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Gypsy Traveller Sites (PE760)
Item 4 is consideration of petition PE760, which was submitted by Mhairi McKean on behalf of the Gypsy/Traveller Community Development Project and the Scottish Human Rights Centre. Does any member have a comment to make on the papers that were circulated on the petition?
As a member of the Public Petitions Committee, I am pleased that it recommended that PE760 should come to the Equal Opportunities Committee. I have looked at the paper and some of the proposed actions. It is right, for example, that the Minister for Communities should keep an eye on the progress of the petition. Perhaps we should ask for an update on what the Eaga Partnership is doing, given that it is providing the programme.
I was pleased that the minister's response was so positive. One can start to read something, thinking that it will contain nothing, only to realise all of a sudden that a positive response has been made.
It makes a change.
Yes; that is certainly the case.
That is correct, but the paper makes no mention of getting an update on Eaga's progress.
I assume that the work will be done at the Executive's direction.
If we are writing to the Minister for Communities, perhaps we could ask for an update on whether he is involved in talks on the work that the Eaga Partnership is doing. All too often, companies like Eaga get forgotten and yet they are the suppliers of Executive programmes.
The issue is important. Last year, I was asked to represent two of my constituents: they were an elderly couple who live on a mobile home site. Their electricity supply had been disconnected—illegally, as it turned out—for a year. The situation was absolutely exasperating; the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets would not do anything about it and the local authority felt that its hands were tied. We all know that the courts move slowly and, under the regulatory framework, it seemed that no organisation had the responsibility of regulating the supply of electricity.
The Communities Scotland official said this morning that that organisation has little control over such issues; that response was interesting. Perhaps there should be an element of regulation and input from communities, on local authority sites in particular. That would seem to make sense.
If the structure existed to ensure that people had a voice and that someone was working alongside them, such things would be less likely to happen.
Does the issue not come back to equality? Electricity for council housing is provided not by the council but directly by the power companies. Why are sites managed in the way that they are? If there is an established site, the power companies can come in and provide the electricity for that site. People would then be able to—
It is not that simple, because we are not dealing with a settled population. When someone moved on to the site, they would have to get the electricity board to connect their electricity and establish a relationship with them. The person would have to have a portable relationship with a power company. There would be practical difficulties. Think how long it takes to get your phone and electricity connected and how it would be if you had to do that every time that you moved.
Yes, but there are sites where people live long term rather than short term.
Yes. I am sorry; I interrupted.
Yes, but you are right. It is also a matter of site management, especially if the site manager will not let someone on to the site to install what needs to be installed. It is about how long people live on the site for and whether the site manager is a private sector owner or someone who works for a local authority. All those issues seem to get in the way. A good site manager should ensure that all those things are on the site, but we know that that does not happen.
One of the avenues that I and others pursued was the licensing agreement with local authorities, which is very vague. I know that some of the provisions are reserved, but if local authorities are licensing the sites, particularly private sites, regardless of their nature, it might be an idea to build some sort of guidelines or regulations into the licensing agreement. The Scottish Executive has the power to do that.
We could pick that up in our report. It is a basic point.
East Renfrewshire Council will learn lessons from its experience. Perhaps it will have an idea of how to deal with the issue if a problem arises.
We want the minister to keep us up to date, but we also want to highlight that point in our report, in the work that we do and in any recommendations that we make.
Would there be time and opportunity for us to consider the Housing (Scotland) Bill and decide whether we can make any amendments or recommendations?
We could ask to be a secondary committee, but the timescale is quite tight.
That might be helpful in the light of this discussion.
Yes—if we considered just that one area and did not get involved in the whole bill, which is what we tend to do.
It is just one part of the bill.
That might be possible. We could do that.
That would be helpful.
Frances Curran talked about licensing. It is important to get some sort of regulation to apply fairly right across the country. In evidence this morning we heard that the situation is patchy and that there is both good and bad practice. We should try to ensure that people get a fair deal. There is an issue with mobility, but some sites are quite long term, so mobility should not be a factor. We could consider licensing, and perhaps examine the Housing (Scotland) Bill to ensure that there is fairness and equity for all.
We could look at the Housing (Scotland) Bill with specific regard to mobile homes, but in our own review we want to revisit the whole issue. People should not be in the position that the situation is on-going and they are reporting the same problems.
Is there any scope for us to ask the power companies about establishing some kind of portable relationship? People can switch suppliers, but can an individual contract with a power provider and use power anywhere?
You are right that people can change providers quite easily.
Can people change site but stay with the same provider? Have you looked into that already, Frances?
The issue is that the infrastructure is owned by the site owner, whether it is a local authority or a landlord, and the resale of energy is a legitimate part of the market. The power companies would need to put in the infrastructure; it is the same situation as if housing were being built. Regulating the resale of energy by a middle person is the nub of the issue.
The discussion reminds me of the VAT element. Landlords buy in electricity at the commercial rate with 17.5 per cent VAT applied, but they are allowed to resell it only with 5 per cent applied—the domestic rate. We must ensure that that is happening, and that there is evidence that the 17.5 per cent rate is not being passed on. We need to investigate that.
There are a lot of issues around mobile homes and what is and is not up to date. I know that there is United Kingdom legislation, because I have dealt with a local issue in relation to that. I understand that the mobile homes part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill excludes Gypsy Travellers. We could investigate and find out why that is the case. We are happy that the minister is examining the issues, particularly access to power cards. We will want to be kept up to date with what is happening. That is going in the right direction.
We can investigate.
We all feel that we need to examine that.
The price that people pay for electricity on sites is important.
There is the issue of power cards.
People are paying more money on sites.
We can write to the petitioners and to energywatch to recommend that they establish contact with each other. We can then examine how things progress. I am pleased that the Public Petitions Committee has taken the petition so far.
Could we write to Eaga, whose letter was dismissive? Could we find out what it could do to insulate caravans and mobile homes?
We could do that. My understanding is that if the minister tells the Eaga Partnership what it could be doing, that is what it will do. The policy decision comes from the Executive, which is why I felt that it was important that the Executive agreed that that was an issue. The Eaga Partnership is contracted to provide a service. I am not saying that we should not write to the Eaga Partnership, but this is about political will and guidance, and about what has to be done to take the petition forward.
Can I clarify that we are writing to the minister to ask to be kept up to date on the matters that he is taking forward?
Yes, and we will write to energywatch as well. We will consider issues to do with the Housing (Scotland) Bill and feed that back.
Can we send that part of the bill to energywatch?
We can answer its comments. Do members want to keep the petition open to keep those issues alive until we get some feedback?
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