Scotland’s cash-strapped councils have been forced to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on hotel rooms for homeless people.
Official figures show the country’s 32 local authorities burned through almost £228million between 2023 and 2025, with a quarter spending more than £1million a year.
SNP-run Glasgow spent £114million over the three-year period.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats, who obtained the data, blamed the said the ’eye-watering bill’ on the SNP failing to tackle the housing emergency.
Housing spokesman Daniel Khan-O’Malley said: ‘Scotland is suffering from a housing crisis and thousands of children are stuck in temporary accommodation.
‘This is all down to the SNP’s inability to build more homes and encourage housebuilding.
‘Councils should not have to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on hotel accommodation to address homelessness that has its root cause in a lack of suitable and affordable homes.’
He highlighted the SNP and Greens cutting £200million from the affordable homes budget while sharing power.
Glasgow has become a magnet for refugees made homeless in England due to Scotland’s generous housing rules
The figures showed a total of 118,194 people housed in temporary hotel accommodation in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Glasgow City Council had the largest bill by far – £114,817,205, or more than half the Scottish total.
Separate figures at the weekend showed its annual outlay has trebled in three years.
As of 30 March, there were 9,339 people in temporary accommodation across the city.
Of these, 2,773 were in hotels and B&Bs, almost three quarters (2,030) refugees with leave to remain in the UK.
Scotland’s more generous housing rules – which do not require a local connection or a priority need – have seen Glasgow become a magnet for refugees made homeless in England.
Scottish Tory housing spokesman Meghan Gallacher added: ‘These staggering figures are a direct result of the SNP’s failure to tackle the housing emergency.
‘Their decisions to slash housing budgets and doubling down on reckless rent controls have only exacerbated the situation.
‘They have also abandoned the local connection rules which has meant our cities have become a magnet for illegal migrants and has left tens of thousands of families stuck in temporary accommodation.’
Glasgow Reform councillor Thomas Kerr said: ‘These numbers are beyond scandalous, but I suspect barely scratch the surface of what’s actually happening across our city.
‘The SNP have created Scotland’s housing crisis after almost two decades of failure.’
Glasgow City Council said its five-year plan should see 6,400 new affordable homes built on 165 sites, plus 550 private homes bought for use as social housing.
A spokesman said: ‘The city is doing everything in its power to tackle the Housing Emergency that Glasgow – like so many places – faces, and is ready to accelerate the home building programme if new resources are made available.’
Meanwhile a new poll has found more than a third of Scots are worried they could lose their homes within the next few years, with younger people particularly anxious.
Glasgow Reform councillor Thomas Kerr branded the figures ‘ beyond scandalous’
The Opinion Matters survey for the Everyone Home collective of housing organisations asked 1,000 people how concerned they were about losing their home ‘because of factors like cost of living, lack of affordable housing, high rent, high mortgage or something else’.
Around 35 per cent said they were concerned, while 61 per cent were not.
But among the 18 to 24 age group, around half said they were concerned.
Margaret-Ann Brunjes, chief executive at Homeless Network Scotland, said: ‘Housing insecurity is no longer a fringe issue, it is a weight on the minds of people across Scotland.
‘Younger generations, in particular, feel increasingly locked out of the stability they need to build their lives.’
Around 250,000 people are on housing waiting lists across Scotland, with more than 17,000 households in temporary accommodation, including 10,000 children.
SNP candidate and former housing minister Paul McLennan said: ‘The SNP has delivered 141,000 affordable homes, we’ve passed gold standard anti-homeless laws, fully mitigated Labour’s bedroom tax and are supporting families to combat Labour’s Local Housing Allowance Freeze – two Labour policies which drive homelessness.
‘While Westminster parties fight amongst themselves, we will get on with the job at hand.’
