parties. If you think these pledges are a lot of old rot, remember that our purpose is to understand their appeal to young, graduate, economically precarious voters, and while I can no longer lay claim to youth, I can confirm the attractiveness of some elements of the Greens’ pitch.
Seen in the broader context of the cost of living, to which housing is central but partial, the manifesto tries to redress an imbalance in our social contract that has ramped up the burdens on young workers and assigned the benefits elsewhere. There is a proposal for 1,140 hours of free childcare for two-year-olds and 570 hours starting from six months of age. Following a revaluation, council tax would be replaced by a residential property tax based on property value, with owners responsible for payment in the case of rented properties. The IFS says this would translate to a tax cut for bands A-C and an increase for bands D and above.
The elephant in the room is how all this would be paid for
The Greens have also beefed up their position on workplace rights, another nod to the demographic they are targeting. Four-day week pilots in the public sector will continue and there will be ‘support’ (whatever that means) to expand this into the private sector. They would ban companies receiving public contracts from using zero-hours contracts, fire-and-rehire, or unpaid trial shifts, and strengthen union recognition. More robust protections for gig and seasonal workers are likely to go down well among Green supporters, as are plans to require union representation on boards of companies that receive substantial sums of taxpayers’ money.
The elephant in the room is how all this would be paid for, and while the IFS says the manifesto’s proposals would raise some additional revenue, these would fall short of what is needed to expand the role of the state as dramatically as the Greens envision. This is why the Greens are better understood as an economic populist party rather than a Marxist or socialist one. Their rhetoric is heavy on taxing the rich but there simply aren’t enough of the rich in Scotland for this to be sufficient. If the Greens want to fund social democracy, they are going to have to embrace social democratic taxation, and that means significant tax increases for the very middle-class voters who make up their electoral base.
There is a lot in this manifesto for young, graduate renters to like and with their support on 7 May the Greens could have a very good night indeed. Those are the two unknowns of this election: how many doubters can the Greens win over, and how many of them will turn out?
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