Mackay gets pass marks

Sunday 3 June 2012

How did it go at the Local Government Committee for minister Derek Mackay, who was defending the unpopular (with business at least) empty property rates relief?

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Agenda was keeping score following our story about the pasting the proposals received in the Finance Committee. Mackay gave a characteristically skilful and robust defence of the empty property rates that confirm him as the most impressive junior minister of the Scottish Government.

Under some tough questioning, particularly from Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell, Mackay managed to hit various political marks: (a) that objections were routine grumblings of those who don't want to pay more tax; (b) there is wides-pread popular support for the measure even if business doesn't like it; (c) that they are only necessary because of the UK Government's budget cuts; and (d) that the "listening" Scottish ministers, if given the powers to reduce this (rare) subsidy to business, would take care to ensure the feared unintended consequences would not arise. None of that means the measure will be beneficial, which only time will tell. Talk about anti-climax. Several months after the meetings they describe, the minutes of the "reconvened" Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) for January and February have been published online, and a more self-evident collection of banalities is hard to imagine. We learn, for example, that: "The current economic climate, with low interest rates, makes it an efficient period in which to take forward public-sector capital investment but Scotland is currently constrained by a lack of borrowing powers." Having shaken off its more independent-minded (as opposed to Independence-minded) members, such as Prof John Kay and Prof Alex Kemp, the CEA now seems like a cosmetic exercise rather than a rigorous and open forum capable of thinking – and proposing – the unthinkable.

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Mackay gets pass marks

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