Holyrood, made browsable

Hansard

Every contribution to the Official Report — chamber and committee — searchable in one place. Pulled from data.parliament.scot, indexed for full-text search, linked through to every MSP.

129

Current MSPs

415

MSPs ever elected

13

Parties on record

2,354,908

Hansard contributions

1999–2026

Coverage span

Official Report

Search Hansard contributions

Showing 33 of 2,354,908 contributions. Latest 30 days: 0. Coverage: 12 May 1999 — 25 Mar 2026.

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

My questions are about design, delivery and improving town centres. A lot of the stuff that the committee discusses involves high-level policy and legislation, but most issues relate to quite small things that happen on the ground, so I have a number of questions about how you...

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Chamber

Adopt a Station

I, too, thank Christine Grahame for bringing the debate to the chamber and for highlighting the importance of promoting examples of commercial and community collaboration. I am glad to declare that I have a registrable interest in the first-ever company to participate in the a...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Steve Rogers, is converting unused commercial property in town centres into new homes commercially attractive and technically possible? Do you have any challenges with identifying owners or complex ownership structures of unused buildings?

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Chamber

I thank members from across the chamber who have helped me to achieve cross-party support for the motion to be debated, which will help to increase awareness of Lyme disease, a devastating disease that silently affects thousands of people throughout the United Kingdom. I welc...

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I have one very general question and one very specific question. It has been fascinating to hear from you this morning, Professor Sparks. You have clearly been at the centre of this subject for a considerable time and have been in the room with Government for some of that time...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I am sure that we share your hope for the future. My second and more specific question brings us back to Gordon MacDonald’s questions about empty properties. At last week’s meeting, we heard about the issues with empty flats above empty shops, with the conflation of different...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you very much.

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I will start with David Grove, given his role and his knowledge of council budgets. Councils spend about £5 billion a year on various goods and services. I am interested in your views on how that could be used to support local businesses.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I was thinking not so much about your budget as about your colleagues’ budgets—what you might see in their various pots—and how that could be spent in your field, with joined-up thinking.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Phil Prentice has spoken about supporting local, and particularly about moving away from long-term subsidies to create lasting support. What is your view on a Scotland-first procurement policy?

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

As you mentioned the gift card schemes, I should mention my interest in that, as we are participants in those schemes. I am delighted to see them helping local communities. I ask Jennifer Hunter and Roddy MacDonald whether they want to add anything.

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you, convener. That leads nicely to my question. As Paul Gerrard mentioned, one solution in relation to plugging the gap for any reform in non-domestic rates and levelling up the retail playing field is a digital sales tax. I think that you mentioned that your online sa...

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I know that we are pushed for time, so I will direct my question to Stuart Mackinnon, who represents both online and bricks-and-mortar businesses. An online or digital sales tax has been mooted in previous evidence sessions. Are you in favour of that? What level might it be s...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you. I am sure that the subject will be revisited in the future.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I will ask the question about digital sales tax that I put to the previous panel. In previous sessions, we have discussed what such a tax might look like if it was introduced, and whether it might level up the playing field between online and bricks-and-mortar sales. What are ...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Siobhan, do you want to say anything?

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

I have two relatively specific questions. The first is for Stephen Lewis. Yesterday, the British Property Federation trailed views in the media on improving compulsory purchase orders, and the Queen’s speech included something on that as well, which would apply in England. Acc...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Will you expand on your comment that resources constrain the use of CPOs? Is that the resource to enact CPOs—the lawyers to track down owners and undertake the purchasing process—or is it the resource to pay for buildings?

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you. My other question was to Craig McLaren.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you—I have no further questions. I just refer members to my registered interest in relation to property.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

—Inaudible.—Dumfries.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Perhaps Nicoletta Primo can say a bit more about how Sight Scotland communicates with the groups that I mentioned, such as BID teams. You lobby MSPs and send us briefings. Do you do the same with those types of organisations?

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you. That is the first that I have heard of those audits, so you might want to share them with MSPs when they happen in their areas.

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Before I ask my question, I will make a brief observation on which you might want to comment. The word “place” is bandied around a lot. Douglas Cowan is director of communities and place, Bryan McGrath is director of enterprise and place and Derek Cowan is director of innovati...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Would you point to any particular success stories that you have funded or supported to direct people to? We are short of examples on the ground.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Yes, it would. Thank you.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Would it be fair to conclude that, unless a business or an enterprise brings a project to you that improves economic opportunities for these groups, you are not actively looking for that?

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

You are certainly talking about policies of inclusion and diversity and the like, but my question is: have you done any economic assessment of what opportunities are being missed by not including those groups? That could lead to a better strategy that unlocks those economic op...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Thank you. I have no further questions, convener.

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

On the question on identifying ownership, do you have any solutions or do you see where the fault might lie?

Alexander Burnett (Aberdeenshire West) (Con) Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Good morning. You just raised with the convener the response to the Fraser of Allander Institute report and the importance of the work of the short-life working group. Are you able to provide an update on the group’s work and when you expect a response to be published?

