Seòmar agus comataidhean

The committee will publish its report on the draft regulations after the meeting.

We agreed at the start of the meeting to take the next item in private. We have no more public business today. I thank everyone for joining us.

I bring in Paul McLennan for his questions.

Thank you very much, minister, and thank you for highlighting the parallel development and your intention to introduce legislation in that regard.

We now move to questions, and I will begin. What is the main driver for the bill? Is it the protection of the public finances, or is it the management of the volume of appeals relating to coronavirus?

Item 3 is to take evidence on the Non-Domestic Rates (Valuation Roll)—I am sorry. That is not the right agenda item. I am glad to see that Graeme Dey has managed to join us.

The committee will publish its report on the draft regulations after the meeting. I will now suspend the meeting to allow a changeover of supporting officials before we move to agenda item 5.

Thank you, minister, for laying out the purpose of the draft amendment regulations before us. Members have no questions for the minister, so I thank him and his officials for their evidence.

Item 6 is consideration of the motion on the instrument. I invite the minister to move motion S6M-02977.

Motion moved,

That the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee recommends that the Local Authority (Capital Finance and Accounting) (Scotland) (Coronavirus) Amendment Regulations 2022 be approved.—[Tom Arthur]

Motion agreed to.

We have come to the end of our questions. I thank the witnesses for their evidence on the bill. I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow a changeover of supporting officials.

Under agenda item 3, the committee will take evidence on the draft Non-Domestic Rates (Valuation Roll) (Modification) (Scotland) Regulations 2022 from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. For this session, Mr Arthur is joined by Anouk Berthier, who is non-domestic rates policy lead in the Scottish Government, and Susan Robb, who is a Scottish Government lawyer. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

I invite Mr Arthur to make a short opening statement before I open up the session to questions from committee members.

Agenda item 2 is an evidence-taking session at stage 1 of the Non-Domestic Rates (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Bill. We are joined remotely by the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, who is accompanied by the following Scottish Government officials: Sandra Reid, bill team leader; and David Smith, lawyer. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. As all the witnesses are appearing remotely, I would be grateful if Mr Arthur could make it clear if he wishes one of his officials to respond to a specific point.

Before I open up the session to questions, I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Item 5 is to take evidence on the draft Local Authority (Capital Finance and Accounting) (Scotland) (Coronavirus) Amendment Regulations 2022 from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. For this item, Mr Arthur is joined by Scottish Government officials Elanor Davies, who is head of local authority accounting, and, once again, David Smith, a lawyer. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. Before opening up to questions from the committee, I invite Mr Arthur to make a short opening statement.