Seòmar agus comataidhean

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities to maintain and increase teacher numbers. (S6O-05354)

Minister, you should be looking at where we are now, before considering what will happen in the future. You have not even managed to do what you should be doing for today, far less what you need to do for the future.

We do not need a crystal ball; we need something done to make sure that people are safe and secure today, never mind in the future.

It is welcome that the bill includes an exemption for island developments, because island developers face specific challenges. However, given that many of those challenges also apply to rural areas, it is disappointing that the bill does not contain the same exemptions for them. Scottish Land & Estates has warned that, in its current form, the levy risks increasing the economic decline and depopulation of rural Scotland, which, once again, is not something that we should even be considering. It also highlights that the levy could undermine investor confidence in a “fragile” sector of the housing market.

Homes for Scotland has warned that the levy could mean that more potential rural housing sites become uneconomical, which would lead to higher-margin sites in urban areas being developed instead. Once again, we should not be doing things that could affect our rural economy in ways that detract from what rural areas are trying to do; we should be supporting them.

The minister has said that the inclusion of further exemptions in the bill would mean more of the levy’s impact falling on other areas. However, I would urge the minister to consider the damage that not having an exemption could have on rural development. I believe that the committee’s recommendation of providing an exemption for “remote rural areas” would be helpful as a starting point.

The last thing that Scotland’s housing sector needs is another SNP tax. The Scottish Government says that it accepts the urgency of Scotland’s housing emergency, but current house-building rates are already well below where we need to see them. The levy would risk making the emergency even worse, by hammering investment and house building. That means that the Scottish Conservatives cannot support the bill at stage 1.

All parties in the chamber agree that the existence of dangerous cladding needs to be addressed, but that does not need to happen at the expense of tackling the housing emergency. Instead of inventing another unnecessary tax, the SNP Government should be delivering the required action on cladding that it has been promising for years and ensuring that residents and developers get exactly what they want. Otherwise, the Government is failing to deliver, failing in its responsibilities and failing on the committee’s recommendations. For all of those reasons, I will not be supporting the bill at stage 1.

I am pleased to be able to contribute to the stage 1 debate. As a Parliament, it is right that we consider further measures to tackle dangerous cladding, but the bill before us today creates too many risks for the sector and for house builders at a time when construction is already too slow across Scotland.

All residents deserve to see urgent action on dangerous cladding, to deliver certainty and peace of mind, but for far too long, the public have seen delay and dither from the Scottish Government. Progress on tackling the issue has been slow, despite the SNP receiving funding through Barnett consequentials to address dangerous cladding. There has been some discussion this afternoon about where that money is, how much has been spent and how much is left, but we have not had complete answers on any of that.

We know that few buildings have been assessed for dangerous cladding, and a fifth of the programme’s spending has been on temporary fixes. However, although further progress is clearly needed on the issue, we also know that Scotland is facing a housing emergency crisis.

Social housing completions are at their lowest level since 2017, and private sector completions are at their lowest level since 2018. Although recent house-building statistics have been disappointing, the bill risks making the housing emergency even worse. We should not be considering a bill that could create an even worse housing situation. Not for the first time in this parliamentary session, the SNP Government is introducing primary legislation that would add costs and barriers for developers across Scotland. That is not something that we should be considering.

Homes for Scotland has said that the levy does not reflect the sensitivities of the Scottish housing market, and that it could increase the cost of a new home by up to £3,500. It also warned that, despite affordable housing being exempt from the proposed levy, it will

“not be protected in practice due to interconnectedness between private and social sectors”.

Indeed, numerous stakeholders have warned that a reduction in new housing supply will be likely if the legislation goes forward. Those are risks that we do not want to see.

The bill’s business and regulatory impact assessment made it clear that many stakeholders could not provide a “clear picture” of the costs that the bill would create for them. The BRIA also said that there was “limited evidence” of the potential impacts.

More generally, there are concerns about the lack of data and about how effective the levy would be in improving cladding remediation. We have heard about that already today. Even if the levy raises the £30 million that has been talked about, which is far from certain, that would cover only a small fraction of the total costs.

Despite the issue having been on the Government’s radar for years, the SNP still does not know what the total cost of cladding remediation is likely to be. We are years down the road. The committee heard evidence that the financial memorandum uses “estimates of estimates”. Once again, we still do not have clarity on the actual funding package and its full impact.

Ministers will point to a slight increase, but the reality is that teacher numbers fell in half of Scotland’s local authorities last year, despite repeated promises to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels. With the threat of industrial action looming, what measures can be put in place to restore confidence and teacher numbers as a matter of urgency across all local authorities?

