Chamber
Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2026 [Draft]
18 Mar 2026 · S6 · Meeting of the Parliament
Item of business
Portfolio Question Time
Council Tax Increases 2026-27
Earlier this month, the Scottish National Party-run Renfrewshire Council announced that it will increase council tax by 7.5 per cent. That comes after a record 9.5 per cent increase last year. The year before, when councils passed their budgets, the First Minister said that council tax rises of 3 per cent would be reasonable. The cabinet secretary has said that it is a local tax, but it is, of course, also the “unfair” council tax that the SNP promised to scrap in 2007. Since then, we have seen council tax bills going up, services getting cut and councils being underfunded. Does the cabinet secretary or her Government regret breaking their promise to scrap the unfair council tax in 2007?
In the same item of business
8. Neil Bibby (West Scotland) (Lab)
Lab
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to council tax increases approved by local authorities across Scotland for 2026-27. (S6O-05663)
The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government (Shona Robison)
SNP
Council tax is a local tax that is set and administered by individual councils, which have had full flexibility in setting their rates for 2026-27. That was ...
Neil Bibby
Lab
Earlier this month, the Scottish National Party-run Renfrewshire Council announced that it will increase council tax by 7.5 per cent. That comes after a reco...
Shona Robison
SNP
Of course, we wanted to scrap the council tax, but we did not get a majority in the Scottish Parliament to do so. To put it bluntly, what we need is to reach...
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Annabelle Ewing)
SNP
That concludes portfolio questions on finance and local government. There will be a very short pause before we move on to the next item of business.