Chamber and committees

So, the idea of using turnover should continue. If you were to reduce the poundage—

Good morning, panel. To follow on from Murdo Fraser’s question, the impact of the budget was hugely deflating for many businesses in the south of Scotland. Hospitality businesses were looking for that additional rates relief. The concerns over that are obviously well documented. What may not be as well documented, though, are the wider issues around business rates, which I know that you have strong views on. Leon Thompson touched on that at the beginning when he said that turnover has risen among a lot of businesses, which is positive, but not to the same scale as costs—energy costs, staff costs and everything else—have risen, so profit margins have fallen. Obviously, that has a big impact on business rates, given that we calculate business rates for hospitality on the basis of turnover. Given those issues, can you say a little bit more about what the sector is looking for from the wider reform of business rates?

That is helpful. The convener will not let me carry out a full review of business rates at the moment, but, Colin, you have lots of ideas, according to Leon—[Laughter.]—about how we can change things. Do you want to share some of them?

That is a very interesting point. A business across from my office showed me its accounts. Its turnover was going like that, and profits were going like this, but business rates were also going like that. Sorry, you will not be able to show that in the Official Report—[Laughter.] For the record, I was making signs with my hands to show that turnover was rising and profit was going down but business rates were rising. There is clearly something wrong with the way in which we calculate them. I do not know whether Marc Crothall wants to add anything to that from around the sector.

You mentioned that you feel that there is a lack of respect from Government. The one chink of light in the budget may well have been a commitment to review how we calculate business rates for hospitality. Have you been contacted by the Government on that review? Do you know what the timescale is, given the urgency of the issue? You may want to come back on that one. Marc, is there anything that you want to add about other parts of the tourism sector?

Thank you for that, minister.

One of the challenges that the committee has had is in fully assessing the likely impact on jobs should the refinery close in spring 2025. It has been suggested that there will be a net loss of 400 direct jobs, but it is clear that the potential job losses will include indirect, supply chain jobs, particularly in the local area. Does the UK Government have clear figures for how many direct jobs and, crucially, indirect jobs are likely to be lost if the refinery closes in spring 2025?

Crucially, many of the opportunities that you talk about are in offshore wind, for example. You talked about Robert Gordon University in the north-east of Scotland. What is the UK Government able to do to ensure that those opportunities in the Grangemouth area exist for the workforce, particularly the supply chain workers in the local community? With the best will in the world, a transition should not be about workers having to leave their communities to find opportunities. We should be trying to create those opportunities in their local communities.

Good morning, minister. I want to follow up on the point about when the UK Government was first made aware of concerns about the future of the refinery. It has been suggested in recent days that, two years ago, the Scottish Government held talks with Petroineos in which the then Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, Michael Matheson, was warned of the refinery’s potential closure because of the market pressures that the company faced. Is it therefore fair to say that the UK Government was aware two years ago of the potential closure of the refinery because of market pressures and the direction of travel that we are following for the energy transition?

It seems strange that, if we are trying to support the company and the community to transition, we do not really have a full grasp of the number of jobs that we need to support. Are you confident that the new opportunities in the energy sector will be available in time to allow the workforce—whatever the number of people in supply and direct jobs is—to transition to new opportunities in the Grangemouth area?

On the issue of skills, during the committee’s evidence taking, we heard criticism from the Just Transition Partnership that a skills passport has not been delivered despite its having been committed to in 2021. Why has progress towards delivering the skills passport stalled? When can workers expect to see it delivered?

Is the end of March a target for introducing a skills passport or simply for reporting back on the work?