Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2025
The bill will pass, but it will not pass with our support. In all likelihood, this rushed legislation will not fundamentally fix the problem that the Government has created. The disastrous drafting blunder in the Scottish National Party’s original legislation could still leave the Scottish Government and Scottish taxpayers picking up a compensation tab of anything up to £400 million. That is a risk of losing £400 million, which is not a molehill, as Mr Mason implied in an intervention during stage 2. That loss would be a scandal, and I agree very much with the points made by Stephen Kerr in respect of that.
The bill has gone through a rushed process and is trying to fix a problem that arose because ministers did not do their job properly the first time round. If ministers are confident that they can apply the tax retrospectively and that it will be legal and not subject to challenge, they could have taken longer to frame the bill in public, get it right, consult and work on a cross-party basis to take evidence and listen to the received responses. The Government could have taken the time to ensure that no further issues could arise, such as some of the unintended consequences that we have seen since the tax was applied to empty properties. The manner in which the minister has managed it leaves a lot to be desired.
We have to be concerned about the Government’s attempts to shut down scrutiny. That will not work. I think that I will take up Mr Leonard’s request to issue a press release or two off the back of this, and we will be asking tough questions that ministers clearly do not want to answer in this chamber or elsewhere.
For example, despite the Government being made aware of this enormous error in June, we are led to believe by the minister that he only found out yesterday that the case was active in June. I simply cannot believe that the Government’s decision-making matrix would allow something as potentially significant as this situation to have continued for nearly six months.
Today, ministers rejected a number of amendments that were designed to be helpful—they would have helped the minister out of a hole by allowing greater transparency about what went wrong. In rejecting those amendments, ministers have shown their usual contempt for openness and accountability.
However, my single biggest concern is one that was eloquently put by Murdo Fraser yesterday: it is the likelihood of the bill ending up in the courts. When the Government votes to pass the bill in a few moments, ministers will not be able to say that they were not warned of the risks of a legal challenge. The Scottish National Party Government has not provided us with evidence this week that the emergency bill will work and that it cannot be challenged in the courts. Already, constituents have told me that they are in discussion with lawyers or with the Scottish Property Federation to see whether a case can be brought against the bill. Given some of the answers that the Government has provided, including in some of the briefings, I think that there is now a higher chance of legal challenge. Those who believe that they have been wrongly paying the tax will drag the Government to the courts, and I simply do not blame them.
We have to reflect on the Government’s track record of defending its legislation in court, from Nicola Sturgeon’s proposed independence referendum bill to the bill on gender self-identification. Those examples do not inspire confidence. Let us look at the list briefly. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, the named persons scheme, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill were challenged in the Supreme Court, and the proposed independence referendum bill was ruled outwith the devolved competence by the Supreme Court, even though the Presiding Officer deemed it possible to bring that bill before the Scottish Parliament.
What we are being asked to vote for today is bad legislation. It is rushed legislation. It is legislation that could well be challenged in the courts, with all the costs and the uncertainty that that would cause. I note that the minister did not support Jeremy Balfour’s amendment 1.