Hansard

All Scotland’s islands make their own distinctive cultural contribution to our country, but that depends on them being populated. All islands face their unique challenges, with different geographies, transport links and levels of average income.

Tonight, however, I want to raise another island problem, which is housing. This debate has been prompted by a campaign led by Pàdruig Morrison and a number of other young constituents in Uist. They all want to live on an island and contribute to its social and economic fabric, and perhaps to set up their own business or to croft. Some were born and raised in the islands and want to return; some have migrated there, and others still wish to. They have all identified finding somewhere to live as the single biggest obstacle to those ambitions.

Part of the solution is social rented housing. In the Western Isles, there remains a housing waiting list of around 400, and the Scottish Government’s recent unprecedented offer of £25 million to build new houses locally will certainly make a very welcome impact on that list. However, we will need robust systems to measure demand for housing in rural areas. Almost by definition, no record of such demand exists in areas where there have been few, if any, social rented houses to apply for. Unless we get that right, we run the risk of building only in a few more urban areas.

Aside from the issue of rented housing, islands face unique and growing problems when it comes to the supply of houses to buy. I will explain what I mean by that, using a couple of—admittedly extreme—examples. A small house—with two bedrooms, I think—in a particularly scenic part of my constituency recently sold for £385,000. A few miles up the road, the tenancy of a croft—by that, I mean not the ownership of the land but just the opportunity to take on the tenancy, with its associated right to buy—was recently advertised for £200,000. I stress that that croft had, as yet, no house on it at all.

I do not claim that those situations are typical of all areas across all islands. However, if that trend were to catch on, it is clear that, as Pàdruig Morrison has pointed out, young families in the islands could abandon any prospect of ever buying a home. Pàdruig told me:

“We have first-hand examples of ... young people, professionally qualified, putting in offers for houses. Despite communicating to sellers the importance of population retention, cash-rich buyers often jump in front and buy houses which often have not been viewed. In the worst examples, the island has not yet even been visited by them!”

There are multiple reasons for the rise in prices in some areas. Most recently, it has probably been driven partly by the idea—entirely ill founded—that islands are somehow completely unaffected by Covid. More generally, the market has been distorted by the sharp rise in the number of second homes and short-term lets.

Before I go further, I want to make it clear that I am not making a case against tourism. In fact, I welcome the recent growth of tourism in the islands and recognise that self-catering accommodation is a very important part of that. Equally, I am not having a go at those who are retired. Nonetheless, there must be some houses in the islands that are available to buy at a reasonable price for people who want to live there all year round during their working lives.

In parts of Harris, holiday homes and second homes now account between them for almost 60 per cent of all houses. I understand that the same is perhaps becoming true in Tiree, among other places. There are some communities in my constituency—only some, I stress—where there are now no new children entering primary schools. No affordable housing ultimately means closed schools.

That point is underlined by a report that was published today by Community Land Scotland, entitled “Home Delivery: Community Led Housing in rural Scotland”. The report finds that the lack of access to affordable housing for local people is exacerbated by increasing numbers of houses being turned into holiday homes and short-term lets in popular holiday destinations. It also highlights just how valuable communities have found the rural and islands housing funds in getting affordable housing to where it is needed. I would be grateful if the minister was able to speak to the future of those funds in his closing remarks.

Lest there be any room for wilful misunderstanding, I make it clear that nobody is making a case against people moving to the islands. I am an incomer to the islands myself—a fact that I seem to remember being raised politically in some quarters, albeit to little effect, during the election of 2007. In fact, the islands desperately need more new people, even just to fill the job vacancies that are projected to come up over the next few years. The islands are a wonderful and welcoming place in which to live. The point is that we need a diverse mix of people of different ages, skills and backgrounds to ensure that we have an adequate workforce. One of the biggest obstacles to achieving that, which has been cited by many employers, is a lack of housing.

I welcome the measures, on which the Scottish Government is currently consulting, to give local authorities the power to regulate the number of short-term lets in any single community. I would personally make the case for a similar power to regulate the number of second homes. I realise that I have come to the debate without a list of detailed solutions, but I think that it is only fair to give a public airing to the fears that many communities now—quietly, but increasingly—express to me. Those places want to retain the vitality that marks out a community from a resort.

We can look to other places for ideas. In Norway, for example, I understand that many rural areas operate two entirely separate housing markets, with one list containing houses that are available for sale as year-round residences only. I believe that Cornwall and other places have made efforts to deal with similar issues.

We could look at the level of support for open market shared equity; the area-based limit for a four-apartment house under the OMSE scheme currently stands at £100,000 in the Western Isles. We need to think about placing certain restrictions on grants that are designed specifically to bring empty homes back into the housing market, in order to ensure that those properties are not used as holiday homes or second homes.

Whatever solutions we arrive at, I hope that members on all sides of the chamber can agree that Pàdruig Morrison and his friends have given us some pretty convincing reasons why we cannot leave the future of our communities in the Highlands and Islands to the mercy of an unrestrained free market in houses. [Applause.]