Unfinished Housing Developments: Consumer Protection

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I would be interested in hearing more. He will appreciate that I am seven weeks into post and I am still learning, but I would be genuinely interested in understanding the Northern Irish approach, given the information that he has highlighted this evening. Where there are things that are done well, we should be willing as a Government to look at those to see where we can take best practice and apply it on a broader level. I want to understand in more detail what is happening in Northern Ireland, and I will be happy to do that separately with him and his colleagues, if that would be helpful. I would be keen to understand the particular difference that he thinks comes from the Northern Irish approach, and I am always happy to find out more about particular instances and whether they would work on a broader scale, should that be helpful.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Could I perhaps look at the issue the other way round? As in Northern Ireland, housing and planning are entirely devolved to the Scottish Parliament, yet as a Member of this place, I get stuff about housing all the time. Looking at it the other way around, as and when His Majesty’s Government develop clever ways of doing things with housing, taking on board the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, I would be grateful if those new methods could at least be offered to the Scottish Government in case they could glean something that might improve the housing issues north of the border.

[Lee Rowley]

The United Kingdom Government are always keen to indicate to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government where we might be able to work together and where we think that elements of policy might work for Scotland as well as they work elsewhere in the Union. Occasionally, the Scottish Government are not that keen to listen to His Majesty’s Government, but perhaps, given the hopeful outbreak of consensus on the desire to make progress, that will not occur on this particular subject. I am happy to consider the point that the hon. Gentleman rightly and properly makes.