The final continued petition for consideration today is PE1761, on new housing regulations, lodged by David Murphy Shaw, which calls on the Scottish Government to establish new housing regulations by
“Replacing current planning regulations with a regulatory framework governing prefabrication properties and companies”
and
“Allowing property taxes to take account of the property location, size of plot and number of children living at the property.”
Since the petition was last considered in November 2019, the committee has received a written submission from the Scottish Government. The submission is summarised in our meeting papers.
Again, there are interesting issues here. I am reflecting on whether there is anything further that we could do. Part of the issue is that the Scottish Government has indicated that it does not think that this would be the right approach and it is clear on that. The question is whether that is something that we can address through this committee or whether this will be a matter for public debate at a later stage.
This is a difficult one, because the Scottish Government does not agree with most of the points that the petitioner has made. It is difficult to see another avenue that the committee can go down on the petitioner’s behalf.
I agree that the petition raises a lot of issues for debate, not least the subject of the council tax and a possible land tax. As we know, that has been on people’s minds for a number of years. Unfortunately, as you suggested, convener, interesting though the petition is, we have probably taken it as far as we can. I thank the petitioner for bringing up a lot of points that I had never even considered before. Obviously, the petitioner has the chance to bring the petition back in a year’s time if they feel that the issues are on-going. We should close the petition under rule 15.7.
I am minded to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders, on the basis that my colleague Gail Ross has set out. The issue might come back in a year’s time, and the petitioner is certainly welcome to bring it back.
A lot of movement is going on in relation to the whole business of buildings. We have had a proposal by Graham Simpson MSP for a member’s bill to better address the issues for purchasers of new-build homes. The aim was to extend the developers’ guarantee so that people have assurance that their houses are of a certain quality and meet design and technical specifications. There is an issue at the moment because there are more kit-built houses, and the petitioner has made a fair comment on that. However, we should close the petition at this stage, although I expect that it might come back.
I support closing the petition at this stage. If the Scottish Government does not agree with the actions that the petition calls for, it will not go anywhere, so I am happy to close it.
To me, the petition is rather confusing, in that it mixes up planning with taxation and tries to link taxation to how people use a property rather than the style of the property. I note that there was no further submission from the petitioner after the Government made its comments. Such a submission would have helped us to interpret some of the issues. On balance, I think that we should close the petition.
There are issues here. The whole question of a land value tax will be interrogated during the election next year, and I am sure that the complexities of taxation and housing regulation will be part of the more general political debate over the next few years. Therefore, the question will not disappear simply because the committee is not going to debate it further.
I think that the committee is agreeing to close the petition, given how near we are to an election, and the fact that the Scottish Government does not agree with the actions that it calls for. That means that the petition will not be progressed in the current session of Parliament, although the issues might be discussed further during the election and of course the petitioner can bring back the petition at a later stage if he feels that that is worth while.
I think that we are agreeing to close the petition. We again thank the petitioner very much for highlighting significant issues to do with housing regulation.
We have now reached the end of our agenda. I thank everyone for participating. It is always a bit of a challenge to have a meeting virtually. I apologise for the weakness of my link, which meant that I was just a voice for the last part of the meeting. I hope that members of the public will understand that.
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.
