 yn bwysig hwnnw, ac mae Llyfrgell Gwaith yn ddaig yng Nghymru yng Nghymru ar gyfer Llyfrgell heatedrach mwyoedd. Those are questions. The next item of business is a debate in motion number 10079 in the name of John Swin in the revenue squat on the tax power bills. Members wish to speak in the debate at suppressor request to speak one now. I just say to members at the outset we are extremely tight for time all afternoon. So I now call on John Swinny to speak to move to the most Felly, mae'r Rhefnwys Scotland a Tax Powers Bill yw'r third of three Scottish tax bills that have been brought forward in the present Parliament. The first two land and buildings transaction tax Scotland Act 2013 and the landfill tax Scotland Act 2014 are now on the statute book. The Rhefnwys Scotland and Tax Powers Bill, which we are considering today, has two main purposes. First, it establishes Rhefnwys Scotland as the tax authority that will be responsible for the collection and the management of the two devolved taxes when they come into operation on 1 April 2015. Second, it sets out in one place the statutory framework within which Rhefnwys Scotland will operate. That includes the constitution of Rhefnwys Scotland, the relationship between the taxpayer and the tax authority, Rhefnwys Scotland's investigation and enforcement powers and the new two-tier Scottish tax tribunals to hear appeals against decisions taken by Rhefnwys Scotland. It also includes a robust and distinctive approach to tackling tax avoidance, about which I will say more in a few moments. All of the provisions in the bill are designed to facilitate the collection and the management of the two devolved taxes for which the Scottish Parliament will become responsible on 1 April 2015. In the process, we are also putting in place an overarching statutory framework that could readily be adapted in the event of this Parliament taking on responsibility for further tax powers in due course. It is therefore very important that we get this bill correct. I am grateful for the very detailed and thoughtful scrutiny that the finance committee has given to the bill during the stage 1 process. The committee took in evidence from a wide range of expert witnesses, from the legal and tax professions among others, and a number of very eminent academics such as Professor James Merleys. The committee's report is extremely helpful and its conclusions and recommendations will allow us to improve the bill at stage 2. I am struck at the wide degree of consensus across the political spectrum about the approach that we propose to adopt to the collection and the management of devolved taxes and also to combating tax avoidance as vigorously and effectively as possible. With that in mind, I would like to address some of the issues that the committee highlighted in its report. Part 2 of the bill provides for the establishment of Revenue Scotland as an office holder in the Scottish Administration, which means that it will be directly accountable to the Parliament, not ministers. The bill sets out Revenue Scotland's statutory functions and in doing so puts an emphasis on providing a service to taxpayers as well as collecting the devolved taxes. It also places a duty on Revenue Scotland to prepare and publish a charter setting out the standards of behaviour and values that will be expected of taxpayers and which taxpayers can expect in turn of Revenue Scotland. As recommended by the committee, I propose to bring forward amendments at stage 2 to require Revenue Scotland to consult on the terms of the charter and any revisions that are required to be made and also to underline that we intend the obligations as between the taxpayer and the tax authority to be matching and reciprocal. A particular issue that I know the committee considers is whether the chief executive of Revenue Scotland should also be a member of its board. As the bill stands, the chief executive is not to be a board member because it is, in my view, the board's responsibility to hold the chief executive to account. However, I know that there are different views on this and different models for the operation of such boards. If there was a consensus that the board would operate more effectively if the chief executive was a member, I would be happy to bring forward amendments to that effect. I look forward to listening to the perspectives and the points made by members as part of the debate today and during stage 2. Part 4 of the bill establishes the tax tribunals that will comprise a first tier and an upper tier under the leadership of a president. As colleagues will be aware, the Parliament has recently passed the Tribunals Scotland Act 2014, which paves the way for the establishment of the new unified Scottish Tribunals. The attention is that, in due course, the tax tribunals will become part of the new unified Scottish Tribunals. However, it is necessary to have arrangements in place to hear appeals about the devolved taxes from 1 April 2015, and therefore we need to establish self-standing tax tribunals for an interim period until the new unified arrangements are fully operational. Part 5 of the bill sets out a new general anti-avoidance rule, the GAR. I have been very clear that we intend to take the toughest possible approach to tax avoidance in relation to any devolved taxes, and I should emphasise immediately that I mean tax avoidance and not just the more extreme cases of abuse which are covered by the UK GAR. I am very pleased that the robust approach that we have adopted was unanimously endorsed by the French Committee. It is important that this Parliament sends out a stronger signal as possible that artificial tax avoidance is not acceptable behaviour and that effective action will be taken to counteract any such schemes that are presented. With that in mind, the GAR set out in part 5 of the bill provides power for revenue Scotland to take robust counteraction against artificial tax avoidance schemes. The bill provides two separate definitions of artificiality, condition A and condition B, and to make sure that our approach is as wide-ranging and as comprehensive as it possibly can be. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. In order that I can fully understand what is intended by the general anti-avoidance rule, could the cabinet secretary indicate whether, for example, a co-operation that is intended not to be doing business in this country but simply providing services for its counterpart based in, for example, Luxembourg, would that kind of arrangement fall foul of the general anti-avoidance rule? I think that Patrick Harvie will appreciate that it is impossible for me to give detailed tax advice across the parliamentary chamber, but what I am going to do is to set out for Parliament's benefit the definitions of artificiality that will be applied, which I think will give him significant comfort that the Government has gone into this legislation with the intention, with the objective, with the aspiration of ensuring that we set the highest possible standards as we embark upon this bill. However, as I have said to Parliament before, that if, in the detailed scrutiny of this bill, Parliament believes that there is further action that the Government could be taking to establish a more robust position to tackle tax avoidance, then I will certainly consider any measures of that type and make the appropriate judgments and advise Parliament accordingly of the terms of my response to those points. Will the minister press him a little bit further on that a bit closer to home in Dunfermline? Does he think that Amazon would pay more tax under his regime? As Mr Rennie will be well aware, the taxes for which I have responsibility will be in relation to land and buildings transaction tax and landfill tax. Obviously, if Amazon were to be responsible for any transactions involved in land and buildings transaction tax or any activities that relate to the landfill tax, I would expect them to fully and comprehensively meet the obligations that they have under the legislative provisions that Parliament has already enacted and which I hope will enact as part of the Revenue, Scotland and Tax Powers Bill. I set out in my response to Patrick Harvie that I would address the contents of conditions A and B. Under condition A, Revenue, Scotland will be able to take counter action in which a tax avoidance arrangement is not a reasonable course of action having regard to the principles and policy objectives on which the relevant tax legislation is based and to whether the arrangement is intended to exploit any shortcomings in that legislation. That will allow Revenue, Scotland, the tax tribunals and the courts to look at the spirit and the intention of tax legislation and not just the strict letter of the law and therefore to defeat ingenious but artificial and contrived avoiding schemes. I think that those remarks are particularly relevant for the point raised with me by Patrick Harvie. Condition B allows Revenue, Scotland to take counter action in which a tax avoidance arrangement lacks commercial substance. It also sets out a number of hallmarks of arrangements lacking commercial substance, for example if they are carried out in a manner that would not normally be employed in reasonable business conduct or consist of transactions that are circular in nature. I have made it clear that I welcome any suggestions for tuffering the Gare still further and I am therefore happy to accept a recommendation made by the French Committee that the test of lacking commercial substance should be extended to tax avoidance arrangements that lack either economic or commercial substance. We will also provide that a further hallmark of arrangements lacking economic or commercial substance is where the arrangements result in a tax advantage that is not reflected in the business risks undertaken by the taxpayer. I believe that the approach that we have adopted to tackling tax avoidance is based on straightforward common sense tests that ordinary taxpayers would understand and endorse. I noticed that Michael Clancy, giving evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee on behalf of the Law Society of Scotland, commented that the Scottish Gare provisions in the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill were, I quote, much better, less complex and should prove to be more effective than the corresponding anti-abuse rule in the UK Finance Act 2013. Throughout the bill we have tried to strike a balance between the taxpayer on the one hand and the tax authority on the other. The investigation and enforcement powers that the bill provides for Revenue Scotland are therefore fair and proportionate and accompanied by careful safeguards. A particular feature of the arrangements that we are putting in place is that taxpayers will have various opportunities to challenge decisions taken by Revenue Scotland without having to resort to expensive legal action. First they will be able to ask Revenue Scotland to carry out an internal review that will be undertaken by a person not associated with the original decision. If that does not resolve the dispute, Revenue Scotland and the taxpayer will be able to enter into independent third party mediation if both parties agree to do so. Finally there will be the right of access to the new two-tier Scottish tax tribunals and ultimately on a point of law to the court of session. I believe that those arrangements are robust and credible and will provide taxpayers with confidence in the administration of devolved taxes. Part eight of the bill, as introduced, set out a penalties regime but left much of the detail to be put in place by secondary legislation. That approach was criticised by both the French Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, as well as by a number of stakeholders. I will therefore bring forward amendments at stage two to set out the detail of the penalties regime in full on the face of the bill, including all penalty amounts. At the same time, I propose to provide flexibility to make changes by order subject to affirmative procedure, either to penalty amounts or to the detail of the penalties regime if that should prove necessary in the light of experience. I have already written to the French Committee explaining in detail what the purpose and effect of those amendments will be and indicated that I will aim to table them in good time before stage two gets under way. The process of implementing the Revenue, Scotland and Tax Powers will involve putting in place a significant amount of subordinate legislation by 1 April 2015, when Revenue, Scotland comes into being. It is important that there should be ample opportunity for stakeholders, the French Committee and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee to consider the proposed subordinate legislation. I therefore propose to publish a consultation paper later this year, accompanied by drafts of all the subordinate legislation that needs to be put in place by 1 April 2015, to provide that opportunity well before the relevant orders and regulations are laid before Parliament in January 2015. We have already published a consultation paper setting out the proposed subordinate legislation for land and buildings transaction tax and landfill tax. Assuming responsibility for the collection and management of devolved taxes is a significant opportunity for the Scottish Parliament. I believe that the approach that the Government and Parliament alike have been taking to developing those three tax bills demonstrates the seriousness and maturity of the process. I would like to record my thanks to the various bodies that have contributed to our thinking in assembling the approach that we have taken on the legislation. In conclusion, I know that members of all parties share the same objective in relation to the bill to make sure that it provides the best possible framework for the collection and management of the first two devolved taxes when they come into force on 1 April 2015, and a solid foundation that can be built upon in the event of this Parliament becoming responsible for a wider range of taxes. I am confident that the bill, as introduced, has got the fundamentals right, but in an area as complex as this one, there will certainly be scope to make improvements at stage 2. The French Committee has made a number of recommendations which will help us to do so, and I look forward to today's debate in the same spirit. I invite Parliament to approve the general principles of the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill. Many thanks. I now call on Kenneth Gibson to speak on behalf of the Finance Committee. We are tight for time today, so up to 10 minutes please. I am pleased to speak in this debate and highlight some key areas that the Finance Committee considered during its scrutiny of the evidence at stage 1. As mentioned by the Cabinet Secretary, the bill is a third of three pieces of legislation arising from the financial provisions of the Scotland Act 2012, for which the Finance Committee was designated lead committee at stage 1. Both the Land and Billings Transaction Tax and Land and Billing Tax have now received royal assent and come into force next April. As its policy member Andham states, the purpose of the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill is to make provision for a tax system to enable the collection and management of devolved taxes. To this end, the bill establishes Revenue Scotland on a statutory basis and also puts in place a statutory framework for the devolved taxes, setting out the relationship between the tax authority and taxpayers in Scotland, including the relevant powers, rights and duties. The committee received a range of useful written and oral evidence from a variety of stakeholders and interested parties. We also received expert advice and analysis of the bill from our adviser, Professor Gavin McEwen. I would like to put on record the committee's gratitude to all those who helped us focus on certain key aspects of the bill, particularly given its often complex and technical nature. I will now address some of the key themes on which our consideration focused and highlighted in our report. It seems that the issue of tax avoidance is never far from the headlines these days and an attempt to combat avoidance to the bill introduces a general anti-avoidance ruler gar, as we have heard from the cabinet secretary. This is intended to grant broader powers to Revenue Scotland to combat artificial tax arrangements than those provided for in existing UK legislation. Given the continuing pressure on public finances, not to mention the notion of fairness to the majority, the committee welcomed the bill's approach to tax avoidance. We reject those who wish to have artificial arrangements. As with all such matters, it soon became apparent that there was no straightforward consensus on how best to define such artificial arrangements. Several professional bodies, including the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, suggested that a broadly drawn gar might result in uncertainty for businesses and other taxpayers with the potential to deter investment in Scotland. However, including the UK tax tribunal member and tax law lecturer, Dr Heidi Poon, suggested that a more gnarly drawn rules-based gar would encourage some people to search for loopholes and instead advocated a principles-based approach. Having considered the evidence in detail, the committee was not persuaded that a gnarly drawn gar would result in more certainty for taxpayers and, as such, we support the approach taken in the bill. Nevertheless, we remain mindful of the need for as much additional certainty as possible for taxpayers and consider a number of proposals put forward by witnesses to achieve that. ICAS, the Law Society of Scotland and the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group all highlighted the need for detailed and extensive guidance setting out the circumstances in which tax arrangements would be considered artificial. The committee was persuaded of the benefits of that suggestion in terms of taxpayer certainty and therefore recommended that Revenue Scotland be required to consult widely on the gar's draft guidance prior to its publication on unsubstantive future revisions. The Government expressed sympathy with the thinking behind that recommendation but its practical concerns such as a circumstance in which changes need to be made at very short notice following a court judgment. The cabinet secretary suggested a possible alternative by a way of including guidance to Revenue Scotland in anticipation of such a consultation. The committee also noted that the bill as introduced did not contain provisions giving the gar priority over their legislative measures. In order to reinforce the overriding importance of the gar, the committee recommended that the cabinet secretary considered the introduction of such a rule. In his response, he stated that he considered such a rule unnecessary in relation to LBTT and Scottish landfill tax but that it could be considered in the event of the Parliament gaining fuller tax powers. No legislation intended to deter those who might attempt to avoid paying their taxes in full would be complete without the imposition of a penalty regime for non-compliance. The bill intends to provide a broad statutory framework to enable the imposition of different penalties depending on the seriousness of the non-compliance and the tax to which it may relate. Several witnesses raised concerns relating to the appropriate balance between primary and secondary legislation in relation to the bill's penalty provisions. While certain administrative arrangements can be adequately provided for in secondary legislation, we agreed with our witnesses that the primary legislation should contain more detail on penalties. That evidence was also reflected in the consideration given to the bill by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. The report recommended that there should be greater clarity on the circumstances that could result in a penalty and the amounts that would apply along with further detail on enforcement and the right to appeal. We therefore welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment to bringing forward amendments at stage 2 to include more detail and greater consistency in relation to penalties on the face of the bill. I look forward to considering those amendments in the coming weeks. Remaining on the subject of penalties, the committee was mindful that the bill's primary purpose should be to encourage timely payment of taxes and not inefficient and at times costly bureaucratic arrangements. We heard that, occasionally, penalties for minor or accidental transgressions can cost more to collect than they are actually worth. As such, we recommended that penalties should be proportionate and not create unnecessary administrative burdens for Revenue Scotland. In his response, the cabinet secretary stated that he believes that he has planned amendments to be consistent with that recommendation and that the committee will wish to discuss those with him in due course. I now turn to the requirement for the tax authority to produce a charter sitting at the standards of behaviour and values that are expected of Revenue Scotland and the taxpayer. That provision was welcomed by our witnesses, although certain concerns were also raised. Firstly, it was pointed out that there was a lack of reciprocity in the bill, as introduced, with taxpayers being expected to aspire to those standards, where Revenue Scotland would simply aspire to them. It was felt by some that this form of words imply that more was expected of the taxpayer than Revenue Scotland itself. We therefore welcome the cabinet secretary's commitment to amending the bill at stage 2 to ensure reciprocity of obligation within the charter. The discretion granted to Revenue Scotland in terms of how and when the charter should be reviewed and republished was also raised and the committee welcomes the Government's commitment to amend the bill to oblige Revenue Scotland to consult when updating and republishing it. I now turn to the committee's consideration of the bill's provisions on respect of establishing Revenue Scotland as a tax authority responsible for collecting devolved taxes. We had no criticism of its establishment as a non-ministerial department and the fact that ministers would be prohibited from directing it was welcome, although some witnesses questioned whether it is appropriate for ministerial guidance to remain unpublished in circumstances where ministers decided its publication might