Item 2 is stage 2 consideration of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill. We are joined by the Deputy First Minister, who is accompanied by Robert Buchan, Willie Ferrie and Greig Walker. I welcome them to the meeting.
Section 1—Land and buildings transaction tax: second homes etc
Amendment 1, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendment 18.
The committee carefully considered a number of calls for relief from the supplement, while cautioning that a preponderance of reliefs could give rise to complexity and opportunities for tax avoidance. In its stage 1 report, having reflected on the written and oral evidence, the committee recommended a relief for purchases of six or more dwellings. In my response to that report, I was pleased to accept the committee’s recommendation, as I am well aware that the assistance that is given to first-time buyers through the introduction of the supplement needs to be balanced with the need to protect investment in the private rented sector. I note that the decision to introduce the relief has been welcomed by the property sector.
Amendment 18 delivers the relief that the committee recommended. Amendment 1 is consequential and inserts a reference to reliefs into the overview paragraph that summarises the content of the new schedule 2A to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013. That reflects the fact that, if amendment 18 is agreed to, there will be provision about the reliefs in schedule 2A.
I move amendment 1.
I welcome the amendments in the group, which reflect the committee’s view. It is clear that the Government has listened to the committee as well as, probably, privately listening to industry. Without the amendments, there would have been a risk to housing supply. I put it on the record that I welcome the amendments.
Does the Deputy First Minister have anything further to add?
I have nothing to add.
Amendment 1 agreed to.
Amendment 2, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendments 4, 5, 9, 13, 15, 16, 21, 22 and 24.
This group is a collection of technical drafting amendments. The bill team has been careful to ensure that the wording in the bill is as clear and consistent as possible in order to minimise the risk of doubts or disputes over interpretation. Amendments 2, 4, 5, 21 and 22 ensure that the bill refers consistently to the dwelling being the subject matter of a transaction, rather than the “main” subject matter of a transaction. In some cases, other property may be involved in addition to the dwelling.
Amendments 13, 15, 16 and 24 are similar. They ensure consistency in references to a dwelling being, or being part of, the subject matter of a transaction or of trust property. Again, other property—in addition to the dwelling—may be involved in some cases.
Amendment 9 clarifies the operation of paragraph 4(3)(b) of proposed schedule 2A to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013. The amendment provides that, when a transaction is a mixed property transaction that contains residential and non-residential elements, the supplement is chargeable to the proportion of the chargeable consideration that is attributable to the dwelling or dwellings.
Amendment 9 has an anti-avoidance function, which is to ensure that any subordinate real rights relating to a dwelling that are acquired along with the dwelling are not artificially severed when people work out how much of the consideration is attributable to acquisition of the dwelling. As I said to the committee in my stage 1 evidence, the Scottish general anti-avoidance rule is on hand to deter and counteract artificial tax avoidance schemes. However, that should go hand in hand with legislation that is as clear and well ordered as possible.
I move amendment 2.
Amendment 2 agreed to.
Amendment 3, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendments 6, 10 to 12 and 33.
Amendments 3 and 6 ensure that only transactions with consideration of £40,000 or more are relevant to proposed new schedule 2A to the 2013 act. The bill includes a £40,000 threshold in relation to the value of properties that are already owned, but the amendments clarify that that is also separately relevant to the chargeable consideration that is paid for the purchase of a dwelling. There are detailed rules for determining chargeable consideration in the existing schedule 2 to the 2013 act.
Amendments 10 to 12 ensure that the £40,000 threshold for the consideration that is paid for the purchase of a property is included as one of the conditions for the purchase of a dwelling when there are joint buyers.
Amendment 33 makes a consequential amendment to the order-making power in paragraph 9(3) of schedule 2, reflecting that there are now three references to the £40,000 figure. We will debate the parliamentary procedure that is applicable to paragraph 9(3) orders separately in one of the later groups.
I move amendment 3.
Amendment 3 agreed to.
Amendment 43, in the name of Gavin Brown, is grouped with amendment 17.
Amendment 43 is an attempt to deal with something that has become known as the accidental second home owner. Where somebody has a simple main residence and they decide to change their main residence, they will be liable to pay the tax if they have not managed to sell by the time they purchase a new property.
