Jamie McGrigor MSP on Rural Housing

Text of speech in Scottish Parliament

Presiding Officer,

I am pleased to be winding up for the Scottish Conservatives in what has been for the most part a useful and constructive debate. Like others I pay tribute to the members, clerks and support staff of the Rural Affairs & Environment Committee for their hard work in preparing this thorough report. The Committee was correct to identify rural housing as a priority subject after the 2007 election. Rural housing is an especially massive issue for my region of the Highlands & Islands as, put simply, accessing an affordable home is still far too difficult for too many families in my region. This has major implications for attracting and retaining the key workers and young families we need and for the sustainability of our communities, particularly in the most remote rural and island localities. I am happy to welcome the broad thrust of the Committee’s report, namely that many more houses need to be built in rural Scotland, in both small towns and villages and in the countryside too, as correct. And to achieve that we must see the “cultural change” away from a presumption against development in the countryside which the Committee rightly identifies. It seems that there is also a presumption by Community Councils to be contra instead of pro at the outset regarding planning applications for building- surely it should be the other way round?

We have long put forward the view that planning guidelines in rural areas can be too restrictive and in our 2007 manifesto specifically identified the requirement to service the accommodation needs of retiring farmers which remains an important issue.

As my party’s Spokesman on Housing and Communities, for the last two years I have consistently argued that more priority should be given to the Rural Empty Property Grant (REPG) scheme. I note that the Committee said in its report that the take up of this scheme has been “deeply disappointing” and that the Government needs to learn the lessons from this as it implements the very welcome Rural Homes for Rent scheme and I agree with this. I am aware that the Government is still conducting a review into the Rural Empty Property Grant scheme- along with the Rural Home Owner’s Grant scheme- and I look forward to the results of this review. The scheme has real potential which has sadly not been achieved in large enough numbers. All of us who represent rural constituencies know only too well how many empty, unused or dilapidated farm cottages and steadings there are which can be renovated to provide good quality and affordable homes for rent in our rural communities. I myself recently visited a very impressive steading renovation at Cladich in Argyll which took advantage of the REPG to create five cottages for affordable letting to local people. I am keen to see the scheme publicised more effectively and made as attractive as possible to potential private individuals, farmers, estates and housing trusts. Concerns have also been raised with me about the length of time an application takes and I trust the Government will be considering this and other operational factors in its review of the scheme. At the end of the day landowners and farmers need to be given adequate incentives to bring properties back into a state of repair for renting to locals rather than selling them off. The report is rightly positive about the role that the private sector, including landowners, can play in providing affordable homes and we would urge Ministers to engage fully with the private rented sector in rural areas, and build up relationships which are currently under-utilised. Some good work has been done and we must build on this and expand the examples of best practice.

The provision of land for housing in rural areas has been raised by a number of members today and understandably features to a large extent in the Committee’s report. I agree strongly with the suggestion that the responsibility to free up land for housing should not lie solely with private landowners but with the public sector as well. This point was well made by the chairman of my local Housing Association, Alastair MacGregor of Argyll Community Housing Association who said in his evidence to the Committee that “if central government, the Ministry of Defence, local government and agencies such as the Forestry Commission were brought into the picture and were able to release land from their land banks, that along with our current resources, would assist us dramatically.” I am aware that the Forestry Commission has made some good progress in this direction under the National Forest Land Scheme and the Scottish Conservatives would like to see this extended to all our other public agencies. We take the view that there should be no difference between the public and private sectors in this regard and the public sector should receive the same encouragement as the private sector for considering the appropriateness of land for the development of affordable housing.

Time prevents me from covering some of the other key issues in the report but I was pleased to see the Committee emphasise that the Scottish Government should investigate the widespread concerns that the assumptions behind proposed changes to housing association grant take insufficient note of the extra burdens faced by rural social rented housing providers. In many cases rural housing associations have to develop small projects that do not benefit from the economies of scale that urban housing associations can accrue. I know that many of my constituents would also welcome SEPA serving more effectively as a “facilitator of rural development” rather than a block to sensible rural development as many people have unfortunately found them to be in the past.

Today’s debate has been welcome and we look to Ministers to respond positively and quickly to many of the practical recommendations contained in the report. All of us in this chamber share the same aim: of seeing our rural areas have an adequate supply of good quality, affordable, well insulated and energy efficient homes that can help sustain vibrant and productive rural communities.