Seòmar agus comataidhean

There is widespread agreement to much in the bill, such as the expansion of the availability of independent advocacy services, the strengthening of the practical implementation of the Promise and similar points. I, for one, have no insurmountable issues that prevent me from supporting the bill today. However, as always, there are areas in which questions remain, and changes might be made as the bill progresses.

As I am the only member of the Finance and Public Administration Committee who also sits on the Education, Children and Young People Committee following the sad departure of Mr Greer, it falls on me to focus a bit on some of the bill’s financial aspects. There will always be disagreement about the likely costs of expanding the provision of advocacy and aftercare services. The reality is that none of us knows what the uptake of those will be, and we are looking for best estimates rather than exact figures. However, the Education, Children and Young People Committee is looking to the Government for updated costs, particularly on corporate parenting, lifelong advocacy and the extension of aftercare. To be fair to the Government, at least we have estimated costs, which has not always been the case with other bills.

Under aftercare, I am pleased to see that the Government is looking at revising cost estimates in conjunction with Social Work Scotland and COSLA, and I look forward to receiving an update on that.

One area that I focused on when questioning witnesses was profit limitation and the related issue of fostering services having to be charities. I think that we all instinctively feel that excessive profits should not be made on the backs of vulnerable children. However, we do not generally limit profits that are made by other suppliers to the public sector, such as hospital builders, food suppliers and so on—after all, it is all public money.

Then there is the question of how easy it is to measure profit, to which I suggest that the answer is that it is not very easy at all. Companies, especially larger ones, can become adept at moving costs, and therefore moving profits, from one part of the business to another. One young person told us that a senior member of staff at his charitable residential home drove around in a very fancy car. Technically, that would be a cost, not part of the profit. Again, most folk would say that there is a difference between making a reasonable profit and making an excessive profit, as Willie Rennie said. If the private sector is better at keeping costs down, it might be that it can provide a better service than the public sector for the same price and still make a profit.

Young people also made the point that they would not want current satisfactory placements to be disrupted by the new provision. Others suggested that some providers might leave the sector altogether. I wonder how easy ministers will find it to implement the provision. Anyway, to start with, it will just be a question of organisations providing more information, and I have no particular problem with that.

The Government consultation on that aspect only concluded in October, and I understand that the analysis was published on 10 December, which was slightly too late for it to be included in the committee’s report. I note that the public consultation only elicited 31 responses, whereas the engagement sessions had more than 100 participants, so I agree that we need to look at a combination of both exercises. There were clear concerns among participants about the administrative burden.

An interesting point is that perhaps we are seeking to solve a problem that exists in England and Wales but not currently in Scotland. The point was correctly made that money can be extracted from an organisation in a range of ways other than through declared profits, such as directors’ fees and inter-company services. That is why Unison’s suggestion that all providers should be registered charities is a little bit too simplistic, because it still leaves loopholes in place that can be exploited.

The committee expects to see Government amendments to the bill at stage 2, and I note that the minister has said that she is “open to any proposals” and “will consider any amendments”. Given the uncertainty in this area, I tend to agree with her that we should be wary of being too specific in the bill on the details regarding profit limitation.

Somewhat related to that is the issue of whether all fostering services should become charities. Various points were made in that regard, including that doing so might make little difference to the present position and that stability and the quality of placements are more important than charitable status.

On the separate subject of children’s services planning, the debate is about whether integration joint boards should be equal partners with local authorities and health boards. Once again, it strikes me as bizarre that we started with two different bodies being involved in children’s services, we then tried to streamline things by creating IJBs and now we have three bodies instead of two. I hope that Ivan McKee, as the minister for public service reform, will get his axe out and do some chopping of all those public bodies.

Overall, although several issues remain to be resolved, I do not have any problems with the bill as a whole. Unlike on previous occasions, when I may have been the only member to vote against or abstain, I will be happy to support the bill at stage 1 when it comes to the vote.

Some of the young people told us that they had a very good relationship with a social worker, so they might not need quite so much in the way of advocacy. Does Roz McCall agree that there needs to be a bit of flexibility in the system?

I take the member’s point that some fans are responsible, but would he accept that we have a few problems at football with pyrotechnics and people throwing things on to the pitch?

Normally, when we face an emergency, we put aside good things to focus on that emergency. If we really have a housing emergency, should we not set aside some of the expenditure on, for example, roads and put more money into housing?

I thank the minister for being generous with his time. How would he respond to those who say that not all developers are guilty in the use of cladding and that local authorities, manufacturers and others were involved? Should they not be paying part of the costs?

I do not understand that point. Every tax has exemptions. Every measure that we take has exemptions. There will always be special cases and exemptions.