A huge number of transactions do not settle on the same day, for a huge number of reasons. Some fall through entirely in the first instance, which can lead to a delay of weeks or months, and some properties simply take longer to sell than was envisaged, given difficult market conditions. The amendment is an attempt to avoid that happening.
I draw members’ attention to the written submission from the Chartered Institute of Taxation, which says:
“the inclusion of reliefs and exemptions should follow the policy objectives.”
The policy objective, as set out in the memorandum from the Government, is clearly not to bring people who are in that category within the realm of the tax, particularly as some of them may be purchasing properties that would otherwise not be subject to land and buildings transaction tax at all because they are under the threshold. All of a sudden, they may have to pay 3 per cent on the entire purchase price.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation goes on to say:
“In addition, consideration should be given to the Adam Smith principles”.
I know that the cabinet secretary, the Government and the committee have attempted to stick to those pretty closely. On the ability to pay, which is the first of those principles, for a number of people, it may be challenging suddenly to find thousands of pounds at short notice to cover the shortfall in the first instance—even if they get that money back, as I am sure they would in most cases—and the requirement is not necessarily linked to the ability to pay.
Gavin Brown said that a significant number of transactions would fall into that category, but when we took evidence at stage 1 we were unable to get any hard data behind what was essentially anecdotal evidence. Can Gavin Brown provide a number? Does he have the data to hand, and can he put it on the record?
No. Mr McDonald raises a perfectly fair point. I did conveyancing for only six months, but from anecdotal evidence it was pretty obvious to me that between 10 and 15 per cent of transactions did not settle on the same day. I emphasise that that is anecdotal. I have formally requested the data that Mr McDonald quite fairly asks for and I was hoping to have it for stage 2, but it is not here—it looks like it will be here for stage 3.
If that anecdotal evidence from my experience is correct and the figure is 10 to 15 per cent, the number will potentially be up to 10,000 transactions, given that there were 99,000 transactions last year, so people in every constituency in the country would be affected. That is not an official figure and I advise everyone to treat it with caution, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if, when the figures come in, the number is of that magnitude.
How would that work in practice? At the moment, it is fairly clear cut, in that people have to pay LBTT. If somebody has to chase 10,000 people—or perhaps even more—60 days afterwards, are we not inviting people to take the opportunity to slip through a loophole and never pay?
I do not think so. I take a more generous view of the taxpayer than the picture that Mr Mason attempts to create.
By their nature, almost all the transactions that we are discussing will involve solicitors to complete the legal procedures, and a limited number of firms are using the system, particularly the online system. Most people will ultimately settle—people do not want to pretend to move house; they actually want to move house—and keeping track of such cases will ultimately be more straightforward.
If my amendment is agreed to, we will avoid the bureaucracy of taking £3,000 here, £10,000 there and £20,000 there into the pot and then having to pay it back a week, a month, nine months or 17 months later. The system that is proposed in the bill is slightly messier than—or at least as messy and complex as—the system that is proposed in amendment 43.
On the principles, LBTT is not linked to the ability to pay. On the principle of certainty, it creates certainty that, if a person does not sell a house in time, they will pay the tax. That is a bit arbitrary, as sellers do not know whether they are definitely going to sell the house on the same day. The approach brings an uncertainty into the tax system.
On the principle of convenience, it is pretty inconvenient suddenly to have to find the money if a house does not sell on time, and as well as all the other stresses and strains that exist, it would be necessary to find some kind of bridging finance. The bureaucracy that was created would be greater than the bureaucracy that would, admittedly, be created with some form of exemption.
There is a personal injustice for those who would have to pay the tax at a time of stress, and there is a degree of bureaucracy. If there is a chain of transactions with each relying on the others to happen on the same day, but one of them falls through and the seller cannot find the £5,000 or £10,000 that will suddenly be needed at short notice and they pull out, what impact will that have on the market as a whole and on the chain?
From a wider, longer-term market perspective, if we end up in a situation in which sellers pretty much have to sell before they can buy, that will be a huge change to the way in which the market has operated in Scotland for decades, if not centuries, and ultimately it will mean a reduced number of transactions. People will be a lot more cautious about moving house.