prejudice Revenue Scotland in exercising its functions. The cabinet secretary assured us that publication of ministerial guidance would be the default position and that he wants to retain the ability to provide confidential guidance in certain circumstances. In order to achieve an appropriate balance, we recommended that where the Government does not consider publication of its guidance to be appropriate, ministers should be required to write to the committee explaining the reasons for that decision. I am pleased that the cabinet secretary has given an undertaking to that effect. The rationale underpinning the delegation of powers from Revenue Scotland to registers of Scotland in SEPA for the LBTT and landfill taxes respectively was recognised by our witnesses, although some expressed the view that such delegation should not extend to all powers. The head of revenues view was a non-statutory formal scheme of delegation to be laid before Parliament for consideration before the bill takes full effect, where I address those concerns and will look forward to considering the scheme in due course. The bill provides for two tribunals, a first tier and an upper tribunal, to hear appeals against decisions made by Revenue Scotland. While the first tier tribunal will consist of up to three members, the upper tribunal will have only a single member. Several witnesses expressed doubts about the appropriateness of that and the committee welcomes the cabinet secretary's undertaking to amend the bill to allow more than one member to sit in the upper tribunal when required. The subject of legal restrictions on the right to appeal a decision of the upper tier tax tribunal to the court of session is also raised, and the cabinet secretary stated in evidence that the appeal mechanism must be fair and must be seen to be fair, and so we are pleased he has reconsidered the eligibility to appeal to the court of session in light of the recently passed tribunal Scotland Act 2014. Before a dispute reaches a tribunal stage, it is important that attempts are first made to resolve it at a less formal level. The Government suggested informal mediation as a way of achieving that, a suggestion broadly welcomed by our witnesses. However, the independence of Revenue Scotland mediator is of paramount importance and we invite to the Government to provide further details of how it intends to achieve that. We note that the Government is working with stakeholders to identify options to address this, and I wait with interest the outcome of those discussions. I am conscious of time and the need to let other members join the debate, so we will draw on our marks to a close. To summarise, the committee has assessed and reflected carefully upon the evidence, and I stated in a report that we support the general principles of the bill. Work remains to be done at stage 2, and we will further consider issues around tribunals and penalties, among other things. Given the likelihood that many of the amendments will be of a complex and technical nature, we welcome the cabinet secretary's undertaking to furnish us with a complete set in good time before stage 2. We also appreciate the efforts of the bill team in this regard. Looking further ahead, the committee looks forward to considering secondary legislation relating to devolved taxes in the coming months. As would be expected from the finance committee, we will continue to closely monitor their implementation and delivery as they become embedded into the Parliament's annual budgetary scrutiny process. I look forward to hearing from other members. As far as legislation goes, this is, as the cabinet secretary made clear, more of a series than a one-off, not quite a full box set perhaps. However, today's bill is the third in the series. Following on from the legislation that we have already passed to introduce the land and buildings transaction tax and the landfill tax. Those are, of course, the taxes devolved to this Parliament by the last Scotland Act following the recommendations of the Kalman commission. We have been recently noting, if not perhaps quite celebrating, the 15 years since we met as a Parliament for the first time. Those of us who had the privilege of being there on that day will know that it felt very much like being part of history because it was. However, the fact is that we still do sometimes, as a Parliament, get the chance to make a little history. Today is really one of those days. Mind you, making legislative history can sometimes feel a little duller than it sounds and a little more complicated than is comfortable. I will remember back in those early days of the Parliament when we abolished a thousand years of feudalism and whatever exciting images of swashbuckling land rebellions that might conjure, it was also a series of very complicated bills, which by the time we got to the Tenement Scotland Act had rather lost its revolutionary glamour. Nonetheless, the bill before us today is genuinely historic, creating as it does the body of Revenue Scotland to be charged with collecting the first national, not local, taxes to be set and collected by the Parliament and the Government, which we scrutinise. Einstein once commented the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax, although it happens that we are not dealing with income tax today, but rather landfill and land transaction tax. Nonetheless, that has provided the Government and the committee with some tricky enough issues to deal with, and they are to be congratulated for their sterling work in that regard. The cabinet secretary has told us before that his own approach to taxation is to return to the first principles, to Adam Smith's four maxims for a tax system. Those are certainty, convenience, efficiency and proportionality to the ability to pay. That seems uncontroversial, but, of course, it is not always straightforward to apply those principles in reality. Their application always requires subjective social and political judgments, and the conclusion is always open to interpretation and dispute. What is more, the purpose of taxation has rather widened since Smith was elaborating those maxims in his canon. If I can quote from a particularly fine document, Labour's Devolution Commission report, it says that the tax system is at the centre of the state and its relationship with citizens, households and commercial organisations. It has evolved over many centuries and is now used for purposes that extend beyond its traditional function of raising revenue. Indeed, a perfect example of that is the landfill tax. One of the two taxes that Revenue Scotland is being created to collect is a tax that is explicitly created to reduce landfill rather than specifically to raise income. That brings up some interesting issues around proportionality to ability to pay, which we debated when the landfill tax was legislated for. The four maxims are certainly the right and principled starting point for the creation of Revenue Scotland, but they do not get us out of some of the complexities, difficulties and complications. That is largely illustrated by the considerable debate in pre-legislative scrutiny around the general avoidance rule, the GAR. First, we agree with the cabinet secretary that the bill requires a general anti-avoidance rule and that it should be more widely drawn than the equivalent general anti-abuse rule in UK tax legislation. That gets us into some of those complexities of the interpretation of a word or phrase. Clearly, and the cabinet secretary made this point early in his own remarks, clearly we are talking here about avoidance because tax evasion, which is illegal, will continue to be dealt with under the criminal law. However, having gone for anti-avoidance rather than anti-abuse as used in the UK legislation, the cabinet secretary has then had to define what he means. That has taken up much of the consideration that the finance committee has given to the bill. The definition given is tax avoidance arrangements that are artificial and where obtaining a tax advantage may reasonably be concluded to have been the main purpose or one of the main purposes of the arrangement. That differs from existing definitions in three ways. First, it avoids the double reasonable test, the reasonable that something is reasonable, which in and of itself seems pretty reasonable to me and much clearer. It uses artificiality rather than abusiveness as a test and it encompasses one of the main reasons for the arrangement being set up, not just the sole or main reason of that arrangement being to avoid tax. It is worth noting that, although the third of those was referred to by a number of witnesses to the committee, the adviser to the committee did not in fact think that that last one was in fact any different from UK legislation. In all of this, the cabinet secretary has argued that he is trying to widen the net of the gar but he is also seeking greater clarity. Although we broadly support all of that, it is fair to say that we cannot simply ignore the many concerns raised in committee evidence that those definitions are not clear and that the result is a lack of certainty for businesses, i.e. a breach of the first of the four maxims. I agree with a huge amount of what the member is saying. I wonder if he would agree that there is a basic attention here between the certainty. In one sense, if he provides a lot of certainty, it gives people the opportunity to find loopholes. I agree with that. I would not want the remarks that I am making just now to imply that we accept that there is not certainty here, rather that, as we take the legislation through the stages of the bill, we have the obligation as far as we can to try to respond to those concerns. To be fair, I think that the cabinet secretary has already started to do that in the responses that he has made to the committee. He has rejected some of the measures that are suggested to address those concerns, such as disclosure of tax avoidance schemes and pre-clearance of transactions. He rather did that over the chamber today with Mr Rennie and Mr Harvey, and I am sure quite rightly too. That makes it all the more important that the amendments that he has told us he intends to bring at stage 2 are strong enough to provide some assurances regarding certainty. Those are welcome amendments, especially the amendments to put penalties on the face of the bill, and they will of course be subject to scrutiny at stage 2. I note that the cabinet secretary has also accepted the committee's desire to see wide consultation on the draft of guidance to help with those concerns regarding certainty. I understand that he believes that Revenue Scotland must keep the capacity to issue guidance urgently, if required. I think that that is reasonable on his part, but I think that he must make clear that that should be the exception rather than the rule. In closing, I want to briefly return to the interaction of the bill with previous legislation on the landfill tax. In those debates, the Parliament welcomed the extension of SEPA's power to enforce tax liability on illegal dumping. That was seen as a major step forward, but there were concerns about SEPA's capacity to enforce it. At the time, I think that the cabinet secretary was maybe a little dismissive of those concerns, but I am glad to see that he has had second thoughts and he has made provision in the financial memorandum for exactly that. I think that that is welcome. We look forward to some continuing close examination and scrutiny of the bill as it evolves at stage 2 to see whether it can be made to even closer reflect those four maxims, certainty, convenience, efficiency and proportionality, but we will be pleased to support the general principles of the bill this evening at decision time. Many thanks. I now call on Gavin Brown up to six minutes, please, Mr Brown. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. According to the policy memorandum, the bill puts in place a statutory framework that will apply to the devolved taxes and sets out the relationship between the tax authority and taxpayers in Scotland, including the relevant rights, powers and duties. It is a broadly consensual bill, which I think commanded support across the committee during the stage 1 process. I think that the bill team in particular ought to be given credit, as indeed they were by witnesses, for the way in which they have approached the bill, both in pulling it together and their attitude since then. We will obviously be supporting the bill at decision time today, but I want to focus most of my remarks on two areas that I think deserve a bit more scrutiny. The first one is the issue of penalties. That was brought about by many witnesses while they gave evidence. The broad view of witnesses was that the circumstances, the amounts, the mitigation and factors to be taken into account should all be on the face of the bill. They were more relaxed about procedure at administration, which they felt could be left for secondary legislation. I acknowledge the cabinet secretary's letter to the finance committee where he said that there would be stage 2 amendments and he gave, I think, some pretty good indications of where those amendments would take place. I think that it is critical that that does happen because the initial approach on the bill was one that was not consistent and was not clear. It was not consistent because for some areas there were exact penalty amounts put on the face of the bill, namely section 167, for example. There was an exact amount of £300, section 160 and an exact amount of £3,000. For many other areas, at least four of them, including a failure to make a return or a failure to pay tax, there was no amount at all on the face of the bill and very little information of how it would be dealt with other than it could and should be dealt with by secondary legislation. We think that it is right that the circumstances, amounts, mitigation and other factors should be on the face of the bill and it is important that the amendments when they are lodged reflect that. It is also important to take a consistent approach across the bill. If amounts are deemed to be correct to be on the face of the bill, that ought to be the case for all the penalties in there, not amounts for some of them and no indication at all of any size of magnitude of penalty for others. All of that said, the cabinet secretary prior to his letter, I have to say, when he gave evidence, he suggested that amendments may well be forthcoming. It is an area where the Government and the bill team have listened to the committee, to experts and we look forward to seeing those amendments when they are lodged in fairly short order. The second area that I want to focus on is an area where I do not think that there has been movement yet from the Government. I think that the cabinet secretary's letter suggested that the door may be closed on the issue but, nevertheless, it was put forward by a number of witnesses that I want to put on the record. That is just the safeguards that might be brought in at the same time as having a general anti-avoidance rule. The convener is right when he said that the committee in its entirety supported the broad approach to the GAR, but, in my view, if you are going to bring in a wider GAR, which is being brought in, I think that there are some quite strong arguments for safeguards to be brought in at the same time. The door may be closed at this stage, but I hope that the cabinet secretary is of open mind and not going to lock the door in its entirety at this stage. There are four broad ways that you can look at safeguards, Deputy Presiding Officer, an advisory panel, revenue Scotland guidance, disclosure of tax avoidance schemes and pre-clearance transactions. On the second of those revenue Scotland guidance, I think that the Government has listened to an amendment that is going to be forthcoming about the level of consultation that ought to take place, but it is important that that guidance is available and useful for everybody, including those without professional advisers. That was a point that I think was made particularly strongly by the low-income tax reform group who made the point that not everybody going through a transaction may have professional advisers, so the guidance has to be useful to all. On the other three areas, though I do not think that the Government at this stage is minded to make any changes, but I think that there are some good arguments for doing so. First, on the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes, I think that the Government at one stage was at least considering it. I think that they are not going to now because of resource implications, but that achieved broad support from a number of organisations, including I am right in saying Unison and the STUC, were not against DOTAS. There was a particularly good quote that I thought from Dr Heidi Poon who gave some quite compelling evidence to the committee. She said that in relation to disclosure of tax avoidance schemes. If they know that something is there, they can take a look at it. If they do that sooner, less time is spent on it, and it is better for the authority because if the scheme is discovered years later, time bars may apply. For multiple reasons, the GAR and DOTAS schemes should go hand in hand. I just asked the cabinet secretary to reflect on that quote. I thought that it was quite a compelling quote from that witness. I just wonder if, even at this late stage, there is something that can be done by the Scottish Government to make sure that there are sufficient safeguards for taxpayers at the same time as bringing in the GAR. I leave it there, Presiding Officer. Thank you. We now move to open debate. I call on John Mason to be followed by Michael McMahon. We are tight for time up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I have to say that I'm very pleased to be able to take part in this debate today. I do accept that taxation is not everyone's most exciting topic, but I do find it extremely interesting myself. The legislation is particularly significant. I think that for a number of reasons, including as has already been mentioned by some, it sets up our own revenue Scotland as an alternative to HMRC. It sets out the broad framework for future tax legislation and it starts to deal with the highly topical issue of tax avoidance. I think that one of the problems of UK legislation generally and UK tax legislation in particular has been its overemphasis on the letter of the law and almost completely ignoring the spirit of the law. I would argue that this has been jointly the fault of Westminster legislators and the wider courts and legal system in the UK. As a result, we have situations where the wider public has been clear that tax should have been paid, but the taxpayers had escaped by using so-called legal loopholes. This is particularly galling for ordinary members of the public who are subject to PYE, have no room for manoeuvre, but they see the rich and the famous paying proportionately in much less tax than they do. Therefore, the aim to have a more principles-based approach is very welcome. I do accept that we are dealing with a scale of approaches here, ranging from more to less principles based, and it is not entirely one or entirely the other, but I do very much welcome the attempt to move in the principles direction. To be fair, I think that the UK is starting to do that as well. That leads on to some of the evidence that we received from witnesses at the committee. I think that it is fair to say that we heard a lot of evidence from professionals, like accountants of which I am one, lawyers and tax advisers. I have to say that, in some cases, it sounded like they were arguing the case for richer taxpayers who were trying to avoid tax. Perhaps that is not surprising, as they are the people who pay the bills. All the professions claim to have public interest at the heart of their thinking, yet, at the very least, it seems to me that there is attention for them when the clients want one thing and the public interest might be different. We did not hear so many witnesses representing the general public who might want taxes paid properly so that public services are funded properly. To some extent, it was left to committee members to give that particular angle on things. Specifically, some witnesses argued that most taxpayers want to pay the correct amount of tax. However, I have to say that I am slightly more sceptical, and I would say that most taxpayers want to pay less tax if they possibly can. The issue of certainty has already been raised this afternoon and was a major part of the committee's work. It came up a number of times, and that is one of Adam Smith's maxims, as has been said, which I think we all support. However, the demand for certainty can also be a smokescreen to tilt things in favour of those who want to avoid paying tax. We had examples of that. Firstly, the general request for more certainty, but what sometimes seemed to be actually being asked for, was to give us a totally fixed and rigid system, and then, if we can find loopholes in that, we will know that they also cannot be challenged. I do not agree with that argument. Similarly, on an advisory panel, again, it seemed that that could be so that some richer taxpayers could try pushing the boundaries of what they could get away with and get it approved beforehand so that they would not have to face repercussions later on. Similarly, the request for definite tax rates is a long, long way ahead of the actual time. Again, that seems to me often to be a request to give people more time to juggle their tax affairs so that they can avoid paying the tax that they should be paying. Broadly speaking, I think that the committee and certainly myself are supportive of the cabinet secretary's insistence that we stick to this principles-based approach, including having a wider gar than the somewhat more timid one that the UK seems to have. Legal privilege was an issue that came up at committee, and I would like to touch on that. I am a member of ICAS, the Institute of Chartered Counties of Scotland, and both they and the Chartered Institute of Taxation tended to argue for an extension of privilege to other professions so that there would be more confidentiality for taxpayers, because they were giving effectively the same advice as people from the legal profession. I personally think that there should be a level playing field for all the professions while accepting that, on other specifically legal matters, there can continue to be professional confidentiality. My preference would be for legal privilege