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Does anyone else wish to respond to Willie Coffey’s questions?

Thank you. It is a bit tricky to see, but I do not think that any member wants to come back on anything, so we will move on.

I thank the witnesses for joining us and for bringing their perspectives. Their contributions to our scrutiny sessions have been useful.

I suspend the meeting to allow a changeover of witnesses.

Welcome back. We will now hear from our second panel on the draft Valuation and Rating (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Order 2021. I welcome to the meeting Jonathan Sharma, policy manager for local government finance at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and Kevin Fraser, principal officer for local taxes at Perth and Kinross Council. We will move straight to questions. If our witnesses wish to respond to a question or contribute to the discussion, they should type R in the BlueJeans chat function. The chat function should not be used to write responses to questions, as they will not be recorded.

We are covering a range of themes this morning, starting with the Scottish Government’s rationale for the measures and moving on to principles of taxation. We will then cover parliamentary procedure, workload issues, the impact on local government revenues and other types of support. Some of that may come out earlier in the discussion, but I wanted to give you an overview of what we hope to cover this morning.

I will start with a question that I asked the previous panel. The committee understands that many businesses, particularly small ones, have been hit very hard by the pandemic and that the proposed order might feel like another obstacle to recovery. However, we also understand the Scottish Government’s perspective that market-wide economic changes to rateable values should be considered only at the point of revaluation, to ensure fairness to all ratepayers, not all of whom have the resources to lodge appeals.

Do the witnesses believe that MCC appeals are an appropriate route for supporting businesses in the face of such a widespread impact or would they like to see alternative forms of business support that might be fairer or more effective?

Thank you for that important point. I do not think that anyone else wishes to respond, but, as we have a little bit of time left, I will go back to Alastair Kirkwood, who was cut off in full flow as he was laying a foundation for us. Alastair, do you want to get across anything else that you feel has not come across in the questioning?

I will move on to a question on the principles of taxation, continuing on the theme of fairness. Does the Scottish Government’s proposal to retrospectively rule out appeals on the basis of Covid-19 run counter to the principle of fairness and certainty that underpins the Scottish Government’s approach to taxation, or do you consider the proposal to be justified by the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic? You have kind of touched on that already.

We will move on to theme 3, which is parliamentary procedures. My colleague Paul McLennan will pick that up.

Kevin?

We will move on to theme 5 and questions from Meghan Gallacher.

Item 3 is an opportunity for the committee to take evidence to inform its scrutiny of the draft Valuation and Rating (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Order 2021. This is the second of three sessions that the committee is holding on the order.

This year’s programme for government sets out the intention to introduce primary legislation to prevent the use of the material change of circumstances provision in relation to Covid-19. The secondary legislation on the same matter, which relates only to the period since 1 April 2021, is being considered first, as it can be approved within a shorter timescale. Although today’s discussion focuses on the secondary legislation, the same principles and issues will pertain to the upcoming primary legislation, so it is important that we take the time to fully understand and explore the issue.

I welcome our first panel. David Magor is the chief executive of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation. Martin Clarkson is a member of the business rates working group at the Scottish Property Federation. Pete Wildman is the vice-president of the Scottish Assessors Association, and Alastair Kirkwood is a past president of the association. Charles Golding is a senior specialist in valuation and investment advisory at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

We will move straight to questions. I ask witnesses to please type R in the BlueJeans chat function if they wish to respond to a question or to contribute to the discussion. The chat function should not be used to write responses to questions, as they will not be recorded.

The committee understands that many businesses, particularly small ones, have been very hard hit by the pandemic and that the proposed order might feel like another obstacle to recovery. However, we also understand the Scottish Government’s perspective that market-wide economic changes to rateable values should be considered only at the point of revaluation, to ensure fairness to all ratepayers, not all of whom have the resources to lodge appeals.

Do the witnesses believe that material change of circumstances appeals are an appropriate route for supporting businesses in the face of such a widespread impact, or would they like to see alternative forms of business support that might be fairer or more effective?

The next theme is the principles of taxation, which Martin Clarkson spoke about. To continue with the theme of fairness, does the Scottish Government’s proposal to retrospectively rule out appeals on the basis of Covid-19 run counter to the principles of fairness and certainty that underpin the Scottish Government’s approach to taxation? Is the approach justified by the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic? Alastair Kirkwood has addressed that to some degree.