For all those reasons, the committee reached the view that it did. We did not agree on the timing, so members may not agree with the 60 days that I propose. I have tried to reflect the average time that is taken to sell so that, in most cases, if one transaction falls through, the seller ought still to be able to meet the requirement.
I move amendment 43.
The committee has discussed a grace period and it was one of the main topics of interest in the stage 1 debate. Both the Law Society of Scotland and Revenue Scotland have contributed technical expertise on the matter to assist the Government in its consideration.
Amendment 17 allows for the possibility that a person could claim exemption from the supplement in the initial LBTT return. That may be possible in circumstances in which the sale of the previous main residence is completed before the LBTT return for acquisition of the new main residence has to be submitted. There would therefore be no need for a supplement to be paid. That creates a grace period as part of the transaction.
However, I recognise that that does not provide a solution for all instances in which the purchase of a new dwelling takes place before the sale of an old one, because the purchaser will need to submit the tax return in order to register the title to the property. As I explained in the stage 1 debate, I will monitor the situation for the first six months and decide whether a further relief is required in the form of a grace period. That will give us an opportunity to tabulate the data to make sure that we can have an informed debate about the extent of the issue with which we are wrestling. There is an order-making power in the bill to allow a change to be made by secondary legislation.
09:15Mr Brown’s amendment 43 seeks to amend the bill so that the supplement applies only if, at the end of the 60th day after the effective date of the transaction, the buyer owns more than one dwelling. It is not clear how the amendment is intended to work administratively, as the LBTT return must be submitted within 30 days of the effective date. The 60-day grace period would apply to all cases, which might conflict with the requirement for the return to be submitted within 30 days. The interaction between the two is therefore unclear. The period would apply to all cases and there would be no way of exempting a case.
It is unlikely that the buyer will, on the 60th day, still be a client of the solicitor who submitted the return or have any on-going engagement in that respect. I would therefore have compliance concerns about the obligation to ensure that all issues are resolved satisfactorily. That opens up the possibility of increased costs of compliance and the necessity to pursue potential debt liabilities. One of the founding approaches of Revenue Scotland has been to minimise the available debt approaches.
There is a facility for an individual who inadvertently ends up owning two properties to claw back the supplement if the sale goes through within 18 months of purchase. If there are concerns about the operation of the property market, it strikes me that that protection for individuals is more comprehensive than believing that such issues can be resolved within 60 days, as amendment 43 suggests.
I hope that the committee will take my assurance that amendment 17 allows for a grace period in certain circumstances and that I will monitor the number of cases in which the supplement is repaid shortly after being paid, in order to establish whether a further grace period is required.
On that basis, I ask Gavin Brown not to press amendment 43 and I invite the committee to support my amendment 17.
Technically, there would need to be a change to the return because of amendment 43, but there will have to be a change to it anyway as a consequence of the bill. We do not have a 3 per cent surcharge on all second homes. Changes to the return are not specifically captured in the legislation and can be dealt with by regulatory powers. That is not a huge objection.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation recommended a three-month period, which is longer than the period I am seeking, and it did not see the issue as one that could not be resolved.
The issue can be resolved. The question is whether it is desirable to resolve it. Parliament has to be mindful that there is an obligation in the tax arrangements that we have put in place to collect taxation liabilities timeously. In the LBTT legislation, Parliament decided that collection had to be complete within 30 days, which respects the point about timeous resolution of the issue. That would not be available to us if amendment 43 was agreed to.
I do not accept that that is true. Changes to the return could easily capture that. There could easily be boxes on the return that say, “We are selling our main residence” or “We are purchasing only a main residence. We are not attempting to be a second home owner and it is our intention to pay within 60 days if we have not sold”.
The GAAR that we have set up is pretty wide ranging and there is no huge risk of people slipping through the net. The greater risk is to the property market and the injustice to individuals of having to pay up front, although that might be administratively nicer and I am quite sure that Revenue Scotland would favour that approach.