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

The Scottish Government proposed to consult on an online sales tax. Can you outline where those proposals are at and how the tax might be implemented? I understand that it would have to be a UK tax—or is that something that the Scottish Parliament could introduce? What discuss...

Alexander Burnett Con Committee

Town Centres and Retail

Did you make a submission to that consultation?

← Back to list

Committee

Economy and Fair Work Committee 18 May 2022

18 May 2022 · S6 · Economy and Fair Work Committee

Item of business

Town Centres and Retail

Burnett, Alexander Con Aberdeenshire West Watch on SPTV

My questions are about design, delivery and improving town centres. A lot of the stuff that the committee discusses involves high-level policy and legislation, but most issues relate to quite small things that happen on the ground, so I have a number of questions about how you communicate at the local level. How do you rate individual town centres? Do you provide awards and do you name and shame the worst and give examples for groups? A huge variety of groups and organisations are looking at improving town centres, and it is not always a simple process to find them. There could be business improvement district teams, community councils, business associations and development trusts. How do you feed detail into those? For instance, in Banchory, which is my home town, would it be possible to see things being rated by those whom you represent? Given the number of bodies out there with which you need to communicate, the overlap between your organisations and the fact that there are limited resources, how much do you work together in communicating with those groups?

In the same item of business

The Convener (Claire Baker) Lab

Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Our first item of business continues our evidence gathering in o...

Martin Avila (Community Enterprise in Scotland)

I thank the committee for giving me the chance to speak this morning. How we engage the less listened to communities is a wicked problem. Communities in whi...

The Convener Lab

Martin Avila has referred to the evidence that we heard last week. I do not know whether Dr Orr has had a chance to look at last week’s evidence, which we to...

Dr Allison Orr (University of Glasgow)

I thank the committee for inviting me along. There is certainly an issue with regard to resourcing in planning departments. They are expected to take on more...

The Convener Lab

I come to Pauline Smith. Would you say a bit about the development trust organisations, how your members engage with communities and how important they are w...

Pauline Smith (Development Trusts Association Scotland)

Our members are from rural and urban locations, so they differ quite drastically from one area to the next. You spoke about the less represented individuals...

The Convener Lab

I will allow other members to explore some of those issues in more depth in a moment. The committee went to visit Midsteeple Quarter. The community ownership...

Pauline Smith

Yes—that would absolutely be helpful. Obviously, I am passionate about community ownership support. There should be a go-to support provider, but there are o...

The Convener Lab

I bring in Maggie Chapman, to be followed by Fiona Hyslop.

Maggie Chapman (North East Scotland) (Green) Green

Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Pauline Smith mentioned community wealth building. As you will be aware, the Scottish Government has committed to in...

Pauline Smith

We are meeting Ted Howard this afternoon: he is coming to us. He is the guru of community wealth building and is doing a tour at the moment. One pitfall wou...

Maggie Chapman Green

Dr Orr, we are talking about creating liveable, vibrant and thriving town centres that support the communities that live in and around them. What are the opp...

In some of the cities that I have studied, there has been a change in the number of residential units, but communities and public services have not kept pace...

Maggie Chapman Green

Martin, what opportunities are there to drive community enterprise and engagement through legislation?

Martin Avila

If it is okay, I will speak first about the idea of pitfalls. There can be a suggestion of false equivalence between community-run enterprises and general bu...

Fiona Hyslop (Linlithgow) (SNP) SNP

Good morning. We have heard that every town is unique and that any solution has to be unique to the town, and Pauline Smith noted that we need to have strong...

Pauline Smith

I think that the ball lands with us. We need to work with BIDs, development trusts and CEIS to support and pool our expertise in general. We ask communities ...

Fiona Hyslop SNP

What about working with councils?

Pauline Smith

Our community ownership support service and our community shares departments have gone out to local authorities to engage in training—well, we might want to ...

Fiona Hyslop SNP

Martin Avila said that more is needed in terms of community development, and we have heard calls for council-based activity, town champions and more planners...

Martin Avila

Both—everywhere.

Fiona Hyslop SNP

I know, but you will have to—

Martin Avila

That is the challenge that colleagues around the table face. We have limited resources and we have to understand where to direct them. I know that this is ...

Fiona Hyslop SNP

I move to Allison Orr. When it comes to your concerns about rentier experience, we are, potentially, going to move to an economic model in which there is com...

When it comes to enterprises, cultural change among landowners is important. We have started to see that cultural change, through the pandemic and even befor...

Martin Avila

May I come in on one point?

The Convener Lab

If it is brief. We are trying to make progress.

Martin Avila

Yes. Sorry, convener. We have to end false equivalence. Some of the previous Scottish Government rental guarantee schemes were there for developers to be ab...

Fiona Hyslop SNP

So do you recommend rental guarantees for social enterprises that provide housing in town centres?

Martin Avila

Yes. Community Land Scotland produced a great report called “Urban Dwelling: A Vision for Urban Community-led Housing in Scotland” that made recommendations ...