An MHK reacted angrily after a government minister accused him of making ’cheap points’ in a row over the number of properties lying vacant.

Bill Shimmins (Middle) put Policy and Reform Minister Chris Thomas under the microscope over a vacant property rate of 15%, in Tynwald last week, and accused the Cabinet Office of dragging its heels over taking action.

The minister insisted: ’We need an evidence base before we come up with policy responses and what I am actually saying to you today is this situation has persisted for an awful long time and we do not need cheap points about vacancy rate. We actually need substantial, positive policies about planning.’

This infuriated Mr Shimmins who cut into Mr Thomas’s response to complain: ’Cheap? How dare you!’

Mr Shimmins, who is a member of the Treasury department, had earlier tabled a question for Mr Thomas asking what research had been undertaken into the 15% property vacancy rate that was revealed by the 2016 census, which he said equated to 6,470 empty homes.

The minister said: ’Discovering why all of those properties were vacant is relatively difficult as contacting the owners is self-evidently not a straightforward process.

’However, Cabinet Office has been working with the Manx Utilities Authority to look to see whether it is possible to identify a pattern of occupation through electricity consumption.’

This could help identify whether a property has remained vacant or was occupied for part of the year,

That work had taken place in October last year and is being repeated on a regular basis to identify patterns. Information would be published in time for the public inquiry into the eastern area plan.

However, Mr Shimmins was not impressed.

’It sounds like really limited progress has been made in investigating this matter,’ he said.

’The 2016 census also showed that there were 2,430 empty properties in Douglas. That is a staggering 21% vacancy rate. The vacancy rate on the island is much higher than the figure in the UK of 4% and in Jersey of 7%.’

Mr Thomas said the UK had a different definition for vacant properties. He added that there had always been a vacancy rate of 14% to 15% in the past so it was a ’massive issue’.

He also appeared to make a thinly veiled dig at Mr Shimmins’ campaign for urban regeneration as opposed to greenfield development.

The minister said: ’It might be that we need loads more green fields to deal with this, because it might be that all those properties are permanently un-occupiable, in which case we will need more green fields because they can never be brought back into occupation - but I do not think so.’