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Professor Heald, could you go beyond purely the issue of council tax and address the issue of local government finances more generally? I am not talking simply about how local authorities raise money and whether we have a modern, efficient and fair system for that. We talk about the sustainability of the Scottish Government’s budget, but we are not having the same conversation about the sustainability of local services across Scotland. We are leaving that to councillors who have been given a legal duty that, as MSPs, we do not have—they all have to vote for a balanced budget, and we are making it increasingly impossible for them to produce balanced budgets.

I will finish by saying that the consultation proposed by the Government, which will be strengthened by the Government’s amendments, seems entirely adequate to hear from the industry or its lobbyists.

I simply think that subjecting the fine detail of regulations on an individual levy such as this to the level of parliamentary scrutiny that is required for major documents setting out long-term and broad policy direction from the Government seems unrealistic. If we expected every minor regulation to be subject to that level of scrutiny, with three days of parliamentary business a week, we would not get through half of what we need to across the entire session of Parliament.

On whether such a target can be met, I come back to the point that some factors are within Government control and others are outwith Government control. That does not change the fact that a target is helpful. However, I do not think it possible, in the real world, to legislatively hardwire, as Mark Griffin suggests, the outcome as opposed to the action.

Finally, on the proposed assessment against the framework for tax, the tax framework is a statement of the policy of the Government of the day, and I am not aware of any other legislation on tax or levies that requires a statutory assessment of that kind; it seems out of kilter with the more general approach.

I wonder whether the line of argument that John Mason is using would actually have been a stronger defence of his suggestion during the debate on the first group, which was that something such as corporation tax would be a better tax to raise revenue for the purpose of building safety than a building levy. To follow that logic would be to argue that a building levy is not the right approach in the first place.

I agree with the general argument that the bill might apply in a different way in different settings, including on brownfield land. However, as I understand it, the bill already allows for flexibility in setting different rates for different land types. Why is it better to specify in the bill what the relief should be than it is to allow for different rates? Is the member not suggesting a less flexible means to achieve the same objective that the bill already permits?

To be honest, I am not sure how either proof or disproof of a claim of that kind could be relied on. Again, we need to be realistic: any industry that is faced with a levy like this is going to want to pay a lower rate, and to want as many reliefs, allowances and exemptions as it can lobby for.

As a final point, I am still unclear as to why the brownfield relief is a better way of achieving what John Mason is asking for than setting different rates. I ask the minister to respond to that point and clarify his view on what would be the best and most effective way to achieve an objective that I think we all share. That would be helpful.

Preferably to someone who has an answer. [Laughter.]

Thank you, convener—I wanted to speak before the member winds up. First, I acknowledge that I was not part of the committee during its stage 1 inquiry, but I have some background familiarity with the issue. I think that it is important to acknowledge that the purpose of the levy is to ensure that the industry as a whole contributes to putting right the mistakes that have been caused by the industry as a whole.

There are a limited number of ways of doing that. We could take an insurance approach, but that would work only for the future. We could try to recoup money from specific developers for specific buildings that need remediation, but that clearly would not work for those who have simply walked away from their responsibilities. Unless anyone wants to suggest a different way of raising the revenue, or requiring that the public should pay the cost, a levy of this type is necessary. I note from the stage 1 debate that some members supported the principle of the levy, but not the specific levy, and I find that a little frustrating.

I recognise some of the potential impacts that members of the committee are concerned about, but, to be honest, it is not unusual for any industry to predict disaster in relation to any tax or levy that they are expected to pay. While this is not the place for discussion of wider housing policy, I point out that there are other options available to Government to reduce the cost of providing housing and to ensure that house building meets social need instead of serving vested interests. For example, there was a previous policy commitment to a mechanism for land value capture resulting from planning or infrastructure investment; that commitment seems to have disappeared.

Anyway, all of that being my position, I tend to take a sceptical approach to exemptions. I think that the Government amendments seem fine, and I am broadly opposed to most of the others. I am more sympathetic to the argument for removing the exemption for hotels, as has been proposed, and I welcome the fact that the Government is open to coming up with some other solution to that.

I hope that, in those discussions, there would be some consideration for the risk that, by retaining the exemption as it currently stands, we would create a perverse incentive for developers to propose developments ostensibly to be operated as short-term letting businesses, not build-to-rent under long-term tenancies, and then subsequently decide to get planning permission for change of use and sell the apartments off, thereby avoiding the tax. The current approach risks bringing in that perverse incentive.

Given that there could be differential impacts on different parts of the country, as well as different market conditions, land types and what have you, I have a question in my mind as to whether a sensitivity assessment that is worthy of that name can be conducted before the Government has published indicative rates or before it even says whether there will be different rates for different parts of the country. Surely, the Government setting out its approach to rate setting would be the start of the process of figuring out what the impacts might be, rather than the other way around.

Will the member give way?