The cabinet secretary said that the Government has spoken to the Law Society, but in my conversations with the Law Society in the past week, in its evidence and in the draft amendment that it submitted, it does not favour the approach that the Government suggests. Therefore, I do not think that the 30 days is a hurdle that could block my amendment.
I am not sure that I accept, either, that the purchaser would no longer be a client of the solicitor. Ultimately, if people have to pay the money up front and claw it back in the future, many people will require the assistance of a solicitor to do that. I am sure that some people will deal directly with Revenue Scotland but, given that most people are not attached to the online system, they might well use the services of a solicitor to claw the money back. Solicitors are potentially going to be involved in those cases anyway so, again, I am not sure that that is a strong objection to my amendment.
If I got an indication from the Deputy First Minister that he is not against the principle of what I am suggesting and that he is genuinely open to exploring how we can exclude this kind of transaction from the ambit of the tax, I would be prepared not to press my amendment. He is sincere, and if he sincerely wished to explore that and attempt to agree an approach that captures all the risks and makes sure that we do not inadvertently set them up, I would be prepared not to press my amendment.
However, my impression is that he does not accept the principle and he wants to monitor the process for six months. Something that might initially have been an unforeseen consequence is now a foreseen consequence. In the absence of a hint from the Deputy First Minister that he accepts my principle, I press amendment 43.
The question is, that amendment 43 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
There will be a division.
For
Baillie, Jackie (Dumbarton) (Lab)
Brennan, Lesley (North East Scotland) (Lab)
Brown, Gavin (Lothian) (Con)
Against
Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)
McDonald, Mark (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
Urquhart, Jean (Highlands and Islands) (Ind)
The result of the division is: For 3, Against 4, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 43 disagreed to.
Amendments 4 to 6 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
Amendment 7, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendments 8, 14, 25 and 37.
Amendment 8 is the main one in this group. It relates to paragraph 3 of new schedule 2A, which applies to purchases by non-individuals, for example companies, and also to purchases by individuals in certain circumstances, in particular when an individual purchases a dwelling in the course of a business.
The amendment changes the definition of business in that paragraph so that an individual’s business is only relevant to paragraph 3 if it has a sole or main activity of trading in, or investing in, property. Amendment 8 also ensures that the definition covers a business carried on by individuals through a partnership.
Amendment 8, together with amendment 7, also applies paragraph 3 to purchases by individuals acting as trustees, unless the beneficiaries of such trusts have a relevant interest in the property. Amendment 37 provides a definition of what constitutes a case where the beneficiary has a relevant interest—basically, an interest similar to ownership.
The definition inserted by amendment 37 will apply to a number of references in the bill to such beneficiaries and, as a consequence, amendments 14 and 25 take out two existing definitions that are no longer needed.
I move amendment 7.
Amendment 7 agreed to.
Amendments 8 to 18 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
Amendment 19, in the name of the Deputy First Minister is in a group on its own.
Amendment 19 ensures that there is no double counting of properties that are treated as being owned by an individual and those treated as being purchased by a business. The amendment ensures that if the supplement is charged on the purchase of a dwelling because it is made by a business, for example a sole-trader property investment business or partnership, that dwelling is not included as being owned by the individual when that individual purchases a dwelling in their own right.
Amendment 19 also ensures that properties purchased through such businesses elsewhere in the world are similarly not included as being owned by the individual. That reflects the principle of equivalence.
I move amendment 19.
Amendment 19 agreed to.
Amendment 20, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendments 23, 26 to 29, 35 and 36.
The policy for the bill is that to determine whether the supplement applies, it is necessary to count the number of dwellings that are owned by the buyer at the end of the effective date. In many cases that exercise will be simple, as the ownership in question will be a simple ownership in Scotland or elsewhere. However, what counts as ownership is not always straightforward. The key principle underpinning this group of amendments is the principle of equivalence.
Amendment 20 clarifies how the rule about counting only dwellings that are worth £40,000 or more is intended to apply. The subtle change that it makes is that for counting owned properties, one no longer looks to the market value of the dwelling as such; one looks to the market value of the ownership interest. That change takes account of the fact that ownership interests will include equivalent interests that are deemed to be ownership, as we shall see in other amendments in the group. It reflects, for example, that the market value of a 90-year lease will be less than the market value of full ownership.
