Candidate Calls for National Tenancy Deposit Scheme

Students are currently preparing to head to University for the first time or heading back, I've recently been living through some of their travails, some more closely than others.

It is good to see that Katy Gordon, PPC for Glasgow North has been meeting with and listening to students in Glasgow about the issue of housing. In fact I've been doing the same thing on the same issue because it is a big one. She is also campaigning to introduce a National Tenancy Deposit Scheme, an issue that has been raised by Mike Pringle in Holyrood. This is scheme whereby the housing deposit is kept by a third party until the lease expires. Having once as a student lost my deposit for some damage that wasn't present when any of us tenants left the flat I know this has long been an issue that students.

Margaret Smith recently outlined the hardship faced by our student population. If this is aggravated by needless and incorrect retention or delay in returning deposits to students who often rely on it to move on to their next student flat. The values involved are no small amount for most of us living in rented accommodation but for students who are already working part time often as well as studying try to balance the needs of their education with the needs to survive it is even greater.

The SNP may appear to be failing to do anything to alleviate student debt but this is one issue they can make a move on that isn't going to a constraint on their budgeting. They are recently in some forums saying that the achievement of police numbers was something that they didn't need to gain votes on. Yet the battle to end student debt is something that both Labour and the Lib Dems are signed up to and here is an area that the three can work on together to help.

UPDATE @21:28: Just been told off by James Harrison that I forgot to link to the video. Worse than that I also appear to have forgotten the link to my friend Katy's blog. Both will be sorted with a shake of a lambs tale.