SCOTLAND’S tenants called for emergency protections to prevent a “tidal wave of evictions” today after MSPs voted down a proposal to freeze rents.

Living Rent, the nation’s tenants’ union, said that there is an urgent need to protect renters from spiralling costs as the “worst cost-of-living crisis in generations continues to push people into poverty.”

SNP ministers have pledged to introduce rent controls from 2024, but on Tuesday parliamentarians at Holyrood rejected an amendment to the Coronavirus Recovery Bill which would have frozen rents over the next two years.