Meeting of the Parliament 07 January 2026
Today, businesses across Scotland face an existential threat, with dramatic increases in rateable values as a result of the recent revaluation. The Scottish Conservatives are taking the issue to the chamber today due to its urgency and the very serious concerns that so many businesses have raised directly with us. This is an issue on which the Scottish Government must act urgently, before we see a whole slew of business failures.
The latest blow comes against a backdrop of difficult trading conditions for businesses across Scotland. The cost burden has risen dramatically due to a combination of inflation, increases in energy prices and wage pressures. Labour’s tax on jobs—the increase in employer national insurance contributions—could not have come at a worse time.
The pressures are particularly acute in sectors such as hospitality and retail. In the area that I represent, across Perthshire and Fife, I can visit communities where once-thriving local hotels and pubs now lie empty and boarded up or have “For Sale” or “To Let” signs attached. Some of those businesses have been on the market for years without any significant interest. Some hoteliers tell me that they would bite the hand off anyone who came along with a serious offer to purchase.
The situation is not helped by the prospect of a visitor levy that adds further to the cost base. Those businesses that operate in the provision of self-catering accommodation for visitors are still dealing with the impact of short-term let licensing, with all the additional costs that that brought in. The latest blow is the non-domestic rates revaluation, with an average rise in rateable values of 123 per cent. Some businesses in the hospitality sector are facing rises that approach 400 per cent—a sum that is totally unrealistic.
I am sure that all members in the chamber can quote examples of such rises from local businesses that have contacted them. To give just a few examples from my own mailbag, there is one owner of a self-catering premises in Fife for which the rateable value is increasing from £4,850 to £16,000—nearly quadrupling in total. There is a holiday lodge park in Perthshire that has seen an increase from £12,000 to £26,200; for another, the amount has nearly doubled, from £21,400 to £49,500.