Chamber and committees

Mr Mountain has raised the prospect both here today and online of deer calves being killed the moment that they are born. Do you feel that Scotland’s land managers, keepers, farmers, crofters and landowners are any more minded to do that to male deer now than they have been to deer in general in the past? Is there any evidence of large-scale attempts by landowners, land managers and others to kill deer the moment that they are born?

I look forward to seeing the bill that the cabinet secretary has confirmed. Does she agree, however, that it is quite difficult for Opposition parties to cast themselves as champions for crofting while they are content, by their silence, to allow their colleagues at Westminster to leave crofters totally in the dark over the future of less favoured area support scheme funding?

I do not want to reduce the number of tourists who come to the islands. I absolutely appreciate the point that Finlay Carson is making about the importance of tourism, but the companies that write to me in my constituency are tourism-related companies that cannot get a workforce for their businesses because there is nowhere for people to live. That is why we have to pay some attention in this debate to the need for homes for people to live in.

People have rightly pointed out the importance of tourism. I absolutely accept that—not least for places such as the one that I live in. However, in areas where housing is being taken out of the domestic stock at a faster rate than it could ever conceivably be replaced, some perspective is needed. How do the undoubted benefits of a short-term let property compare, for example, with the benefit—the “social good”, to use Murdo Fraser’s phrase—that is brought by a family living in that house 365 days a year and contributing to that community? How do they compare with the benefits that are brought by a local school having enough pupils to stay open, or a community having sufficient population of working age to provide carers for the elderly, enough people for a lifeboat crew or enough staff for new businesses?

My understanding is that my local authority is currently processing more than 180 applications to the licensing scheme, with another 65 pending determination and 236 having been granted. The local authority is taking an average of 36 days to determine applications and estimates that another 100 hosts are yet to apply. I have not heard of any who have been rejected. It is right that local authorities get to decide how the scheme is implemented so that it meets local needs, and I accept that local authorities need to get operation of the scheme right. Because the tourism industry is key to the economy of rural Scotland, we have to get the operation right.

However, we should not lose sight of the wider point, which is that many local communities currently feel powerless as they watch their local supply of housing vanish before their eyes. That is why Governments sometimes have to intervene and why the Tories’ apparent vision of a free-for-all in housing in rural Scotland does not work for many of my constituents.

Tourists increasingly value self-catering accommodation as well as traditional B and Bs, so I begin by recognising the vital role that they both have in our tourism economy.

I recognise, too, the calls from those sectors to make sure that the licensing regime is implemented in a way that is fair. It is worth noting that the sector is certainly not anti-regulation, and—judging by their previous comments on this matter, at least—neither were a number of parties in this chamber when the matter was legislated on.

Today, others have scrutinised, very effectively and from various positions, the detail of the legislation. However, I want to point to the context of the legislation and to ask one question that often goes unasked—or, at least, unheard—in the debate around it, because the people who are affected by the debate often lack a voice. The question is this: where are people of some of our rural and island communities going to live in the future? If we are to address that question honestly, we will need to get some kind of picture, through licensing and other measures, of the number of properties that are currently changing from full-time dwellings into short-term lets. As Willie Rennie did, I could make a similar point about second homes, although I appreciate that that issue is not within the scope of the legislation.

As we heard from Ben Macpherson, Edinburgh has well-publicised challenges in respect of short-term lets, but those problems are faced in rural areas, too. It is no exaggeration to say that some island communities are in the midst of a housing crisis.

There has been a very welcome investment by the Scottish Government in new social housing over the past few years in my Hebridean constituency, yet I continue to receive regular correspondence from younger people and families who struggle to find a house. In many places, people are simply being priced out of their own communities, and I cannot help but note that those are the areas where there has been a massive proliferation of short-term lets. My constituency has one of the highest per capita rates of lets on Airbnb in the country; the number of registered self-catering properties is now well over twice what it was a decade ago. I do not think that it is a coincidence that, as the number of short-term lets has grown in that period, the number of privately rented properties in the Western Isles has dropped by a third.

Organisations such as the West Harris Trust have raised concerns about the viability of fragile communities in which the balance is increasingly swinging towards both second homes and short-term lets. Short-term lets should not be thought of as the only factor in this issue, but nor can they be excluded from the debate about it.

Harris and other communities like it clearly and desperately need homes for people who live and work there full time. A public meeting in Harris that I attended recently successfully made a plea for more social housing on the island, but that is only one part of the answer. Any hope that we have in staving off a demographic crisis in communities like that lies in attracting people to live and work there. That cannot happen if people cannot find a house to rent, or if they are continually and massively outgunned in the housing market by people of means who already have a house to live in.

Will the member give way?

My constituents on the island of Great Bernera have for a number of years been fighting to buy their land from an unco-operative and entirely absent landowner, who often leaves correspondence unanswered for months on end or ignores it altogether. Can the cabinet secretary outline whether there will be any provisions in the upcoming bill to prevent absentee landowners from delaying matters in that way?

The overwhelming majority of my constituents live in properties that are not connected to the gas grid and many are potentially unsuitable for heat pumps. What options will be available to those who rely on oil in that situation, and what financial support will be on offer?

Will the member give way?

I think that it is a song, minister.

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the announcement by the local government empowerment minister in July, whether it will provide an update on what discussions he has had regarding the roll-out of the islands cost crisis emergency fund. (S6O-02467)

That welcome additional support for island communities in the cost of living crisis recognises the higher costs, including energy bills, that islanders incur. What is the minister’s view on the United Kingdom Government’s decision to scrap the energy bill support scheme from last winter, which means that many of my constituents’ bills will be even higher than they were?