Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2015
No. The Government decided on the principle of the bill. The Government takes policy decisions and then we consult on how to take forward those policy decisions. I cannot think of many cases in which we have consulted on the principle of an issue without setting out the Government’s policy position. We consult on the details of our proposals.
I acknowledge that consultation should take place prior to the introduction of primary legislation, which is a point that the Finance Committee made in its stage 1 report on the bill, but there will be circumstances in which the Government believes that we should act swiftly and in which Parliament is prepared to support such action and to adopt the expedited approach. We have sought the agreement of Parliament to go through an expedited bill process to enable us to make the bill effective from 1 February 2015 and ensure that there is clarity before the start of the next financial year. I am grateful to the parliamentary authorities for that agreement.
The Government decided to act because we were concerned that certain local authority leaders had expressed an appetite for using the information that was gathered from voter registration for the independence referendum to reactivate the pursuit of many of the outstanding arrears. We felt that that sat uncomfortably with what we believe was wide appreciation throughout the country for the upsurge in democratic participation during the referendum, which was supported and complimented across the political spectrum. We felt that it would be a rather strange conclusion to that democratic process to use the information that had been gathered to pursue historical debts from a tax that is discredited and which has not been operational in Scotland for more than 20 years.
We wanted to do two things: to act expeditiously to address that point, which is why we have followed a shorter consultation process; and to make it crystal clear that local authorities were absolved of their obligations to collect poll tax debt, which, as I explained to the Finance Committee, was our reason for introducing the bill.
I am aware that some public opinion does not support the ending of recovery of community charge debts. I have received a number of letters on the issue from members on behalf of constituents and from members of the public. I understand the concerns that members of the public who have paid their community charge, as I have done, have expressed. I start from the basic principle that people should pay their taxes, and I do not support people not paying taxes for which they are liable. However, in this case, we are dealing with a tax that lasted for four years, that was the subject of massive political controversy and enormous political disruption, and that was concluded over 20 years ago.