Hansard

I, too, congratulate Murdo Fraser on securing today’s debate and, as Willie Rennie said, on opening the debate with great authority and great knowledge of the subject while also proposing solutions. Often, Government ministers accuse Opposition members of complaining about issues but not coming up with potential solutions. We will discuss that later, following the minister’s response, and, I hope, next week in relation to the Housing (Scotland) Bill.

I will focus on one point in my speech, but I want to acknowledge what others have said. Oliver Mundell was right to say that, although there is great interest in the issue in many of our constituencies and regions—I have dealt with the matter in this chamber and in the United Kingdom Parliament—some people are concerned about their names being mentioned in these debates, or even in correspondence to the minister, because of their fear that they will face repercussions from site owners.

I am not often the one who inserts balance into debates, but some site owners are very good. Sadly, they are sometimes in the minority, but I will give the example of a site owner who went to great lengths for elderly and disabled residents during the recent cold snap in Moray. The owner and his staff went out to clear the pavements and the ramps into residents’ homes. It is important to put that on the record, but, sadly, a significant number are not acting in the best interests of the owners in their parks.

Murdo Fraser was right to say—Douglas Lumsden pointed this out, too—that the parks are extremely welcoming. Many people come to Moray and the Highlands because they like the location, but the sites also look extremely appealing from the outside, so we can understand why many people want to retire and move there.

The issue that I want to focus on, which was briefly mentioned by Kenny Gibson, is the rate of commission on the sales of properties. I wrote to the minister earlier this month, and I got a very prompt response from him. Owners have to provide 10 per cent commission to the site owners when they sell their property. I accept that everyone knows about that when they buy their property in the first place, but we must look at whether that is still a reasonable cost for people when they want to sell their home. The minister nodded when Kenny Gibson explained some of the reasons why that rate of commission remains in place.

However, when the Scottish Government carried out a consultation on the topic in 2011, the response was split right down the middle: the site owners and their representatives wanted the commission to be maintained, and the home owners opposed it. We will not please both sides, but we must decide whether we want to keep supporting the site owners, who like that income, or whether we want to respond more to the concerns of the home owners.

In response to the consultation, residents groups said that the commission is not directly related to the services that are provided. An important point that came out of the consultation is that the commission provides an incentive for unscrupulous site owners to harass residents into selling their homes in order to maximise their own profits. That is why the issue needs to be looked into.

The Scottish Government did a review of the wider impacts of the situation in 2013. Looking at the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing and at the situation in England, I was surprised to see that the United Kingdom Parliament has not considered a change since I was born. The last change was made in 1983, when the commission went from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. Surely, 12 years on from the Scottish Government’s most recent review and more than four decades since the UK Parliament looked at the issue, now is the right time to consider whether the commission is still right and whether it should be set at 10 per cent.

Members’ business debates are often consensual, and we have seen that today. Ministers often say in their responses that they will go away and look into the issues, but it can be weeks, months and sometimes years before action is taken. With this debate, we have a real opportunity in days—this time next week—to make some of the important changes that Murdo Fraser has suggested in his amendments. I hope that the Government will consider them positively.