Housing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 4:28 pm on 23 June 2010.

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Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative 4:28, 23 June 2010

I am tempted to start by asking, "Where do I start?" It has been an interesting debate. I have come to the Housing (Scotland) Bill slightly later than some, but I have read through the paperwork that has been produced, including the stage 1 report. I was interested to find out that, as has emerged during the debate, members' views on the bill are less than unanimous. A popular view, which a number of members have expressed, is that although the bill might be necessary, it needs to be changed. Even the minister has expressed doubt about whether some issues should be tackled in the bill or in the subsequent bill to deal with the private rented sector that he is planning. In other words, the bill seems to be a bit of a work in progress.

However, I intend to go through the issues and talk to them from a Conservative point of view. I want to be constructive and inclusive and to make some clear statements about where the Conservatives are coming from.

I am interested to hear the views that have been expressed about private landlords and the private rented sector. Indeed, it is characteristic of the debate that there is, as ever, hostility to anything that contains the word "private". What worries me greatly about that is that the minister has made it clear that the private rented sector has a major part to play in providing affordable housing for rent in Scotland in the years to come. In fact, with the difficulties with long-term finances that yesterday's budget set out, it is inevitable that if we are to make progress in the sector, we need to bring in more private money, more private investment and more private capital. For that reason, it is essential that we do nothing, in the bill or in any subsequent legislation, that would have the effect of reducing the amount of housing that will be available in the future through private landlords in the rented sector. There are plenty of historical examples of how failure to regulate appropriately has meant that we have lost the contribution that the private sector can make.

I welcome some of the things that have been said about landlord registration. It is obvious that the existing legislation has not functioned. Many of the people whom I have talked to say that those landlords who have been involved in the process have been self-selecting because they are good landlords anyway, and that the fees involved have simply been a tax on responsible landlords. The existing legislation is not achieving its objective and, although I hear everything that has been said about the experiences in Govanhill and other places, and I fully support the position that has been taken on them, over the rest of Scotland, where the problems are perhaps different, the scheme has been equally ineffective, so it requires to be reviewed.

As we talk about some of the other provisions in the bill, I must move on quickly to the issue of the right to buy. Members will not be surprised to hear that I believe that the right to buy was the single most important driver for social change in Scotland in the past 50 years and that, as such, we must respect the contribution that it has made. However, even in today's debate, we have failed to recognise that contribution, and I will make one further point on that. We have heard a number of contributions, including an extremely good speech from Karen Gillon, who pointed out some of the problems that we have in our communities today. However, the safest and most sustainable communities to be found anywhere in Scotland are those that started out as high-quality housing estates that were built for rent and in which significant numbers of houses passed into the private sector. Those mixed-tenure communities have made great progress in dealing with issues such as antisocial behaviour, and they are genuinely safe communities throughout most of Scotland.