 The final item of business this evening is a member's business debate on motion 10348, in the name of Willie Rennie, on consultation on proposed council tax rises. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I invite members wishing to participate, to press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible. I call on Mr Rennie to open the debate around seven minutes. I do not think that I have seen SNP members vacate the chamber as quickly as today, because it is 16 years since the solemn manifesto promise, 16 years of full control over local government taxation, 16 years of talk about reform, 16 years of consultations, working groups, of cross-party talks, of think tanks, of rhetoric, 16 years of waiting, waiting for the abolition of the council tax. Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond told us repeatedly that it was unfair, that it was discredited. They would certainly abolish it, but the SNP Government has morphed from reformers to defenders, defenders of the unfair, discredited council tax. Firstly, they promised to abolish it, then they froze it. Now they are hiking it with the biggest rises ever. The SNP Government plans to increase band E by 7.5 per cent, band F by 12.5 per cent, band G by 17.5 per cent and band H by 22.5 per cent. The average annual increases based on current council tax rates would be around £139, £288, £485 and £781 per dwelling. That would be in addition to any inflation increase, the biggest hikes ever during a cost of living crisis. Now, after years of waiting, they are suddenly in a rush, they want to end by April. I would encourage anyone who has not yet responded to the consultation to make their views known through the Scottish Government's website, because that deadline is tomorrow, the consultation closes tomorrow. One has already responded with this, and he sent me this email today. My wife and I both work in nursing and emergency services and have three children. We work hard and are currently in band F. Already, we have had several increases in council tax. We have already paid more tax compared with those in England, and quite simply, with the cost of living crisis, we cannot afford another increase. He concludes that proposal penalises families who have worked hard to buy a family home and those with several children. If the minister is not going to listen to me, he should certainly listen to my constituent. While higher-income thresholds are more likely to live in bands E to H, a sizable share of lower income households also live in those homes. That means that a number of lower-income people are paying some of the highest council tax rates. In contrast, a third—more than a third, in fact—of the homes occupied by the richest 10 per cent of people are in bands A to D, so people with some of that highest incomes in Scotland are paying the lowest levels of council tax. What also makes it unfair is that it is based on property valuations undertaken in 1991. A system that relies on three-decade-old property valuations can no longer be accepted. I will finish at this point and bring Mr McPherson in, because he is relevant to my next section. A constituent told me yesterday that it seems crazy that people can carry out major works on their property, which in turn increases their house size, but until they sell, they are charged at the old rateable value. With the outdated valuation and its crude targeting of wealth and income, the system continues to be as unfair today as it was in 2007. I will take Mr McPherson. He has talked about the revaluation that is aspired to by many people. Does he agree with me that it is important for us as a body politic, as a Parliament, to get to a position pre-2026 election so that we can have a shared position going into that election? Get a mandate from the people of Scotland for your revaluation and change, because that is what is required. Otherwise, this will just be a political football. Willie Rennie and give you the time back. That is such a timely intervention, because my next part is exactly about that. I have wasted so many hours of my life sitting in cross-party talks about reform. It would go something like this. Mr McPherson will no part of the story, because he was one of the ministers. The minister would say very earnestly that they were serious about change. He would tell us that our ears were wide open, listening to all the other parties and their ideas. We would set out our plans. The minister would thank us profusely, if he remembers this. He would say that he would take away our ideas for analysis and discussion at a future meeting. Then there would be a reshuffle. A new minister would arrive. That minister would tell us very earnestly—in fact, more earnestly than the last minister—that they were listening to and would start the whole exercise all over again, just in time for the next minister to arrive and so on. Not once did a single one of those ministers set out their plans for the abolition of the council tax. Then their latest wheeze arrived—the citizens assembly. The grandly titled bute house agreement promised one. Two years on from that agreement, there is still no sign of the assembly. The citizens have been ignored before they have even taken their seats in the assembly. The SNP just have not broken its abolition promise from 16 years ago, but they have undermined, with those proposals, the very agreement that they reached with the Greens in Bute House, so much for the grand talk of a participative democracy from the Greens. They should be—I am surprised that they are not here—standing up to the SNP to defend democracy, not meekly