However, in relation to housing funded by local authorities, if we push up the costs of building affordable housing, it ends up being the public purse that has to pay out more grant. Therefore, I welcome the Government’s response to the committee’s report, in which it stated that it wants to

“avoid any circularity in public funding”.

I very much support the fact that the Scottish Government is using primary legislation rather than the secondary legislation approach that has been taken in England. Other features that are probably acceptable include that the scope of the expenditure covers building safety risks more generally, rather than purely the current cladding issue. The uncertainty over the costs—estimated at £1.7 billion to £3.1 billion—is probably acceptable as well.

However, there are other provisions that I have reservations about, including home owners not having to pay anything. That seems at odds with other products or services that we all buy, whereby the purchaser takes on at least some of the risk under the principle of caveat emptor.

I also question the exclusion of hotels. After all, people who stay in hotels tend to be better off, and a few more pounds on their bill would not hurt them. I accept that there may be relatively few large new hotels being built, but every little helps. Therefore, I am not convinced by the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendation in paragraph 112. It says that commercial entities such as hotels are not intended to be covered by the cladding remediation programme. However, the reality is that there is very little link between those paying the levy and those with the cladding problems, so I do not think that that argument holds water.

I also question the use of floor space rather than value. Someone buying a very expensive detached house in a smart area will pay the same as someone paying for a bottom-of-the-range mid-terrace property or flat in a poorer area, because the properties are the same size. I accept that floor space is easier to measure, but I think that that approach is less fair and makes the tax somewhat regressive. Therefore, I am very much in agreement with the committee’s recommendation in paragraph 83 that the Government should consider using market value rather than floor space. I note the Government’s response on Tuesday 6 January, arguing against that. There might be complications, but I think that they can be overcome. The Government reckons that the levy will not be added on to house prices. However, like others, I am sceptical about that.

Whether Revenue Scotland can keep to its usual target of keeping administration costs under 1 per cent also has to be questioned. We know that the set-up costs will be greater, but the levy will be a very small tax in the scheme of things and is therefore potentially inefficient and costly. The recent Government response suggests a 2.7 per cent admin cost. That problem is exacerbated by the uncertainty as to how much tax will be collected, as figures appear to be based on the English model, where there is a very different mix of private and affordable housing.

I remain somewhat unclear whether the Scottish Government intends to match the UK levy rate, as it does with landfill tax and aggregates tax, or whether there would be a higher rate in Scotland if the tax base here turned out to be lower and the £30 million target proved difficult to achieve.

It is interesting to note how often the Government’s response to the committee refers to our system being just like England’s. That is not a normal response for an SNP Scottish Government to make, and it illustrates a key problem with the bill and the levy, which is that the room for manoeuvre that is allowed to us by Westminster is very limited.

I do not particularly like the situation that we find ourselves in. However, the responsible thing to do is to support the bill at stage 1 and, perhaps, to improve it later.

No. I am sorry, but Willie Rennie did not give way to me when I was trying to make a fair point.

No, it is not like me.

Others involved in the cladding problem included architects and local authorities that signed off building warrants. I personally felt that spreading the costs more widely, for example by an increase in corporation tax, might have been fairer. However, clearly, that is outwith the powers of the Scottish Parliament. That there is opposition to the levy from affected developers is clear. However, we have to remember that almost all businesses oppose almost all taxes, and so we should take some of those objections with a pinch of salt.

I welcome a number of features in the bill, including that there can be different rates for different types of land. I would very much agree with any support that we can give to brownfield developments, rather than losing even more ground space, for example around Glasgow. I therefore welcome the assurance that the minister gave the committee that there will be relief for brownfield sites. I also welcome the fact that Revenue Scotland will collect and administer the tax, and that the liability will arise at a later stage compared with England, which will help developers with their cash flow. I agree that not automatically exempting smaller sites is correct, as they could involve high-end properties.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to prevent starvation and suffering among the sheep on St Kilda. (S6O-05339)

The Government states that the cost of the cladding remediation programme is expected to be somewhere between £1.7 billion and £3.1 billion, which is quite a range of possibilities. If £450 million is to be raised over 15 years, which is optimistic, that is only between 15 and 26 per cent of the costs. It would be better to take the whole of that from general taxation.

I accept the point that the process has taken far too long, but it would have been irresponsible to spend the £97 million too quickly. It should be spread over all the buildings that need help and it would have been wrong of the Government to spend it on the first two or three that came along.

With the bill, Westminster has painted the Scottish Government and Parliament into something of a corner. As the minister said in evidence—[Interruption.] As the minister said in evidence, the order in council that devolved the relevant powers to Scotland is narrowly focused on the building standards process.

The Finance and Public Administration Committee heard strong arguments from witnesses that it was unfair to single out developers for the levy when many other businesses had been involved in the cladding problem, including manufacturers of the cladding materials—