Hansard

I am pleased to open this debate on empty homes in Scotland, on behalf of the Local Government and Communities Committee.

Today’s debate reflects on the findings of a short inquiry that we began in spring 2019, and on which we reported on 10 November 2019. I thank the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning for responding to our report in time for today’s debate. I note that work is on-going in relation to some of our recommendations and that he has committed to providing updates as the work progresses. We look forward to receiving those updates over the course of the parliamentary session.

Communities face their own unique challenges when it comes to empty homes. In some areas—some of our small towns, for example—large numbers of empty homes can be symptomatic of industrial and population decline, with there being more homes than people who now want to live there. That can cause a downward spiral that leads to loss of amenities including schools and bus routes, which in turn can affect the health and wellbeing of communities. That often causes more people to move away because the community cannot support their increasing support needs, which further increases the number of empty homes in the community—and so the cycle can go on.

In other areas, the problem is very different: economic decline cannot explain the existence of empty homes in desirable places to live where there are housing shortages. In those cases, empty homes almost always have a back story that involves personal issues—for example, a bereavement or family problems. Someone might have purchased a property to renovate, but ran out of money before they could complete the repairs.

Whatever the cause, the common threads are that empty homes being left to decay can be a blight on communities and that there is strong public interest in bringing them back into use. In areas of high housing demand, empty homes are also a wasted resource.

The committee gathered information on the impact of empty homes and on potential solutions using a number of means. The committee is always keen for our work to be largely informed by the views of people with lived experience, so we invited individuals with personal experience of the issue to chat with us over lunch in the Parliament. We thought that that provided a comfortable space in which people could speak to us freely about their experience of empty homes. We also travelled to East Ayrshire to see for ourselves the impact that large numbers of empty homes can have on communities and to speak directly to people who have been affected. Anonymised accounts of those discussions are available on the committee’s website.

Following an open call for views, which attracted a number of interesting and informative responses, we followed up on issues that had been raised in public formal oral evidence sessions with Kevin Stewart, the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, and a number of experts—although I am not suggesting for a second that the minister is not an expert. On behalf of the committee, I thank everybody who engaged with us during our inquiry.

An early theme that emerged from our inquiry was the importance of every council having a dedicated empty homes officer, with local knowledge, to deal with the issue in their area. We heard strong evidence that having a dedicated officer leads to more empty homes being brought back into use. It is therefore extremely disappointing that some councils do not have an empty homes officer and that some of those do not appear to have plans to recruit one. We believe that all councils should have an empty homes officer and that the evidence suggests that that is the case.

A key role for the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, which is the lead agency in helping to bring private sector empty homes back into use, is in providing valuable training and support for empty homes officers. The partnership advocated strongly for every local authority to have, as standard practice, at least one dedicated EHO, so it is encouraging that its funding has been doubled until 2021.

It was also welcome to hear the minister’s commitment to continuing to encourage councils to appoint empty homes officers and, through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, to facilitate sharing of best practice in their empty homes work in order to achieve maximum benefits. We look forward to receiving an update from the minister on progress in that regard in just less than a year’s time.

We recognise that each area has its own unique set of circumstances and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to tackling the problem. That is why having in each area an EHO who knows the local issues and can build local relationships is crucial. That means that, in turn, solutions will be locally led by people who have on-the-ground knowledge. Those solutions should read across to local regeneration plans so that there is a joined-up strategy to regenerate areas that are blighted by empty homes.

Restoring some buzz to our town centres is sometimes as much about encouraging people to move back to and stay in them as it is about supporting local businesses. More people living in our town centres helps to create safe and vibrant places for people to live, shop, eat and drink in. Therefore, I am pleased that the minister will work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to encourage councils to adopt a more strategic approach to town centre regeneration and related policies. We will follow progress with interest.

The possibility that current datasets might not provide an accurate picture of the scale of the issue of empty homes was raised. It was therefore encouraging to hear that the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership is working on a method to map the locations of empty homes at granular level in order to provide a more detailed picture and to allow solutions to be targeted at meeting the needs of each area.

