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Meeting of the Parliament 31 October 2012

31 Oct 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Local Government Finance (Unoccupied Properties etc) (Scotland) Bill

Burgess, Margaret SNP Cunninghame South Watch on SPTV

I am pleased to open the stage 3 debate on the Local Government Finance (Unoccupied Properties etc) (Scotland) Bill. I thank the Local Government and Regeneration Committee, in particular, for its scrutiny of the bill throughout its parliamentary stages, and I thank all those organisations and individuals who provided oral and written evidence to the Parliament.

The bill is a key part of our wider work to reduce the number of empty properties, whether homes or non-residential properties, so that we can make best use of existing buildings and minimise the number of properties that fall into disrepair and become a blight on our communities. Long-term empty homes frequently fall into disrepair and can attract vandalism and other forms of crime. They reduce the value of surrounding properties and can affect the perception of a neighbourhood as a good place to live, which, in turn, reduces residents’ quality of life.

At the same time, we are determined to reduce the number of homes that sit empty in the long term—of which we have more than 25,000—while around 140,000 families are on waiting lists for a social rented home. Bringing many of those homes back into use will help, directly or indirectly, to free up more homes for those who really need them.

Giving councils the flexibility to increase council tax charges for certain long-term empty properties will help, encourage or, where needed, push owners not to leave their property lying empty. Councils will also be given the flexibility to target any additional revenue at delivering key local priorities, which will provide a useful additional tool, alongside the other measures that councils can already use. For example, the Scottish Government has been funding the empty homes partnership to provide support to councils in tackling empty homes. In addition, we are part-funding three empty homes officers, who are shared across seven councils, on a pilot basis. Those officers are having considerable success in developing a blueprint for successful empty homes engagement work that could be replicated across Scotland, and we should all support the fact that their interventions have already seen a number of empty homes brought back into use.

We recognise that some owners need financial assistance to bring their homes up to a standard that makes them suitable for letting. That is why we have made £4 million available through the empty homes loan fund.

The fund will make at least 160 empty homes available for affordable housing—more, I hope. I am pleased to say that we have had a good response to our call for bids for the fund. Many of those homes could be made available for intermediate rent, which, in turn, would help to grow a more vibrant private rented sector, providing tenants with a greater choice of good-quality homes.

We have listened to stakeholders—Parliament and others—throughout the development of our proposals for the council tax increase and we have amended our proposals as the policy has been developed through active engagement. Examples of changes include limiting exceptions to the increase to only those who are actively trying to bring their homes back into use—whether they intend to sell or rent them—and bringing forward stage 2 amendments to increase the maximum level of penalty charge. A council can charge an owner if they fail to provide information about whether their home is unoccupied. That charge has been increased from £200 to £500. There is also now a limit in the bill itself, restricting the maximum amount of council tax increase to 100 per cent of the applicable standard rate, rather than placing that restriction in regulations.

We have also recently consulted on our proposals for draft council tax regulations and I thank everyone who gave their views. Responses are currently being analysed and we are considering some changes in the light of the comments that have been made. I recognise some of the administrative challenges that implementing a council tax increase is likely to bring and I am keen to make sure that the new regulations can be enforced to help tackle owners who deliberately leave their property empty. At the same time, I want to leave enough flexibility to avoid penalising those who are genuinely trying to bring their property into use, for example by renting or selling it. I hope to be able to lay a set of revised regulations in December.

The bill will enable us to bring forward regulations to reduce the level of empty property relief for empty commercial properties once they have been empty for more than three months.

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Meeting of the Parliament 31 October 2012

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