Question Time — Scottish Executive – in the Scottish Parliament at 2:30 pm on 30 March 2000.
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to exclude from the proposed extension to the right to buy those rural communities where social housing provision is already at a very low level. (S1O-1446)
As part of the rural partnership for change initiative, which I announced on 11 March, we are considering whether provision needs to be made in the forthcoming housing bill to designate a specified period for pressured rural areas during which new tenants would not be able to exercise the right to buy. Any such power of designation,
Is the minister aware that the authoritative 1997 Shelter report suggested that 35 per cent of rural council housing has been sold off? In Aberdeenshire, that figure is over 50 per cent and in my own constituency it is even higher. Does the minister accept that the proposals as they stand will cause real problems in rural communities? Will the minister give a guarantee that the availability of socially rented housing in rural communities will not fall below a specific level?
The right to buy is popular with tenants. The level of sales has fallen to a third of what it was 10 years ago. The proposed extension to the right to buy is estimated to mean 120 additional sales per year. This year, we are promising to build 1,570 new homes in rural Scotland. That, combined with the power to designate, will allow us to increase the supply of socially rented housing in rural Scotland.
Does the minister agree that significant changes to national planning policy guidelines and in the approaches of many local authority planning departments are needed if we are to see socially provided housing stock replaced in Scottish rural communities?
David Mundell raises an important point that applies to all housing in rural areas. That is why the rural partnership for change will look at land assembly, land designation and development powers in such areas, to allow both socially rented and low-cost ownership houses to be more easily built.