That was to be welcomed, but we heard that local recording of empty properties is largely reliant on a mixture of local council tax records and local knowledge, and that some people fail to disclose their empty property in order to avoid paying council tax surcharges. The assurance that the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership’s new website will make it easier for members of the public to report empty homes in their neighbourhood, and to identify those who seek to abuse the system, is therefore welcome. The committee would be grateful to have updated figures on the scale of the problem once that work has concluded.

Councils have powers to apply an additional council tax levy on properties that have been empty for some time in order to encourage property owners to bring their empty homes back into use. In some cases, that involves removing council tax discounts and applying an increase of up to 100 per cent, where appropriate. We support the levy as a method for bringing empty homes back into use, so it is welcome that some councils have been using their discretion to delay application of the levy for house owners who have been taking active steps to bring their properties back into use.

However, it was extremely concerning to hear that some councils take a far less discretionary approach, and appear to be using the levy as a revenue-raising tool by taking a blanket approach to its application and, in some cases, penalising people who are taking steps to bring their houses back into use. As members will appreciate, that is usually completely counterproductive. It is absolutely not what any council should be doing with the power, and it should stop.

I therefore welcome the fact that the Government will work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and local authorities to ensure that best practice is shared and that the levy is applied as intended. We look forward to hearing back from the Scottish Government on the outcome of the exercise.

We also heard about existing public funding or financial incentives for bringing empty homes back into use. Evidence indicated that such incentives do some good, but there is a degree of frustration that some aspects of their operation limit how useful they can be. It is encouraging that the Government will use the evidence and views that were given during the housing to 2040 consultation to reconsider the provision of financial incentives such as the rural and islands housing fund. I understand that discussions about empty homes loan funding and flexibility have already begun: again, the committee looks forward to receiving an update on those issues.

Councils have the power to bring empty homes back into use through compulsory purchase orders, which they can use to buy properties in their areas without owners’ agreement. Obviously, that power should be used as a last resort for empty homes, such as when a property is a considerable blight on the community, the owner will not constructively engage, and weighing up whether there is a strong public interest in making such an order, taking into account the rights of the landowners and others with an interest in the land, is required.

We heard that there has been very low uptake of CPOs. Councils’ reluctance to use them was put down to a number of factors, starting with the complexity of the CPO process and the time that is needed to do one. Other related factors that were mentioned included competing resources and councils’ risk aversion to using court proceedings against private individuals.

We note that recent improvements have been made to the CPO process, but it is probably too soon to assess how they have impacted on bringing empty homes back into use. I note that the Government will continue with measures to promote their use while keeping them under review, identifying where there are barriers and producing additional guidance when required. I am interested to hear from the minister what the Scottish Government can do to encourage councils to be less risk averse when it comes to such court proceedings. The evidence suggested that some councils seem to find CPOs much easier to use than other councils, which are not willing to take their chance in court.

The Government has also committed to longer-term measures to reform the CPO system as part of a wider package of proposals that will address how authorities can assemble land, tackle problem properties and capture land-value uplifts. However, we are a little disappointed to note that we are unlikely to see concrete proposals until the next session of Parliament.

A lot of the evidence called for the introduction of compulsory sale order powers. As an alternative to CPOs, they would force problem properties on to the open market and remove the requirement for councils to purchase them. The Government had committed to proposing such powers during the current parliamentary session, but we have heard from the minister that they will now be delayed because of other legislative priorities and Brexit. That is disappointing.

Although we recognise the increased workload that Brexit has created for the Scottish Parliament, our report calls for reconsideration of that point. The Government has not accepted our recommendation to introduce CSOs during the current parliamentary session, but the minister has clarified that the work will be rolled into the wider package of proposals that I mentioned a moment ago, including consideration of how councils can assemble land, tackle problem properties and capture land-value uplifts. I hope that the package can be implemented early in the next session.

To sum up, although there has been progress on tackling empty homes and their impact on Scotland’s communities, it is clear that there is still some way to go. The committee will follow with interest how the problem is factored into the Government’s wider housing strategy. I note that that is being consulted on as I speak.

I thank the committee’s clerking team and my fellow committee members, as always, for their support. There is never a cross word on our committee.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the conclusions and recommendations in the Local Government and Communities Committee’s 10th Report 2019 (Session 5), Empty Homes in Scotland (SP Paper 618).