Seòmar agus comataidhean

I agree that a bespoke bill on those issues would be preferable, but in 34 years, but we have not had one from a Government of any colour, before or during the devolution era. Does Mr Griffin think that such a bill is likely, clearly not in the remainder of this session, but in the next session? If he agrees that such a bespoke bill is not likely, is it really more important to not do this at all than to do it in this manner, particularly given that everyone agrees that revaluation in some shape or form is clearly necessary?

I recognise that amendments 465 and 467 are not required. Ministers currently have the regulation-making power in question, but it is 12 years since Parliament gave ministers that power and they have not applied it. Will the minister clarify what the Scottish Government’s position is, as of today, with regard to why residential property holding companies, in particular, which are an infamous tax avoidance vehicle, should be exempt from LBTT?

Rachael Hamilton questions how my amendments would achieve the aim that I have set out. As evidence of how they would do that, I highlight that, as has already been pointed out, the additional dwelling supplement as it stands has been doubled from 4 per cent to 8 per cent, at the request of the Greens during budget negotiations. Between that and the doubling of council tax on second and holiday homes, there were 2,500 fewer ADS-qualifying purchases last year—that is, 2,500 fewer homes were bought as second or holiday homes last year. Is that not evidence that the objective that I am looking for, which is to push those houses back into the market for people who will live in them permanently, is achieved through tax measures such as the ones in my amendments?

I highlight that my amendments do not specify exactly how the revaluation exercise should take place, with two exceptions. First, my amendments would set a deadline of 1 April 2029 and, secondly, they would place a duty on ministers to consider appropriate transitional reliefs. I agree that there is a wider debate, but everyone who is involved in the debate agrees that we cannot use 1991 valuations as the basis of any substantive reform to, or replacement of, council tax. No reform process can move forward without revaluation taking place first. Why has the Scottish Government never put a revaluation proposal to the Parliament, never mind simply moved ahead with a revaluation exercise?

I think that what members are looking for from the Government is an indication of whether it agrees with the principle behind the amendments. If it agrees on the principle—and it has recognised the consensus on this matter across the Parliament—and if it is simply a question of working with the PBSA review group on drafting that can be agreed at stage 3, that is one thing.

If the Government disagrees with the principle behind the amendments, which is that student tenants should have the same right to end their tenancy as private students, as well as the principle of a set of model terms and conditions, as the PBSA review group has recommended—I believe that the Government has accepted that recommendation—there is no incentive for members to hold back at this stage and come back at stage 3. We are all looking for an indication from the Government on the point of principle behind each of the amendments. If that indication is there, there is scope to work with the Government before stage 3, but if there is not, my intention would be to move my amendments at this stage and see what the committee’s view is.

I am grateful for the intervention. There is a much wider point. The small business bonus scheme was reviewed independently for the Scottish Government by the Fraser of Allander Institute, which could find no measurable positive economic impact from it. I think that the small business bonus scheme needs to be redesigned, because I agree that small businesses should be supported, and the tax system is a way to do that through exemptions, reductions, and so on. As it stands, we spend about a quarter of a billion pounds on the SBBS every year, and in many cases, it is received by businesses that many of us would not recognise as small. It is not a particularly well-designed scheme.

Rachael Hamilton’s point also relates to my amendment 461. At present, a short-term let property would pay 200 per cent council tax if it is available to let for fewer than 140 days a year, or if it is actually let for fewer than 70. When it passes that threshold, it moves from paying double the rate of one tax to paying non-domestic rates. At that point, it potentially qualifies for, most commonly, the small business bonus scheme, meaning that it can end up paying no rates at all.

At the moment, we have a system that has two contradictory aims and a relatively arbitrary threshold between the two of them. We are not getting the balance right, in certain areas in particular. As much as I take on board the point about the importance of short-term lets to the tourist economy, the most common bit of feedback that I hear from employers and businesses in those areas is about their inability to recruit staff to run their business because there is no permanent housing available for them. Lochranza on Arran is the perfect example—40 per cent of housing there is either a holiday home or a short-term let, which makes it incredibly challenging for local employers to find staff to work in bars, restaurants, cafes and leisure facilities.

I will move on as I am recognise how much time I am taking with this group. The infrastructure levy is covered by amendment 550. Amendment 550 would repeal the sunset cause that is currently in place for the levy under the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, although the repeal would extend only to housing developments, due to the scope of the bill. Parliament’s ability to replace or complement the existing framework of planning obligations is set to expire by the summer of 2026. We should all probably reflect on why we put a sunset cause into the 2019 act, because the rationale for it was not particularly clear and it means that the infrastructure levy power expires in the summer of 2026 unless regulations are made. At that point, we will have lost the ability to bring in an infrastructure levy in the future if we believe that it is appropriate, unless that power is recreated through primary legislation. Given that it is already in legislation, I suggest that that approach is inappropriate.

I accept that the Government has decided not to proceed with the infrastructure levy at this point, but unless regulations are made, or amendment 550 is agreed to, to nullify the sunset cause, the power disappears completely. In 2019, we took the view collectively that such a power was required, so I think that it would be wasteful to let it expire. If we decided in a few years that an infrastructure levy was justified, we would need to recreate it through primary legislation.

