Meeting of the Parliament 26 November 2025
Mr McKee has managed to magic up £1 billion in public sector reforms in the blink of an eye, so I am sure that he could find another £400 million.
The damage has been very real. Some developers have razed buildings to the ground because they could no longer afford to pay or were not prepared to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax for buildings that they could not sell or rent. Others have collapsed corporate structures and simply handed back the keys, leaving the councils with the liability for hard-to-maintain properties.
The ministers who were responsible for the defective legislation that the bill seeks to remedy were Derek Mackay and Kate Forbes. Looking back to the consideration of that legislation at stage 2 by the Local Government and Communities Committee, it is clear that ministers did not do what was required of them in terms of legislative scrutiny or legal due diligence. At the time, the Government explicitly referred to repealing section 24 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1966, but it overlooked the existence of section 16 of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act 1956. Kate Forbes and her legal team were asleep at the wheel. In fact, at stage 2 deliberations on what became the 2020 act, Ms Forbes told MSPs that the bill was sound. She said:
“Amendment 42 delivers that by repealing legislation that provides that no rates will be payable on unoccupied lands and heritages. It also repeals a power that allows ministers to prescribe by regulation classes of unoccupied lands and heritage for which such rates are payable.
Although amendment 42 is simple, the implications are significant, both for national non-domestic rates policy and for local empowerment.”—[Official Report, Local Government and Communities Committee, 4 December 2019; c 36.]
The Government believed that the matter was simple, simply because it did not do its homework properly. It went back to the 1966 statute, but, apparently, it did not go back any further.
Ms Forbes is meant to be the brains of the Scottish National Party operation when, in fact, it was slapdash and shoddy. Who is to be held accountable for that? I see no signs of any heads rolling. However, here we are again. As I said yesterday, the Government’s solution to fix a problem in legislation that was rushed is to rush through legislation.
I also have concerns about the lack of consultation. Ministers are saying that it is because they need to bring forward remedial legislation as quickly as possible following the concerns that were raised with them, but I do not accept in any way that, if they have been able to spend five months giving the matter due consideration, they cannot consult even for a matter of weeks, and that we should be forcing the bill through in two days.
We will not support the bill and we will seek to amend it to the point where ministers must go back and try to get it right. We also question the numbers. Although non-domestic rates on unoccupied property may have brought in £400 million, what damage has that done to the commercial property sector and the construction industry? Would this not be an opportunity to pause for some form of impact assessment to see what damage the legislation has done? If the minister were to speak to those in the industry—many of whom are very angry at the situation that the Government finds itself in—they would tell him, in plain language, what the effects of the tax have been.
On that basis, we cannot support the financial resolution. Given the significant doubts that we have about the possibility of a legal challenge, to support the financial resolution would be to give the Scottish Government a blank cheque while it could face significant legal fees.
I point out that we will try to amend the bill at stage 2 in a number of ways. Douglas Ross, who will speak shortly, will rightly try to ensure that we get greater transparency and accountability. This is the most significant legislative failure in recent years, and the minister should not be seeking to brush that under the carpet. Independent scrutiny is needed to restore confidence in the system and to identify the lessons to be learned.
This bill is, I fear, fraught with difficulty and complexity. I appeal to ministers not to be frivolous with the legislative process now, as they were in 2020. They should pause, think, consult and ensure that they approach it in the proper manner.
17:40