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Housing and finance crisis must be solved - for The Inverness Courier
THE House of Commons returned yesterday after the summer recess. Having spent most of that 10-week period talking to local people, businesses, and organisations, there are a number of key issues that I will pursuing with my Highland colleagues John Thurso and Charles Kennedy in Westminster.
The lack of housing that local people can afford is a problem that is not going away, and in some respects is getting worse. According to research by the Highland Council, our region had the fastest rising house prices in Scotland over the last two years. Combine that with the fact that wages in the Highlands are lower than elsewhere and you have a dangerous cocktail of people who simply can not afford to get on the housing ladder — and often can not afford rents either — and those who have over-stretched themselves financially to afford inflated prices.
With higher interest rates, people stretched with other debts and banks squeezing credit, it is little surprise that one local financial adviser told me he had recently seen a rise in the number of people approaching him about home repossessions. Gordon Brown is responsible for the debt crisis, having failed to rein in irresponsible lending for the last 10 years — but it is people who are stretched financially who will pay the price.
Additional investment is desperately needed in affordable housing to rent and buy. The Westminster government could help by allowing Highland Council to write off its housing debt and spend some of the money on new homes. That is a case that the Highland’s team of MPs will be making to the Treasury.
Another Treasury deb-ate concerns taxation. As usual, people in the Highlands have been hit harder than elsewhere by last week’s rise in fuel taxation. The case for a reduced rate of fuel duty in remote areas, as practised in some other EU countries, is stronger than ever.
The government has also failed to tackle the taxation on large accumulations of wealth, so that a private equity manager pays a lower rate of tax than the person who cleans their office. Changing the capital gains tax rules would also increase the tax on second homes, something that would be beneficial in a Highland context.
The future of the Post Office network in the Highlands will be determined over the next six months. Post Office staff are starting their assessment of which Post Offices will have to close, following the government’s instruction to close 2500 across the country. We need to continue to fight strongly to protect those communities that need and want their Post Office service, as there is a still a widespread failure to understand the essential nature of these outlets in remote areas.
The government, local and national, needs to do much more to encourage people to take up the benefits to which they are entitled. As councillor Janet Campbell pointed out, Highland has one of the lowest levels of benefit uptake anywhere in Scotland. The UK government recently withdrew funding for two posts in Highland to help tackle this problem, and I will be pressing for such help to be renewed.
Posted on: 09/10/2007
