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Good morning and welcome to the 31st meeting in 2019 of the Local Government and Communities Committee. I remind everyone present to turn off their mobile phones. We have received apologies from Kenneth Gibson.
Agenda item 1 is consideration of the draft Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 (Ancillary Provision) Regulations 2019. The committee will take evidence on the instrument, for which I welcome Kevin Stewart, who is the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, and Jean Waddie, who is the planning reform co-ordinator at the Scottish Government.
Thank you, convener, and good morning. The regulations will simply correct some cross-referencing and typographical errors in the 2019 act. They are subject to affirmative procedure because they will amend the text of primary legislation. I will leave it at that.
How often do corrections have to be made to primary legislation?
I cannot answer that question off the top of my head. Ms Waddie has been involved in a number of bills, so she might have an idea in relation to the bills that she has dealt with.
I cannot answer that question. As members know, a lot of changes were made to the Planning (Scotland) Bill. There was a lot of back and forth, so a few things were missed as we went along.
Does the minister accept that, when errors have been made, we should accept them with good grace and deal with them?
Typographical errors should be accepted with good grace. It is somewhat different if huge elements are missing from amendments or if due cognisance is not taken of the unintended consequences of proposals.
I will try to assist Mr Wightman in my role as the convener of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. All such matters come through our committee. To be fair to the Government, the number of mistakes—let us call them that—that we have picked up has been reducing under the watchful eye of Graeme Dey, the Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans, who will appear before the committee very soon.
In fairness to the bill team, who worked exceptionally hard, a number of things came back to us as a result of the huge number of amendments that were agreed to at stage 3 of the Planning (Scotland) Bill, which is now an act. I know that Mr Simpson and his committee keep a close eye on all such matters, but in this case we are talking about a few minor errors.
On that basis, we move to agenda item 2, which is formal consideration of motion S5M-19958. I invite the minister to move the motion.
The committee will report on the instrument in due course. Does the committee agree to delegate authority to me, as convener, to approve a draft report for publication?
Amendment 15, in the name of Andy Wightman, is in a group on its own.
That is a fair point. The intention of amendment 15 is laudable, but the amendment would not realise that intention because—unlike St Mary’s—none of those schools is used “wholly or mainly” for the purpose of musical tuition and students are not selected on the basis of aptitude. There may be a very strong argument for looking at what more we can do to ensure that St Mary’s is more accessible and supporting musical tuition across the state sector. However, the point here is that the local authorities in whose areas each of the four schools is situated would get a tax benefit and it would be up to the local authorities to decide whether that benefit is passed on—we cannot mandate them to do so.
Let us assume for a moment that only those four schools—those four local authorities—would get the financial benefit, and not every local authority that is providing musical tuition. I understand that the cost of giving the relief to St Mary’s would be approximately £30,000, but if the four schools that have been identified were eligible—and there are big questions marks around that—the cost would be approximately £900,000 per annum. The £900,000 would go to the four local authorities, whereas the cost for St Mary’s is £30,000. That is a significant leap in cost.
Amendment 77 not moved.
Amendment 93, in the name of Sarah Boyack, is in a group on its own.
Amendment 95 moved—[Sarah Boyack].
Amendment 40 moved—[Kate Forbes].
Amendment 42, in the name of the minister, is grouped with amendment 43.
At the time of this year’s Scottish budget, the Scottish Government committed to devolving empty property relief in time for the next revaluation. Amendment 42 delivers that by repealing legislation that provides that no rates will be payable on unoccupied lands and heritages. It also repeals a power that allows ministers to prescribe by regulation classes of unoccupied lands and heritage for which such rates are payable.
Although amendment 42 is simple, the implications are significant, both for national non-domestic rates policy and for local empowerment. When the relief is repealed, local authorities will benefit from the cost of empty property relief to the Scottish Government, as they will see an equivalent increase in their revenue funding. The nature of that transfer will be discussed with COSLA nearer the 2022 revaluation, as it is intended that the repeal will have effect from 1 April 2022.
Councils will have full flexibility over how they deploy those extra resources locally. Should they wish to replicate the former national relief, or to introduce any local relief, they have the option to do so using the powers given to them by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. Should they wish to use the resources to support other local priorities, then that is a matter for individual councils, which are accountable to their local electorate.
The reform, along with others agreed in the 2019-20 budget, represents the biggest empowerment of local authorities since devolution—that point might have been more accurate if I had said it last week; until last week, it was the biggest empowerment of local authorities since devolution. I hope that the committee can support amendment 42.
Amendment 43 is a technical amendment: it amends section 12 of the bill to accommodate the changes made by amendment 42.
I support the principle of the proposal in amendment 42, because it is important that rates are paid on unoccupied land. The proposal sits alongside the possibility that local authorities can still grant relief using powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. I note that COSLA has welcomed those powers in line with its aspirations for increased local fiscal empowerment.
However, there is a raft of powers that local authorities need in order to tackle the issue of unoccupied and underutilised land if we are going to see land being used for the benefit of all our communities and to enable wider economic success. One of the financial challenges that councils currently face is investing in regeneration and using compulsory purchase orders, as well as how they prioritise that in relation to other challenges.
It is important to have compulsory sale order powers as part of that range and it needs to be an option that sits alongside amendment 42 and the powers in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. It would be good to have an update from the minister on when she sees such a provision being in place, because I think that the powers would complement each another.
I thank the minister for lodging amendments 42 and 43, which form part of a commitment that was made in budget negotiations between the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Government in January this year to devolve non-domestic empty property relief to local authorities. I welcome the amendments and will support them.
I note Sarah Boyack’s points. Perhaps it would be easier if I come back to her on them later.
Amendment 43 moved—[Kate Forbes]—and agreed to.
Amendment 44, in the name of Kate Forbes, is grouped with amendments 45 to 49.
Section 13 makes changes to the way in which local authorities can recover unpaid non-domestic rates. It aims to bring the enforcement position for non-domestic rates broadly into line with the enforcement position that currently exists under council tax.
The group of minor amendments that are before the committee today flow from discussions with local authority colleagues following the bill’s introduction and they fine tune section 13 of the bill rather than make substantive changes.
Amendment 44 removes the reference to a “demand note”, which may not cover a whole year and which is not essential to the operation of new section 8A(1) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975. Instead, what matters is that the ratepayer has a liability to the local authority and has failed to pay an instalment of that liability.
Amendment 45 recognises that a ratepayer may be liable for the rates for part of the year only, because they occupy the property only for part of a year.
Amendments 47 and 48 amend subsections (4) and (5) respectively of new section 8A to make it clear that, following a default, the ratepayer becomes liable for payment in full of the rates for which they are liable, which may be less than the full rates for the year.
Amendment 46 is a consequential amendment that flows from amendment 44, and amendment 49 is a consequential amendment that flows from amendments 47 and 48.
We are keen to ensure that, as far as is practical, the legislation enables local authorities to administer the non-domestic rates system in a flexible, efficient and effective manner. The amendments in this