Hansard

Thank you, convener. I thank Mary Scanlon for lodging the amendments in this group. They have given us the opportunity to have a further debate on the subject. There is no doubt about the committee's general position on the matter. The comments that members have made are really helpful.Perhaps I can start by taking Mary Scanlon to task somewhat for her suggestion that the Executive has been entirely unmoveable on the bill. Apart from the fact that Scott Barrie—beside whom you are sitting, Mary—has managed to move a number of successful amendments, the evidence that there has been movement over time and that the Executive has lodged amendments to address the concerns of the committee is there for anyone who wants to look at it. I believe that that should be welcomed.Although I do not agree with the position that Mary Scanlon has adopted in lodging the amendments in the group, they have given us the opportunity to bring the issues into sharp relief. I ask Mary Scanlon to consider her position on the house buying and selling process, which is that it is operating just fine at present and that it does not need to be changed in any way. From what Scott Barrie said, we can gather that that is not the case. The conclusion of the housing improvement task force and the consultation on the proposals for the bill was that the system needs to be changed. It is also, albeit that this is anecdotal, the experience of our families and others who have been caught up in this situation. It was also the conclusion of the committee in its stage 1 report.The system cannot be right if most people make what may be the biggest purchase of their lives on the basis of sketchy information about the condition of the property they are buying. I think that I said previously that people sometimes seem to take more trouble deciding on which coat to buy than they do on the purchase of a house. If we are to solve the problem of disrepair in Scotland's housing stock, we need better market mechanisms to address the problem.It is worth reminding ourselves of the objectives the housing improvement task force identified for the single survey. They are that better information on property condition for sellers and buyers will promote better repair and maintenance, reduce wasted expenditure on multiple surveys and discourage the setting of artificially low upset prices. The view of the Executive is that those objectives remain as important as ever and that the single survey is the way to achieve them. We intend the single survey to follow the model that was used during the pilot. It will contain information on the condition of the property and on its energy performance and accessibility. To achieve all the objectives the task force identified, it will also include a valuation. I fully acknowledge that there is no perfect solution to the issues the task force identified. No system can be perfect, nor can it cover every eventuality. I believe that what we are proposing goes a long way to address the concerns of ordinary house buyers and sellers and to put in place a mechanism that will help to tackle disrepair and decline in our housing stock. It will provide prospective purchasers with much better information on the condition of houses and will make sellers aware of problems that ought to be rectified before a house is sold.In asking the committee not to agree to this group of amendments, I will make five main points. First, as I have said, the Executive has not plucked the policy out of the air; it is the result of two years' research, deliberation and consultation by the task force, leading to its report in March 2003, and a great deal of work since then by the Executive and, crucially, by the professions involved to design and run the pilot scheme.Secondly, the pilot scheme did not show that the single survey concept was flawed, but that the system would not work on a voluntary basis. There are simply insufficient incentives for many sellers to pay up front for a survey that will expose the condition of their houses to potential purchasers. In my view, that makes the case for the mandatory single survey. The task force recommended that the legislative approach be held in reserve.Thirdly, like much of the rest of the bill, the provisions that we are debating now are intended to underpin a change in the culture of home ownership—in this case, in the way people approach the purchase of a house. As the committee has recognised, it is important that we work with stakeholders to get the detail of the single survey and purchasers information pack right so that consumers can have confidence in the schemes when they are launched. We have to take the time to do that and then we will need to ensure that all those involved, professionals and the public, are prepared adequately for the change. If the committee agrees to amendment 129, which is to be debated later this morning, the regulations will be subject to affirmative procedure as the committee has recommended, which will allow for thorough parliamentary scrutiny of the detail.Fourthly, we must avoid over-prescription. Although we need to regulate for the basic framework, we must leave the market the space for competition to deliver extra value to the consumer through, for example, the provision of hidden defects insurance. We must also recognise that there is a trade-off between the detail and the cost of the survey. I believe that the balance for the piloted survey product was about right, but we will consider that further as we develop the mandatory scheme.Fifthly, what we are proposing is not unique. Arrangements where the seller has to provide a survey already exist in countries such as Denmark and in some states in the United States. Compulsory home condition reports are to be introduced in England and Wales, but the approach that we take in Scotland will of course be tailored to Scottish circumstances, going with the grain of the Scottish house-buying system.I will now respond to some of the specific points that have been made. We should be clear that the decision to legislate was not within the remit of the steering group and nor should it be, because it is a political decision that ministers must take. I do not want to judge what stakeholders think generally, but the organisations represented on the stakeholder advisory group—the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Scottish Consumer Council, the Law Society of Scotland, the National Association of Estate Agents and the Council of Mortgage Lenders—continue to work with us constructively to design the mandatory scheme as they did to set up the pilot project. We welcome their willingness to continue working with the Executive. Good progress has been made in working out some of the principles of the scheme. In particular, consensus has been reached on the shelf-life of the report and stakeholders have provided useful input and professional advice on many of the other issues. A sub-group of stakeholders has also provided an interesting proposal about information beyond the single survey that might be made available to prospective purchasers.I do not think that anybody suggested that the pilot was a great success. I do not know why there is a suggestion that the policy is predicated on the success of the pilot; people recognise that the pilot gave us useful information, but nobody is pretending that it is the driver for the policy. The drivers for the policy remain improving the information available to purchasers on property condition, addressing multiple valuations and addressing the setting of artificially low upset prices. I do not accept that the evaluation of the pilot was a damning report. Indeed, the Arneil Johnston report stated:"In general the Single Survey was viewed as a good product providing useful information for potential purchasers." I accept that there is an issue about valuation. The point that Patrick Harvie made about that is important. Ultimately it will be for the market to decide what mechanism would be most appropriate to deal with the circumstances of individual cases. Various mechanisms would be available to update the valuation of the property. An update of the information relating to property condition would probably be necessary only where there were significant issues that affected the value of the property, which has been accepted.We have indicated that the regulations would be made through an affirmative order. Christine Grahame said that the committee cannot amend the regulations and therefore that is a bad thing, but the evidence is that the Scottish Executive has been willing to work with the committee, the professions and consumers on this.Given that, together, we are exploring regulation and the difficult questions that have been highlighted, I cannot imagine circumstances in which the Executive would turn its face against suggestions for making the proposals work. We are committed to making the single survey work not only because we think it is theoretically a good idea but because of the realities in the daily experience of people who buy and sell homes. It is reasonable to say that the parliamentary process will support us in addressing the practicalities that Christine Grahame identified and getting the regulations right.On cost, I hear what Cathie Craigie says. We need to explore the matter further. There is evidence that people might be concerned about the financial implications and I would prefer to come back to Cathie Craigie with further comment before we get to stage 3.In line with the view that has generally been expressed by the committee, we can agree on the principle but we recognise that the devil is in the detail. I am content that the steering group is willing to work on that and I believe that the committee is willing to work on it too. On that basis, we can address the principle while recognising that there are practicalities to be ironed out.The single survey approach addresses some of the key imperfections in the current process. Buyers and sellers will be better informed about the condition of the property and, in due course, they will regard the survey as an important and valuable part of the process rather than as a hurdle that has to be jumped over to secure a mortgage—which, to be frank, is how many of us will have regarded it. Some people have lived to tell the tale of the consequences of that approach. We recognise that it is difficult to change the culture but, with professionals and consumers, we should be committed to addressing that.On that basis, I ask Mary Scanlon to withdraw amendment 75 and not to move amendments 76 to 96.