ONE of Scotland’s best known bankers, Royal Bank of Scotland's former chairman for Scotland, Ken Barclay, is to lead the Scottish Government’s review of business rates, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced yesterday.
“[Mr Barclay] has agreed to chair the Commission which will recommend changes to business rates,” Ms Sturgeon yesterday told the Federation of Small Businesses’ national conference and expo in Glasgow – the first time it has been held in the city.
“He and the other panel members will consider how business rates can support business growth; respond to wider economic conditions and changing marketplaces; and support long-term growth and investment.”
It was revealed last August that Mr Barclay, who was born in East Kilbride and brought up in Paisley, was leaving RBS after 40 years with the group. He had spent the last three years chairing the bank’s board in Scotland, which involved helping RBS maintain its position in the market for lending to businesses, including small and medium sized enterprises. He previously played a key role in developing RBS’s corporate banking business.
“This will be a detailed examination of the Scottish business rates system and I look forward to listening to the businesses who pay rates to hear their views,” Mr Barclay said of his new role. “My aim is to identify a series of recommendations that seek to enhance and reform the system to better support business growth and reflect the economic importance of rates and changing marketplaces.”
If re-elected this May, Ms Sturgeon also committed to retaining the Scottish Government’s rate relief scheme for small business premises – called the small business bonus scheme – until at least 2021. Since its introduction in 2008, this had saved small businesses £1 billion, with almost 100,000 small business premises in Scotland now paying zero or reduced rates.
“We intend to keep our promise that Scotland will be the best place to do business anywhere in the UK,” the First Minister said, adding that the review would be completed by summer 2017 and that businesses would be asked for their views.
The FSB welcomed news on business rates, noting that its 2016 Scottish Parliament manifesto had called for retention of the small business bonus scheme in the short term and a wider review of the system in the longer term.
“On rates, small firms from up and down Scotland will be pleased to hear of the Scottish Government’s intentions to review the system while retaining their ground-breaking small business bonus scheme,” said the FSB’s Scottish policy convenor Andy Willox. “But with just over a year until the next revaluation, action may need to be taken now to make the system more user-friendly.”
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson also addressed the conference.
Mr McDonnell raised the need to reform tax and public procurement; boost productivity; to radically reform and resource HMRC; finally tackle late payment and address skills shortages.
Ms Davidson argued that business rates in Scotland should be frozen until the wider system is reformed.
“Frozen for as long as it takes that review to happen - all parliament if needs be,” she said.
Ms Davidson also outlined the need to support more firms who are internationally minded but locally owned. To tackle skills shortages, she made the case for a network of skills academies.
Around 1,200 delegates have registered to attend the three-day FSB event from 17 to 19 March.
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