Meeting of the Parliament 26 June 2019
I thank the Government for giving up its debating time to debate this issue; the Minister for Europe, Ben Macpherson, who was the initial convener of the working group; and fellow members who have been an integral part of the group—Andy Wightman, Daniel Johnson, John Mason, Jeremy Balfour, Maureen Watt, Stuart McMillan and Gordon Lindhurst, who I suspect was the only member who understood the minister’s attempt at Latin.
We have had a few debates on this subject, but the condition of housing does not get nearly enough attention in this place. It affects all of us and, if things go wrong, it can harm people’s physical and mental health.
We have all dealt with cases of buildings that are in need of repair, damp, insecure or leaking. The statistics—the minister touched on some of them—paint a pretty grim picture. We know from the most recent Scottish house condition survey that 68 per cent of homes have some degree of disrepair; disrepair to critical elements stands at 50 per cent; 28 per cent had some instance of urgent disrepair; and 5 per cent had extensive disrepair. Those figures have not moved in a year. Nearly a fifth of our housing is pre-1919—that is 467,000 homes, and 68 per cent of them have disrepair to critical elements. That is a lot of homes that need a lot of work done to them.
We need to see housing as part of the fabric of our nation. Our built heritage is part of our infrastructure, and we need to view tenement maintenance in that way. There is a need to act. Recent statistics for Edinburgh, for example, show that there are 20 incidents of falling masonry every month. That is just in Edinburgh—if we imagine that replicated across the country, we see the scale of the problem. We are looking not only at older buildings that one might traditionally think of as tenements but at newer buildings, too. In East Kilbride, where I live, a lot of the buildings, which were all built around the same time—they are not pre-1919—are falling into disrepair.
The working group on tenement maintenance is a genuinely cross-party group. That is important, because if we are going to tackle this extremely difficult issue, it needs to be done with the approval of every party in the chamber. Earlier this month, we published our final report with key recommendations; I will come to those in a moment. Implementing the changes will not be easy, and there will be a cost, but we cannot ignore the human cost to physical and mental health and wellbeing of not taking action.
There are three recommendations. First, we believe that tenement properties should be inspected every five years, and a report should be prepared that will be publicly available to existing or prospective owners, tenants, neighbours and policy makers. The purpose of the report will be to show what condition the building is in, how much it will cost to bring it up to standard if it is defective and what needs to be done by way of on-going maintenance.
Secondly, the group recommended the compulsory establishment of owners associations. Such associations are an essential element of tenement maintenance in that they provide leadership and effective decision-making processes and are able to enter into contracts. If, for whatever reason, an owners association cannot be established or it fails, compulsory factoring could be the fallback position.
The final recommendation is the establishment of building reserve funds. There was a lot discussion over how such a fund would look and operate; the minister rightly touched on some of the challenges in that respect. It was decided that a central fund was preferable to an owners association-held fund, as it would have better protection and would make it easier to prevent fraud. We know that none of those ideas is simple. The issue is very complex. The solution could be controversial and a lot of people will not like it, but it needs to be done. The report provides suggestions for further research and actions as well as timelines for the implementation of the recommendations. As the minister said, it could take 10 years or more.
There is a lot still to do, but I am confident that we are on the right path, and I know that the Scottish Government takes the matter seriously. I am pleased to hear that the minister will be making a statement in the autumn—I look forward to that. We need cross-party support, which is why no amendments to the motion have been lodged.
I give my appreciation for the hard work and effort of the stakeholders in the group, our secretariat—Euan Leitch from the Built Environment Forum Scotland and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors—as well as the other organisations and individuals who took part. Without them, we would not be where we are today.
Last May, Parliament voted in favour of a motion that called for a review of legislation on tenements. That has not happened yet, but I hope that today’s debate will be the catalyst for it. I was pleased to hear the minister say that he will make a statement and that the Government will take part in a conference on the issue because, to be frank, doing nothing is not an option.
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