following in their footsteps. From the various working groups, consultations and talks, and now the assembly, it is almost as if the SNP never had any intention of doing something serious about proper reform. We have been clear—and Mr MacPherson has heard this—what we want to see. For some years now, we have been making the case for land value taxation, a new tax on the value of land rather than the infrastructure on it. That is what we propose. The Scottish Land Commission says that land is the most valuable asset in the UK. Oxfam said that taxing it could address the rising inequalities while reducing the role of land assets in the accumulation of wealth. That is not what today is about. Today is about the reforms that the SNP is proposing, which are well short of abolition that entrench the current system. What we are wanting is for the SNP to stop footering around, to scrap the tax hikes, and to deliver the promise that was promised 16 years ago. John Mason, to be followed by Liz Smith, is around four minutes. Thank you very much. I thank Willie Rennie as well for bringing this debate today. My starting point would be that this country, be that Scotland or the UK, is not raising enough in taxation for the public services that we want and need. Other major European countries have a higher tax to GDP ratio by about 7 per cent. I would argue that we should be looking more to the European model of realistic tax levels rather than the UK model of low taxes and poorer public services. The next question is how to raise more tax. New taxes might take six years or so to set up and introduce, as we heard at the finance committee this morning. We would probably need Westminster agreement, so our options for raising tax and protecting public expenditure are limited. Therefore, tweaking existing taxes is the obvious thing to do in the short term. We have done that with income tax to a fair extent, so council tax has to be another option. Reflecting on the same evidence, would the member not agree that the Fraser of Allander institute was very clear that, essentially, he did not want to see more proposals like this until this Government can actually bring itself to reform the council tax, by being a property-based tax that can tax a form of wealth? Do that first and show us that you have the ability and the political will to make it happen, is there submission? I think that one of the reasons that this has not been changed so far is that there has not been agreement within the Parliament. I think that it would be ideally, if not all the parties but at least most of the parties would agree that either we are using LVT, as Mr Rennie has suggested, or we are using local income tax or we are using property tax. I think that for the SNP, which is a minority Government, to try and impose its view, it would not be a very wise course to go down. As we said, council tax replaced community charge or, as it was known, poll tax, which did not even pretend to be progressive. However, council tax is not progressive by most definitions. In the area where I live, most properties are band B, valued about £75,000, whereas a property costing £10 times that, at £750,000, would be in band H. Even that proposed change, if it was right up to band H, would pay less than four times as much council tax for a property that is worth 10 times the value, so even with those changes, council tax remains regressive. Therefore, I do very much support this proposal to change the top bands and make the system a bit fairer and a bit better. Willie Rennie suggests that the cost of living crisis is not the right time to do this. However, it is because of the cost of living crisis that we need to do something like this now. We face a fairly stark choice. Either we raise more in revenues or we have to make serious cuts to local government and other funding and expenditure. I think that Willie Rennie probably understands that, but it is disappointing that he does not mention it, that if those proposals do not go ahead, there will be cuts to local services. John Mason agrees that perhaps it would be a good idea if the Scottish Government looked at efficiency savings. Does he agree that efficiency savings might have any place in the Scottish Government's financial planning? John Mason has been watching the finance committee. As Ms Smith would be able to update him, we have also been looking at public service reform. That is absolutely something that we should be looking at and there is a whole range of suggestions around that. However, we are going to have to do something for the budget 24-25, and we are probably not going to make much out of efficiency savings by changing the public sector before that time. Moving on to council tax more generally, the fact that we are still using 1991 valuations is clearly a major disadvantage, as Willie Rennie rightly said. People do not understand it and it is inherently unfair. Again, we heard at the finance committee this morning that it is reckoned that 50 per cent of properties in England are in the wrong band, some too low and some too high. I do not think that we have equivalent figures for Scotland, but clearly some properties in Scotland have risen in value proportionately much more than others since 1991, so at least a revaluation would make things fairer. I realise that such a revaluation could be unpopular for those who would pay more, but we cannot put that off forever. Either we need a revaluation or we need a new tax. As the motion says, we all wanted to replace council tax some time ago, the problem being that we have not got any agreement as to what the replacement