to be curtailed and for all tax advice that is given to be much more open. Finally, looking ahead, those are two relatively small taxes that are currently being devolved. We have had the opportunity and time to start from scratch, but at the same time we cannot stray too far away from what our friends and neighbours down south are doing. For example, most clearly with landfill tax, where we do not want to waste sea waste travelling across the border to find cheaper tax rates. When we take control of income tax and co-operation tax, the challenges will inevitably be greater. We will be inheriting hugely complex rules-based systems, which cost the UK more to administer than many other countries. Presumably, we will have to start off having to modify the UK system but keep the basics in place. At some stage, we will have the challenge and also the opportunity to write our own legislation for those major taxes from scratch. I very much look forward to that exercise. However, the great thing about what we are doing today is we are setting a direction of travel, not completely different from the UK, but neither exactly the same as the UK. We want to do things our way and a way that fits Scotland's needs. I think that this is a very good start with the bill, and I wholeheartedly support its approval. I thank all those who gave evidence to us in the committee on what was a very complex issue, and I thank the clerks and the bill team for assisting us as we moved through the complexities of the bill. The past year or so, on the finance committee, has seen us grapple with the outcomes of the Scotland Act as it relates to new tax powers. The debate on which powers should be devolved can be interesting at times, but for now we have simply to address the legislation that is before us and is required to firstly bring about the new land and buildings transaction tax and the Scottish landfill tax. Now, with the bill to create the framework around which the new taxes will be established. Given the debates that we had on the two separate tax bills, I have to say that I was dreading the possibility of this becoming bogged down in tedious technicality and presaic legalistic verbiage, and there was to be fair plenty of both. However, there was also the fun of watching lawyers and accountants arguing against one another to see who should have the greater right to make money out of advising people on how not to pay as much tax as they might otherwise. Had we taken evidence from a librarian and added that to what we heard from the lawyers and accountants, we would certainly have had all the information that we needed but not understood a word of it. In truth though, all the witnesses that we heard from recognised that this bill was well drafted and in general delivered what was expected of it and so great credit is due to the team who prepared the bill. The fact that they left both to lawyers and accountants slightly disappointed is the best indicator that I could see that the right balance has been struck. It was probably inevitable that most of the attention in the evidence sessions focused on the general anti-avoidance rules and that they appear to be sufficiently robust for us to have confidence in them, but as ever the case, much will depend on the guidance and the regulations that will follow and there can be no guarantees however that a good tax accountant could not still have a loophole named after them. Mr Swinney has underlined again today that the Scottish Government intends to take a tough stance on tax avoidance and there is a widespread welcome for this and an acceptance that this approach has to be very robust. However, I remain uncertain that the cabinet secretary has clarified entirely that principles based drafting of any future Scottish taxis will alleviate the need for targeted anti-avoidance rules in respect of those taxis. We took plenty of evidence on that, but I understand that it is a desirable thing to keep complexity out of reliefs and exemptions and there is a strong view that that would minimise the scope for avoidance activity, but I remain sceptical that leaving it to parliamentary statements and guidance on the intention behind tax legislation is sufficient to ensure that tax tribunals and the courts can impose both the spirit and the letter of the law. That will depend on how the board and the related bodies work with one another, but it was asked by the committee whether we could get some more clarification and I think that we still require to explore that issue a bit further. However, that is not to say that I believe that the bill is flawed. It is merely a comment on a difference of opinion on the desirability of relying solely on GARs rather than having a plan B in relation to targeted avoidance regimes. If we had that from the outset, we could look forward to the potential of more tax powers being devolved over time and we could have some confidence that purely reliant on a principles based rather than a rules based approach could be developed as we move forward. There has been much discussion this afternoon about Adam Smith's principles and the principles-based approach. That leads me to a very small point, but I raise it in order to have something different to bring to this debate. It is not a serious disagreement with the cabinet secretary, but he is aware that he is wrong in a decision not to have the amount of tax that Scots will pay through the Scottish rate of income tax included in their pay slips. I appreciate that that information will be provided in someone's P60, but then all tax paid can be found on that forum. Scots should not have to sit and wait until the end of the tax year to know how the SRIT terms—in SRIT terms—what they know from week to week or month to month in respect of their current level of income tax. I have no evidence to back up what is nothing more than the gut feeling that there is something inherently wrong in not being able to see in your pay slip what you are paying in tax. That is a principle that a lot of people have worked on. We all receive our P60s, but we also see our pay slips. John Mason is deviating somewhat from the subject, because that could not be touched by this bill this afternoon. I make the point that this is a small point, but it is to talk about the principles, because the principles are about accountability and how you know what you are being taxed, when you are being taxed and how much you are being taxed. That is the point that I am trying to emphasise to you. It is a small point, but I am trying to find something slightly different to say in the debate this afternoon, and I made that clear. However, if we had some consultation, those types of issues would come out. That is the point. We can hold Governments to account in a lot of ways, and one of the ways that we do that is to know how much we are being taxed. It is only fair that, when we talk about a principles-based approach, we consider all the principles, and that means knowing how much your duty is to pay and what penalties you may face if you do not pay them. That is something that we have discussed this afternoon. As I said, it is of little significance, but it probably was not worth investing time and consultation on, but it was a point of principle that we did touch in the discussions in the committee, and I just wanted to make that point this afternoon. Overall, that bill is absolutely fine and will serve its purpose more than adequately. For that reason, we should have no hesitation in supporting its general principles this afternoon. This is one of those debates that is rather technical in nature on occasions, but we all know as the precursor to what the SNP hopefully believes will be an independent Scotland's revenue-raising tax body. That is what they hope is the case, and I hope the opposite. I am glad that the finance secretary has been converted to the benefits of the Scotland act. In his press statement today, he signifies the 300-year historic event of creating a new tax body. That is a similar language that he and others scoffed at when the UK Government signified the most significant transfer of financial power from Westminster to Holyrood in 300 years. I am glad that he has converted to the new language and to the new optimism about the benefits of the Scotland act, but I welcome the creation of revenue Scotland. I think that it is relatively consensual across the piece about the benefits of having this new tax body. However, I do note that, even before it has been created, it is much more successful than the United Kingdom body. Before that, we have got any employees in place, any actions conducted, and it is much more effective than that in the UK. I was interested in what John Mason said in his remarks. He said, not completely different from the UK but doing it our way. That contrasts quite starkly with the rhetoric that has been used about aggressive tax avoidance in the UK, as if somehow the HMRC is stuck in the past and unable to tackle aggressive tax avoidance by the likes of Amazon, Starbucks and many other companies that we have heard of. John Mason now, when he gets into the detail about discussing exactly how we are going to implement this new tax body, what are the principles that are going to be established? It is not completely different by our way. In fact, he praised that the HMRC is actually making significant progress. I think that John Mason was right, because the UK Government has, with its general avoidance rule, managed to deal with making significant progress. There have been 40 changes in tax loss since 2010, and many loopholes have been closed. The general avoidance rule and the abuse rule have made significant progress. We have billions of pounds in it as a result of that. Often, when we hear other members in the chamber talk about HMRC as if it is some defunct body that is incapable of collecting tax, I like John Mason's phrase, not completely different, but doing it our way. I will take John Mason since I referred to him. I think that he slightly overstates my enthusiasm for HMRC. Would he accept that there still is a key difference between anti-abuse legislation at Westminster and our wider anti-avoidance legislation? There is a difference, and it does go further. I cast in the law society's concerns need to be taken into account. If we have a much more aggressive approach and a much more assertive approach to dealing with tax avoidance, we have to consider what the potential consequences would be. There is no point in going into this new measure blind, thinking that there will be no shift of investment from Scotland to elsewhere as a result of a less lucrative environment for some people who would like to invest. I would like the finance secretary and his closing remarks to address that. What has he considered about the weight, the validity of the points that have been made by ICAS and others? It is not whether it would come to pass or whether it is right about uncertainty having an effect on investment, but if it is right, what measures has he got in place to deal with those consequences? It would have a budgetary impact if it is right and if it believes that the broader interpretation and the broader inclusive approach to dealing with tax avoidance come to pass and create uncertainty, then there is a concern that it would have an impact on the budget. I would also like to—again, this is a precursor to the independence revenue body that the SNP is expecting to come about. A figure of £250 million has been arrived at. I would like to know from the finance secretary exactly how that figure was calculated and what new people who are currently not paying tax will be paying tax as a result of that measure that is currently not paying tax. I like to deal in practicalities. I like to see the examples of who will be caught by those new measures. The reality is that creating a new tax body as we have found in New Zealand would be expensive. Sometimes making something simple is more costly and will therefore have an impact on our budgets. That is why it is important that we deal with not just what the upsize would be of creating a new tax body but a new tax system that would be much more simplified and much less complex. However, we need to think about the consequences that that would have on investors and potentially people who are trying to avoid tax. What would that impact be on our budgetary system and therefore the budget for an independent Scotland? Those are the kind of questions that I would like to hear answers from the finance secretary. He is not the first minister yet. I would like to get some answers about the concerns that ICAS has drawn to the attention of the committee but also to the Parliament. I would like to hear those from the finance secretary when he concludes. Thank you so much. I suppose that the bill is probably not viewed as the most exciting piece of legislation ever to come before this Parliament. Certainly, my mailbag has not been busting at the seams from constituents on this subject. However, it is an important bill nonetheless. I have been very glad to be able to be part of the finance committee scrutinising it at stage 1. As has been referred to, it is the third bill relating to the taxes that have been devolved to this Parliament. The bill complements the two previous acts of the Parliament as it is very necessary in establishing the organisation and the structure of that organisation, Revenue Scotland, which will be responsible for the collection of those devolved taxes. I turn to a few specific points in the general anti-avoidance rule that has been mentioned already. I am very supportive of the Scottish Government's approach. I believe that this principle-based approach is the effective way forward. It was that it probably cannot be said that most people relish paying their tax. I think that most people accept and understand the need to do so, and even more so when they feel that others are not avoiding paying their tax. I do think that this approach is effective and the best way forward. We did have some evidence at stage 1, but some perhaps did not agree. For example, I argued that there is no certainty at the moment on the real impact of the government. They felt that it failed, Adam Smith's maximum out certainty. However, surely, if the perspective is that the Scottish Government and its Agency for Revenue Scotland's expectation is that no individual or organisation should engage in avoidance, I cannot see what is uncertain about that. I thought, as the convener referred to Heidi Poon's evidence to the committee, that was very illuminating, where she suggested that a more principle-based approach would, in fact, give more certainty. I support the approach that has been taken forward here. I turn to the issue of penalties. I was actually personally quite relaxed about how much of those were to be determined by secondary legislation. After all, those have the same effect in law and are also subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the same way as primary legislation. However, I do accept that that was felt to be an issue by many bodies who gave evidence to the committee. Again, I believe that that was an issue of certainty. Personally, my perspective was that I cannot see why at the time of the tax system and those penalties are in place, whether they have been put in primary legislation or secondary legislation. I recognise that concerns have been raised by organisations in that respect. I think that it should be welcome that the Scottish Government is bringing forward amendments to put more detail in the face of the bill, but which can in future be amended by affirmative instruments. I think that that is a sensible compromise that I look forward to reviewing the amendments at stage 2. I turn to the issue of the charter that we prepared by Revenue Scotland, which sets out the standards that it will operate to and which will be expected of taxpayers. Two issues were identified early on in relation to the bill as drafted, which said that the charter would set out what Revenue Scotland would aim to do but what was expected of taxpayers. I think that that was felt by the committee as a whole and set out by a number of witnesses that it did not seem to be equal or reciprocal. To be fair, I think that the bill team accepted the wording. It could have been better. I was glad to see that the current sector has confirmed that the amendment will be brought forward to ensure that that has changed. There was also a strong desire from witnesses that there is consultation on the charter. I think that it is welcome that the current sector has confirmed that there will be an amendment to that effect. The issue that has been raised is the membership of Revenue Scotland, particularly whether or not the chief executive should be on the board, which has been mentioned by the current sector. That was raised over the course of stage 1 scrutiny by a few. I should emphasise that, certainly from my perspective, a few witnesses—most witnesses—didn't have anything to say on that matter. Those who raised it seem to view it as important that the chief executive be on the board to maintain contact with board members, which, evidently, would be an important thing for the chief executive to do. The current sector asked for views on the matter on my own. That issue is a little overblown. Clearly, in any organisation that would be perfectly acceptable for the chief executive to attend any board meeting without being a member. There are circumstances where that could be an advantage if the board had to discuss the position of the chief executive. That might be easier to do if it is not a member of the board. As for the needs that were expressed by those giving evidence saying that they should be a member of the board, I think that they can actually be achieved without being a member. I support the approach of the bill at present. The last issue that I want to raise briefly is a minor one. Names of the tribunals that were raised by the faculty of advocates who were concerned are very similar to the UK tax tribunals. They, understandably, felt that that could cause some confusion. Again, that issue has been raised at stage 1. I hope that we can look at altering it perhaps at stage 2. Overall, I very much welcome the bill, but I think that it is a sensible approach. I look forward to further scrutinising it at stage 2 with colleagues in the finance committee. Many thanks. Colin Malcomchism, to be followed by Colin Beattie up to six minutes, please. Presiding Officer, as other members have reminded us, this is the third prong of a set of legislation that will see devolution of new revenue-raising powers to Scotland. It gives us our first body for the management of taxation and also a statutory framework on which the effect of devolution in future will be based, or independence, of course, as members opposite would wish. Although I note that ICAS today is saying that an entirely independent taxation system would be a rather costly option. The general anti-avoidance rule is at the heart of this legislation, and I believe that that should be informed by the principle of fairness, but I want to make a few other points in relation to fairness before turning to the GaR. Chapter 10 of the bill requires Revenue Scotland to prepare a charter that must include standards of behaviour and values for revenue Scotland and taxpayers, respectively. I do not think that it was particularly fair in the bill as drafted with differential obligations on revenue Scotland and taxpayers, but I welcome the announcement from the cabinet secretary today about reciprocal obligations and also his commitment that there will be consultation on the terms of the charter. The whole issue of penalties is also important for fairness. The committee recommended that there should be more detail and greater consistency in relation to penalties on the face of the bill, and again I welcome the announcement from the cabinet secretary today about setting out the details of penalties on the bill. Two other aspects of fairness. Firstly, a vigorous approach to tax avoidance must be balanced by a fair appeal system, and I raised that with the cabinet secretary at committee. The committee recommended that he should reconsider the restrictive rule governing appeals to the court of session and also the number sitting on the upper tax tribunal for appeals. He did not mention that today, perhaps he will, in his wind-up. Finally, before turning to the GaR, I believe that if we are found a taxation system on the principle of fairness, it must be fair as between advisers what is privileged and what is not when it comes to advice. There was a lot of discussion of that in the bill, and I do not have a particular view about how much should be privileged, but I think that it should be the same privilege for all advisers whether they are lawyers or not. Turning to the general anti-avoidance rule, it has been widely accepted as being a more thorough approach to reducing the blight of tax avoidance than has been a feature of previous UK arrangements. The proposals on the bill will allow Revenue Scotland to counteract tax avoidance arrangements, which are geared towards avoidance based on a measure of whether the arrangements passed a test of artificiality. The proposed Scottish GaR will thus be wider than the UK GaR, which targets abusive arrangements. That is on the whole a positive measure and one that has been welcomed by the committee. However, the wide scope of the anti-avoidance measure has also caused some concerns for bodies such as the Law Society of Scotland, who emphasised the need to protect taxpayers' rights. There among a number of voices calling for an independent advisory panel to take an informed view of individual disputed cases. The SDUC interesting did not actually object in principle to such a panel, but it made the point that if there was such a panel, the personnel on it would have to be very widely representative and more widely representative than those on the similar UK panel. The committee, however, did not support the introduction of an advisory panel, and I was happy to go along with that recommendation, but it did recognise the need for additional protection for taxpayers. A further issue regarding the general anti-avoidance show concerns clarity and the definition of what is reasonable and the tests applied to measure reasonableness. For purposes of certainty, which is of course one of the guiding principles of an effective taxation system, the widely drawn GaR requires the definition of reasonableness to be as clear and unambiguous as is possible. What is reasonable