Chamber and committees

We have been doing that for the past 90 minutes. How long is a piece of string? Has a date been set for when that will be resolved or will it meander on for weeks, months or even years?

So it is a kind of permanent revolution.

I thank the minister and Laura Parker for their evidence today. We will publish a short report to the Parliament setting out our decision on the draft order in due course.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation has said that the only issue with the SSI is that it is “overly restrictive”, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland is concerned that the Scottish Government is bringing in the SSIs piecemeal. That certainly appears to be the case. ICAS has suggested, as have members of the committee such as Liz Smith, that we should have

“a regular fiscal Bill which allows for a point in time at which all amendments to legislation are carried out rather than undertaking piecemeal changes to tax legislation”.

Would that not be a good way forward given the fact that it looks as though you might have to lodge another SSI to include the Police Authority?

Thank you. John Mason has opted out, so the next member to ask questions will be Liz Smith.

Okay, so that is £7 million a year, in effect.

You talked about complexity, which was one of the issues raised by the Law Society of Scotland. It said:

“The law relating to the ADS is complex and nuanced. We do not consider that the amendments in and of themselves will simplify the law in this area – and in some cases may complicate the position for certain taxpayers depending on their circumstances.”

I am sure that colleagues may wish to give examples of those complications, which are in their papers.

What is your view on that? One would have thought that the whole purpose of this was clarity and simplification, yet the Law Society of Scotland appears to be of the view that the opposite is the case.

Thank you very much for that helpful opening statement. I should have said at the start that we have received apologies from Michael Marra, who is having transport difficulties and will not be here until later. I am afraid that we do not know where Ross Greer is, either, but we still have five members of the committee present.

I want to ask a few questions before I open the discussion to colleagues around the table. First of all, this Scottish statutory instrument appears to have been fairly broadly welcomed, but one or two issues have been raised with us. For example, in relation to the Scottish Police Authority, Police Scotland said:

“Despite acting under a statutory duty [Police and Fire Reform (S) Act 2012]; seeking to comply with the housing standards; and house acquisitions being funded by Scottish Government annual grant in aid, due to the lack of direct connection with housing legislation, no exemption from LBTT or ADS is available to the Scottish Police Authority.”

Why has the SSI not been viewed as an opportunity to change that position?

I will now open up to questions from colleagues.

Indeed. It is just that the word “revolution” evokes chaos and stuff like that, which I am a bit concerned about. I always think that it is a lot easier to reach a goal and complete a task if you have a deadline. If you do not, it is much harder, because there is never any date by which delivery has to happen.

I will allow other members to come in with questions. The first will be Jamie Halcro Johnston, to be followed by Ross Greer.