Current status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what recent engagement it has had with HM Treasury on reducing VAT charges on (a) general building renovations and conversions and (b) listed building renovations and conversions.
The then Housing Minister, Mr Stewart, wrote to the UK Government in March 2021 to raise this issue, but the response received from HM Treasury suggested this would be prohibitively expensive to VAT receipts. Whilst cost is clearly a consideration, we believe this alone should not dictate policy decisions and that the changes suggested would help communities retain existing - often historic - buildings. This would also contribute towards our net-zero ambitions by reducing the emissions caused by demolition and new construction, which benefits from lower VAT rates.