‘Convoluted’? It could hardly be more simple

IREFER to Rob Gibson’s description of my proposed Annual Ground Floor and Roof Rent (AGFRR) as “convoluted” (Letters, May 9). There is no doubt the Scottish Government needs to source funds urgently to just maintain public services and eradicate poverty. I think we are all agreed that the return of our funds through the Westminster block grant will not be that source.

Rob rightly highlights the time which it has taken to introduce modest changes to the saga of land reform, including local government finance. However, for a significant period, he has been part of the legislative cog in the parliamentary wheel which has continually stuttered to bring the modicum of change which we witness today. The current Land Reform Bill just piles on the frustration of manana-ism.

Parliamentary procedures in Holyrood do not dictate that the legislative process must be so painfully slow. The annual Budget Act is a recurring example which is presented, debated and approved in a short time frame.

Rob’s suggestion of an early revisiting of the Scottish Government’s Commission on Local Tax Reform 2015 shares with the recent Common Weal report Taxing Land In Scotland the perception that legislating for a modest change to local taxation will produce an early increase in revenue for councils given the constrained revenue-raising powers in the devolution settlement.

I pay tribute to Rob’s stamina in campaigning for land reform over many years but I suspect the frustratingly slow progress has been caused in part by Rob and his SNP colleagues becoming participants in an establishment system which serves those who manipulate that system and have a patrimonial interest in it.

Landowners, land agents, accountants, civil servants, local authorities, government departments and agencies, surveyors, developers, lawyers, foreign investors and land hoarders are all bees round the honeypot of land reform proposals, all working to protect their financial interests within the final emasculated product.

The SNP government has to break out of that treacle of self-interest if anything meaningful, and with any sense of urgency, is to be the result.

Far from being “convoluted”, the model I suggest couldn’t be simpler. It’s a basic subdivision exercise which we were taught in primary school. Government costs its programme for the year then divides the area of ground, floor and roofs in the country in square metres. These are factual figures at a given date, not opinions of value which are the drivers of constant dispute.

That simple sum sets the national AGFRR Rate. That rate is adjusted initially to take account of four land types and affordability. The land types are identified by established maps. Property owners can even calculate their total liability for AGFRR by simply multiplying the square meterage of the ground, floor and roof of their property by the land type rate.

Given the oft-reported 17,000 pages of the British tax log, I’ll leave your readers to decide whether AGFRR is “convoluted”.

Unlike other new systems of taxation, the essential elements of AGFRR are already in place. We have a Land Register and the General Register of Sasines, Revenue Scotland and the Cadastral Plan. All that is needed is to develop an online AGFRR register where owners will state what they own by reference to the Cadastral Plan and pay the AGFRR. Such kit is not new technology. It’s a simple customer registration and payment system.

Finally, we need the legislation. Many SNP politicians and commentators have been spouting the claim that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to introduce new national taxes without the consent of the UK Government. I suspect this claim has been fed by senior civil servants working for the Scottish Government.

The claim has been challenged through Freedom of Information and the tax and revenues directorate now admits the Scottish Parliament can introduce such without the consent of the UK Government under section 80I of the Scotland Act provided that the terms of the tax comply with that section. AGFRR does!

If the SNP are serious about winning the General Election, the Scottish election in 2026 and, most importantly, independence, the Government must waste no time in introducing this or another simple model of taxation which has the capacity to lift people out of poverty very quickly, boost our economy and ensure a sustainable future for our country as it marches out of this dreadful Union. Graeme McCormick

Arden