Amendment 20 also has an anti-avoidance function. It clarifies that the value of subordinate real rights that are attached to an ownership interest are not to be artificially severed so as to take the market value under £40,000.
Amendment 23 ensures that where a dwelling is subject to a bare trust, the beneficiary is treated as the owner. That treats bare trusts in the same way as other similar trust arrangements, under which the beneficiary has a significant interest in a dwelling that forms part of the trust property.
Amendment 26 is a technical drafting amendment for clarity and consistency.
Amendment 27 reflects the principle of no double counting. It clarifies that trustees and executors will not be treated as owning property in their care unless they are the owner for another reason, such as being a relevant beneficiary. It is the counterpart to paragraph 11, which treats the beneficiary as the owner.
Amendment 28 is principally intended to cover leasehold interests in England. The nuance is that it is done by reference to the closest approximation in Scots law—the notion of long leases, which are leases over 20 years. Long residential leases have always been rare in Scots law, and following implementation of the Long Leases (Scotland) Act 2012, they are now very rare. Nonetheless, a handful of long residential leases still exist, so where they exist they will be counted as ownership. That better delivers the principle of equivalence, in that a 90-year residential lease in Scotland and a 90-year leasehold in England—which exists quite commonly—will be treated equivalently.
Amendment 29 delivers equivalence between trust liferents, which are already dealt with under paragraph 11 of proposed schedule 2A, and what are known as “proper liferents” in Scots law.
Amendments 35 and 36 clarify definitions in paragraph 15 that relate to trusts.
Members will have noted the complexities that can arise when less common forms of ownership are an issue. I will ask members to bear that in mind when we debate the group of amendments that concerns delegated powers.
I move amendment 20.
Amendment 20 agreed to.
Amendments 21 to 29 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
Amendment 30, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendments 31 and 32.
The policy for the bill is that the supplement applies when the buyer owns two or more dwellings at the end of the effective date. Often all relevant dwellings will be in Scotland; however, all existing property holdings anywhere in the world are to be counted.
An important principle in the bill is the principle of equivalence—that an interest in a dwelling that is situated outside Scotland should be counted as ownership if the interest is equivalent to ownership in relation to a dwelling that is situated in Scotland. Currently the bill references United Kingdom stamp duty land tax legislation for interest in dwellings that are situated in the rest of the UK. Stakeholders have commented that that approach is not particularly clear, and I accept that.
The amendments in the group adopt a simpler approach that better delivers the principle of equivalence. The test for what counts as ownership of dwellings that are situated outside Scotland will be the same whether the dwellings are in or outside the UK. The test is whether they are equivalent to the Scottish ownership interests as set out in the bill.
In assessing whether an interest in a dwelling outside Scotland is equivalent to an ownership interest, account will also have to be taken of the deemed ownership rules in new schedule 2A for special cases, as discussed in relation to the previous group of amendments.
I move amendment 30.
Amendment 30 agreed to.
Amendments 31 to 33 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
09:30
Amendment 34, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendment 38.
During the stage 1 debate, members raised the challenges of legislating to an expedited timetable, particularly the risks—as they saw them—of unintended consequences. The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013, which the bill will amend, contains a number of delegated powers to ensure that there is flexibility in the LBTT legislation to react to changing circumstances. Those powers allowed for the development, for example, of a targeted sub-sale development relief, which was enacted by order last year. In introducing this bill, I proposed a measured package of delegated powers for the supplement, which are contained in paragraph 14 of proposed schedule 2A. Having reflected on the stage 1 evidence, I consider it appropriate, in the interests of flexibility and future proofing, to propose additional delegated powers to amend certain aspects of proposed schedule 2A. That is what amendment 34 does.
Partnerships and trust arrangements can be complex and can give rise to some of the most difficult aspects of LBTT policy and practice. There are existing regulation-making powers in the 2013 act to amend the LBTT treatment of partnerships and trusts, but they do not extend to schedule 2A for the supplement. Amendment 34 would therefore introduce an equivalent power for schedule 2A, which is consistent with the existing power.