The independent review found Creative Scotland to be overbureaucratic, warned of a lack of transparency surrounding decisions on the use of public funds and highlighted poor leadership. How will the cabinet secretary ensure that the implementation of the recommendations delivers the meaningful reforms that are desperately needed and required?

I am in my last minute.

I want Scotland’s tax system to support growth, reward work and deliver lower bills for Scottish workers. As we have already heard, that would be achieved by cutting Government waste, cutting into the unsustainable benefits bill—which every other party in the Parliament wants to increase—and supporting hard-pressed taxpayers and householders.

I therefore support the motion in the name of Craig Hoy. These are sensible, forward-looking and pragmatic policies that we need in order to support our communities, constituents and businesses.

I am pleased to speak in favour of our motion, which calls for lower bills for workers, who are suffering as a result of the cost of living crisis, and for an end to the SNP’s high-tax agenda.

The devolution of extensive taxation powers to the Scottish Government was an opportunity to create a tax system that supports Scottish businesses, incentivises growth and delivers for the Scottish public. However, it seems that the current SNP Government only ever saw those powers as a chance to hike taxes on hard-pressed Scottish workers. Making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom is hardly a legacy that the Scottish Government would have hoped for, but that is exactly what it has created.

Stakeholders such as Scottish Financial Enterprise and the Confederation of British Industry continue to highlight the impact of those taxes on Scottish businesses. The CBI has said that higher Scottish taxes mean that businesses are struggling to compete for highly skilled staff, and that current income tax policy is acting like a “handbrake” on Scotland’s economic growth.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has called Scotland’s income tax system “unnecessarily complicated”, and that was before the SNP introduced the sixth band to the tax system. IFS analysis also shows that the behavioural changes caused by the tax policy mean that it is unclear how much revenue those changes have raised, and it says that the Government should be open to “reversing course” on its tax policy.

Regardless of what the Scottish Government might say, it is unlikely that it will be changing direction any time soon. Not content with keeping the higher-rate threshold significantly lower than elsewhere in the UK, the SNP raised the higher rate to 41 per cent and then raised it again in 2023. The SNP’s income tax strategy has been a never-ending series of tax rises, with the tax burden creeping up year on year. Scotland is therefore left with a tax system that is too complicated, too damaging to growth and too costly to the taxpayer. The SNP has played this game for many years, and it would be naive to believe that it will stop any time soon.

Our solutions to the problem are clear. We are calling for the SNP to increase income tax thresholds in line with inflation in the forthcoming 2026-27 budget and in future budgets. We also want to see a simpler Scottish income tax system with a single rate of 19 per cent applied up to the higher rate. Those are proportionate and reasonable policies that would bring us towards closing the current tax gap with the rest of the United Kingdom. They would ensure tax cuts—which could be up to £600—for the vast majority of Scottish workers. We should be trying to put more money back into the pockets of hard-pressed Scots and workers in our country to support them.

Our policies would help to undo the damage that the SNP’s high-tax agenda has already done to the Scottish economy. They would also make Scotland an attractive destination for top talent. We should be trying to attract talent, not send it elsewhere, which is what we are doing on a daily basis.

With recent statistics showing that the number of house building completions is at its lowest level since 18 September, it is clear that companies need more support to build the homes that Scotland requires. What action is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that the funding and regulatory certainty that those companies require is being addressed in order to tackle the housing crisis?

I am pleased to contribute to this afternoon’s debate.

Ten years ago, the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 became an important step towards promoting British Sign Language in Scotland and improving the lives of all who depend on BSL. I therefore welcome the inquiry into the 2015 act by the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. I know that BSL users face challenges across many different aspects of society, and it is important that the British Sign Language national plan delivers on the proposals that came from the 2015 act.

The testimony that was received during the committee’s inquiry makes it clear that progress has indeed been made on the issue, and that is to be commended. However, that testimony also made it clear that individuals still face many barriers, for example in relation to access to education, health or employment.

It is unsurprising that education was one of the biggest policy areas that the inquiry looked at, as deaf children still face challenges at every stage of our education system. The committee heard evidence that, although the number of BSL interpreters has increased, they cannot be a replacement for teachers who are native BSL users.

Deaf Links highlighted that there has been

“a dearth of appropriately trained Deaf BSL tutors in Scotland”

for the past 30 years. That is having an impact on the development of BSL users. As the ALLIANCE has stated and as many members have highlighted in the debate, that can have a lifelong impact on individuals.