Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have nothing further to say, except that I am grateful to the minister. We can discuss the issue further in order to find something that suits everybody’s intentions and which will ensure that some of the unintended consequences that might occur do not.

Amendment 34, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 35 and 36 not moved.

Section 13 agreed to.

Sections 14 to 16 agreed to.

Section 17—Cancellation of registration for levy

Amendments 62 and 66 are about an extension of the provisions in the bill. For the reasons that Craig Hoy has just given, we need to try to give the sector some certainty and a commitment that we will not let things go further down the road without holding to account the delivery of the building work that is being undertaken. If we were to allow that to happen, we would be in a circumstance of considerable uncertainty. That would be a difficult situation that none of us wants to get into.

Some of the witnesses that we heard from at stage 1 were very much in favour of sunset clauses to ensure that the situation cannot go on for ever or be shifted down the line without such a commitment being made.

Can you explain what that specific issue is?

My amendment 20 seeks to exempt from the levy the conversion of historic buildings, mainly because projects of that nature are not really speculative. They tend to be a more expensive way of producing new homes, and, most importantly, through the conversion of historic buildings into new homes, they deliver a wider public benefit, which the Parliament has discussed in other ways regarding historic buildings. It is important that we encourage the bringing back of vacant or underused buildings into productive use. If the levy were to be applied, that would risk discouraging the reuse and investment that aligns closely with the preservation of our heritage, and amendment 20 is designed to try to avoid that.

My amendment 41 is a straightforward consequential amendment to amendment 20, as it provides a definition of “historic building” by reference to existing statutory designations.

The amendment was drawn up in consultation with the sector, because it feels that, as things stand, we do not have sufficient data to ensure adequate scrutiny of the likely behavioural changes in the marketplace. In several other aspects of Parliamentary processes, we have not had—in my view, anyway—sufficient use of the super-affirmative procedure to check that there has been adequate consultation with relevant stakeholders. That is the purpose of amendment 46.

I hope that the committee will bear with me, as this is an important group of amendments that raises significant issues. I welcome the minister’s amendments, and we support all the amendments from other members, including those lodged by Michelle Thomson and Mark Griffin.

As I have mentioned, the Parliament is being asked to hand over a substantial range of powers on the setting of the levy without having a clear understanding of its impact on the housing market at a time when, as Mark Griffin and Meghan Gallacher have pointed out, a housing emergency has been declared under other legislation. A clear outcome from our stage 1 deliberations and our report was the need for much better quality data and information to understand the levy’s impact, including on the housing market, given the current circumstances. In the absence of a clear commitment from the minister in the stage 1 debate to producing a sensitivity analysis, I am supportive of placing a clear and detailed reporting requirement in the bill.

Amendment 37, like amendment 9 in the name of the minister, would give effect to the committee’s recommendation that a report under section 45 be prepared every three years, while amendment 38 seeks to set out what those regular reports should address in respect of the new-build housing market and the wider housing sector, including the Government’s all-tenure housing ambition, and to interconnect the nature and design of the levy, the rates and the cladding remediation programme that it seeks to fund. That mirrors Michelle Thomson’s requirements in amendment 51 with regard to the independence sensitivity assessment, and the issues that arose during our stage 1 scrutiny.

Amendment 39 would also introduce a requirement for the levy to be assessed for compliance against the Scottish Government’s principle of good tax policy making, as defined in the “Framework for Tax 2021”. Finally, amendment 40 is a technical amendment.

At this stage, I want to raise with the minister an issue that was brought to our attention last week. Immediately after the deadline for lodging amendments passed, the Scottish Government produced another document entitled “Accelerating home building in Scotland: a consultation on incentives and penalties to speed up housing delivery”. That could lead to the levy having considerable reliefs or supplements

“to intervene in the market, to stimulate or speed up delivery where build-out is not progressing at pace”,

as the Government’s language has it. I find the timing of that publication, given the possible further implications for behavioural change, not helpful, particularly given that, as I have said, the deadline for stage 2 amendments had passed by then. However, I will come back to the point a little bit later.

I accept that that is the situation, but the fact is that the Government has been slow in providing some of the moneys for cladding remediation. Moreover, as Mr Mason will remember, the committee made it very clear in its stage 1 report that the proceeds of the levy should be used only for cladding remediation. That is the purpose of my amendments.

Thank you, minister, for the engagement with me on this matter last week. To what extent has the Scottish Government carried out any study of the behavioural changes that have happened since the bill was published? Are you aware of some of the behavioural changes that are likely to take effect in relation to the exemptions that Michelle Thomson is talking about?

Thank you.

The amendments in this group are supported by Homes for Scotland. Just as important, they seek to give effect to paragraphs 146 and 147 of our stage 1 report, in which we recommended that the proceeds of the levy should be used only for cladding remediation. I do not accept the minister’s reasoning that a restriction in the bill would add to costs and complexity.

As colleagues will recall, we discussed at length the importance of ensuring that the levy will fund only the cladding remediation programme and that it will be time limited through the sunset clause that several members have referred to. Being clear about the use of the proceeds is, I think, imperative if the bill is to be improved—