Hansard

I offer plaudits to Dr Allan for securing today’s debate.

Areas of rural Scotland are often classed as the best, happiest and, of course, most beautiful places to live. However, as Dr Allan and others have highlighted, rural living also brings certain challenges, including larger numbers of second homes and communities where people are on lower incomes. In some places, for far too long, there has been a lack of affordable homes, which can have a major effect on access to suitable housing.

We need to grow the Scottish economy and we need to sustain our rural and island communities, to enable communities and businesses, as well as the tourism sector, to thrive. We need to protect and safeguard the diverse and cultural characteristics of communities while supporting a place-based approach to rural development.

During the consultations on the national islands plan, concerns that island communities had about depopulation were made clear and, in response, the national islands plan, which was published last year, included specific commitments to address population decline and ensure a healthy, balanced population profile. That supports our wider commitment to publish in early 2021 a population strategy to tackle the demographic challenges for Scotland as a whole.

We are also committed to supporting our rural and island communities through our reforms to the planning system and we recognise the critical role that appropriate housing can play. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 introduced new duties for planning to help to increase the population of rural areas of Scotland, particularly depopulated areas. We have also begun the process of developing national planning framework 4 and we are exploring new, proactive policy options for planning to enable development that supports dynamic rural economies and helps to sustain and support our rural communities.

I appeal to elected members in island communities and remote rural communities to be brave when they sit on the planning committees and make decisions. They should make sure that they are voting for the right development to take place to help folk in their community.

We also have an important planning consultation closing tomorrow on our proposals for extending permitted development rights. The proposed changes would increase the range of developments that can be carried out without the need for a full planning application.

We know that good-quality, affordable housing is essential to help attract and retain people in Scotland’s remote rural and island communities and that providing affordable housing in those areas presents different challenges than in urban areas. A small number of homes can make a big difference to the sustainability of a local economy.

Our affordable housing supply programme supports the delivery of affordable housing for rent or purchase across urban and rural areas of Scotland. The programme has grant subsidy levels that recognise those rural challenges. Edward Mountain mentioned subsidy levels. There is flexibility built into all that we do because we recognise that it is more costly to build in remote rural and island communities. The flexibility of the grant subsidy levels has led to projects that would never have taken place had we had a fixed approach. Places that have benefited include Ulva Ferry in Mull and Horgabost in west Harris, with which Dr Allan is familiar. So, although we encourage maximising value when it comes to delivering affordable housing, the higher cost of rural and islands development is well understood.

This Government is committed to affordable housing, having now delivered nearly 96,000 affordable homes since 2007, and until Covid-19 we were on track to meet our commitment to deliver 50,000 affordable homes in this session of Parliament. Some of those homes are in places such as Shetland. In King Harald Street a new development is about to be completed and there is also Gaet-A-Gott, of which I am sure that Beatrice Wishart is well aware. I take my hat off to the Hjaltland Housing Association for the work that it has done in bringing forward more difficult sites such as Staneyhill.

In the first years of this session of Parliament, the affordable housing supply programme delivered more than 4,800 affordable homes in rural and island areas and invested more than £55 million in the islands alone. As has been mentioned, we brought into play the rural and islands housing funds to address some of the challenges associated with the provision of housing in rural Scotland. We launched those £30 million funds in 2016, complementing our existing significant investment in affordable housing in rural areas.

Many members will have seen Community Land Scotland’s report, which was published today and written by David Ross. It highlights the benefits that there have been to many families across rural and island Scotland because of investment from those funds. I recognise that some people think that investment from the funds has been too slow, but we have had to allow communities to develop the schemes that are essential for them at their own pace. It is important that the schemes are community led and have the backing and support of organisations such as Community Land Scotland.

Provision of housing through the funds, which are available to a wide range of housing providers, continues to grow, increasing the supply of affordable housing in remote rural Scotland and on our islands. Given the long lead-in times and the complexities involved with rural housing development, it is encouraging to see that the momentum of those funds has built steadily from a standing start, with real progress on the number of homes approved in the past couple of years. In a small community, providing one or two homes is as important as providing a large-scale development in a city. Last summer, I visited a small development funded by our islands housing fund at Gravir on the Isle of Lewis. That development is hugely important in allowing that community to grow.

I recognise that the rural and islands housing funds are delivering for rural communities and providing an additional funding route for people who are not able to access traditional affordable housing funding. I agree with the assessment of Savills in its work for the Scottish Land Commission, which described the funds as a “game changer”. That positive view is reflected through our recent review of the funds. I am, therefore, pleased to announce the continuation of the rural and islands housing funds beyond March 2021, with up to £30 million available to support those demand-led schemes as part of the future five-year affordable housing programme. I hope that that will be welcomed by the members here and recognised as part of our commitment to rural and island housing.

Although tourism contributes positively to local economies and communities in many areas of rural Scotland, we recognise that in certain areas, particularly tourist hotspots, high numbers of short-term lets can make it harder for people to find homes to live in.

That is why, on 14 September, we published a consultation paper setting out our detailed proposals for the regulation of short-term lets in Scotland. The consultation will gather final views on the new legislation giving local authorities powers to license short-term lets and introduce control areas before regulations are laid in Parliament in December, which will come into force in April 2021.

We are working on a vision for how our homes and communities should look and feel in 2040, and on the options and choices that we need to make to get us there. We want to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to a high-quality and sustainable home that is safe, warm and affordable, and that meets their needs. We have consulted widely with communities across rural, urban and island locations so that we can plot and put in place a route map that will stand the test of time. We want to create a shared vision for housing that covers all of Scotland—cities, towns, Lowlands, Highlands and islands.

As a Government, we are committed to doing all that we can to help rural communities thrive. We remain committed to working with our rural and island communities. We will continue to listen on issues such as council tax, land and buildings transaction tax, and the pressures that are on them, and we will continue to develop and deliver the solutions that are needed for different rural and island populations.

As Scotland’s housing minister, I have made ensuring that we drive up housing in all of Scotland part of my wish list. I have had the great pleasure of visiting many remote rural and island places to see what we have done, but also to see what is required. I will continue to do so for as long as I am in this post. I thank Dr Allan once again for bringing this debate to the chamber.