tax should be. The SNP's previous intention of having a local income tax is probably not practicable and would not be operated by HMRC. Land valuation tax is not well understood and there are potential major drawbacks such as former council housing with very large gardens, so my personal preference is probably for a property tax based on current value. If someone has limited income but a high value property then it should be possible to roll over the tax liability until a property is disposed of. I do think that there is a bit of inconsistency in the motion. It suggests that the proposals go too far and at the same time actually says that it wants changes to go further by replacing council tax, so I think that the Lib Dems need to decide what they want, a more progressive system or not, protecting public services or not. Therefore, all in all, I do not support Willie Rennie's motion and I look forward to the results of the consultation and what will come from that. I greatly welcome this debate. Willie Rennie is absolutely spot on with what he said and enjoyed his humour about the U-turns and other U-turns that the SNP has undertaken in recent years. The reason that I am pleased to be taking part in this is that there is no doubt whatsoever that this is a huge issue, certainly in mid Scotland and Fife that I represent, but it is a huge issue right across Scotland because this is coming at a time when people in Scotland are already being asked to pay higher income tax or more people because of fiscal drag who are being taken into higher rates. SNP Greens have been talking about a wealth tax that they would try to levy on a local basis. That could not be the worst possible news for so many people across Scotland. Willie Rennie is absolutely right with the statistics that he has set out about the difficulties that it is going to place on so many people. When the consultation finishes tomorrow and we see the results, the Scottish Government will get a big shock about just how deeply unpopular this whole thing is. Mr Mason mentioned the finance committee and he is absolutely right about some of the warnings that we have been getting from the finance committee about how we are able to try to raise more tax but to avoid the burden of that tax having serious implications on behaviour. The Scottish Government seems to be suggesting that it is going to try to exempt some of the lower income properties in the higher bands from the proposed increase. However, that does not fit with what the facts are on the ground. In fact, there are something like 108,000 households in the poorest 30 per cent of Scots who live in band E or above properties of whom just 23,000 of those households are receiving a council tax reduction. Obviously, that leaves between 80,000 and 85,000 vulnerable to the increase. That is a huge number of people. Of course, this is at all the other times when we have SNP Greens talking about very considerable increases to the tax burden in Scotland. I think that that is something that not only does it have considerable implications for the households that are being asked to pay those tax increases, but the whole aspect of that is just so complex that it is going to turn out to be unworkable. As Willie Rennie and Mr Mason have rightly said, it is just inconceivable that we could be going ahead with this with the property ratings from 1991. That just does not make any sense whatsoever. As we know, both the Audit Office and Reform Scotland have called on the Scottish Government to finalise a new deal for local government. I think that there is some truth in that, but about setting up a new partnership agreement with councils that supports a collaboration alongside a fiscal framework for local government. I have a lot of sympathy for that ambition, but it has to be on perhaps a three-year, maybe even five-year basis to ensure that we have sustainable funding and greater financial flexibility and transparency, because there is no doubt whatsoever that the local authorities across Scotland have been suffering really badly because of the consistent cuts that they have had to put up with for a long period of time, and therefore they feel so vulnerable in all of this proposed change. In conclusion, we have yet another SNP proposal that is ill-thought-through. I really do not think that the Scottish Government has thought about the ramifications of this. I certainly do not think that it has thought carefully about who is going to end up paying this. As I say, when the consultation results come out, I think that the Scottish Government is going to have to have a major rethink. I thank Willie Rennie for securing this debate. Scottish Labour shares his frustration at the 16 years of failed promises from the SNP on council tax. It is perhaps even slightly unfair on the current minister or a predecessor that people of longer strike than I in this Parliament have been over this course many occasions, and the Government has been found wanting, so that some level of cynicism brought to the conversation is fair to say, but a hard one has been. A panel of academics, already referenced by colleagues, appeared before the Finance Committee this very morning, and they were candid in their assessment of the glacial pace at which any changes on council tax have taken place. Ludicrous was the word that they used regarding the fact that those proposals are being brought forward using 1991 valuations. I will make some progress and maybe bring Mr McPherson back in. In response to the consultation, Reform Scotland described the proposals as little more than tinkering round the edges. Rightly