to one person may not be to another. This is of course why HMRC applied a double or second reasonableness test. I did find myself saying perhaps to my own surprise that I thought that the double reasonableness test was actually quite reasonable in the committee, but once again the committee did not go along with the idea of a double reasonableness test. One way to provide such certainty is to enshrine clear principles that guide what is considered reasonable in the bill, as Dr Poon highlighted to the committee. A widely or narrowly drawn GaR in itself does not provide certainty, and the cabinet secretary's indication that the bill will enshrine clear principles of tax compliance was welcomed broadly by the committee. To create more target measures, would, as Justine Ricomini and Heidi Poon agreed, simply incur a build-up of rules that would allow opportunities for loopholes to develop? That is the case with the UK system at present. A final point, again made by the committee in the interests of fairness, is that Revenue Scotland should consult widely on a draft of its guidance on the application of the GaR. I think that the cabinet secretary has indicated that he will go along with that recommendation. In general, we should appreciate the fact that he has responded positively to several of the committee's recommendations. A final point on guidance relates to the guidance that is issued by the Government to Revenue Scotland, because we want to preserve the independence of Revenue Scotland. Again, the committee recommended that any guidance from the Government should be published, and I think that the cabinet secretary has accepted that with some qualification. In conclusion, this is a real opportunity to create a mechanism that functions effectively with the taxes that we will receive in this Parliament and also the changes that occur in future. It is the start of a long-term project that will require watertight legislation, built on clear and ambiguous values and principles. Today's bill is a reasonable start. Thanks very much. Colin Beattie, to be followed by Ken Macintosh up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on the important, if slightly dull, subject of taxation. The United Kingdom as a whole raises around 35 per cent of GDP in taxation, and in Scotland, with only fully devolved taxes being council tax and non-domestic rates, this figure stands at only 6.9 per cent of tax revenues raised. Clearly, the introduction of the Revenue Scotland tax powers bill is an attempt to redress this state of affairs given the limited powers that we have. The bill's proposition to collect and manage the land and buildings transaction tax and a Scottish landfill tax will hopefully raise the tax take figure to 7.5 per cent of the revenues raised, a small step in the right direction at least. Taxation is fundamental to modern states in terms of provision of public goods and services. Indeed, the OECD average for tax revenues as a percentage of GDP is around 34 per cent, putting the United Kingdom 35 per cent slightly above average. We know that almost 70 per cent of Scotland's revenue comes from income tax, VAT, national insurance contributions and North Sea revenue, but, of course, this income is filtered through Westminster. The flexibility of the Scottish Government is therefore minimal, and only independence would allow us to take charge of our own tax affairs. The introduction of the land and buildings tax is expected to improve significantly on the present stamp duty system that it replaces. Each rate of land and buildings tax will apply only to the part of the sale above the corresponding threshold, and I hope that we would all agree that this is a much fairer system than stamp duty, which applies to the entire sale price. That inevitably results in major discrepancies in terms of transactions either side of the price threshold. An increase of just £1 on a house price can invoke a tax bill many thousands of pounds higher. Further stamp duty has been criticised as it can lead to the bunchering of house prices from buyers, understandably keen to avoid paying less tax. The end result here is that we have a skewed pricing structure. In 2007, over 3,500 houses were sold in the £125,000 band, and this figure drops just over 1500 houses in the £135,000 band. Quite clearly, changes need to be made, and I look forward to next year's introduction of the land and buildings tax, a progressive tax that implements fairness for all. The creation of a Scottish general anti-avoidance rule is an important step in our efforts to combat tax avoidance. Recent stories in the media have shown that this is an issue that is not going away. I believe that it is the responsibility of the Scottish Government to ensure that all devolved taxes are paid timely, fairly and in full, especially when we cannot always rely on the Westminster machinery to close loopholes on our behalf. The importance of tackling tax avoidance cannot be overstated. Simply put, tax avoidance reduces our public revenues and can fundamentally undermine public confidence in our tax system. The bill will also see the introduction of a 10 per cent point Scottish rate of income tax, reducing the budget by 10 per cent, but allowing the Scottish Government to decide whether to replace the loss revenue via this income tax. That measure, while allowing for some flexibility, has already been criticised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who noted, while the Scottish Parliament will be able to decide that income tax ought to be higher or lower overall, it will not be able to change the balance of liabilities between taxpayers at different income levels or with different types of income. The SRIT will also prevent Scotland from reducing just the higher or additional rate of income tax as a form of tax competition to attract high-income people and, of course, revenue that accompanies them from the rest of the UK. The SRIT is far from giving Scotland full autonomy over income tax policy. That, I believe, is a critical issue with the bill as it stands. The Scottish Government is working within the confines of the Scotland Act 2012. Has income tax got anything to do with this bill? I think that, given that this bill is about the devolution of tax powers, it is reasonable to mention this particular point. I have already mentioned that the amount of fully devolved tax that we can raise will only increase by 0.6 per cent, and that is simply a drop in the ocean compared with what we could be doing in independent Scotland. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies notes, the bill is rigid and inflexible and does not allow the Scottish Government to create a balanced tax regime. We are unable to fully benefit if we lack control of our revenue and expenditure. There are positives that we can take from the bill. The land and buildings tax will implement a much fairer system for home buyers, and the establishment of revenue Scotland as its own department with its own legal status will provide the basis of a tax collection agency in independent Scotland. Therefore, we should regard that as a beginning and look forward to what can be achieved under independence. At the moment that we are relying on the UK tax system, itself featuring over 10,000 pages of legislation, making it one of the world's longest tax codes, numerous commentators have noted that an independent Scotland would have the opportunity to create a simpler and more lucid tax system. Of course, the other benefit of such a system would be reduced administration costs, bringing Scotland into line with comparable countries such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Alongside the introduction of the Scottish general anti-avoidance rule, a simplification of the tax system would, through streamlined reliefs and reduction of compliance costs, reduce the potential for avoidance. The Scottish Government aims to increase revenue by £250 million a year by the end of the first term by means of the simplifying and streamlining of the tax process, and that is a substantial sum of money that will add considerably to the Scottish Exchequer. I broadly welcome the introduction of the revenue Scotland tax workforce bill. It has some measures that will be of undoubted benefit, but the only way that we can truly progress our tax system is under independence. Thank you very much. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Unlike most speakers this afternoon, I welcome today's debate, and I will be supporting the revenue Scotland tax workforce bill at stage one. I am not sure what necessarily all my SNP colleagues will agree with me, but I believe that this is yet another successful example of devolution both in principle and in practice. I wanted to make a couple of observations or remarks about the context in which the bill will operate and to raise some questions about whether it yet fully fulfills our intentions or objectives. Several of the witnesses, giving evidence to the finance committee, talked about the importance of getting our tax regime right. Any tax system has huge potential, not just to reflect but to shape our economy, our government and our country. What I find interesting is that the current SNP administration often talked very grandly about their radicalism, about the transformational change that independence would supposedly bring. Ministers constantly hold out the example of our Scandinavian cousins. Colin Beattie, in fact, just gave such an example a few minutes ago and quoted their approach to welfare reform. It is an attractive picture for many of us and one that many of us also know based on an equally radical and different approach to taxation. Yet, when it comes to practice, for the most part, the SNP has been very conservative with a small C in their approach. Their guiding principle appears to be not so much let's grasp this opportunity to make a real difference but let's not rock the boat. I'm not saying that they're wrong in doing so with this bill before us or the immediately preceding two, but there is a stark contrast between the words of ministers and their actions in government. Even with this bill, ministers seem to be predominantly concerned as to how to transfer or devolve those taxes from the UK to Scotland without really changing anything. The member accepts that we're looking here really at two very small bills, and especially with landfill tax, our scope for maneuver is quite limited. I took the words out of my mouth. Admittedly, Revenue Scotland will only be responsible for landfill and the building transaction tax, but what may I ask, Mr Mason, happened to the SNP's plans for a local income tax? That was an election promise, was it not? In fact, I would welcome clarification from the cabinet secretary on exactly where we are with the local income tax. Is it officially ditched or are the SNP still maintaining the pretense that it is official policy and it will be introduced at some yet as yet undefined stage? The cabinet secretary has made much of the Government's principles-based approach to establishing Revenue Scotland. The legacy of Adam Smith has been invoked, as have his four maxims, certainty, convenience, efficiency and proportionality. However, as my colleague Ian Gray described in his opening remarks, in fact, as several other speakers have commented on, there remain a number of questions about whether this bill could do more when it comes to the first of those principles, and that is certainty. Presiding Officer, certainty does not matter when it comes to taxation. If I may digress slightly, Zero Mostel made a very funny film in the 1960s called The Producers, and it was remade in 2005. The basic plot centres on the premise that, with some dodgy accounting, you can make more money from producing a flop show on Broadway than you can from producing a hit. The film is very funny, but, as Gary Barlow and other members of Take That have discovered, in reality, the public approprium, attracted by emulating a similar approach to taxation, is not funny at all. The difficulty in such cases comes in distinguishing between tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax management. Just as it is the duty of individuals and companies to pay our taxes, so it is the duty of government to make it absolutely clear exactly how much tax is expected. I clearly do not have to remind any members present, but most Scots were totally shocked when it was revealed last week that Amazon paid £4.2 million in tax in the United Kingdom last year, despite selling goods worth £4.3 billion. The company's defence, of course, is that it is entirely legal. I do not wish to be morally outraged by the behaviour of those who are not willing to pay their share for the provision of public services. I wish to be legally certain of whether they are in the right or in the wrong. The danger is that, with the bill, it does not necessarily provide that certainty. The issue has clearly proved to be the focus of evidence to the committee, and, like Ian Gray, Michael McMahon and Willie Rennie, I simply want to hear from the cabinet secretary how he can meet the concerns raised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland and others. It is worth emphasising at this stage that Labour members and I fact the whole Parliament entirely support the Scottish Government in taking a robust approach to tax avoidance. If I may just briefly continue the theme of lack of certainty, there are other aspects of the bill that involve subsequent expected actions, rather than details that are outlined in the bill. Audit Scotland highlighted in its submission at stage 1 that there are no explicit provisions to cover the auditing or accounting of Revenue Scotland. It is crucial that the work of Revenue Scotland is open and transparent. I welcome the fact that it will be independent of ministers, but what requirements ministers intend to place on Revenue Scotland in terms of performance information and reporting eraduants, particularly around its record and collection and enforcement. I will endorse my support for the bill. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this afternoon's debate. The Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill is clearly an important piece of legislation, and its title may be dull. I do not think that anyone would deny that, but the bill does underline a seriousness of purpose, which is, of course, to fulfil the requirements of transferring those financial powers outlined in the Scotland Act 2012 to set out a positive framework that will allow the Scottish Parliament to assume responsibility for further tax powers in the future and, of course, to address tax avoidance in the widest sense. I believe that those are developments that all of us should welcome. The Government and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance has made it clear this afternoon and in his evidence to the committee that the Government intend to take the toughest possible line on tax avoidance and not just the most extreme forms of abuse. That is a theme that has been picked up by a number of speakers this afternoon. Ian Gray sought to explain the double reasonableness test, and I thought that I understood it. That was until Malcolm Chisholm spoke, and I then realised that the issue was even more complex than I had it first assumed. However, I think that the bill provides, in its general anti-tax avoidance rule, power for Revenue Scotland to take the robust action that is required against artificial tax avoidance schemes and to provide the definitions of artificiality, which will ensure that the approach adopted is as comprehensive as possible. Turning to the general anti-avoidance rule, the general anti-avoidance rule introduced as part of the bill is broader than the UK GAR, as has been said this afternoon. The greater breadth of the GAR lies in the introduction of the test for artificiality as opposed to the narrower test for abuse operated across the UK. The cabinet secretary quoted Mr Michael Clancy, director of reform at the Law Society of Scotland. Mr Clancy cannot be quoted often enough in this chamber, so I am going to return to those wise words, which he said in evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, and I quote, we have compared those provisions with the current general anti-abuse provisions in the Finance Act 2013, and we think that the Scottish GAR is much better. They are less complex and should prove to be more effective. I was intrigued by the account from Michael McMahon of the deliberations in the committee with accountants and lawyers competing with each other, so I feel compelled to quote from the Law Society of Scotland briefing, which states that it would be misleading to suggest that most of the work of lawyers is involved in advising taxpayers on tax avoidance schemes, but rather to help clients comply with their tax obligations. I think that all of us in the chamber will be grateful for that reassurance and that clarification. There was an important issue in the passage of the bill at committee in relation to professional privilege, and both the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland said that they saw no reason to extend legal professional privilege beyond its current boundaries and took issue with the suggestion that the legal profession was benefiting from an unfair advantage. The Law Society in its evidence stated that we are not aware of people flooding to lawyers' offices rather than accountants' offices to take tax advice because legal privilege exists. Accountants get more than their fair share of tax advisory work. The legislation, of course, is a direct consequence of the fact that this Parliament and the UK Parliament passed the Scotland Act 2012. However, even after the act comes into force, the Scottish Parliament will still only be responsible for 15 per cent of Scotland's tax revenues. That reminded me of the piece of work that was undertaken by Sir James Myrli's, who has been mentioned already this afternoon in his report on the UK tax system taxed by design, the Myrli's report, in which he stated that the UK system is unnecessarily complex and distorting. Tax policy has, for a long time, been driven more by short-term experience than by any long-term strategy. Policymakers seem continually to underestimate the extent to which individuals and companies will respond to the financial opportunities that are presented to them by the tax system. They seem unable to comprehend the importance of dealing with the system as a whole. Those wise words are reinforced by the work of the Fiscal Commission working group, which has looked at a number of those issues in the round and has concluded that, in relation to personal taxes, the current system, as it relates to employed and self-employed individuals who undertake similar work, is treated differently in terms of their national insurance contributions and that, more generally, income tax and national insurance contributions, which are effectively two separate taxes on the same income, are measured on a different basis. Those variations in rates, time periods, thresholds and applicability seem to underline the fact that the system is not fit for purpose. With regard to links to the wider welfare system, the Fiscal Commission stated that the current system comprises a range of tax credits and benefits with a mixture of means tested and universal provision. All of those can impact on the effective rate of taxation, especially at the margin, leading to often conflicting incentives with regard to certain activities such as participation in the labour market. In his book Money for Everyone Why We Need a Citizen's Income, Malcolm Torrey has argued that the criteria for a benefits system should be coherence and administrative simplicity. It is clear to me, as I am sure it is to many members, that neither the current UK tax system or the UK benefits system meets the criteria of coherence and simplicity. I believe that we can do better with further powers of financial responsibility, which are coming to this Parliament and to independence, which will surely follow a yes vote in the referendum. Thank you very much. Now, Colin Patrick, how have we, after which, moved the closing speeches? Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Like others, I would like to add my welcome for this bill and for the approach that the Government is setting out in seeking to build anti-avoidance as a principle into it from the word go. Ian Gray described this as part of a series of pieces of legislation on tax—a series, he said, but not the full box set. It may be that some of us on this side of the independence debate interpret that phrase a little differently. I would like Scotland to have the full box set of tax powers. Even if others only see us getting one more series or perhaps two more series, that is clearly part of a transition towards Scotland needing an organisation that exercises more than just the tax powers that are in the bill at present. It is really important that we get that organisation and its culture right from the outset. I would argue that it is part of a series of debates that we are having that relate to inequality. A far cry from the speech that Margaret Curran has given today suggesting that debate on inequality has been shut down in Scotland during the referendum. Clearly, we are having a series of debates about the tax system, we will be debating the welfare system, when the Government's commission reports back on that, and we have been debating the structure of the economy as well. All things that are necessary if we are going to address the inequality problem that our society suffers from. Trying to get that organisational culture right from the start is crucial. People have been talking about the long-standing principles of certainty, efficiency, convenience and proportionality. I wonder whether there is one missing, because we do not really talk about the principle of progressive outcomes. We should be demanding a tax system, whether in relation to the initial small tax powers or the wider tax powers that we may get. Whether that is to raise all of our own revenue or 40 per cent or 50 per cent, we should be looking for a progressive outcome, ensuring that we close the gap between rich and poor. There are also some assumptions that inform this debate, and sometimes they are unspoken. Assumptions, for example, about greed. It may well be in some people's nature always to seek advantage, always to seek to minimise what they pay and maximise what they can extract from any engagement with the economy or wider society. It may be in some people's nature. I do not think that it is human nature, and I think that it is much more a cultural norm, a cultural expectation, one that can and should be challenged. Governments and parliaments, when we pass legislation, we do not set cultural norms unilaterally. We do not establish them ourselves when we pass bills or establish new systems such as Revenue Scotland, but we do contribute to them. I think that, as with some of Jamidey's comments a moment ago, a comparison between our approach to taxation and our approach to welfare is instructive. It is almost as though, when we debate taxation, the expectation that wealthy people and businesses will always seek to minimise what they pay cannot even be challenged, but we would not accept the same principle in relation to the welfare state. We would not accept and we do not accept the idea that people are seeking to maximise false claims or unfair claims on the welfare system is something that we just have to live with and expect. In fact, the UK's welfare system is far harsher on people who misclaim benefits than our tax system is on those who underpay on their taxation, those who seek to wriggle through every loophole, whether legally or indeed skirting around the edges of what is legal. We do not have the same approach. Given that both those systems, taxation and welfare, are necessary if we are going to achieve that progress to a more equal society, we should be looking to be as ruthless on cutting down on tax avoidance, perhaps more so than we are on those who might seek to gain a much smaller advantage in reality from the welfare system. The penalties and sanctions that we have are quite disproportionate. On the welfare system, we also have debates about a benefit cap and yet we do not have a debate in the taxation system about a principle that wealthy people must always pay a higher proportion of their income and wealth than poorer people. In fact, we have a taxation system that we all know does not achieve that and has not for a long time. There is expectation of pure self-interest in those systems and how we operate them should be challenged. I support the Government's broad approach to the anti-avoidance role as they are suggesting it. To those who are worried about the lack of clarity, I would just ask why. If your aim in constructing a tax arrangement is not actually tax avoidance, if your aim is not to seek that tax advantage, the worst that will happen as far as I can read the bill is that the tax advantage that you have accidentally achieved will be corrected. If your aim is not to achieve that tax avoidance, then why worry? No big deal to lose a tax advantage that you had not intended to achieve. Legal tax avoidance is not the only driver of inequality in our system. We also need a fairer welfare system that does not bully people into low-paid work. We also need to address the structure of our economy, but tax avoidance has been one of the drivers of inequality in our society for decades, and it must be tackled. I think that this has been a pretty good debate, which has followed a pretty interesting committee report and committee investigation. Let me just pick up on a couple of points made in the debate before coming on to another couple of themes that I wanted to cover. The cabinet secretary in his opening said that he was interested in the Parliament's view about whether the chief executive of Revenue Scotland should or should not sit on the board. That was an area that was looked at by the committee in detail. I think that many witnesses were asked that question. I am afraid, cabinet secretary, that the result is that I am not able to be terribly helpful to you in reaching a decision on that point. There were quite good arguments put forward as to why the chief executive should be put on the board of Revenue Scotland, and there were quite good arguments as to why the chief executive should not be put on the board of Revenue Scotland. I think that the committee as a whole found it difficult to decide which argument was more powerful and, as a consequence, we felt that leaving it as was drafted in the bill was fair enough, but it was difficult to say that one was particularly better than the other. Jamie Hepburn and his contribution talked a little bit about penalties, and I think that he suggested that he was a bit more relaxed about whether penalties should be in secondary or primary legislation. He is correct to say that whether they are in secondary or primary legislation, they still have the force of law, still have to be applied. Ultimately, the taxpayer may not be bothered whether it is in primary or secondary, but I think that the argument for putting it into primary legislation, I think that why the Government's approach and change here is right, is that primary legislation, by its very nature, receives considerably more scrutiny than secondary legislation. It means that the committee can look at those amendments very carefully at stage 2. It means that if we have not got it right by stage 2, there are still the opportunities to amend formally at stage 3, which is why I think that it is important in terms of getting the regime right that we deal with it in primary legislation. In my earlier contribution, I touched on the safeguards that I thought ought to be considered in relation to the general anti-avoidance rule. While accepting the thrust of what the Government is doing, I think that in doing that, though, it needs to bring in greater safeguards. I talked about the guidance that they are doing to a degree. I touched on the disclosure of tax avoidance schemes, but I repeat again, if the reason given by the Government for not taking that forward at the moment, at least in terms of the cabinet secretary's letter to the committee, is due down to Revenue Scotland resource implications, I ask him to confirm if that is the case. If what Dr Heidi Poon has said is correct, and that is a matter of interpretation, certainly on how reading of it the longer-term resource implications would be greater in the absence of a do-tas. I wonder if that is something that the Government can reflect upon. One of the other areas regarding safeguards for the GaR would be pre-clearance transactions. That is something that happens elsewhere in certain instances anyway. Again, I wonder if the Government might want to give some thoughts to that, particularly in relation to LBTT, where I think that it is probably more of an issue than the landfill tax. There are obviously three approaches that can be taken by any Government. You have no system whatsoever, which is the current case. You have an informal system where there are discussions with the tax authority and a steer is given, but that steer is ultimately non-binding. The third option is that you have a formal approach where pre-clearance is signed off by the tax authority. That means that no challenge can then later be made. I put the specific question to Sir James Merleys, who I know is highly regarded by this Government, who has been quoted by a number of members for his expertise and, indeed, by the cabinet secretary in his opening remarks. When I put those three cases to Sir James Merleys, I have no scheme at all. An informal scheme—or a formal scheme—his response was this. The second of your three approaches, which is the informal scheme, makes sense to me. It violates certainty a bit, so I can see why there is a case for the third approach, but on balance that is what I would call for. I would suggest that we had a number of organisations who argued for a pre-clearance scheme. I think that there is some merit in it. I just quoted Sir James Merleys, because there are some experts out there who can see the merit in having pre-clearance. It gives a degree of certainty, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I think that it is something that ought to be considered going forward. The other area, Presiding Officer, of safeguards, was some form of advisory panel. The idea here is ensuring that the guard is applied with a degree of commercial experience, particularly given condition B of the legislation. It had support from a number of organisations—some that you might have expected. However, it also had support from Unison and the STEC, depending upon who the members of that advisory panel were to be. That is a point that is worth making in response to John Mason, who was pretty strongly against the advisory panel. However, I think that the strength of the advisory panel is that it is an independent expert advice—something that is not revenue Scotland, given its take on it. Now, one can argue about who ought to be on the advisory panel, and I think that the groups have different views on who should be on it. However, I think that the strength of it would be independence. Deputy Presiding Officer, I think that there ought to be some more safeguards in there. However, as I said right at the very start, we agree with the approach of the Government in general, and we will certainly support the bill from decision time. Many thanks and our colony in great. Maximum eight minutes, please. Thanks very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This has been a debate of broad agreement. I think that it started off, after the cabinet secretary, with what I think was a very convener-like contribution from Kenny Gibson, describing summarising indeed the committee's deliberations very effectively, I thought. I think that I wrote this down. He said that he was looking forward to stage two and further scrutiny. Gavin Brown, I thought, rather jumped ahead to stage two and was already rather scrutinising the proposals that the cabinet secretary suggested. He will bring forward on penalties, for example. That is good that it shows an appetite for developing this legislation. Mr Mason, I thought, brought his inside knowledge of the accountancy profession to bear in the form of scepticism about his former colleagues' motives in seeking certainty and spoke up very effectively for the honest tax-paying citizen, a baton that Michael McMahon picked up when he made the point that, if we are leaving lawyers and accountants disappointed, then we are probably doing the right thing. It was some time in the debate before somebody spoke up for the lawyers, Mr Reedy, who quoted the lawyers by pointing out that some of their representatives—Mr Clancy, for example—had given strong support to GAR and the Scottish Government's approach as being better than that in the United Kingdom. Overall, there was general agreement among us that tax avoidance is a bad thing, and it is a good starting point to ensure that we minimise it. We should remind ourselves, I think, that this is not new. I have a quote here from John Maynard Keynes, an economist who Mr Swinney quite often follows when it comes to capital investment, for example. He said many years ago that the avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward, presumably still thinking, of those lawyers and accountants. We should not be naive about our capacity to end tax avoidance, but starting from the right principles is a good thing, I think. It has been a debate of widespread agreement, but before we get too misty-eyed about that and join hands across the chamber, I thought that I would make some remarks about two dogs in this debate that, by and large, did not bark, although there was some reference to them from Willie Rennie, for example, and Malcolm Chisholm. One of those is looking back at where Revenue Scotland has come from, and the other is looking at where the Cabinet Secretary perhaps fondly imagines Revenue Scotland is going. One or two have made the point that Revenue Scotland is a manifestation and outcome of the process of the Kalman commission in the Scotland Act, the latest enhancement of this devolution settlement. It is worth saying that, although it is the latest and perhaps one of the biggest enhancements of the devolution settlement, it is far from being the only one. However, it rather gives the lie to the idea that devolution is somehow fixed and unchangeable and cannot match itself to new and developing circumstances. Indeed, since the very beginning, we have seen changes in the powers and responsibilities of this Parliament. For example, responsibilities around new technologies and renewable energy, which were not really known or understood at the time that the Parliament was set up. For example, some of the responsibilities around consent into offshore developments have passed to this Parliament. Some of the changes have been driven by the logic of responsibilities that we already have. During the three years that I spent as an adviser in the Scotland office, one of the biggest things that we did was to devolve responsibility for rail infrastructure to this Parliament. That was a logical development of the fact that we had responsibility for rail services in the franchise but not at that stage for the infrastructure. That was a significant piece of devolution because it brought with it at that time every year investment of around £300 million. Of course, it is now rather more than that as time has gone on. Those changes have encompassed all administrations as well. For example, the current UK Government—not that I am in any way an apologist for that—has also, when it felt appropriate, enhanced the devolution settlement. It has devolved, for example, some parts of the welfare system to this Parliament. Community care grants and crisis loans would be one example. The most recent one, of course, is the agreement that control over DHP caps will be devolved to the Parliament. Devolution has changed all the time, but there is no doubt that the Scotland Act and the common process that preceded that has been one of the biggest enhancements. The driver for that was to rebalance the Parliament and give it more fiscal powers to match its very high level of legislative responsibility. All of that is a demonstration that devolution is dynamic and flexible—a powerful democratic system that we can use to our best advantage. It will continue to be so, and it is no secret that I and my party want more devolution of welfare such as housing benefit and taxation. That, of course, is the actual meaning of that phrase devolution as a process, not an event, said not by Donald Jure but by Roderick Morgan. What is an event, of course, would be independence. What that would be would not be an enhancement of devolution but would be to destroy devolution, because we would then give up this powerful combination of being able to pool risk, reward and resources and opportunity with strong democratic choices over wide-ranging sectors of public and private lives. Nonetheless, that is where the cabinet secretary wants to take us. I think that he has said in the past, and certainly Colin Beattie said today, that revenue Scotland would become our equivalent of HMRC where Scotland to be independent. I am a little puzzled by that because I did a debate last weekend and one of Mr Beattie's colleagues said that he thought that we would contract that out to, for example, HMRC, although that was not the option that was favoured in the relatively small case of the two taxis that we are discussing today. I think that ICAS is puzzled by that as well because they have produced their paper today, which demonstrates that the cost of that, well, is not clear but could be anything up to £3.25 billion. A cost 2 in staffing, £2,500 of the HMRC staff here in Scotland are not required. Problems of a lack of specialist staff are based not here in Scotland, but in London, for example, those who deal with oil and gas or Newcastle Ni. I think that there are big questions still about revenue Scotland and its future, but with regard to this bill, there is a widespread welcome today, I think, for the body itself, and there is indeed general support for the approach that the cabinet secretary has taken. The bill goes on to stage 2 tonight with a fair wind from those of us on this side of the chamber, and I rather suspect from right across the chamber, in fact. I begin first of all by thanking members, both in the finance committee and in the Parliament, for the way in which they have engaged with this particular bill. This bill sets out foundations in which all of us have to have confidence as members of Parliament. My guiding principle in working through the bill is to give clear leadership to the process but to ensure that it commands wide political agreement, given the fact that, across the political spectrum, there has to be contentment with the approach that we are taking. It was particularly kind of members to record their thanks to my bill team who have worked on this proposal. That is important because those individuals have to convey to Parliament the evidence and the steps that they take, the very clear guidance that I am giving to the formulation of the bill and the fact that it has to meet that high test of being able to command broad parliamentary agreement. It will be in that spirit that I respond to the debate tonight. I deal with a couple of issues before I come on to what has been the heart of the debate, which has been the issues around the GAR and issues of certainty. However, first of all, with the point that Ken Macintosh raised about the issues that are raised by Audit Scotland, as an office holder in the Scottish Administration, revenue Scotland will automatically be subject to audit by Audit Scotland. It is required under sections 11 and 12 of the bill to prepare and publish a corporate plan and an annual report, both of which will be laid before Parliament, and then thereafter it will be up to Parliament to exercise the appropriate scrutiny that Parliament determines for those issues. Ken Macintosh? At Audit Scotland, we are of the view that the Government would have to move an order before Parliament possibly to coincide with the same day as the implementation of this bill. Is that correct? I cannot confirm that that is the absolute precise approach, but I suspect that it would be, but we are working on the assumption that, as an office holder in the Scottish Administration, those arrangements would apply to revenue Scotland. Malcolm Chisholm asked about the number of members on the upper tribunal, and I will bring forward amendments at stage 2 to allow the president of the tax tribunal to appoint additional members of the upper tribunal in particular cases, particularly because of their importance or their complexity and to provide the flexibility to apply that. John Mason raised the issue, as, if I recall correctly, he did at committee, of the issue of professional privilege and the difference in treatment between the accountancy profession and the legal profession. The arrangements that we have in place are part of long-standing legislative arrangements around legal privilege, and I do not propose to revisit them as part of the bill, but it is important that we, the standards of operation and the methods of operation in handling all business in relation to the issue of privilege, must be undertaken within the spirit of the legislation, and we would expect that of the legal profession and the accountancy profession into the bargain. Let me turn now to the issues around the general anti-avoidance rule and the significance of the issues that have been raised today. First of all, in response to the convener of the committee, Mr Gibson, I am happy to give an undertaking that I will exercise my power to issue guidance to Revenue Scotland to make it clear that I expect Revenue Scotland in turn to consult in advance on all guidance that proposes to publish not merely the GAR guidance, except that there is not to good operational reasons for doing so. In making that point and in making the reference to the GAR, I want to try to tackle some of the issues that were raised, particularly Mr Bryn and others, about the alternatives that we could put in place to a GAR or compliments of additional tests that could be applied. I am generally pretty unsympathetic to those alternatives for a number of reasons. Mr Brown raised the issue of a Dota's approach on all of that. I know in the formal response that I have given to the committee that I have said that I have given careful consideration to this issue, but in balance I have decided that this advantage is particularly in terms of potential resource implications for Revenue Scotland outweith the arguments for putting in place such a region at least for the present. It is not just about resources, it is the fact that I am trying to create with this legislation the clearest possible culture of responsible tax-paying, where the burden of tax is shared fairly by both individuals and companies paying their taxes in full as Parliament intended. I think that that is the type of spirit in which Patrick Harvie is making his contribution to the debate. It is very much the manner and the tone set by John Mason in his contribution to the debate where Mr Mason made the point that it is not just a letter of the law that is important in paying taxes, it is the spirit of the law into the bargain. If we embark on the application of this legislation within that approach—that is the tone that I have tried to set with the design of the legislation—we can minimise the need for us to have either a DOTAS approach or to have some further review mechanisms or other provisions put in place because the general anti-avoidance rule signifies that we expect individuals to comply with the legislation in full and in its entirety. I suppose that that is the heart of my response to Mr Gray's point about the issues around certainty. I think that Mr Rennie raised those points about certainty as well. If individuals or businesses are prepared to participate in the exercise of tax-paying in a culture of responsible tax-paying, as we expect, I do not see what the requirement is to put in place any further mechanisms other than the general anti-avoidance rule, because it signals to people the standards by which we intend to operate. That territory was also explored by Mr McMahon in his contribution where he suggested that there can be a place for targeted anti-avoidance rules, and of course there can be a place for targeted anti-avoidance rules if they are required. However, I think that the style that I am trying to bring to the bill is to establish all of our direction based on the creation of a clear and simple set of arrangements around tax-paying that are designed to work within the spirit of the general anti-avoidance rule and to give us the very robust framework in which individuals and organisations should operate to comply with the legislation in that respect. That has been done because we have tried to translate into practice in legislation the four principles of Adam Smith on certainty, on proportionality to the ability to pay to convenience for the taxpayer and efficiency, and I will continue to apply those tests as we continue to scrutinise the legislation as it takes its course through Parliament. The final issue that I want to raise is really the last part of Mr Gray's speech, where he talked about where Revenue Scotland had come from and where it was going. Yes, Revenue Scotland has emerged out of the Scotland act. I do not think that I could ever be identified as somebody who was signing up to what Mr Rennie described as the new optimism of the Scotland act. If the Scotland act is all that captures the new optimism of our country, then heaven help us. I am determined to be infinitely more optimistic and ambitious than anything the Scotland act could produce for us. I would simply and gently point out to Parliament that the Scotland act of 2012 did not even give us all of the powers that the Kalman commission envisaged coming to the Scottish Parliament. For that to be used as an example of the pioneering ambitious approach to devolving further powers to the Parliament by the Unionist parties is, I think, a well-misplaced view. My final point is in relation to the comments raised about the ICAS paper today. I would simply point out that Scotland participates in an existing tax system. I want to see it a great deal simpler. I want to see it a great deal more efficient. I have demonstrated how that can be undertaken by the way in which we have adopted our approach to the legislation as we take it through Parliament, and that will be the approach that we continue to take forward as Parliament acquires more responsibilities. What the legislation demonstrates is that it is perfectly possible for us to undertake effective and strong tax legislation here in the Scottish Parliament, and the independence referendum in September gives us the opportunity to do a great deal more of that in the interests of the people of our country. That concludes the debate on the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill, and it is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of motion number 9142 on the name of John Swinney on the financial resolution for the Revenue Scotland and Tax Powers Bill, and I call on John Swinney to move the motion. