25th August 2026
The UK Government has just announced almost £10 billion of housing funding for England, supporting the delivery of more than 70,000 new social and affordable homes.
It is an eye-catching announcement, particularly because the Government says it wants to put councils back at the heart of housebuilding.
But housing is devolved in Scotland, so the English programme does not directly apply north of the border.
That raises an interesting question for Scotland:
If England is now embarking on a major expansion of council and social housing, how is Scotland doing with its own housing ambitions?
The answer is rather more complicated than either a success story or a failure.
Scotland has its own very ambitious target
The Scottish Government has set a target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, with at least 70% intended to be for social rent.
By March 2026, 35,368 homes had been delivered towards that target.
Of those, 27,297 were for social rent, equivalent to 77% of the total.
On the face of it, that sounds encouraging.
But there is another side to the Scottish housing figures.
Overall housebuilding is falling
The latest Scottish Government statistics show that total new housebuilding has weakened.
During 2025-26, 17,268 new homes were completed across Scotland, around 10% fewer than in the previous year.
New starts were also down, with 14,955 homes started during the year.
The private sector is particularly significant because it accounts for the majority of housebuilding. Private-sector completions fell by 8%, while new starts fell by 12% to just over 11,000 — the lowest level since 2012-13.
That should concern policymakers.
A house that has not been started today cannot be completed tomorrow.
There is therefore a pipeline problem as well as an immediate shortage of completed homes.
Affordable housing is doing better
The picture becomes more interesting when we look specifically at affordable housing.
The Scottish Government says 6,832 affordable homes were completed during 2025-26, while 7,421 were started.
Affordable housing starts increased by 37% and approvals by 42%.
So Scotland is putting considerable effort into getting affordable housing projects moving, even while the wider housebuilding market is contracting.
This is an important distinction.
It would be wrong to say that Scotland is not building affordable housing.
The problem is that affordable housing activity is increasing at a time when total housebuilding is weakening.
That creates a difficult question about whether public-sector building can compensate for the decline in private construction.
England is taking a different approach
The announcement south of the border is significant because the UK Government is committing £39 billion over ten years through its Social and Affordable Homes Programme.
The first allocation is worth £9.58 billion and is expected to support 73,600 social and affordable homes outside London.
Around 60% of the homes delivered through the programme are expected to be for social rent.
Councils are being given a much bigger role, with the Government explicitly describing the programme as part of the biggest revival of council housebuilding in decades.
That is an important change in direction.
For many years, council housebuilding declined dramatically across Britain, with housing associations and private developers taking on much of the work.
England is now effectively saying that councils need to become major housebuilders again.
Scotland has been moving in that direction for longer, but its latest overall construction figures show that the challenge remains considerable.
The Highland problem
This is where national statistics can hide what is happening locally.
Highland Council reported in August that almost 8,826 households were on the Highland Housing Register.
That is an extraordinary number for such a geographically dispersed population.
And the problem is not simply about how many houses exist across Highland.
It is about where they are located.
A new development in Inverness does not solve the housing shortage in Wick.
A house in Fort William does not help a family waiting for accommodation in Thurso.
And a large development in one part of Highland cannot necessarily compensate for the lack of viable housing projects in remote communities.
This is one of the particular difficulties of rural Scotland.
Rural housing has different economics
Building houses in Caithness is not necessarily financially comparable with building them in the central belt.
There are higher transport costs for materials, fewer contractors, smaller development sites and a smaller market.
Land values can also be very different.
And while a developer might be able to spread infrastructure costs over several hundred homes in a large urban development, a rural scheme may involve only a few dozen properties.
That can make projects more difficult to finance.
Yet the need for housing does not disappear simply because construction is more expensive.
Indeed, the Scottish Government's own figures show that rural areas are receiving a significant proportion of affordable housing investment.
An FOI response showed that 3,753 affordable homes were completed in rural and remote areas between 2023-24 and 2024-25, representing 22% of homes delivered during those years.
But that still leaves a much bigger question.
Are enough of those homes being built in the particular communities where people need them?
Is Scotland building enough?
That is probably the question we should be asking rather than simply comparing Scotland's 110,000 target with England's 70,000 announcement.
The two programmes are not directly comparable.
England's 70,000-plus figure relates to the first wave of a ten-year programme.
Scotland's 110,000 is a target running to 2032 and includes different categories of affordable housing.
But the comparison does highlight something important.
Both governments have reached broadly the same conclusion: the housing market cannot simply be left to sort out the shortage by itself.
The question is whether the money, land, planning system, construction workforce and infrastructure are sufficient to turn political targets into actual houses.
The danger of targets becoming promises rather than homes
This is where I think we should be slightly sceptical about all large housing announcements.
A target of 110,000 homes sounds impressive.
£39 billion sounds impressive.
An announcement of 70,000 homes sounds impressive.
But people don't live in targets or funding announcements.
They live in houses.
And the real measure of success is therefore much simpler:
How many homes have actually been completed, where are they, and can people afford to live in them?
The Scottish figures provide both encouragement and warning.
Affordable housing starts are rising.
But overall housebuilding is falling.
Private-sector starts are at their lowest level in more than a decade.
Highland still has thousands of households waiting for social housing.
And Scotland's 110,000-home target is now well into its timetable.
The rural question could become even more important
There is another reason this matters.
Scotland's population and economic future depend partly on whether people can actually afford to live in the communities where jobs exist.
A shortage of affordable housing can prevent businesses from recruiting.
It can make it harder for young people to remain in their home communities.
It can make it difficult for care workers, teachers, tradespeople and other essential workers to find somewhere to live.
And in rural areas, the consequences can be magnified because there are fewer alternative places to live nearby.
Housing policy is therefore not just about housing.
It is also about economic development, population, public services and the future of communities.
So what can Scotland learn from England?
Perhaps the most interesting lesson from England's announcement is not the £39 billion.
It is the emphasis on long-term funding certainty.
Building houses requires councils and housing associations to plan years ahead. Developers need confidence that schemes will remain financially viable. Contractors need to know that work will continue.
Short-term funding makes that much harder.
If Scotland wants to accelerate housebuilding, particularly in rural areas, it may need to look beyond annual announcements and provide councils and housing associations with enough certainty to plan substantial programmes over many years.
And Highland may need an especially tailored approach.
The housing shortage in the Highlands cannot be solved simply by counting houses across the whole council area.
The question has to be much more local:
Are we building enough homes in Wick, Thurso, Caithness and the other communities where people actually need them?
The real test is still ahead
Scotland has a substantial housing programme.
It has delivered more than 35,000 homes towards its 110,000 affordable-home target.
That is real progress and should not be dismissed.
But the falling overall housebuilding figures provide a warning that should not be ignored either.
England is now making a very large financial commitment to getting councils back into housebuilding.
Scotland has already embraced a strong role for public and affordable housing.
The next few years will tell us which approach is actually capable of producing enough homes.
Because ultimately, the housing crisis will not be solved by announcing more money or setting another target.
It will be solved when someone can actually move into the front door of a home that would otherwise not have existed.
And for communities such as those in Caithness, the most important question of all remains:
How many of those homes will actually be built here?