so, because what the consultation proposes is, frankly, just a mere rehash of the 2017 increases. It is from this Government that is not and never has been genuinely interested in the hard work of reform, whether it be in our taxes or our public services. That is predictably a mess of the SNP's own making. It was their council tax freeze that starved local government of resource for a decade, has left councils hobbled and services and decline workers underpaid, and citizens increasingly at risk. Of course, it worked well for their election prospects, but let's not pretend that it was progressive. Further freeze was obviously dangled as an incentive in early 2021, only to be abandoned later in the same year. It's pretty clear that nationalist populism as pursued by the SNP has very real consequences. In the worst cost of living crisis in decades, it is now asking ordinary households to pick up the bill. I recall a recent visit by the finance committee to Largs for an evidence gathering session on pre-budget scrutiny. I have to say the response from the group that I was chairing, community activists, at the thought of paying more council tax at this moment in time. They were apoplectic at the very thought of it. Analysis by Scottish Labour estimates that up to 85,000 low-income households could be hit by the proposals that the SNP has brought forward. Liz Smith and Willie Rennie have also set out quite clearly the inequity of the proposals that have been put forward, but I think that those 85,000 low-income households are particularly going to feel the brunt of it. What we do need is a Government that is honest about the mess that it has made and what it is going to do about it. The amount of money that might be raised by those council tax variations is £175 million, I believe, that has been set out. That is before again set out at the finance committee this morning and any adjustments that are made to those lower fixed-income households or to councils that might lose out disproportionately on the budget as a result of the banding of households in their own areas. I remind the chamber that the black hole is £1.9 billion. Much noise has been made by the SNP about a range of taxes, including a wealth tax. Witnesses, again, the Finance Committee all agreed that introducing a new tax is a long and complex process. Example was given of establishing a social security benefit taking up to six years. We might reflect that that is a benefit rather than a tax, and the willing participation of citizens in providing the information that is required is more likely for the former rather than the latter. Given that the SNP has already taken 16 years to not reform council tax, a tax that already exists, the Fraser of Alamder Institute has been very clear that it is deeply sceptical about the Government's capacity to introduce and successfully administer an entirely new tax, timuously enough to address that £1.9 billion back-black hole that the Government has created in our public finances. Whether it be council tax, income tax or the distant prospect of a wealth tax, the SNP, I do not believe, can tax its way out of the mess that it has made, and the people of Scotland are not going to bail them out this time. Michael Marra is right, of course, the nationalist populism that we have been exposed to for the last 16 years has now well and truly hit the buffers. I was a little surprised that my friend Willie Rennie being so surprised that the only thing that the SNP has left in the locker is that we have higher taxes, because that is the characteristic of this SNP Government. They reach for higher taxes. Let's not talk about efficiencies, let's not talk about savings that can be made in government. They are there to be seen and the public know it, but this Government reaches for more taxes, higher taxes, different taxes, incredible tax burdens on the people of Scotland. Then they wonder why it is that when net migration in this country for the last two years will be in excess of £1.2 million that people don't come here, people with skills, people that can make a contribution to our country, they don't come. Perhaps we need to look at ourselves and perhaps this Government and its ministers who have run completely out of ideas now. This is a Government that isn't even running on fumes anymore when it comes to ideas. Yes, of course. Tom Mason. I thank the member for giving way. Would you agree with my point that the UK, including Scotland, is paying less in proportion of GDP and tax compared to other European countries? I am embarrassed to say this, by the way, as a Conservative. We have the highest tax burden in this country in 80 years. That is not a recipe for economic growth and prosperity, that is in fact a recipe for the very opposite of what I think we all want to see happen in our country, which is economic growth and prosperity and shared prosperity. The council tax provides 19 per cent of council funding. It raises £2.6 billion to pay for services at local level, but the thing that needs to be emphasised in relation to local government in this debate is that councils in Scotland, the right across Scotland, are now having to deal with the toughest set of budget decisions that they have ever had to make. That rests on the back of the failure of the Scottish Government, the SNP Scottish Government, who have been a Government for 16 years, who have centralised and ring-fenced to their arts content. That is all coming home to roost now in terms of the fact that the councils that they have deliberately and by design underfunded and defunded for the last decade are now struggling