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. That brings us to the next item of business. I will give a few seconds for members to change seats. We are tight for time this afternoon. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 10076 on the name of Dennis Robertson on the Disabled Persons Parking Badges Scotland Bill. I would be very grateful if those members who wish to speak in the debate could press the request to speak button to now. I call on Dennis Robertson to speak to and move the motion. It gives me great pleasure this afternoon to come to the chamber to bring forward this bill with the Disabled Persons Parking Badges Scotland Bill. It must be more commonly known as the Blue Badges Bill. The bill is designed to reinforce some of the strengthening aspects of the bill and to ensure that we have a statutory review in place to ensure that people who are entitled to a blue badge receive a blue badge and again to look at the people who are using blue badges are entitled to use the badge in a legitimate way. The badge itself actually does provide on-street concessions for people within local authority parking zones and I suppose sometimes there is some degree of contention about blue badge spaces. The bill itself is not looking at the spaces themselves but we are looking at how the blue badge is used and how to tackle the misuse of the blue badge itself. I would like to thank the local government and regeneration committee who are the lead committee in taking evidence for this bill and again may I thank the delegated powers and law reform committee and again the finance committee for again their submissions to local government in taking this bill forward. My thanks also goes to the minister for the support he has given me at the early stages to say that the government is supportive of this bill. However, I certainly would not have been able to move forward in this bill if I did not have the support of the team from Transport Scotland. They have been excellent in taking me through the process for this bill and providing me with the appropriate guidance. The Transport Scotland team was also responsible with me in setting up two review groups and it is important to emphasise that the review groups themselves have been I suppose in some respects very influential in taking or shaping the bill as it has been presented this afternoon and again they are continuing to be involved and I thank them for the degree of commitment and time that they actually bring to this and looking at the guidance which will underpin this bill later on. There are six sections to this bill in itself and section one looks at the badge itself that is the design of the badge. The badge in itself has undergone many changes since it was first came about and the blue badge actually came about as an orange badge and I actually do remember when the orange badge scheme came into place and it was under the chronology of second disabled persons act 1970 section 21 which enabled the badge to be first formed. The new badge in itself under section one is designed to try and improve the badge to the extent that it cannot be copied because what we are very much aware of in the degree of misuse of this badge is that current badges can be and are tampered with to either alter things like expiry dates or remove photographs to basically so that people can take maybe a legitimate badge from someone and use it for their own purposes and I'll come back to that later on presenting officer. We're looking at the power of cancellation of a badge and again this will give the local authority the power to cancel a badge which has been reported as lost or stolen and at the moment when this happens that there was seldom a central registration of this and the blue badge in itself now is issued by a central authority in England and it's the blue badge improvement scheme and they actually will hold a record of every single blue badge issued in Scotland, England and Wales and with that it comes a unique number for every single person so when a badge is either lost or stolen it can be reported and a new badge can be issued with a new identification number. So this actually ensures that any badge issued by the BBIS is indeed legitimate and should be fit for purpose. Then we come to the area of confiscation, an area presiding officer that has caused a little debate amongst some of the organisations and I know that members in the chamber this afternoon have been approached by Inclusion Scotland and indeed by the Law Society of Scotland but can I try to reassure members that when we're looking at confiscation, confiscation of a badge would only be done and carried out if it's felt that there is justification to do so and in most cases I think an examination of a badge by an enforcement officer will probably determine whether that badge has either been tampered with, is legitimate or is the badge of the person in the vehicle at the time. Now if the badge is not and doesn't reflect that it is the person in the vehicle at the time, again I think the enforcement officers are going to take the view why you know where is the person. Now we hear so many stories, Presiding Officer, that the person whose badge it is has just nipped into the shop on the way back in five minutes or indeed it's a mistake the badge should have been removed because they were just nipping to the shops, they on and earned for a person with a disability and to forgot the badge was there and we hear many many many excuses however again as I'm saying I think confiscation will be done sensitively. There is no point in trying to confiscate a badge to deny a person who has a legitimate right to that badge to take the badge away from them because the badge itself, Presiding Officer, isn't just about on-street parking, the badge is about enabling and empowering people to get out and about, is to get out of their homes and perhaps pursue maybe leisure or go shopping, visit family, employment, so it's an enabling aspect and at the moment we are aware that this is being misused and abused. There are I think some questions around the evidence that is being put forward by say Glasgow in Edinburgh and again I think the Law Society and Inclusion Scotland have been asking for this evidence to be substantiated but what I would say to both groups Presiding Officer is if someone is using a badge and is parking in an area and the badge is being used by someone that it hasn't been a it's not their badge then they're actually denying someone else the right of that maybe disabled parking space or indeed the right to park in on-street parking whereas maybe some difficulty and especially in town centres. So I believe that the measures within the bill are appropriate and proportionate at the moment and again I'm very grateful to the local government and regeneration committee for actually taking the evidence and explaining I think to again I think the Law Society of Scotland and again to Inclusion Scotland what they felt again what was the appropriate measures to go forward and again when I was giving evidence at stage one to the committee myself and the minister were questioning all these aspects and I think we gave the appropriate answers to I think give some degree of reassurance if not total reassurance to the Law Society and to Inclusion Scotland. I think the other part of the bill that we're looking at at the moment is the non-uniformed officers now this is again to look at the enforcement aspect of the blue badge scheme in itself and something's what we need is the evidence as as was being called for to do that you need to be able to ensure that if badges are being misused in areas then again the intelligence that happens at the moment I think both in Glasgow and Edinburgh is that the enforcement officers can actually go out and investigate and take the evidence as appropriate and then maybe make the appropriate approach and again they could advise the police. The last and final bit I think within the bill at the moment is the review process and I think this is extremely important because we introduced in 2012 the independent ability assessment and again this lays down the criteria for for a person to be given a badge so the measures are there and I think at the moment there is no review process in some authorities but since we started moving forward with this bill I'm delighted to say that the majority of local authorities now have put a review process in hand so I look forward to this debate this afternoon I look forward to the fact that I hope at the end of this debate we will be able to move on to the next stage thank you many thanks and now calling Kevin Stewart to speak on behalf of the local government and regeneration committee maximum seven minutes Mr Stewart thank you very much convener sorry Presiding Officer I'm delighted to be speaking in this debate on behalf of the local government and regeneration committee who scrutinised the bill at stage one I think that Dennis Robertson is to be commended for all of his hard work and diligence in producing this bill he's had it introduced he's piloted it to this stage he's a personal interest is a blue badge holder which I'm sure he has probably added to the work required of him he is in his opening speech helpfully set out in general terms what the bill seeks to achieve this bill is small in size but do not let that fool anybody this member's bill addresses a serious matter and the committee heard some illuminating evidence about the scale of problems that exist like all bills that come before the committee we initially sought views on its content we received 27 responses many of which mirrored comments that Dennis Robertson received to his earlier consultation the committee also heard evidence from three panels of witnesses representing local authorities third sector bodies including disability organisations and finally from the police and the law society of Scotland in a departure from our normal approach we heard evidence from the member in charge Dennis Robertson in a panel alongside the minister that approach worked extremely well with the evidence from the member and the minister dovetailing and complimenting one another avoided duplication and of course reduced the time involved for which my very busy committee was extremely grateful I would commend other committees to consider that approach for bills where the underlying policy is not contentious there was of course some limited disagreements between witnesses which is to be expected and of course welcome as it allows the committee to fully test the policy we're extremely grateful to all those who gave us evidence be it in written or oral form without input from people from such people committees and indeed this parliament could not properly and effectively scrutinise legislation we heard there are some 260,000 individuals holding blue badges in Scotland and for many it provides a lifeline allowing them to park without charge or time limit and otherwise restricted on street places it also allows them to park on single and double yellow lines under certain restrictions such as safety for other road users and where there are no other restrictions in place this can allow bachelors to access jobs shops and other services but we also heard that people misused badges for financial gain either using fraudulate badges or using a badge when the badge holder is not present given that for example in Glasgow city centre parking costs three pounds an hour you can see the temptation to abuse badges in this way the temptation is probably increased because existing law is weak the bill provides additional enforcement powers to local authority officials and police officers it allows badges to be cancelled and confiscated in certain circumstances it provides increased security features which should reduce forgeries and other forms of abuse the bill makes it a criminal offence to display a badge that is not valid it may have expired or it may not be used be being used properly for example nipping out to the shops as denis mentioned on behalf of the badge holder does not entitle you to use the badge nor in fact is nipping into the shops when the badge holder is in the car the purpose is to provide the badge holder with the access no one else the badge holder the bill will allow badges being improperly used to be confiscated this provoked a little bit of controversy and evidence as it could inconvenience the badge holder as a result of the actions of somebody else we were however reassured that if confiscated it would be returned to the badge holder promptly thus minimising their time without the badge i could go on further about this but i think denis robertson has given the Parliament a fair show at that day we heard some interesting evidence from civilian enforcement officers about the problems they face and the way they undertake their jobs and indeed as a result of that evidence i understand that discussions are now taking place to allow the police access to the existing national database of blue badges that alone could make a significant difference in tackling abuse and making the task of detecting abusers more efficient the bill also puts in place the requirement for all local authorities to have in place a review system to consider appeals from persons who apply for and who are refused a blue badge that provision provoked suggestions from the law society of scotland in their written evidence that the provisions were not compliant with human human rights legislation the law society want an appeal to be the sheriff as an independent tribunal the committee discussed this in oral evidence and the law society conceded their main concern was with the costs of judicially reviewing the decision of the local authority they accepted the existence of judicial review and this made the provision compliant with human rights curiously perhaps the law society was more concerned with the legalistic propositions than convenience and speed for the individual the committee were content that the proposal on the bill provided for an independent review minimised costs all round while satisfying the european convention final minute thank you it was clear to the committee that at least some misuse of blue badges was inadvertent i've earlier given a couple of examples which could fall into this category we asked witnesses how this could be reduced and how badge holders could be better informed of the do's and don'ts of using their badges all blue badge holders receive a booklet but many perhaps either don't read it or don't understand it or it may not be in a format that is best for them there is a multi agency working group looking at this and we consider there is much that could be done to make it easier for badge holders to comply with the law Presiding Officer the committee unanimously backed the bill we commend the general principles to the parliament and we look forward to future consideration of the small but eminently worthy measure thank you Presiding Officer many thanks and now calling Keith Brown minister maximum seven minutes thank you Presiding Officer and to say at the start of a good that i'm very pleased to be able to contribute to today's debate and also as Kevin Stewart has just done to commend Dennis Robertson for the work that he's done so far and reiterate the point that the government supports Dennis Robertson and this bill the bill falls on from a period of earlier reform and modernisation of the blue badge scheme which amongst other changes has seen the introduction of the blue badge database which again Dennis Robertson mentioned that holds information on blue badge holders in Scotland England and Wales and in addition a new badge design makes forgery and replication of badges much more difficult adding to that Dennis Robertson's bill will provide more powers for detection of forged or fraudulently used badges and that can only be a good thing for badge holders who often have their days ruined when they can't get about their business due to disabled parking spaces being used by those who are misusing badges and I think during this process I think as Kevin Stewart has said we have to bear in mind what are the interests of those who are most important in this and that's the blue badge users certainly I will Liam McArthur grateful in reference to the the database one of the concerns that's been raised by blue badge holders in my own constituency is their other onerous hoops they need to go through in terms of applying for the blue badge when it's clearly evident that their eligibility is not in question is there anything that the database will allow to be streamline that process for those whether there's no question about eligibility minister I think that may be the concern I've heard expressed by other individuals as well but often it turns out to be the case that's because of changes which have been made to welfare reform that require these as you put it hoops to go through and that's why the form can be somewhat complex we have looked from time to time but whether it can be made more straightforward and in particular what we've tried to concentrate on is maximising the number of people who currently have a blue badge will be passported straight through to entitlement in future but I do think it's important that we have that form there because that does help to drive out force or misuse of the of the badge or force badges but we'll keep that under review as we have them up till now. Can I also thank the local government and regeneration committee and endorse the point that Kevin Stewart made about the effectiveness of giving evidence of the committee at the same time as the proposer of the bill Dennis Robertson and also thank the finance committee and the delegated powers and law reform committee for their consideration of the bill. I'll leave much of the detail as we've heard already of the bill to Dennis Robertson but I'd like to draw on some of the conclusions that I could from the reports of the local government and regeneration committee. One of these was the difficulty of identifying the level of misuse and I know that's not been easy for Dennis Robertson in the development of the proposals to establish a baseline of evidence for the scale of misuse of the blue badge scheme in Scotland and in that context I think thanks have to go to both Glasgow city council and the city of Edinburgh council who have been able to provide information based on snapshots of blue badge use and misuse in their areas. I'll just underline the point I think again made by Kevin Stewart. If you're very determined in this regard you can save yourself upwards of £6,000 a year by misusing a blue badge and also just to reiterate the point this is not a victimless crime but it won't be when it becomes a criminal offence as has been mentioned this deprives people who are entitled to these spaces from getting them when a badge is misused but research findings from Scotland on the use and value of the blue badge and the extrapolation of data from England also contributed to trying to identify as closely as possible the scale of misuse and I think paragraph 22 of the stage 1 report from the local government and regeneration committee gets the crux of the matter and I would quote that to our report. While it is unclear how accurate these figures are or indeed whether they refer to overall abuse rates it's clear from the evidence we the committee received that there is a substantial problem which impacts adversely on people's lives and the bill aims to address this by improving the ability of the enforcement authorities to take action in a number of ways and I wholeheartedly agree with that conclusion and that's why it's important that local authorities have the powers to act in cases where it is apparent that a blue badge is not being used in the way it should be or by the person it's intended to assist. I would also like to acknowledge the commitment given by Police Scotland to enforce the blue badge scheme and I'd want to confirm as mentioned in the stage 1 report that transport Scotland officials are currently consulting with the blue badge improvement service to facilitate direct access by Police Scotland to the blue badge database and that will give Police Scotland immediate