Chamber and committees

I want to ask a broad question. It is not so much about the content of the bill as it is about the consultation and engagement process. Have you been satisfied with the level of consultation and engagement that you have had with the Scottish Government as the bill has progressed from consultation to introduction, and with the level of influence that you have been able to exert on the proposals within the bill? Perhaps we can start with Stephen Young.

We have touched on the VAT threshold a couple of times. Do you have any information on the number of businesses that operate just below the threshold, so that we would have an idea of the likely impact? Are you able to say what the financial impact on a business being pushed over the VAT threshold is likely to be? I will come to Stacey Dingwall first.

Okay. My next question is around the process of the introduction of a local levy scheme, and whether witnesses agreed with the requirements that are placed on local authorities and the duties that they have before they can introduce a scheme. Those include consultation with local stakeholders, impact assessment at a local level, and the requirement to publicise a scheme and for Government to approve that scheme. Do you agree with those burdens on local authorities? Are those requirements enough, or are they too much? What are your views, generally?

We touched on the issue of VAT with the previous panel, and I want to ask you similar questions. How many of your members are operating at a level of turnover below the VAT threshold, and what would be the indicative costs for them if they were pushed above the threshold by a visitor levy?

Those are really helpful numbers. I want to go back to David Weston. It is anecdotal, but the view of your members is that it would take a 50 per cent increase in turnover just to cover the cost of going over the threshold—turnover would have to increase from £85,000 to £120,000.

I do not know whether Stephen Young or Ben Edgar-Spier want to come in before I move on.

My next question is on the responsibility on local authorities, when they move to introduce a scheme, to do a consultation and an impact assessment, and the responsibility of Government to look at that and approve it or not. Do you feel that those burdens are appropriate, or should they go further? I am asking for people’s general views on local authorities’ responsibilities when they choose to introduce a scheme.

We will support the legislative consent motion, while recognising that the bill legislates in devolved areas. Scotland and Britain need to get building to tackle our housing crisis, and we can see why powers are needed to align planning data and report on environmental outcomes, but the Tories’ bill is desperately lacking in ambition and is as thin as the white paper that came before it.

Planning information must be used to drive improvement, but it will also expose the fact that a decade of Government cuts has hollowed out local authority planning departments. We want planning that delivers more genuinely affordable housing, serves communities well and helps local businesses and town centres to thrive. The bill will not achieve that for Scotland, but the national planning framework does not do that, either.

It is welcome that the UK Government may make planning data regulations only after consulting the Scottish ministers or if they are outside devolved competence, but the bill has been beset by Tory back-bench rebellions and Government U-turns, which ended up in the UK Government ditching mandatory housing targets. In ditching those targets, the Tory Government let the SNP Government off the hook for failing to set its own all-tenure targets, which we desperately need to get back to building the 25,000-plus homes a year that we need.

As with the Government here, the UK Government lacks ambition in its bill’s reform of compulsory purchase rules for England, which will hinder progress on development, on delivering more houses and on bringing empty homes back into use. The measures in the bill will do little to address the deep inequalities that exist in Scotland and in every part of the UK. Major decisions will continue to be made in Whitehall, with communities forced to compete for small pots of money that are handed out by Tory ministers. Many of the poorest areas will miss out entirely, which seems to be a badge of honour for the current Tory Prime Minister. If neither current Government will deliver on the promise to level up the country, Labour will.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. What work has been done in Government to minimise closures of public buildings due to RAAC-related concerns, which we have seen across the local authority estate in the rest of the UK? I am thinking of things such as schools, social work services and one-stop shops. What work is under way to keep those buildings open? Are you aware of any related work across the wider public estate, including in the NHS and general practices?

We heard from the previous panel that the cost of some of those mitigation measures is pretty huge in comparison with potential research that might be undertaken. Rather than having continuous mitigation or monitoring of some buildings, an alternative avenue would be to invest in research to make sure that it is managed at a more appropriate cost level. What work has the Government done on that? Will you reflect on the opinion of the experts on the previous panel on that subject?