even to cover the costs of basic services. In Falkirk, in my constituency, we see dramatic reductions in bus services, vital bus services, closure of swimming pools, charges for garden waste going up, and many of our authorities in Scotland are at risk of bankruptcy. Indeed, many of them have started spending reserves on current expenditure, meaning that they are approaching insolvency. Let's be clear that there will be no section 114 orders as in Birmingham. There won't be any appointments of commissioners because the legislation in Scotland does not allow for that. So let's hear no self-congratulation about or back slapping about the health of local government born from ignorance of Scotland's legislation. The starving of resources from local government has been a feature, indeed, of principal plank of this Government's approach to local democracy, and they have so many allegedly bright ideas that they then provide no funding for. They expect the word to be done without any idea of how much it will cost or who will pay for it, whether it be a bern's hoose or a thousand extra childminders. These nationally made commitments by nationalist ministers are plonked on the doorstep of local councils with no money to pay for anything. To the reform, as it is laughingly called, of council tax, because trying to squeeze ever higher amounts of money out of people who already will pay more than their fair share has, frankly, no justification. That is tinkering. I hope that that is at the right juncture, Mr Kerr's speech. Similarly to what I asked Mr Rennie, the Conservative Party was not participative in considerations around reform of the council tax previously. Would the Conservative Party be open minded about that ahead of a 2026 election so that we can have a shared position across the parties? Conservative Party is continually reviewing our policies in relation to how we raise money to fund local government, and, of course, we will be willing participants in any discussions in this Parliament and in any cross-party setting to that end, but let's not get into this. I wouldn't want Ben Macpherson, who I actually have a lot of respect for. I wouldn't want him to think that somehow that what hasn't happened for the last 16 years under his government is suddenly going to happen in the next few weeks leading up to the deadline that he has suggested that we all work towards. I am getting a signal from the Prime Minister quite rightly that I have gone over my time. I will simply say this to the minister to start the process of real local government reform at all, branch, and let's just face the reality. Local government in our country is in decline. Local democracy is struggling, and services are at breaking point. This is a system that needs reform, not another tinkering attempt. It is a thinly disguised tax increase. I was trying to be as discreet as possible. I now call on Tom Arthur to respond to the debate minister for around seven minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I begin by thanking Willie Rennie and indeed congratulating him on securing this debate, and I thank all members for their contributions. I think that it's been a very useful debate in giving people the opportunity to air their views, and I reiterate the points that Willie Rennie made, which is encouraging anyone who has not yet responded to the consultation to do so tomorrow. Indeed, to express my thanks and sincere gratitude to all who have responded to the consultation today, and to express my thanks to those members who have written to me expressing views that have been shared with them by their constituents. That is the purpose of the consultation. It is an opportunity to seek views. I stress that the consultation is a joint consultation with local government, a consultation that has a mandate from COSLA, as well as the Scottish Government. It is the second consultation that we have undertaken looking at aspects of reform of the existing system of council tax. Previously, we had a consultation on the premiums that could be charged for second properties, and we have announced the programme for government that we will be taking forward that power to allow local authorities that discretion to charge up to 100 per cent premium on second homes. That reflects the nature of the origin of that work, which is the joint working group on local government, the sources of funding for local government. One moment, please, if I can just make this point. This reflects the origin of this consultation. It is the joint working group on sources of local funding and council tax reform. Just to provide some context, we have two aspects to this work. One is looking at what meaningful changes we can make to the existing system of council tax, i.e. things that can be achieved in the short term. The second aspect, which includes the element of working to deliberative processes to engage more of the public, is what we will take forward to look at potentially more fundamental reform or, indeed, replacement of the council tax. What I want to be very clear on before I give way to Ms Bailey is that the consultation that has been undertaken at the moment is still, for the next 24 hours or so, a live consultation. I want to assure anyone who has responded to the consultation, who has taken an interest in it, and indeed all members in this chamber, that no decisions have been taken and we will very carefully reflect upon the responses and, indeed, the third party analysis that is undertaken. I am happy to give way. Presiding Officer, the benefit of being around for a long time, as you remember things, is that I