My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this order, which is the result of collaborative working between two Governments. It supports the Scottish Government’s request last year to devolve powers for the Scottish Parliament to establish a Scottish building safety levy.

The order before us will be made under Section 80B of the Scotland Act 1998, which provides for devolving additional tax-raising powers to the Scottish Parliament by way of statutory instruments. Scotland Act orders are a demonstration of devolution in action. I am pleased to say that the Scotland Office has taken through over 250 orders since devolution began 25 years ago.

The Grenfell Tower fire was a heartbreaking tragedy that sent shockwaves across the UK and overseas. As the Prime Minister said when the final inquiry report was released in September, it was entirely avoidable. Our thoughts remain with the victims and their families, and the Government will do everything in their power to ensure that a disaster of this scale never happens again.

Many homeowners across the UK still live in buildings with serious fire and building safety defects. The remediation challenge is significant. The Scottish Government estimate that around 49% of high-rise buildings above 18 metres would require some level of remediation, along with 10% of high-rise buildings between 11 and 18 metres. This suggests that there are 382 buildings above 18 metres requiring some form of remediation and around 500 buildings of between 11 and 18 metres requiring it—close to 900 buildings in total.

The UK Government and the devolved Governments have stepped up and committed public funds to help remediate life-critical building safety problems. Many in the building sector have also assumed their responsibilities and taken ownership of the remediation challenge, but there remain buildings where a responsible party cannot be identified. It would be unfair on the taxpayer for the cost of remediating these buildings to fall on to the Government. It would also be unfair on homeowners for the cost to fall on them.

The order will devolve a power to the Scottish Parliament to enable it to legislate for a Scottish building safety levy to fund building safety expenditure in Scotland. The devolved power will be akin to the Secretary of State’s power under Section 105C of the Building Act 1984, as amended by the Building Safety Act 2022, to introduce a building safety levy in England. This follows a request from the Scottish Government last year to devolve such a power. The UK Government will continue to work closely with the Scottish Government, and I am pleased that, in this case, the Governments have worked together to make sure that this issue can be addressed in Scotland. I beg to move.