and accurate information on badges issued by local authorities. The bill, although it's an improvement on what went before and we have had further improvements just more recently in the last two years I think with the review of the scheme, will not provide a quick fixed addressing the misuse of badges. Research on the use and the value of the blue badge scheme highlights gaps in people's understanding of the scheme and that was echoed in the responses to Dennis Robertson's consultation on the bill and in the evidence to the local government and regeneration committee. As has been mentioned already, Transport Scotland is working with Dennis Robertson and the multi-agency working group, set up to help inform the policy behind the legislation and to consider wider issues, to consider for example how the role and purpose of the blue badge scheme is better highlighted to badge holders as well as enforcement officers and the wider public. The old cliché is true that one size will not fit at all, will not fit everybody. We need to get the relevant information to the right people. Firstly, to do that the guidance will be disseminated to local authorities and to Police Scotland on the changes being introduced by this bill. Local authorities will be able to include this in their existing training arrangements for enforcement officers and appropriate guidance will also be arranged for use by Police Scotland. Secondly, we will review the current information to badge holders with the aim of providing more concise messages on the use and care of the blue badge. We heard from Kevin Stewart about the fact that some of the guidance that is currently issued is not used because it is perhaps a bit unwieldy. As discussed during my evidence, the committee work is under way through the multi-agency working group to develop a top 10 tips for the use of the blue badge. The aim of that is to make it easy to read and durable and hopefully something that can be kept with the blue badge as a constant reminder about the correct way to use the badge. Thirdly, and lastly, publicity will be developed to deter abuse and make people aware of the devastating impact on blue badge holders caused by abuse of the scheme. The bill is a combination of a range of measures that have been put in place over the last few years to ensure those who haul blue badges can benefit from the on-street parking concession that the blue badge scheme provides. I again like to thank the local government and regeneration committee for its work and in particular considering the range of written and oral evidence and exploring the issues that the evidence has raised. I want to add that the government will continue to support Dennis Robertson as the bill progresses. Thank you. Many thanks. I now call in Mark Griffin, maximum five minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity we have to speak on the disabled persons parking badges bill today at stage one and again add my congratulations to Dennis Robertson on the progress that has made so far. We are supportive of the general principles of the bill and will be voting yes at decision time tonight. We welcome the bill's main objective to protect the rights of blue badge holders and recognise that misuse of blue badges has to be tackled because it can lead to blue badge holders not being able to access a parking space when they need it. However, we seek reassurances from the Scottish Government that will work with its multi-agency group to ensure that blue badge holders are properly educated on how their badges can be used so that disabled people who inadvertently misuse their badges are not penalised by the bill's provision and welcome the minister's comments on more concise information being provided to users. We also look for reassurance that local government in Scotland will be properly supported and financial aid resource to implement the bill's provision, in particular around enforcement and review provisions. The bill follows on from Jackie Baillie's bill, which prevented disabled persons parking places being occupied by those who were not entitled to use them by making those bases enforceable and making sure that enforcement action could be taken against those who are using them without a blue badge. The bill is also followed quickly by Sandra White's proposal on responsible parking, which aims to allow freedom of movement for all pedestrians by restricting parking at dropped kerbs and pavements in double parking. That affects disabled people as they could find it difficult to negotiate the way around pavements or across roads if that is blocked by a parked car. To me, those separate pieces of legislation complement each other and combined will go a long way towards making our towns and cities much more accessible to people who have a disability. The proposed powers on the bill will be a welcome addition to local authorities in tackling blue badge misuse and the impact that it has on genuine users as long as they are financially supported to enforce the powers. In particular, the power to cancel a badge gives local authorities the power to cancel that badge that is no longer held to the person that was issued to. The power to confiscate a badge, given constables and enforcement officers and the power to keep a badge that they have checked and appear not to be issued under that or has been cancelled or should have been returned or has been misused, making it a fence to use that cancelled badge, meaning that it will be a criminal offence for someone to drive a vehicle while displaying a badge that has been cancelled or should have been returned. Those are the powers that I think will be most effective at carbon misuse of the blue badge. Although we are supportive of the legislation at this stage, we seek those assurances that there will be that education campaign to help to inform genuine blue badge users of what exactly they can and can't do using their blue badges. Other issues are not covered here, which we might want to think about in the future. Blue badge holders can sometimes park on single or double yellow lines, but they are not allowed to do so if there are additional markings on the kerb. Sometimes it is possible to park there, but you cannot find the road sign, which lists the priority times. Someone has to walk a long distance to find that plate on the road. Every time, someone will have to stand in the street to check what those restrictions are. There appear to be more and more of those restricted areas, and it would be worthwhile if they managed to look into those upsurge restrictions. I will close as I began by saying that we support the principles that we will be supporting at the vote tonight with the caveats that I have been given earlier, the assurance over resourcing and education, and I look forward to the bill progressing. I should start by declaring an interest as a blue badge holder, as you will know when I stagger in here with my two sticks, so I have a great interest in it. As a blue badge holder, as well as a fellow MST, I would like to add my congratulations to Dennis Robinson for bringing this legislation forward, as I too have suffered personally from some of these problems. From the contributions that have already been made and from the evidence, we know that there is a need for the reform of the blue badge scheme, and indeed that reform is definitely overdue. From the evidence presented at the committee, there is an overwhelming sense of resentment on the part of the blue badge holders, or blue badge users, rather, for the lack of respect shown to the scheme, and subsequently wide-scale abuse that goes on. There are calls for greater awareness and investment in education due to the number of blue badges that are being misused unintentionally by family members, for example, as we have heard. As Graham Lawson of the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland noted in evidence to his committee, the number of people who take time to read the booklet on their rights and responsibilities under the scheme is very small, and we have touched on this because the booklet is actually a little complicated and needs to be simplified and cut down because people just don't read these things. But the staggering scale of intentional or calculated fraud that goes on with the scheme points to a far greater problem, which this legislation itself cannot actually fully address. Fundamentally, the problem is that too many people just don't understand how valuable the scheme is to those who has mobility problems, as indeed I didn't. How much it restricts and prevents those with a disability from going about everyday tasks when they do not have access to designated disabled parking bays. I believe that if people understood what a lifeline these bays were to people, their attitude to the abuse that goes on would be very different. Hence the fact I welcome a bit more education on this side because I think that's very key. The fact of the matter is people know that it's wrong to use a disabled parking bay. They also tend to think it's okay to use it if they're running late for an appointment, as we've heard from Dennis Robertson, or just nipping into the supermarket for something quickly. Well it isn't, and we must make it clear to people that why it isn't, and the challenge that this notion is that somehow it is acceptable to abuse these schemes in the right circumstances. We blue badge holders have a critical role in that drive for greater awareness. We should be aware of our rights and responsibilities as the likes of Helen Dolphin, a disabled motoring UK, argued in her evidence. One of the biggest misunderstandings occurs when a friend or relative borrows our blue badge to run an errand on our behalf. This is a definite misuse, although many people do not regard it as such. It is only valid in theory when the badge hold is actually in the vehicle concerned, but whether they're getting out of the vehicle or not, I'm not sure of, because sometimes I've been caught that way. So raising awareness and challenging false perceptions is an important part of tackling this problem. However, improving the enforcement is also a critical element, which has long been missing, and that for me is the strength of Dennis Robertson's bill. The new laws are passed when in reality better enforcement of existing legislation will be just as effective. If not more so, in this instance the bill has remained focused on how we improve the workings of the blue badge scheme and central to that enforcement. Most telling of all was about the fact that so many witnesses to the committee stated time and time again the reason rates of misuse were so high, particularly from an estimate between 52 and 70% in the case of Edinburgh, was because those committing the offence were confident they wouldn't be caught. Indeed, the contributions of local authority officers was interesting and there was a broad agreement that blue badge fraud was in many cases viewed simply as a cheap alternative to car parking charges. Yes, we've heard that there were only 30 recorded cases of common law fraud in relation to blue badges. Accordingly we must prosecute those who abuse the system routinely, more readily and deter those people who see the abuse of the blue badge scheme as an easy option. I also am a bit worried about the confiscation of badges and this is a particular point of mind because if you confiscate a badge you deprive somebody and it has to, we have to ensure in some way that when they are confiscated they're brought quickly back to the actual holder if the holder he or she is not guilty. I think this is crucial. In this respect the new criminal offence the bill proposes the powers of confiscation are welcome but that isn't really an end to the process and is obvious from our evidence gathering that there is a need to work to be done on data sharing and the design of the badge. I also therefore support this bill. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate. If members keep two maximum four minutes we should be able to call everyone who's indicated they wish to speak. Sandra White, followed by Liam McArthur. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate my colleague Dennis Robertson on having brought forward this legislation. I fully agree with the policy objectives of the bill to protect the rights of badge holders and strengthen the existing framework of the scheme. I also agree that without the blue badge many disabled people would be confined to their homes and I think other members have mentioned that as well. For me this is really central to the objectives of the bill and resonates well with my own member's bill proposal namely the responsible parking bill, whose policy objectives are to allow freedom of movement for all pedestrians by restricting parking at dropcares, pavements and double parking. It seems to me that these two bills and as Mark Griffin has already mentioned, a previous bill by Jackie Baillie really complement one another. When you talk about irresponsible parking it also affects people's ability, especially the disabled, the elderly, those with visual impairments from getting around, accessing local services and, otherwise, enjoying the freedom of movement that many of us take for granted. Unfortunately, unlike the member bringing this legislation forward, my proposal appears to have fallen foul of parliamentary process and has not moved forward with the same speed as the member's, even though it was lodged some months earlier. It is something that I am obviously frustrated with and many members of the public from across the country are also clearly frustrated by as well. Judging by the correspondence that I have received in regard to the proposed bill, perhaps the member could give me some sage advice on the best way to move the proposed responsible parking bill forward in our chat with, hopefully, Dennis, after that. I note that, in the committee's report, it states that on-street parking enforcement is the responsibility of the police and local authorities. The police are responsible where parking remains criminalised and Police Scotland uses police officers or police traffic wardens to enforce parking restrictions. Local authorities are responsible in areas where parking has been decriminalised. In giving evidence to Chief Constable Wayne Mawson stated that Police Scotland are changing the way that it conducts parking enforcement by reducing the traffic warden or removing the traffic warden role. However, we are committed to tackling dangerous or obstructed parking and the misuse of blue badges, including parking in Disabled's Bay. That commitment will remain after the traffic warden services. I welcome that. His colleague Superintendent Nailer would want to say some of the paper that has been put together mentions that people have said that it is very hard to get in touch with a police officer to deal with such abuses, although, obviously, there is a 101 to contact the police. They are saying that this is a good way to go about it. However, in the case of parking offences, many of my constituents, and I presume others as well, tell me that this is not the case and that they are informed that many parking offences are under the control of local authorities, whether that is clearly not the case. I believe that we need information and clarity on this issue. It has been stated by others that the police do have the responsibility for this, so I would like some clarity perhaps on that, and perhaps I should write to them myself. In the submission of COSLA, it also highlighted its concerns in terms of enforcement. However, I agree with Kevin Stewart, the minister and Mark Griffin that we need multi-agency working, more information and more education to ensure that people know exactly who is responsible. There is much confusion over who is responsible for what, when you can and can't park. Obviously, the yellow line, as Mark Griffin mentioned, and I would welcome the opportunity to look at the issues and concerned around parking and enforcement with a view to adopting a consistent approach to what and how we wish to achieve those aims. In conclusion, I want to echo Dennis Robertson that this is not just about parking, it is about enabling people to have a life and a fully support this bill. Thank you very much. Many thanks. I call Liam McArthur to be followed by John Wilson. Thank you very much, everybody. I join others in warmly congratulating Dennis Robertson on the progress that he has made with the bill so far. I think that all I have been right in pointing out that this may be a small bill, but its significance should not be underestimated. I also thank the local government committee for their work to date. Mark Griffin was right in setting the bill in a wider context. I understand Sandra White's frustrations in relation to her own bill. I know that a precursor to that was brought forward by my colleague Ross Finney. That has been in the pipeline for some time. Jackie Baillie's efforts in relation to the misuse of parking bays are worth noting in the context of the debate. I was not involved in the committee deliberations, but I welcome the chance to participate in the debate from two perspectives. One is with a personal interest. I am the brother of a wheelchair user and blue badge holder. I recognise the frustrations that Cameron Buchanan, Dennis Robertson and others outlined about the abuse that takes place and the impact that that has on the individual blue badge holder. I also know from the case work of my constituency about the issues that can arise, the malfunctioning of the system as it stands and the need for the sorts of improvements that Dennis Robertson is bringing forward in his bill, as well as the proposals that Sandra White has under review. I was very grateful to the minister for his response to the earlier issue that I raised about the administration of the current system. The 20-page form and the possible half-hour assessment that can be involved in securing the blue badge has been a concern to a number of constituents. I was approached by one on behalf of her parents, who are over 80, and she made clear that it is hugely stressful to get through all those procedures so much so that they would rather forfeit their badge than go through all of this. She goes on to ask whether not a more streamlined process might be possible in those instances where eligibility is obviously not in question, supported in some cases by GPs and nurses. I put on record my gratitude to Orkney Islands Council for the way in which it responded in light of the concerns that I raised, but there seems to be perhaps a case for a degree more discretion or a fast-track process to be possible in some instances. In terms of the enforcement provisions that others have referred to, I note the evidence that COSLA put forward. Obviously, I have concerns in my area about the withdrawal of traffic wardens and the implications that that might have on already stretched police resources. Therefore, I think that that is probably something that we will have to be looked at in more detail at stage 2. Likewise, in relation to the confiscation of badges, I entirely recognise that there is a balance to be struck here in terms of trying to bear down on fraud, but if we are at risk of creating additional problems for those who are very heavily on those blue badges, we might need to look again at that. I note the comments that have been made about the speed of redress where mistakes have been made, but I think that that is probably something in light of inclusion Scotland's evidence that more work needs to be done on. In conclusion, as I say, I think that this is a small bill, but a hugely significant bill for those who rely on blue badges, which are themselves an enabler for a more independent life. I welcome the progress that has been made. I wish Dennis Robertson all the luck in the world as this bill proceeds through stage 2 and stage 3 and confirms that Liberal Democrats will be supporting this bill at decision time. Many thanks and the final open debate speaker is John Wilson. I come to this debate as a member of the local government and regeneration committee, but also in the previous session as a member of the local government and communities committee in the last session, which examined Jackie Baillie's disabled persons parking places bill and carried that through. I have some knowledge of the issues that have been presented by Dennis Robertson and his bill. While legislation already exists in many parts of this area, anyone, even with some basic knowledge, knows that there has been an ongoing problem with the blue badge scheme, and in particular it is abuse. It is worth observing that the proposed legislation by Dennis Robertson seeks to enhance the rights of blue badge holders. We have got to recognise what this legislation is about. The local government and regeneration committee stage 1 report that was published this month was supportive in principle of the bill as proposed and its general intentions. That is not to say that the evidence presented to the committee that organisations did not have some concerns about the bill. We heard some concerns from the Law Society of Scotland and also Inclusion Scotland who raised issues about the implementation of the bill, but that aside, the blue badge scheme in essence is about assisting disabled people to live independent lifestyles. During the committee evidence sessions, it was suggested that the blue badge abuse tended to occur most frequently with car parks normally associated with supermarkets, an area in which we do not have any legislation on, and people must be aware that private car parks and supermarket car parks are not covered by this legislation, and it is something that we need to examine further. The committee heard the evidence about the levels of abuse of blue badges with detailed figures from Gordon Cachliff of the City of Edinburgh Council, who stated that anything up to 52 to 70 per cent of blue badges on display in Edinburgh City at any one time were being misused. We must recognise that even disabled people can hold down jobs and depend on the blue badge scheme to get to and from work, so some of those badges that are on display may belong to genuine blue badge holders who are carrying out full-time or employment to their benefit. That leads me to the area of enforcement on street parking, which is the responsibility of place or local authorities that other members have indicated. We have hopefully resolved that issue in terms of the evidence that we received at the committee, and there are clear guidance on who is responsible for enforcing