Hansard

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Property Factors (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. I thank Patricia Ferguson for introducing the bill, and I thank my fellow committee members, the clerks, and all those who gave evidence to the committee. The bill shows how members of the Scottish Parliament can work in partnership.

The bill’s roots lie with Gordon Jackson in the 2003 to 2007 parliamentary session. It was introduced in the current session by a Labour MSP and it has received strong cross-party support. I and a number of my Scottish National Party colleagues have been strong supporters of the bill and I hope that its general principles will be agreed to at decision time.

As a fellow Glasgow MSP, I have been keen to support the bill. I and Patricia Ferguson have similar constituency concerns and case loads in relation to property factors, and it is only right that Labour and the SNP MSPs work jointly and constructively to assist their constituents in Glasgow and tackle the problems of poorly performing and, at times, downright cowboy factoring services.

I commend the Evening Times and The Herald for bringing the issue into sharp focus. Their evidence is mentioned in the committee’s stage 1 report, as they

“found examples of gross overcharging, allegations of intimidation and threats of bankruptcy for refusal to pay disputed bills”.

Their service is therefore noted this afternoon.

Of course, the problem is not just a Glasgow issue. We have heard from MSPs from different parts of the country. The bill sets out to address a Scotland-wide concern.

I also extend praise to the Scottish Government, which has been working with the property factors stakeholder group to achieve a national voluntary accreditation scheme. I note that work on that has been paused until the outcome of the bill is known. I hope that it will not have to continue at all: I urge the Parliament to support the statutory regulation in the bill. I am sure that the stakeholder group’s work will not go to waste and that the knowledge of voluntary accreditation that was gained from the exercise will be used to inform the standards that are expected, including the code of conduct that will be made by regulation. Much of the spadework has been done.

I favour statutory regulation for a number of reasons. For instance, will rogue factors actually bother to sign up to a voluntary scheme? The committee has already heard of problems in getting property landlords to sign up to a landlord registration scheme. That scheme is compulsory, but because of significant issues in prosecutions only one unregistered landlord has ever been successfully prosecuted.

If we cannot get cowboy landlords to register for a compulsory registration scheme, what chance would we have of getting rogue factors to join a voluntary accreditation scheme? The case has been made for compulsory accreditation and I believe that it would be beneficial to place registration on a statutory footing.

There are issues in the bill, and I hope that the committee, including me, as a member, has been constructive in its scrutiny. For example, there are unclear areas around the £5,000 that an unregistered factor would be fined and the enforcement provisions related to that. We comment on that in the committee report. In the financial memorandum, Patricia Ferguson rightly acknowledges that precise costs cannot currently be quantified, as the scheme will be demand led. That is not a problem, but it is one difficulty in assessing accurately the assumptions in the financial memorandum.

There are three groups of people who use factors. We are here to defend the home owners who have been wronged, given a poor service or exploited by factors. The second group is those who are unable to pay because of financial circumstances and the third group, which we must acknowledge, are the unwilling payers who will use any mechanism presented to them to drag out and resist paying because they just do not want to pay. Whether we go for a home owner housing panel or an ombudsman approach, that group will be a difficulty, and the cost assumptions will become difficult for whichever scheme we go for. It is fair to acknowledge that in today’s debate.

The bill is about driving change forward, and the best way to drive change is to make it easier for people to switch their factors. If the industry knows that people have the opportunity to switch, it will up its game. We have acknowledged in the committee report that it is not easy to switch factors. We should not pretend that those who need to switch factors have the capacity to do it: a lot of vulnerable home owners are too busy making ends meet to worry about switching factor. We must make switching easier.

I will finish by talking about the unintended consequences of deregistration. Paul Martin’s point was well made that we plan for deregistration in other fields such as dentistry—that was the example that was given. The fact that there will be difficulties does not mean that we should not use the power. Indeed, it is essential to have it. However, regardless of how deregistration or other policing mechanisms work, I ask that, if the bill is passed, the next Government conducts an early review to see how it is bedding in. That will be necessary, and amendments may be needed at that stage.

I will support the bill and I pay tribute to Patricia Ferguson for introducing it.

16:43