Scotland ‘closer than ever’ to scrapping council tax, Green MSP insists

An alternative system to replace council tax in Scotland could be developed before the next Holyrood elections in 2026, Green finance spokesman Ross Greer said.

The Greens hope the council tax system can be reformed “over the next couple of years”, allowing more cash to be raised “more fairly”, he said.

But he said the party is also working with others in the Scottish Government to look at alternatives to the current system, which helps raise cash for local government.

Speaking at the Scottish Green conference in Clydebank, Mr Greer said: “By the end of this session of Parliament our hope is that we have on the table, ready to go, a replacement for the council tax.”

He added: “We will not have replaced the council tax by the end of this session of parliament; that is not possible.

“But what we want to do is finally be the party that does what everybody else failed to do – break this impasse, have a progressive replacement for a system that is older than me.”

The SNP promised to replace council tax in 2007 but failed to do so without a majority in the Scottish Parliament.

With the Greens now working with the SNP in government as part of the Bute House agreement between the two parties, Mr Greer said: “We have got the right people round the table and we are closer than we have ever been to actually replacing the council tax.”

But he said the “next few years are going to be difficult”, saying those who could lose out as a result of any changes may well oppose reforms.

Replacing council tax, which was introduced by the Conservative government at Westminster in 1993, would be a “massive political change”, the Green West of Scotland MSP added.

Mr Greer said: “With any new tax system there will be winners and there will be losers, and we want it to be a progressive system where we want the losers to be the people who have got away with not paying nearly as much tax as they should at the moment.”

He spoke about council tax as he admitted the cash the Scottish Government had provided for councils in this year’s budget was “not nearly enough”.

He said: “In cash terms we put a lot more money into local government this year, but in real terms we know that wasn’t nearly enough to make up for the pressures on them, for inflation etc.”

Mr Greer continued: “We know in the short term we are in an impossible position with local government funding.

“Longer term, that is why we are now in the driving seat for replacing the council tax.”