remember Marko Biagi, local government minister between 2014 and 2016, who set up a commission on local government finance. It was cross-party, indeed, I served in it. We came up with solutions that the Scottish Government then published in a glossy report. Why the SNP bottled it and failed to deliver change? I am sure that Jackie Baillie has a long memory issue. We called the commission and the review of council tax that was undertaken in the dying days of the Labour Liberal Administration. Of course, it was then reported that it had been rejected prior to its publication, but on the specific point around the local commission it did not settle on a specific replacement for council tax. We had an election in 2016 and I recall that in March of 2016, Jackie Baillie, a press release from the Labour Party, said exactly what Jackie Baillie has just said a few moments ago. There was an election, manifestos were set out, the people of Scotland made their views clear in that election and we delivered upon what we had set out. We would do with regard to council tax in the previous session of Parliament. My predecessor as public finance minister, Ben Macpherson, had of course been engaged in cross-party talks and engagement. Those were interrupted by the pandemic, so that is in regard to the history of how we got to this particular set of circumstances. In terms of what we are doing looking to the future, we are taking this joint approach with local government. That is important because I think that in looking at local sources of taxation, local sources of funding, local taxation, it is something that we have to come to a position that we assured position with local government, something that we do with local government. That is why it is so important that we go through the process of the joint working group. It is also important to see that it is not in isolation. This particular consultation is part of a wider series of work that has been undertaken as part of the joint working group. There is the introduction of the visitor levy bill, which would represent probably the greatest fiscal empowerment for local government since devolution. Of course, we are committed to engaging deliberatively with the wider public as we take this work forward. As I have said already, my door is in previous occasions, my door is always open to engaging with any member on matters of local taxation or any other matter that falls within my portfolio of responsibilities. Mr Kerr touched on the matter of local governance and reform of local government. I was very pleased to jointly launch the second stage of the local governance review with COSLA last month. That is now work that has been undertaken across Scotland. We are continuing with our review of the community empowerment act. We will be publishing the consultation analysis of the community wealth building consultation later in the autumn. Of course, we are working on delivering the new deal through the verity house agreement that we agreed with local government, including that fiscal framework. There is a broad range of work going on, but what has been reflected in some of the contributions from the chamber in the past hour or so is that there has been no consensus on what significant reform or replacement of the council tax looks like. Members will offer various ideas but we have not arrived at a consensus. It is a very important point that Mr Macpherson raises. I am committed to working in partnership with local government to identify a way forward to see whether we can build consensus and recognise what various views are, what some of the challenges are and what are some of the opportunities. I am also fundamentally recognising the significant contribution that council tax makes towards vital local public services. I am happy to give way. I am grateful to the minister for giving way. There are two issues here. The first is about how you raise the money that you claim is necessary. The second is about reforming council tax so that it is more efficient in the future. I am glad to hear that nothing has been decided, because when the results come in, there will be considerable amount of criticism about the proposals. Would the minister accept that, with hindsight, it was not a sensible idea to freeze council tax for such a long period of time? That took away the ability of councils to be able to pull in the money that they needed at an earlier stage, which would have avoided some of the difficulties that we have got just now? I think that there has to be a recognition with regards to what the prospectus was that this Government was elected on in 2011, and indeed the Labour Party position in the 2011 election, which they thought regarded themselves as being in contention to win until quite late on, set out a proposal for a council tax freeze as well. I think that what that ultimately was a reflection of was at a time of recession and significant economic hardship coming out of the great financial crash. One of the few powers that we had at our disposal through the taxation system to help to support communities and individual households was the council tax freeze, which is something that was implemented. Of course, councils since 2016 have had the ability to vary the council tax rate and have had that full discretion since the last budget. I am conscious that I am at the end of my time, but I would just want to reiterate that this consultation is still live, and there have been no decisions taken. I am grateful to those who have responded, and anyone who does take an interest in this and has not yet responded, I would encourage them to do so.