Meeting of the Parliament 17 December 2025
I think that there should be a cross-party approach, and I gather that there is a good prospect that that is what is going to happen. It is the right thing to do, so I am happy to sign any motion that sets that out. There we are.
Are those businesses doing so well? No. A survey of 444 businesses that was carried out by the ASSC found that 47 per cent said that they were doing worse than before. Some said that bookings are falling off a cliff for the forthcoming year.
The Scottish Assessors Association determines and fixes the valuations. I took up the case in writing with its president, Heather Honeyman, who replied:
“In relation to the methodology of the valuation, reference to rents is key ... The primary evidence is rents”.
However, only 3 per cent of the 16,513 businesses have rents, because those properties are self-catering. They are not private rents. They are let on a weekly basis. There is no yardstick at all. The rent is not an arm’s-length arrangement—it is very much between connected parties.
The clincher is that it is not only the trade bodies across the sector that object to this; it is the Valuation Office Agency in England, which does the same job as the Assessors Association in Scotland. What does it have to say about the method that is being used by Heather Honeyman and the Scottish assessors? It said:
“When we value a property, we generally look at the market value”
and rent.
“However, this way of valuing would not be suitable for self-catering holiday homes”.
That is the what the Valuation Office Agency of the UK said. Let me repeat that. It said:
“this way of valuing would not be suitable for self-catering holiday homes.”
because of a lack of rental information.
It went on:
“We look at the annual income that the property is expected to generate when let at its full potential. We request details of income and expenditure from different types of self-catering operators to see what the fair maintainable trade would be.”
That is exactly the method that the assessors in Scotland used to use. The Scottish Assessors Association has abandoned the method that works in England.