Meeting of the Parliament 13 September 2023
Well, there was no apology there from the minister to Linda for his member of staff telling her that she can go on benefits because this Government is going to take away her business.
I go back to the point that I was making: there is no evidence that we will see more availability of property. Colleagues will be familiar with a pattern in many rural areas, including the Highlands and Islands, where individuals inherit a rural property, such as a croft house, to which they have a strong family and nostalgic attachment. Those houses are retained by families and are perhaps used for a few weeks a year by family members but are also rented out to visitors on a short-term basis when they are not in use. If the consequence of this legislation is that people decide that they will not let those homes out as self-catering lets, all that will happen is that they will lie empty for much of the year, with a loss of spending by visitors in those communities.
It is also a fact that, in many rural areas, the properties that are available for short-term lets are often large multi-roomed lodges, often in remote locations, which by no stretch of the imagination would be affordable accommodation for local families. Therefore, there is very little prospect of this legislation helping to address the housing crisis that exists in many parts of Scotland. The answer to that is simple: we must build more houses and ensure that they are affordable.
Today, we learned that the construction of affordable housing in Scotland is at a 10-year low under this Government—[Interruption.] There is no point in Mr Lochhead waving at us—he has been in government for 16 years. [Interruption.]