Meeting of the Parliament 21 February 2017
I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement.
For weeks, the cabinet secretary has been denying that there is an issue with business rates revaluation. For weeks, he and his colleagues have refused to act, despite all the evidence facing them. At last, the cabinet secretary has been forced to come to Parliament and offer some relief to some of the many businesses that are affected.
We all have examples of businesses that are affected—I know of hotels in Perthshire that are facing increases of hundreds of thousands of pounds in their annual bills. To the extent that the statement today addresses concerns in the hospitality and renewable energy sectors and in the north-east, we welcome what is proposed. However, this is all too typical of the actions of a Government that, time and again, falls asleep at the wheel and wakes up only when it crashes the car into a wall.
Three weeks ago, the finance secretary found £185 million, £60 million of which came from the business rates pool, to buy off the Greens so that they would support his budget. Can he tell us today, first, how much the total package of measures that have been announced will cost and whether that figure is higher or lower than the £60 million that he had lying in the business rates pool? Secondly, given that he is always telling us that there is no spare cash in his budget, where have those additional sums come from? Thirdly, is the cap on increases for one year only or is it for the next five years? Lastly, is he open to providing additional help to other sectors beyond hospitality and renewable energy and to areas outwith the north-east if they can demonstrate the hardship that the revaluation is causing them?