SRC tables Parliamentary Question on business rates freeze in Scotland
The SRC asked Paul McLennan MSP to table a written parliamentary question on the business rates freeze for 2023-24 in Scotland.
You can find the question and response from the Scottish Public Finance Minister below. Of note are the forecast savings for retail businesses - worth £64.5m.
Paul McLennan (East Lothian) (Scottish National Party): To ask the Scottish Government what the savings will be in 2023-24 as a result of the decision to freeze the headline business rate, broken down by industry sector.
Tom Arthur: The decision to freeze the non-domestic poundage rate at 49.8p is expected to save ratepayers £308 million in 2023-24, compared to uprating the poundage in line with September’s measure of CPI which would have resulted in a poundage rate of 54.8p in 2023-24. This figure is broken down in Table 1 by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.
These tables are based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and are therefore subject to change. Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000.
Table 1: Gross savings to ratepayers of poundage freeze compared with maintaining real terms income, by property class
|
Property class |
Savings to ratepayers due to poundage freeze (£) |
|
Shops |
64,501,000 |
|
Public Houses |
5,138,000 |
|
Offices |
41,479,000 |
|
Hotels |
11,995,000 |
|
Industrial Subjects |
51,444,000 |
|
Leisure, Entertainment, Caravans etc. |
10,667,000 |
|
Garages and Petrol Stations |
2,627,000 |
|
Cultural |
2,552,000 |
|
Sporting Subjects |
1,135,000 |
|
Education and Training |
28,257,000 |
|
Public Service Subjects |
14,615,000 |
|
Communications |
1,374,000 |
|
Quarries, Mines, etc. |
485,000 |
|
Petrochemical |
5,502,000 |
|
Religious |
1,707,000 |
|
Health and Medical |
11,259,000 |
|
Other |
6,466,000 |
|
Care Facilities |
6,132,000 |
|
Advertising |
339,000 |
|
Statutory Undertaking |
40,420,000 |
|
Not in Use |
0 |
|
All |
308,095,000 |