Meeting of the Parliament 25 November 2025
Mr Mason might have left the party, but he is still an apologist for the Administration. We are talking about £400 million being taken from struggling businesses in order to help to fill the SNP’s coffers.
We have to be aware that there could even be legal challenges to the legislation. The Government clearly made a mistake. It disregarded the legislative requirements that are laid down in the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act 1956, which was completely overlooked by the Government as it sought to mount yet another cash grab on businesses and property owners. We now know that the Government found out in August that there was a problem with the legislation, but it chose not to tell anyone.
When I look through the bill documents, it is like an episode of “Yes Minister”. The civil service jargon says:
“the amendments made by the 2020 Act to devolve EPR had not had the intended legal effect”.
To use plain English, the SNP Government simply cocked up. Its legislation provided no legal basis for companies to be paying business rates on unoccupied properties over three budgetary years. As the minister said, the money that is involved amounts to £400 million. Businesses across Scotland have, in good faith, been paying non-domestic rates on unoccupied properties that they should not have been paying. That is not a trivial amount of money, and this is not a trivial issue. That £400 million could have been used, in the interim, to support businesses to invest in jobs and growth, but that has not been happening.