Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 2 and 36, to which I have added my name. On Amendment 2, I do not need to add much to what has been said, other than that the disproportionate hit on part-time workers seems to me to be extraordinarily damaging. As has been said, very often these are incipient businesses that might grow to be full-time businesses. There are whole swathes of the economy, such as students, which nearly all of us have in our family, who depend on this kind of work to get them through their studies. So it is a significant impact, as has been said. The hospitality industry has not just had five difficult years. I have personal knowledge of a number of hospitality businesses that did not survive Covid, and many that survived Covid but with a massive debt overhang that they are still trying to pay off. Add this particular measure on top of that and those that just managed to survive will now probably fail, and those that can hang in there will struggle to get themselves back into viability. I have an amendment I shall speak to later about the impact of these taxes on the public sector in Scotland. In the private sector, there is a difference in hospitality business rates between Scotland and England. Although the way the business rates are determined is not exactly comparable, UKHospitality Scotland has done an analysis of businesses in Scotland in a comparable sector. It gives an example: a local pub, an average kind of pub, would pay £6,000 more in business rates, 66% more than an equivalent business in England. A town centre restaurant would pay almost £10,000 more, which is also 66% more, and a hotel would pay £26,000 more, which is 70% more than an equivalent business. I am not here to apologise for or justify the measures of the Scottish Government, who obviously have not followed the UK Government in terms of business rate discounts—it would have been helpful if they had—but I challenge the Government to recognise that the combined activities of two Governments on businesses in Scotland is leaving many businesses in Scotland comparable to similar businesses all over the rest of the UK substantially disadvantaged compared with the rest. I do not believe the Government gave any consideration to that unintended consequence and they have not recognised that it means that the Scottish economy will be disproportionately hard hit by this. I will throw one political grenade into the mix. It is fine to say that we have an SNP Government, but the majority of people in Scotland did not vote SNP and I think they are entitled to look to a UK Government to at least give some recognition that they are looking for an approach to their businesses that shows some appreciation and understanding that things are different north of the border. Just occasionally, it would be helpful if the UK Government acknowledged that.