(Image: Derek McArthur/Damian Shields)
A wide range of influential business leaders and industry groups are supporting The Herald’s calls for business rates reform in Scotland.
High-profile Scottish chefs, restaurateurs, hoteliers, pub operators and other business owners have joined the country’s biggest trade organisations in signing up to Reset The Rates – a campaign calling for six major changes to the business rates system in Scotland.
The campaign comes amid growing concern within the business community over the complexity of the current business rates regime and the steep increases in bills that followed the most recent revaluation of non-domestic properties, which critics say are undermining the ability of companies to invest, grow and take on staff.
Supporters have signed up to six key reforms that The Herald believes will create a fairer, more transparent and predictable rates system while helping to improve the vibrancy of town and city centres across Scotland:
• Adjust thresholds for the small business bonus scheme to ensure small firms remain within its scope
• Create a national business rates assessor to avoid regional disparities
• Deliver a fairer deal for hospitality and tourism accommodation
• Introduce safeguards to prevent individual businesses facing sudden unaffordable increases following revaluation cycles
• Ensure major online operators pay their fair share to benefit the business community as a whole
• Press the UK Government to restore the business premises renovation allowance relief to help bring vacant sites back into use
Backers include the leaders of major business organisations, business leaders and owners.
Here's who is backing our campaign:
- Colin Borland, Scotland director, Federation of Small Businesses
- Marc Crothall, chief executive, Scottish Tourism Alliance
- Leon Thompson, executive director, UKHospitality Scotland
- Fiona Campbell, chief executive, Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers
- Charandeep Singh, chief executive, Scottish Chambers of Commerce
- Stuart Patrick, chief executive, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
- Colin Wilkinson, managing director, Scottish Licensed Trade Association
- Mike Grieve, chair of the Night Time Industries Association Scotland
- Stephen Montgomery, Scottish Hospitality Group
Siobhan Edwards, Lisini Pub Company (Image: PR handout)
- Gordon Drummond, owner, Cairngorm Lodges
- Calum Ross, co-owner, Loch Melfort Hotel
- Nick Nairn, co-owner, Nick's at Lake of Menteith
- Jonathan MacDonald, founder, Scoop Restaurants
- Kenny McMillan, managing director, Highland Coast Hotels
- Edward Wickman, managing director, Wickman Hotels
- Robert and Vivien Kyle, owners, RAD Hotel Group
- Tom Kitchin, Edinburgh chef and restaurateur
- Siobhan Edwards, owner, Lisini Pub Company
- Beth Rehman, co-owner, Perle Hotels
- Andrew McRae, owner, Museum Context
- Lindsey and Nick Smith, owners, Endurance Kickboxing, Aberdeen
- Marco Gianassi, restaurateur, former owner of the Battlefield Rest in Glasgow
Together, the organisations and business leaders backing the campaign represent thousands of businesses and employees across Scotland.
Colin Borland, Scotland director of the FSB, said: “Reform of the rates system should be at the heart of the Scottish Government’s public sector reform agenda and The Herald business team is to be congratulated for their important public-interest journalism and campaign.
“The business rates set-up we have in Scotland doesn’t work for many ratepayers and doesn’t work for the Scottish economy. It is too complicated, opaque and inefficient, both for the small businesses who have to navigate it and the public bodies who oversee it.
“Significantly streamlining the system – and ensuring it shelters the small traders the small business bonus scheme was designed to protect – would go a long way in supporting the small firms on whom our economy and communities rely.”
Mike Grieve, chair, Night Time Industries Association Scotland (Image: PR handout)
Leon Thompson, executive director of UKHospitality Scotland, said: "I'm delighted to support The Herald's calls for a fairer deal for hospitality and fundamental change to the broken business rates system. For too long, Scottish hospitality businesses have been unfairly burdened by sky-high business rates bills which rise year after year. The Herald is absolutely right to call for change and I hope their campaigning, alongside the work of UKHospitality Scotland, will lead to action from the Scottish Government."
Fiona Campbell, chief executive of the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers, said: “The ASSC wholeheartedly backs The Herald's campaign. Self-caterers across Scotland opened their rates bills this year to increases they never saw coming, with many seeing their valuations more than double when nothing about their business had changed.
“These are small family businesses, often one or two properties run by people who live in the community, and they cannot just pass rises like that on to guests. A national assessor would end the lottery of where in Scotland you happen to operate, and protection against sudden, unaffordable jumps would let people plan ahead instead of wondering whether they can carry on.
“Visitors don't just stay in a self-catering property; they help fill the local pub and provide footfall for local shops and restaurants. All of that depends on the people hosting them staying in business."
Edward Wickman, managing director of Wickman Hotels, which owns and runs Kinloch Lodge, Flodigarry Hotel and Cuillin Hills Hotel on the Isle of Skye, said: “As a Scottish hotel operator investing for the long term, we support calls for meaningful reform of the business rates system.
“Hospitality businesses create year-round employment, support local supply chains and invest heavily in maintaining and improving property assets, yet the current system can result in substantial and unpredictable increases in costs following revaluations.
“Businesses need a rates system that is transparent, consistent and allows operators to invest with confidence. Reform should ensure that changes in valuations are introduced fairly, that regional inconsistencies are reduced, and that traditional bricks-and-mortar businesses are not placed at a disadvantage when competing with large online operators.
“A fairer system would encourage investment, support economic growth and help businesses continue creating jobs in communities across Scotland.”