Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 10 October 2019.

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Photo of Graham Simpson Graham Simpson Conservative

Dear me, dear me. We will have to see the entire budget to answer that question, and we will have to see what the Government is doing to councils and whether it will slash their budgets again.

There is another missed opportunity to do something about high streets, which is something that we could consider at stage 2.

I said that much of the bill is uncontroversial, but one section has proved anything but, and has attracted the most comment. That is, of course, the section that takes away reliefs for independent schools. Liz Smith spoke with great authority on the matter. Out of a total of 367 submissions, more than 300 were on the issue of the taking away of rates relief and most of those came from concerned parents, teachers and pupils. We as a committee took evidence and we even visited the independent school George Watson’s College, in Edinburgh. However, the die was cast on the rates relief removal issue before anyone contacted us, before we heard a word and before we stepped across George Watson’s impressive portal.

Parties have positions, which means that some people just do not like the idea of parents having the choice to pay for their children’s education. However, I prefer to go with the evidence, which was overwhelmingly that independent schools are charities, that all charities benefit from rates reductions and that to meddle with that arrangement is meddling with charity law. How can we attack one section of the charity sector without looking at the whole sector? It is a policy born of prejudice and spite. The Scottish National Party has not gone quite as far as Labour, with its aim of abolishing all independent schools, but removal of rates relief is the thin end of the wedge.

I did not know a great deal about the independent schools sector before scrutinising the bill, but what I found was a sector that is proud of its charitable status, proud of its work to widen access to its schools’ facilities, proud of helping the disadvantaged and proud of having schools that are part of their communities. I visited Hamilton College in my region, whose building is that of the former Strathclyde teacher training college. Hamilton College is not a fabulously wealthy institution and, from what I could see, many of its facilities lag way behind those of schools in the state sector—elitist it is not. However, Hamilton College takes its charitable status very seriously, not to avoid paying rates but as a mission. It rents out its facilities and has a pool that swimming icon Michael Jamieson uses for his swimming academy. He is elite, but he is not elitist. Do we really want to put that type of endeavour at risk? As we have heard, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator made some damning comments about the bill’s proposal.

There was a proposal to make one exception to amending the status of independent schools and it involved specialist music schools. However, there is only one such school in the sector: St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh. There was no logic to that proposal and I wonder what or who lay behind it.

There will be amendments at stage 2. We are open to ideas. We will work with other parties and outside organisations to improve the bill. We will work with the minister, if she is willing to be flexible.