First Minister rejects calls to revamp controversial housing tax

NICOLA Sturgeon yesterday rejected calls to overhaul the SNP’s controversial property tax, despite it blowing a massive hole in the Scottish Government budget.

The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax replaced Stamp Duty on homes costing more than £325,000 but experts claim it has stalled the property market.

Ruth Davidson yesterday challenged the First Minister to overhaul LBTT after figures showed it raised less than ministers had expected – leaving a £5 million shortfall in the Government’s budget.

Revenue Scotland this week revealed that £ 8 million of LBTT was collected in 2016/17 – compared to an estimate of £538million in the Government’s Budget for the year.

During First Minister’s Questions, Miss Davidson insisted this was proof that the contro- versial tax was not working and should be revamped.

Under LBTT, sales of properties between £325,000 and £750,000 attract a levy of 10 per cent, but industry body Homes for Scotland says some of these should be in the 5 per cent band.

Conservative leader Miss Davidson said: ‘A specific proposal has been put on the table by Homes for Scotland, which wants to make it easier for families to move up the property ladder. I will back that proposal. Will the First Minister?’

But Miss Sturgeon said the Government would ‘bring our decision for the tax, and for all taxes for which we are responsible, to be scrutinised by parliament in our budget’. Her spokesman later said there were no plans to review LBTT.

Miss Davidson added: ‘The First Minister should listen to the property and housing experts and make changes to get the market moving.’

‘Make it easier for families’

Mairi who? it was halfway through First Minister’s Questions when the Presiding Officer called a backbencher. The name sounded like ‘goujon’, though that might have been because lunch was approaching.

From the din of desk-thumpers behind Nicola Sturgeon – She Who Must Be applauded at all Times – up popped Mairi Gougeon, who it turns out is the MSP for angus North and Mearns.

Up in the press gallery hacks, newly christened ‘you lot’ by ruth Davidson, exchanged puzzled looks. The SNP backbenches are the Bermuda Triangle of Scottish politics, where the mad, the mediocre and the mystifyingly electable go when the party wants to hide them.

Over time, they become an anonymous mass, there only to bang tables and press the voting buttons. You could save on salaries and just retain a couple of octopuses.

Our Mrs Gougeon was feeling brave. She demanded the First Minister ‘urgently investigate’ her ‘serious concerns’ about a health unit facing closure. Her constituents had ‘not been consulted’ and the decision-making process breached guidelines. it was, in short, ‘a box-ticking exercise’.

There were gasps from the Nationalists. For a backbencher to bring up an NHS problem that can’t be blamed on the Big Bad Tories was daring enough.

But to tell Miss Sturgeon to do something ‘urgently’ – a euphemism for ‘what are you still standing there for, get a move on’ – was bold. Nats looked bewildered.

This was First Minister’s Questions. it was hardly the time to be asking questions of the First Minister.

Miss Sturgeon was briefly flustered then said that the Health Secretary would get on the blower to the health board. This is textbook Sturgeon speak. Whenever she can’t answer a question, she promises to get someone to look into it. edinburgh Southern MSP Daniel Johnson asked about a ten-year-old girl who had been told she’d have to wait almost two years to see a specialist.

Miss Sturgeon: ‘i do not know all the details. if they can be passed to me, the Cabinet Secretary for Health will investigate.’

Labour leader alex rowley tried to quiz her on a housing develop- ment meant to be ready by Christmas that was being held up.

again, the First Minister hadn’t the foggiest but if someone sent her the details, she’d ‘make sure the matter is looked into’.

Hear to Help, a service for the deaf in the North east, was losing its local government funding, pointed out Tory MSP Liam Kerr.

it only needed £17,000 to stay open – couldn’t the First Minister have a word with council bosses? ‘i will make sure it is looked into.’

Miss Sturgeon’s syntax is exquisitely calibrated to avoid taking responsibility in the here and now. every answer contains a subject, an object and a feasibility study.

Thus tough questions are dodged and the SNP’s failings shunted out of the spotlight. The SNP isn’t a government as much as an endless review that changes its remit every few months.

When Labour leadership hopeful richard Leonard queried whether she was planning to change the rules for the free bus pass, Miss Sturgeon took the chance to have a pop at Labour’s internal woes. ‘We fight for Scotland,’ she declared. ‘Scottish Labour just fight among themselves.’

Nothing to do with the bus pass, as the Presiding Officer noted, but at least the First Minister had finally answered a question.