More than one in four Scottish MPs own second homes or rake in tens of thousands of pounds in rent as landlords, The Ferret has found.
Westminster’s newly published register of interests shows that 15 of Scotland’s 56 MPs said they own additional properties in towns and cities across the UK and abroad, with seven declaring that they receive rental income of more than £10,000 per year.
They include ten Scottish Labour MPs, three Scottish Liberal Democrats, and two representing the SNP. Eleven of them are new MPs elected in July.
Critics said Scotland’s landlord lobby “already has a disproportionately loud voice” which would be amplified by having landlords in parliament. One claimed the figures were a “damning indictment” of our political system and showed “how detached from the lived experience of their constituents many MPs are”.
MPs have to register any properties they own or co-own but do not live in. They must also say if these properties earn them more than £10,000 per year in rent.
MPs with multiple homes
Labour’s landlord MPs include Imogen Walker, the new member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley, who receives rental income from two properties in Edinburgh. Walker is married to Morgan McSweeney who was Labour’s campaign manager during the election and has been described as Keir Starmer’s closest aide.
The Scottish secretary and Labour’s longest-serving Scottish MP, Ian Murray, also rents out a property in the capital, which has brought in more than £10,000 per year since June 2024. Murray reportedly advertises his flat in the affluent Bruntsfield area on Airbnb when he is working in London, although he describes the property as his home.
Fellow Labour MP Richard Baker, who was elected in Glenrothes and Mid Fife in July, owns four properties. Baker clarified that he owns two rental properties – one in Edinburgh and one in Aberdeen, along with two other residential properties that are not rented out.
The new Labour member for East Kilbride and Strathaven, Joani Reid, owns a property in London that is rented out. Reid is the granddaughter of the renowned Glasgow socialist, Jimmy Reid.
Her office told The Ferret that Reid lived in the London property before she met her husband and moved back to Scotland. The property is currently rented to an Afghan refugee family through the Refugee Council. They claimed that although Reid brings in £10,000 from the property, she has never made a profit from it and is currently making a loss.
Blair-era cabinet minister, Douglas Alexander, who returned to Westminster as an MP for the first time since 2015 is now minister of state for the department for business and trade. He co-owns a property in his East Lothian constituency with his wife and another in Argyll with a sibling.
Glasgow South West MP, Zubir Ahmed, owns a residential property in London while former journalist and now Western Isles MP, Torcuil Crichton, owns a flat in Glasgow. Crichton used to be the Westminster editor of the Glasgow-based Daily Record newspaper.
Alexander, Ahmed and Crichton did not register any rental income from their properties.
Three new Labour MPs – Kenneth Stevenson, Kirsteen Sullivan and Alison Taylor – either own or co-own property in Spain.
Airdrie and Shotts MP Stevenson also co-owns properties in Shotts and Glasgow with his wife, while Paisley and Renfrewshire North MP Alison Taylor co-owns a cottage in Arran. Taylor also has shareholdings in property management companies including one valued at more than £70,000.
Long-serving Lib Dem MP for Orkney and Shetland, Alistair Carmichael, owns a holiday rental on Islay, although he reports paying the income to his father.
Fellow party member, Angus MacDonald – who now represents Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire – owns commercial property in Stirling which he rents out. Their Lib Dem colleague Jamie Stone, the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, rents out a property in Edinburgh.
Castle-dwelling Dundee Central SNP MP, Chris Law, owns flats in both Dundee and Aberdeen, while the party’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, co-owns an additional property in his home city of Aberdeen.
Landlords’ voices ‘disproportionately’ loud
The Scottish Greens’ co-leader Patrick Harvie, who served as tenants’ rights minister when his party was in government at Holyrood with the SNP, said more landlords in power was “the last thing” Scotland needed.
He added: “Scotland is experiencing a housing emergency, and we need to ensure that we use every power we have to support households and families on the frontline of the crisis. That means putting the voices and experiences of tenants at the heart of the steps we are taking.
“Scotland’s landlord lobby has enjoyed a disproportionately loud voice in our politics and the last thing we need is for that voice to be amplified in our political parties and in parliament.”
Aditi Jehangir, chair of tenants’ union Living Rent said the makeup of MPs “highlights the up-hill battle tenants face in fighting for the change we need to our housing”, and “shows how detached from the lived experience of their constituents many MPs are”.
“Right now, in Scotland and the UK, landlords are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds lobbying politicians to try and get the housing bill in Scotland and the renters reform bill watered down and key details gutted,” she claimed. “When landlords are MPs and MSPs, their work is made so much easier.”
All the MPs named in this story were contacted for comment with some clarifying the details of their properties. Scottish Labour said that all declarations had been made in “accordance with parliamentary and Electoral Commission rules”.
In total across the UK, there are 85 landlord MPs, each earning over £10,000 from their properties and 158 members who own second homes or land.
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Main image credit: Dazigster. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
