Chamber and committees

I am sympathetic to that suggestion, but I will leave my colleague Liz Smith to ask you about it, as that is her baby on this committee.

On the actual rate, which you have mentioned, I accept that you are not experts on aggregates, but I note that one of the bill’s aims is to encourage recycling to ensure that we take less out of quarries and reuse things more. Do you think that matching the UK rate is a good idea, or would it be a problem if we did not?

That is helpful. That point is wider than what we are looking at today, but that is interesting. Ms d’Inverno, would you like to come in?

We have not touched on some other things that the Law Society of Scotland suggested with regard to what is not in the bill. I confess that I do not fully understand LBTT group relief and Scottish share pledges. I think that you are looking for amendments or saying that something else could be in the bill. Do you have amendments ready to go that members might be willing to lodge?

The bill seems to me to be quite wide ranging, so I am surprised that anything is ruled out. Fair enough—we can take advice on that.

Is that what the go-live events from 26 January to 26 July are for?

You said that the tax return will be a bit different from the one that is used for the UK system. I think that our tax return is to be more detailed. Will you explain why that is and what will happen?

I am pretty sure that we are all sympathetic to that. In the past, when we have looked at artificial intelligence, we have been given cases in which, sometimes, if there is not enough human oversight, things can get run away with. As I mentioned to the previous panel members, constituents of mine who were a penny short in their council tax have had horrendous letters. Can you give us some assurance that we are not going down that route?

My final point is on a different area. In the Law Society of Scotland’s evidence about group relief and demergers, it said, in effect, that HMRC guidance overrules the strict letter of the law but that

“it has not proved possible for Revenue Scotland to issue guidance which has the same effect as the ... SDLT guidance.”

Can you explain that?

The downside is that the recycling industry is disadvantaged in many ways. There is very little incentive to recycle, because it is cheaper for people just to get stuff out of the quarry.

I accept that—fair enough.

Mr Brown, you have already talked with the convener about certain difficulties with pinning down when the aggregate is actually used, as that could happen somewhere else in the UK or even beyond. Would it have been better to tax things at the source so that it became payable when the stuff was taken out of the ground?