Hansard

It will not for a long time, I hope.

Today’s debate has been a welcome conclusion to a really good parliamentary process. I thank the bill team for their work—as Malcolm Chisholm said, this area of activity is complex, and just as I have had to navigate the Finance Committee through it, the bill team has first had to navigate me through it. The team has been exceptional in supporting me in developing the legislation.

In doing so, we have—as has been the case with all three tax bills—had an enormous amount of consultation of external stakeholders on its contents and provisions. On most of those, we have managed to reach agreement with external stakeholders, but on some we cannot get agreement.

I assure Malcolm Chisholm that the approach of engaging in maximum consultation and dialogue with external stakeholders will be the hallmark for progressing further dialogue and discussion on issues related to the charter. I also assure Gavin Brown that we will engage in extensive consultation and allow adequate time to ensure that the issues can be properly considered.

As Malcolm Chisholm said, the design of the tax system very much reflects the approach that we as a country want to take to our taxation arrangements. I initiated the process with reference to the Adam Smith principles of certainty, convenience, efficiency and proportionality to the ability to pay, in a way that was designed to set out how we could, in our 21st-century thinking, reflect some of the great foundations of thinking that Scotland has contributed to the world. Those values are an important consideration in setting out what we want to achieve from our tax system and the impact that we want it to have on our society.

We will take that approach in reflecting on the further provisions that are to be progressed in subordinate legislation. There will be a lot of subordinate legislation, and we will of course engage with Parliament on its contents.

One innovation in the bill has been, as we progress the great principles of Adam Smith, to design new mechanisms that are appropriate for the times. That is how I would characterise the general anti-avoidance rule. I made it clear to Parliament at the outset that I wanted the bill to define emphatically the intolerance that we in Scotland would show towards tax avoidance. I want us to err on the side of tax maximisation in the way in which we structure our legislative framework.

I invited Parliament to challenge the Government’s thinking with regard to whether we were able to translate that lofty aspiration into practical legislative form. We have listened carefully to the challenges that have come from Parliament in various areas, and we have responded significantly to them at stages 2 and 3.

The current constitutional debate has crept into the discussion today. My friend Michael McMahon did not disappoint in today’s debate, and he would be disappointed in me if I did not get on to some of that territory before I conclude my own contribution.

Michael McMahon and Gavin Brown spoke about the block grant adjustment process, which is an interesting contrast to the legislative process that we have undertaken in Parliament. Across the political spectrum, with all our different opinions on how we view the world, we in this Parliament have all managed to—I assume that we will, from what I am hearing this afternoon—reach a point of unanimity on the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill when we vote later today.

We have considered the issues in our own space, according to our own values and principles, and we have come to this conclusion. I have compromised on certain things, and we have reached agreement, and Parliament will unanimously support the bill.

I think that that serves as an interesting illustration of the fact that, when we as members of the Scottish Parliament work together on legislative provisions, we can come to good, logical and sensible conclusions. If we can do that on the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill, why cannot we do it on issues such as welfare reform, other measures on the tax system and how we should speak to the world through our international policy?

Mr Chisholm said that he felt that

“the word reasonable has haunted our discussions”

on the bill. I consider myself to be an entirely reasonable person, and I have tried my level best to display that reasonableness in getting to a position of unanimity. If we can have that reasonableness across the chamber on the bill that we are debating, why cannot we have it on all the issues on which such reasonableness would allow us to advance our constitutional agenda in fulfilment of our mission to deliver the very best for the people of Scotland?

We would, of course, be able to make progress on the block grant adjustment if all my reasonableness were absorbed by the other party to that discussion—Her Majesty’s Treasury. The lesson that I take from our consideration of the bill is that, when we in Scotland all work together to use the legislative framework that we have, we can take good decisions that will be the hallmark of how we should be governed in the years to come.

I have expressed my remarks in a way that is entirely consistent with my reasonable style and with the optimistic tone of Mr Mason, which came to the fore in the debate. I am sure that the people of Scotland will reflect on the points that I have made in the weeks to come, and that they will come to the right—and the sensible—conclusion.