Chamber and committees

On the point about council tax specifically, when Government is evaluating the net impact on public finances of any tax change or, in this specific case, the increase to the additional dwelling supplement and the effect that it will have on the housing market, do you take into account, for example, the fact that an owner-occupied house will contribute more because it gets no council tax relief and no NDR relief than it would get for a holiday or short-term let business and so on? Is the cumulative impact on public finances of those taxes that go to national and local government taken into account?

Finally, I want to go back to the convener’s original line of questioning about exemptions from the ADS and LBTT more widely for local authorities and other landlords. During the considerations that you have mentioned in relation to the ADS review, have housing co-operatives been considered as a model of housing ownership that I presume we want to encourage in Scotland but which do not currently have any exemptions or reliefs from either LBTT or the ADS specifically? Have they come under the purview of the ADS review or wider discussions about LBTT policy changes?

They make up a minuscule part at the moment, but if the Government’s policy intent was to increase the proportion of the housing sector that is co-operative, that might be a mechanism through which to do that.

Given that we have some communities in Scotland, particularly coastal and rural communities, in which between a third and a half—and, in a few instances, more than half—of the properties are second or holiday homes, which are therefore unoccupied most of the time, would you acknowledge that, once that proportion of a local community is reached, the net impact on the community is negative? Any economic benefit during tourist season is more than outweighed by the fact that the community is in some cases largely vacant for most of the year.

Without wishing to pre-empt the report, given that there has been consistent, on-going dialogue with survivors, do you have any indication of what the impact has been so far? Has there been feedback that shows a particular trend?

I am sorry to cut across you, Deputy First Minister, but I am conscious of time. I am asking specifically about the organisations that made it clear that they would not contribute unless a waiver was in place. The organisations that were most vocal and were prepared to come to the committee and put their views on record were generally the organisations that were not intent on the waiver being necessary. In a way that was significantly problematic for parliamentary scrutiny, the organisations that did not appear in front of the committee and did not put their views on the record were quite clear, off the record, that they would not contribute without the waiver being in place. Have those organisations contributed?

My last point on that is to ask you, as part of that review process, to ensure that the views of survivors who have chosen not even to begin the application process are taken into account. We can assume, based on the evidence that we took in the first place, that a number of those who decide not even to embark on the process may well do so because the waiver is in place.

Yes, that is a very welcome invitation. Thank you.

You will remember that by far the most controversial element of the proposals in the bill and what is operating in the scheme was the waiver. We all struggled with that, and a number of us came to very different positions on it, despite complete consensus about the broad principles of the bill. Could you talk a bit about the specific arrangements that are in place to ensure that the review will be able to report on the impact the waiver has had? The primary purpose of my amendment was to ensure that we could assess the impact of the waiver.

The core purpose of the waiver, and the argument that was put to us about why the waiver was necessary in the first place, was that it would ensure that certain organisations made a contribution to the scheme and were willing to participate. Have those organisations done so to a satisfactory extent?

Deputy First Minister, you will remember that, during the stage 3 proceedings on the bill, Parliament agreed to my amendment asking for an 18-month review during the scheme’s initial period of operation. Please talk us through the processes that are in place to gather the evidence that that review will require.