Meeting of the Parliament 19 February 2015
On 2 October last year, the former First Minister announced the Government’s intention to introduce legislation to ensure that councils could take no further action to recover ancient debts that arose under the community charge, which we have all come to know as the poll tax. We are here not because we need to abolish the poll tax—strictly speaking, that took place 22 years ago—but because we must deal with what it left behind. Today we vote on legislation that will draw a line under the last remnants of that tax and, most important, put one of its last bitter legacies behind us once and for all and ensure that all can come forward and register to vote without fear.
The register is nothing less than the foundation that we lay under our democracy; it is that on which everything else rests. All that we do here is built on what has to be an authoritative and comprehensive account of those eligible to vote on the future of our country. It has to be so, because, if we are to be faithful to the principles of democracy, all those who have the right to vote should be free, and feel free, to exercise it in practice.
A fortnight ago at First Minister’s questions, concerns were rightly raised about reports that many hundreds of thousands of people might not yet have transferred to the new register under individual electoral registration. Any loss of voters from the register is a concern, but any growth as a result of genuine democratic spirit should be welcomed. We can be proud of the democratic spirit that our country showed in last year’s referendum. There was an 85 per cent turnout and an all-time high total of 4.3 million people on the electoral register. That has been noted, that has been praised and that has been celebrated in this chamber time after time as an example of democratic engagement that is second to none.
Yes, I know that many of the new names on the register were 16 and 17-year-olds for whom this was a democratic awakening of their own, but there were still significant numbers of people who had registered again for the first time in decades or who had never registered at all before. All of us probably know them, or we have knocked on their doors and spoken to them. Many were signed up to vote at makeshift stalls on high streets or, in one campaign, outside jobcentres. It was clear to us all that people were invigorated by that choice as by nothing before. In a democracy, that sort of awakening is precious. It must be cherished, and it must be nurtured.
It was because of the high level of registration that, after the referendum, the responses of some councils—just some—gave us concern. For example, Aberdeenshire Council was quoted in the media as saying that it was looking at the register to track down people who owed poll tax debt. On 30 September 2014, it said:
“If they don’t pay, we will go after them for that money.”
Defending their proposed approach, those councils referred to the statutory duty on local authorities to collect local taxes. They have that duty, as they should; when I spoke to Gavin Brown’s amendment, I reinforced the point that collecting taxes is important. The Abolition of Domestic Rates etc (Scotland) Act 1987 and the Local Government Finance Act 1992 make it the duty of every local authority to collect the taxes that it is owed. I therefore understand the councils that genuinely felt that they had to do something—they felt that it was their responsibility. As a result, although some councils had already ceased the collection of poll tax debt, there was space for legitimate doubt.
With the bill, we wanted to make it crystal clear that local authorities were absolved of their obligations to pursue and collect poll tax debt. We are not talking simply about a voluntary arrangement to cease collection; our aim is to deal with this debt—and this doubt—once and for all. Therefore, we wanted to ensure that the legislation was simple, straightforward and unambiguous, and it has to be said that this is one of the shorter and more-to-the-point bills that the Parliament has considered. We must put the issue beyond doubt by extinguishing the liability for the poll tax entirely.