Stuart Anderson

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing such an important debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who is here beside me, is unable to speak in the debate, but I want to put on the record how important park homes are in her constituency. It is important to raise that. Let us say that a couple of relatively modest means want to move to a park home. They will probably look first at Shropshire, a beautiful county where we have 39 outstanding park home sites. I do not want to downplay the rest of Shropshire, but obviously they will choose South Shropshire, the most beautiful constituency in the country. They purchase a park home, but as we know, circumstances change: they can plan for the next five or 10 years, but something could happen in a matter of months that means they have to resell that park home. The current 10% commission on sales means that, if they have to move within the next six or 12 months, they will lose that 10%, which they will have to pay out of the sale price. In no other housing market in the UK would we expect—unless there is a significant rise or a crash during that time—to move because of personal circumstances and lose 10%. I have spoken to park home owners in Hollins Park and Highley Park Homes who feel that that traps them into their park homes and that they are unable to get out. The information is available when they set out to purchase, but if their circumstances change, that causes an issue. This blatantly discriminates against park home owners compared with owners in the rest of the UK housing market. People argue that commission is based on the value of the land as a form of stamp duty, but sellers do not pay stamp duty; buyers do. There is also a taper mechanism for stamp duty in the UK, which is not the case with commission. On top of that, park home owners pay pitch fees as well as site fees. I have met various site owners and know that some look after their park homes excellently, such as in Homelands Park in Chorley, but other sites have unsurfaced roads and huge problems. In 2002, a study reported that commission makes up only 17% of site owners’ income. I am aware that they need a viable business model, but it should not be the commission model that comes on the back of my park home owners. This problem has been raised across the many sites in South Shropshire. Park home residents deserve a far better deal than they get. I want the Minister to look seriously at the position of park home owners in South Shropshire, to ensure that they get a fair deal and to get this commission scrapped, because it does not work. It is an outdated model and I would love to see it go.