Chamber and committees

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

They want to know why undergrounding and offshoring seems to be discounted by both Governments and why the Scottish Government is content to use planning powers to block new nuclear but will not use the same powers to stop the desecration of our countryside.

I will give way to Rachael Hamilton. [Interruption.] SNP members can give way to some of their own colleagues.

I thank Murdo Fraser for bringing the debate to the chamber. I must admit that I was not aware of this subject until I signed his motion. I was then contacted by constituents in Aberdeenshire asking me to meet them, and I spent a morning with park home owners to understand more about the issues that they face.

When I went to visit, I was struck by the sense of community. Everyone seemed to know everyone else in the park—I guess that we should not be surprised by that, because that is the whole idea of these parks. A park is a community of like-minded individuals who have their own space in the countryside with reduced maintenance.

No one should think of a park home as being any less a home than one that is made of bricks and mortar. We have heard the term “mobile homes” used in the debate, but that does not do most of these homes justice. They do not move about, and it is completely wrong for them to be covered by mobile home legislation alone. They are prefabricated homes, and the home owners deserve rights that are equivalent to those of other home owners.

During my visit, I heard of home owners not being given an adequate power supply to their homes, which meant, for example, that the oven could not be on at the same time as the heating. However, the site owner would not do anything about it. I heard stories of the local council asking for improvements to be made at the site but there being no evidence that the local council was actually checking that the improvement conditions of a licence were being met. Instead, the local authority was taking the owner’s word for it—no doubt due to limited budget, as we heard from Willie Rennie. I heard stories of site owners dismissing owners’ concerns out of hand and the owners having only a limited or expensive course of action open to them. That is not good enough. We cannot simply ignore those legitimate concerns.

That is why, on the back of my meeting, I submitted a number of questions on the subject to the devolved Government. The response to those questions was pathetic, to say the least. I asked how residents’ legal rights could be improved, and

“what new regulations are being considered to enhance the protection of park home residents.”—[Written Answers, 19 February 2025; S6W-34562.]

In response to my question on legal rights, I was told that the

“priority at present is to work to change the basis of pitch fee uprating from the Retail Prices Index to the Consumer Prices Index”.—[Written Answers, 21 February 2025; S6W-34568.]

That is an embarrassment—the only thing that the minister thinks should change is the price rise mechanism. There is nothing about improving legal rights and giving these residents more protection.

I asked the minister whether there were any plans to establish an independent body to oversee and regulate park home sites. Again, the devolved Government would rather turn a blind eye and do nothing. I asked the Scottish Government how it monitors and enforces compliance with existing regulations for park home sites. Basically, it does not; it just devolves all responsibility to our underresourced local authorities.

This Government has declared a housing emergency, and park homes can play a big part in helping to address that emergency. However, we need proper protections and regulations in place. The ideal chance to do that is the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which could put in place legal protections and set out a conflict resolution process and the rights that park home owners could expect from site owners. However, the bill does not do any of that. It is as though these homes and their owners just do not exist. I urge the minister to come with me to meet residents. He can tell them why the devolved Government does not care about their rights. He can tell them why he is content to turn a blind eye to rogue site operators. Minister, it is not too late. Listen to the issues, work with SCOPHRA, make sure that the housing bill works for all home owners and end discrimination against park home owners.

Could provisions be changed through the Housing (Scotland) Bill to allow park home residents—who still pay council tax to the local authority, just like everyone else—to have adaptations made, just like other residents?

With the growth in renewable energy, we are also seeing a huge rise in the number of battery storage sites across Scotland, with more than 300 in the planning system. Last week, there was a fire at one of those sites at Rothienorman, and constituents are concerned about the fire and pollution risks at those sites.

At committee this week, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency admitted that it is

“concerned about the risks associated with battery energy storage systems”

and admitted that there is currently no regulatory framework or even

“a timescale for when a legislative change might happen.”—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 25 February 2025; c 34.]

They can be dangerous systems, so will the Government take action to regulate the battery storage industry before a major incident occurs?

I have a brief question about antisocial behaviour. We have heard in the chamber about the increase in antisocial behaviour on buses since the young persons scheme came in, and I think that the Government has said that it will look at ways of restricting people’s access. Has it done any work on that yet, and has it come to any conclusions?

I am staying on batteries, but I will talk about bigger batteries and battery energy storage systems. Do you feel that there is a role for SEPA to play there? You spoke about leaning into Government and advising it, but I do not think that anything has been done by SEPA on BESS yet. Is that something that you are looking to do?

My next question is about the annual distance travelled by Scottish bus services. It has fallen by more than 25 per cent since 2006. Do you know whether that decrease affects rural areas more than urban areas?

Do you think that the reduction in rural services has anything to do with the network support grant, which has seen a 47.5 per cent real-terms reduction since 2006?