the misuse or abuse of blue badges. Presiding Officer, both the member in charge of the bill, Dennis Robertson, MSP and the minister, indicated that a lot of disability organisations did not share the concerns expressed that were put forward by Inclusion Scotland. That is to be welcomed because the debate that takes place within the disability movement is to be welcomed by everyone, so we are clear about how we move forward. I would like to thank Dennis Robertson for bringing forward this bill. I would like to thank the evidence that we heard as a committee because what I am hoping that we, as a Parliament, will achieve is legislation that helps disabled people to fulfil their lives and participate as fully as possible in the activities that they want to engage in. We have to ensure and get a message out to those people who misuse or abuse the blue badge scheme that action will be taken. That is a message that we have to be quite clear about in Scotland. I congratulate Dennis Robertson on getting to this stage and look forward to the bill being passed as an act at a later date. Many thanks. We now turn to the closing speeches. I remind members who have participated that they should be in the chamber for closing speeches. I call on Cameron Buchanan. Maximum four minutes, please. Well, Presiding Officer, it seems only a minute ago or maybe it was four since there was last opening. Still, with what the debate lacked in long activity, more than made up in terms of succinct, constructive and supportive tone in favour of Dennis Robertson's bill, in my opening remarks I outlined why I supported this legislation, bringing, as it does, much-needed improvement in the administration of the blue badge scheme. However, I am aware that there are still some concerns over some of the final details. For instance, there was a range of view over the issue of non-uniformed enforcement officers, which I am a bit wary of. The crux of this issue is that the striking of balance over the most effective way of enforcing the legislation was at the same time showing an appropriate level of sensitivity to blue badge holders and their personal circumstances. Very quickly, we sent it on how officers will be identified where this will bring assurances to the likes of Inclusion Scotland. So, clearly, there is some need for some further discussion on this point at later stages, probably in stage two. We also wanted to mention the fact that, as Liam McArthur said, going through the hoops in order to get a blue badge, it's really difficult and it wasn't covered with this bill, but it is a very complicated process. Having gone through it, I sent them a picture of me limping along a pavement, because I couldn't show them that I was actually disabled. The Law Society of Scotland highlighted its concerns over this inclusion of strict criminal liability for using a badge once it had been cancelled. There was other evidence given at the committee about the potential for inadvertent offences or even vulnerable badge holders who were aware of abuse, but had limited options due to their reliance on others around them. Along with the previous issue that I have highlighted, it shows one very important aspect about the enforcement of this legislation. It will require local authority officers and police where appropriate to exercise their duties with a good deal of care and sensitivity. Whilst we have agreed that the clear-cut cases of fraud we expect the perpetrator to be prosecuted, I think that we would all expect a certain flexibility and discretion to be shown in the more complex areas that would undoubtedly be. We don't want to see genuine stakes met with punitive fines. Moreover, Deputy Presiding Officer, if we would have a well-trained enforcement officers on the ground, then we will need the money to fund them, which brings us to the vexed issues of funding resources. Happily, a number of local authorities have officers in place who are unable to tackle this matter at present. However, we will have to monitor the workings of this bill in practice. Maybe this could be also dealt with in stage 2. We heard that there was anecdotal evidence of unofficial amnestys on expired blue badge holders being in place, where councils had a backlog in the administrative processing of appeals. Accordingly, this system has to be properly funded if it is to work. Of course, greater funding will be required for the decision review process. In areas where police are responsible for the enforcement of legislation, there will of course have to be resources put in place. I was pleased to hear the insurances given at the committee, though again we must monitor it in that regard. However, I'm sure that all of those can be highlighted in stage 2. We mustn't lose sight of the fact that, at its core, this bill gives local authorities and police sensible powers, powers that they have long sought to challenge the widespread abuse of the blue badge scheme. I also support this bill. As a member of the local government and regeneration committee, I have had the opportunity to consider in some detail the proposal contained within the bill and its likely effects. I would like to thank Dennis Robertson MSP for bringing this important issue to the attention of the Scottish Parliament. I commend his efforts in raising awareness of the very real consequences of blue badge misuse in towns and cities across Scotland. I would like to confirm that I fully support the broad aims of the member's bill and acknowledge that it can often be challenging for disabled people to find accessible parking spaces and that blue badges go some way towards addressing the difficulties that badge holders experience in reaching their destination safely. I was initially surprised to learn that over half of the blue badge holders believe that misuse of badges is a major problem, despite realising that disabled parking badges were too often open to misuse. I hadn't appreciated the scale of the problem that local authorities are facing and distinguishing between genuine and fraudulent badge holders. I feel strongly that the Scottish Government should seek to work with the key stakeholders to ensure that all blue badge holders are properly educated on how their badges can be used. I appreciate the minister for mentioning earlier of what seems to be an excellent idea—the top 10 tips for people to easily understand. That would provide reassurance that disabled people who inadvertently misuse their badge are not penalised by the provisions of the bill. I recognise concerns raised by the Law Society of Scotland that the introduction of new criminal offences of driving a motor vehicle whilst displaying a cancelled badge and wrongful use of a blue badge are simply duplications of existing common law offence of fraud. However, I believe that the incorporation of those offences in statutory form will raise awareness of the seriousness of blue badge misuse and will send a genuine clear message that those who deprive genuinely disabled people of accessible parking spaces will be punished. However, I share the concern that the bill does not contain a right of appeal to an impartial body after a blue badge application has been reviewed and rejected by a local authority. I believe that there should be an external appeals process that is resourced to review the rejection of applications by our local authorities and that that external process should have the power to overturn the original decision if there was evidence to justify that. I also believe that local authorities should be fully resourced—I know that it was something that Cameron Buchanan had mentioned in his closing speech there—to implement the provisions of the bill, including both the enforcement and the review elements of the blue badge application process. Notwithstanding those observations, I am delighted to confirm my support for the aims of the proposed legislation, and I look forward to considering that issue with my constituents in greater detail as the bill progresses. Many thanks, and I now call on Keith Brown. Minister, six minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We are just trying to cover some of the points that have been raised and provide a response to those. First of all, we have mentioned the issue by John Wilson of enforcement of private car parks. John Wilson, of course, is quite right to say that that does not fall within our jurisdiction, but I have written previously to the Scottish Retail Consortium to highlight the importance and the need for disabled people to have close access to shops. I hope that the bill itself and the passing of the bill, if that is what the Parliament decides, will raise the awareness of retailers to the importance of managing disabled bays in shopping centres. If necessary, I am more than happy to write again to the consortium once the legislation is commenced. On the issue that I just mentioned just now by Amic Taggerup to raise by the Law Society about the offence of a blue badge, whether it is duplication or not, it is already an offence to misuse a blue badge. By introducing an offence of using a cancelled badge, section 4 of the bill is amending the existing law to include provision that is also an offence to drive or park a vehicle displaying a badge that has been cancelled or should have been returned to the issuing authority. I think that it is true across law that we do have a general presumption in law against theft, but there are many aspects of theft that we do prescribe in law as being an offence, and I think that that is, to my mind, similar. Just to come back to the point that is quite rightly made by Cymru, we cannot be sensitive in those things. We would not, for example, expect action to be taken if a person has previously reported their badge as having been lost and then finds it and inadvertently uses it again instead of the replacement. The same situation, I think, would have to apply to a carer who transports a badge holder, and it is unlikely to be aware that the badge holder is using a cancelled badge. I think that it is quite right to say that we should be sensitive in those things, and every case should be treated on its own merits, and that is why we are working with the agencies involved, including the Crown Office and the Fiscal Service, and the police to ensure that guidance to local authorities is in place, which allows agencies to take a pragmatic approach to enforcement. It is mentioned made about the application for blue badges, which is not really part of the bill but of the application for blue badges. I should say that local authorities should and do provide assistance to those going through that process. It is also true to say that the Court of Practice gives guidance to local authorities on the application process, and it recommends that, if a person is clearly eligible and the condition is unlikely to change, the blue badge improvement service database can be noted, so no independent mobility assessment is required in the future when reapplying for a badge, which I think is helpful to people in those circumstances. Many local authorities operate in this way. Even in the case, going back to the point about being sensitive about those things in terms of the law, even in the event that a case was referred to the Procurator Fiscal, it is its role on receipt of reports about crimes on the police and other reporting agencies to decide what action to take. There is that further check, if you like. Kevin Stewart. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I noticed that the Minister and I are wearing twin ties today for Enable Scotland. Apart from that, can I ask him in terms of changes to welfare, which he mentioned in his response to Liam McArthur earlier? The move from DLA to PIP may cause some difficulties. Can we ensure that the expert groups that you have set up will do everything that they possibly can to iron out those difficulties to make sure that folks who need blue badges will get blue badges without any difficulties? It is a very good point. I noticed that Kenneth Gibson was wearing the same tie, which is from Enable Scotland. This is an enabling bill, and it is for those with disabilities, so it is quite appropriate. On the point about welfare reform, our guiding approach so far is to maximise the number of people who will passport automatically who previously did by being eligible. We have tried to minimise the change that will take effect in Scotland by trying to keep an eye on those who currently have blue badges and making it as straightforward as possible for them to continue to use them where they are eligible. That will be the approach that will continue to take in future. Enforcement officers and the question of legal recompense to local authorities was mentioned. I should say that what the bill does is to confer powers, not duties. It is up to local authorities as to how they would want to use those powers. Of course, they can help fund additional officers, if that is what they choose to do, by the money that they can take in from the bill. If I mentioned Dela Ron in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it can be up to £6,000 a year that somebody wrongly using a blue badge can gain. That is money that is lost to the local authorities. If they can get that money back in, that can help to pay for the enforcement services, but that will be the choice of local authorities. The one place where there will be additional costs in relation to the review process. I note the point that Anne McTaggart raised about an independent external review process. We looked at that, not afraid to look at it again in the future, but we have taken local authorities at the word to say that they can manage, as they do in many other respects, an internal review process. Of course, out with that, you have a course to the ombudsman, and as we have heard earlier on, through legal process as well. We believe that there are adequate means of redress for people there. In a related point about the idea of the process to go through to get the blue badge, there is a good reason why it can be quite complex. That is to protect the interests of blue badge holders. It is right across the UK—it is not the Scottish Government alone that is doing this—right across the UK, whether it is a database or the new processes. That is to minimise those who should not have a badge. It is very important to people, because there is a limited number of spaces that will protect the interests of those who need it most. That is one reason why the form is quite complex. I have mentioned the process that will put in place the review process that builds on the introduction of the independent mobility assessments carried out by occupational therapists no longer. As was suggested by Liam McArthur for personal GPs or nurses, it will be independent mobility assessments. That is what the review that was carried out across the UK came back with. The existing legislation is quite clear about the assessment that has been carried out by an independent health professional, with the correct skills and experience to determine a person's functional mobility, which is the crucial criteria for being awarded a blue badge. The implementation of the IMA's independent mobility assessments has been closely monitored, particularly in light of the recent welfare changes. To close, the Scottish Government is very pleased with the report from the local government and regeneration committee. The provisions provide local authorities with powers that they can use as part of their existing arrangements for parking enforcement and apply them as they consider necessary. Importantly, the bill responds to the views of badge holders. Once again, I congratulate Dennis Robertson for the work that he has done so far. Thank you very much, minister. I now call on Dennis Robertson to wind up the debate. Mr Robertson, you have just around eight minutes, which should take us to 5.30pm. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First, I will begin by thanking the members this afternoon for taking part in the debate. To the minister for responding to some of the issues that were raised from members, can I perhaps offer some degree of reassurance when it comes to the sensitivity aspect or the confiscation aspect? That is one thing that we have discussed quite a lot with the review groups. I have been giving the reassurances that training already exists within the local authorities in terms of disability awareness training, but again in terms of aspects of engaging with the public in areas of conflict. I am content with the training that is there at present. With regard to confiscation of any blue badge, that will be done only and only at a last resort. I think that whether it be the police or indeed an enforcement officer is absolutely sure that this badge is either a badge that is being tampered with, is being used fraudulently or is in the possession of someone that should not have that badge. It was also raised, Presiding Officer, the aspect of training and information for blue badge holders. Cameron Buchanan is absolutely right in terms of the booklet that goes with the blue badge. I think that the majority of people when they have that blue badge look at the blue badge and put the leaflet or the information booklet in the drawer. I am not really aware of all the aspects and responsibilities that they have as a blue badge holder. It is their responsibility that we need to ensure that they are fully aware of. The top 10 tips that we are looking at at producing is indeed going to be done with the enforcement and review groups that we are working with. I started on this journey about 18 months ago. I thank Mr Robertson for giving way. It was suggested during evidence taking that it may be an idea to actually get folk to sign and say that they have understood the guidance. Are the review group going to look at that to see if that is possible or not and whether that would actually work? I think that Mr Stewart has made a valid contribution there. It is certainly something that the review group would be looking at. It is perhaps one aspect of trying to ensure that the badge holder is aware of its actual responsibilities. I started on this journey about 18 months ago. During this time, I have been around various parts of the country, engaging with various groups of people with disabilities and COSLA representatives. It is the people themselves with the disabilities who are badge holders that are saying that they require that they need a change in the current legislation. They are, to some extent, content, I believe, with what has been put forward, Presiding Officer, because the current enforcement powers are not sufficient. At the moment, whether it is a traffic warden or an enforcement officer, they can approach someone and say that they can have a look at the badge, but if they believe that that badge is being used fraudulently, they cannot confiscate it. They would actually have to wait for a police officer, by which time the driver can drive off. Surely, Presiding Officer, that is wrong. We need, I think, the new powers to ensure that badges that we know are being misused, which we absolutely are convinced that are being misused, can actually be withdrawn. With regard to the non-uniformed officers, Cameron Buchanan said that he was maybe slightly concerned about the aspects of identification. I actually do not believe that that in itself presents a problem. I sometimes think that maybe being approached by someone in uniform can maybe raise greater anxiety among some of the public when they are being approached. I think that someone in uniform can provide the appropriate identification. I think that if the person is concerned, they can ask perhaps for further identification. As far as I am aware, most enforcement officers, etc., would have their radios, and they can probably actually call a central centre for confirmation of identification. Presiding Officer, I believe that the steps within the bill are proportionate and appropriate. I believe that the review process, which has been mentioned again, is the right thing to do. At the moment, there is no provision for a review, although the majority of local authorities, since we started on this journey, have introduced a review process. I think that if a person has been reviewed and denied a badge, they can appeal. Appealing to the same local authority does not give me room for concern, because it will go to someone else—perhaps that person's line manager—or someone else within that local authority. It is based on criteria and guidance. If the person does not meet the criteria for having a blue badge, then their application will be denied. We need to ensure that those who can be passported into the system know that they can passported into the blue badge system. Presiding Officer, there are many stories of misuse, but I think that the one that probably angers me more than any is that a person who had a blue badge was a housebound, was never out, and that badge was being used by family members themselves without ever taking the badge holder out at any time. That might be an extreme case, but what we need to do is to ensure that the badges are used appropriately. Third-party misuse is not acceptable. I think that we should be just saying that it is not acceptable to misuse a blue badge. I think that we can mention just nipping out to the shop and inadvertently leaving a blue badge on the dashboard. What we have with the central database system is a method of recording the incidents that take place. If there is persistent misuse, the enforcement officer or police officer will have that information to hand. Presiding Officer, I believe that the Parliament does want to see this bill progress. It has been my absolute pleasure this afternoon in bringing this debate to the chamber. I thank the team from Transport Scotland, local government committee and the minister. I move the disabled persons parking bills Scotland bill in my name. That concludes the debate on the disabled persons parking badge. Scotland bill, we move to decision time. There are three questions to be put. The first question is at motion number 10079 in the name of John Swinney. On the revenue Scotland and tax powers bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 9142 in the name of John Swinney. The financial resolution for the revenue Scotland and tax powers bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 10076 in the name of Dennis Robertson, the disabled persons parking badge. Scotland bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members leaving the chamber should leave so quickly and quietly.