The current system of developer contributions under section 75 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 is applied exceptionally unevenly, and it clearly disadvantages smaller and rural and island authorities, which lack the in-house expertise and the legal capacity to secure those agreements. For example, 10 councils had no section 75 agreements last year. Such agreements provide for the voluntary contributions that developers make to local authorities. Sixteen councils had fewer than 10 such agreements each, and the relative value of them varied massively. Only half a dozen councils had more than 10 agreements. I am happy to share more information on that with colleagues if they would find it beneficial.

The rationale behind the infrastructure levy is that building houses does not mean building communities; all sorts of other infrastructure is required to turn a housing estate into a successful functioning community. You need funding for the provision of schools, health centres and public transport infrastructure, including roads, pavements and active travel. It is right that developers contribute towards that because they are the ones building the houses but not building the community as a whole. We can have that debate again—I suggest that it is a debate for the next parliamentary session, because I accept that the Government has decided that it will not introduce an infrastructure levy for now.

It would be a real shame if we allowed the sunset clause to take away our ability to have this debate again in the future without having to go through the cumbersome process of recreating something that we have already created in primary legislation because we have allowed it to lapse.

You will be pleased to hear, convener, that that is the end of my contribution.

I move amendment 519.

The minister has talked a number of times this morning about amendments being lodged relatively late in the process. I want to clarify the timeline. The PBSA review group reported in February 2024 and the bill was published in March 2024, so I accept that the group’s recommendations could not have been written into the bill, which had already been signed off at the point that the review group published. However, there have been 15 months since then. I cannot speak for other members, but my intentions to lodge amendments on this area were sent to the Government in January of this year.

Can the minister confirm whether discussions have already taken place with the PBSA review group on recommendations that it made that would require statutory change and, therefore, what amendments to the bill would be required? If those discussions have taken place with the review group about what could be changed via the bill, could the minister clarify which specific elements of the recommendations were discussed?

The minister is making two lines of argument against my amendment. One, which we have heard already this morning, is about the need for further consultation with the PBSA review group; the second is an argument in practice against the principle of students being able to end their tenancies early like any other private tenant.

To clarify, is the Scottish Government’s position that, because of the different business model, students in PBSA should not have the same right as other private tenants to end their tenancy early? As I said, if the argument is one about the need for further consultation with the review group so that amendments that will have the same effect can be lodged at stage 3, that is one thing. However, it sounds as if the Government disagrees with the principle that PBSA tenants should have that same right to end the tenancy early. I would be grateful if the minister could clarify that point.

Amendment 61 is relatively simple. The intention is to make sure that there is no gatekeeping of key information by qualifications Scotland staff and that, if the strategic advisory council makes a reasonable request for information to discharge its duties, that information is provided. Again, the amendment is a reflection of the issues of trust, transparency, accountability and so on that have got us here.

The debate on amendment 62 is equivalent to the debate on the presence of staff that we have already had in relation to the learner interest committee and the teacher and practitioner interest committee. There is no reason for members of qualifications Scotland staff to be on the strategic advisory council. The purpose of the council is to provide advice based on expertise, lived experience and so on. Given the debates that we have already had and the decisions that we have made in relation to those committees, it would be appropriate to take the same approach to the strategic advisory council.

Amendment 66 would clarify that qualifications Scotland staff can still attend meetings of the strategic advisory council. I of course want them to be there and to hear the discussions, but I want to make sure that the power dynamic in the room is appropriately balanced, and the best way to do that is for staff to not be members of the council.

My amendment 9, the cabinet secretary’s amendments 63, 64 and 65 and Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 252 are all broadly in the same space of consultation. We have just had a similar debate on the wider duties on qualifications Scotland to consult. My amendment 9 is almost identical to the amendment that I moved in a previous group on qualifications Scotland. Given that the cabinet secretary has agreed to my key point about the need for consultation with the wider group of learners beyond the interest committees, and with those who undertake qualifications and those who deliver them, and on the basis of that previous discussion, I will be happy not to move amendment 9 if the cabinet secretary agrees to take the same approach with amendments 63, 64 and 65.

I suggest to Pam Duncan-Glancy that we take the same approach to amendment 252, so that we can resolve the issue around consultation requirements, responsibilities and encouragement—the nudge that I mentioned previously—in a coherent and consistent manner.

I am grateful to the member for his intervention, and for not making the intervention that was requested by Mr Kerr, because I am about to conclude.

The principle of democratic accountability and the Crown are two somewhat alien and mutually exclusive concepts. In practical terms, however, the point that I am making is not about the institution of the monarchy, but about the head of state. Even a president should not be able to flick through the CVs of potential candidates for chief inspector. Indeed, given that we have—nominally, although I would disagree—a politically neutral and independent head of state in the King, it would be deeply inappropriate if they ever intervened in the process and rejected a nominee that was put forward to them by the Scottish ministers. That would go against the constitutional settlement that we have in the modern United Kingdom, and it would certainly go against the settlement that the monarchy purports to support in respect of neutrality in that regard.

As I said, this set of amendments is really about the principle of efficiency. I do not think that the appointments and oversight process should be done via the Crown, which is symbolically independent but not independent in practice. For it to be genuinely independent, the process would include the possibility of the Crown rejecting proposed appointments that were made by the Scottish ministers, which would violate a pretty core element of our existing constitutional set-up.