In a previous group, we discussed amendments to part 6 of schedule 2A, to improve and clarify the rules on what counts as ownership. I consider that that is another aspect of schedule 2A where there should be power to adjust the provisions by regulations in the months and years ahead. I have in mind the complexity of some ownership arrangements, particularly cross-border arrangements or arrangements to mask true ownership.
Finally, I propose a power to amend the interpretive paragraph 15, which is consistent with the existing power in the 2013 act allowing for the definition of “dwelling” to be adjusted in other schedules should that prove necessary in future.
Amendment 38 ensures that the regulation-making power inserted by amendment 34 is subject to affirmative procedure, which I consider appropriate given that exercise of the power would affect a taxpayer’s position in terms of their liability to the supplement.
I move amendment 34.
Amendment 34 agreed to.
Amendments 35 to 37 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
Section 1, as amended, agreed to.
Section 2—Consequential amendments
Amendment 38 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
Amendment 39, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is grouped with amendment 41.
The bill includes an order-making power to vary the £40,000 threshold by order. As drafted, that order is subject to negative procedure. The Finance Committee endorsed the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee that the order-making power should be subject to the provisional affirmative procedure. I am persuaded by the arguments that the committees have presented, so amendment 39 is to apply provisional affirmative procedure to the delegated power to modify the £40,000 figure.
Amendment 41 makes a consequential amendment to the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Act 2014.
I move amendment 39.
Amendment 39 agreed to.
Amendment 40, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is in a group on its own.
Amendment 40 is technical in nature. Changes were required to the rules for multiple dwellings relief to ensure that the calculation for that relief still works, given the introduction of the supplement.
No changes have been made to the principles that underpin multiple-dwellings relief. The amendment is required to ensure that the calculation of the relief still works, given that the supplement may be payable on some but not all properties that are subject to a claim for multiple-dwellings relief.
As we have decided to accept the committee’s recommendation on the relief for the purchase of six or more dwellings in one transaction, a further change is required to the rules to ensure that the supplement is not included in the calculation of multiple-dwellings relief for transactions in which the relief for the purchase of six or more dwellings is claimed. Amendment 40 delivers a new method of calculation for all purchases to which the supplement applies and for which multiple-dwellings relief is claimed, as well as changes to the calculation for cases in which the relief for the purchase of six or more dwellings is claimed.
I move amendment 40.
Amendment 40 agreed to.
Amendment 41 moved—[John Swinney]—and agreed to.
Section 2, as amended, agreed to.
Section 3—Transitional provision: application of this Act
Amendment 42, in the name of the Deputy First Minister, is in a group on its own.
It is settled policy that the bill will apply only to transactions with an effective date on or after 1 April 2016. There have been calls for me to delay that date but I have been clear with Parliament that the supplement should come into force as planned to protect first-time buyers from the impacts of higher rates of stamp duty land tax in the rest of the United Kingdom. However, there is a second limb to the transitional policy, which is currently pegged to 16 December 2015—the date on which I made my 2016-17 budget statement and announced the LBTT supplement. That limb requires missives to have been concluded on or after that date.
It has been put to the Scottish Government that some purchases that were agreed in principle before my announcement would not have progressed to conclusion of missives until a short while later and so would be caught. I have sympathy with those cases. I therefore propose changing the conclusion of missives cut-off date to 28 January 2016, which is the date on which the bill and accompanying documents were published.
Therefore, the transitional policy will be that the bill will apply in relation to a chargeable transaction where missives were concluded on or after 28 January 2016 and the effective date of the transaction is on or after 1 April 2016. That will provide fairness for taxpayers while not being so generous that undue opportunities for forestalling become available.
I move amendment 42.
Amendment 42 agreed to.
Section 3, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 4 to 6 agreed to.
Long title agreed to.
That ends stage 2 consideration of the bill. The bill will now be reprinted as amended and will be available in print tomorrow morning. Parliament has already agreed that stage 3 proceedings will take place next Tuesday, 8 March, and that the deadline for lodging stage 3 amendments will be noon this Friday, 4 March.
I suspend the meeting to allow the changeover of officials. We will be back in a couple of minutes.
09:37 Meeting suspended.Next
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