Cladding Bill passes first hurdle as SNP warned of exacerbating housing crisis

Scottish Government plans to tax housebuilders to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding has passed its first hurdle at Holyrood.

The Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill was voted through at stage one 65 to 54, with no abstentions.

The legislation would create a new tax on new housebuilding and developments to pay for the remediation of cladding.

It is estimated to cost up to £3.1 billion and follows the Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017 which killed 72 people.

Public finance minister Ivan McKee said the Bill would ensure remediation is paid for by housing developers.

But Scottish Labour, which voted against the plans, warned it would “exacerbate the housing crisis”.

Mark Griffin, the party’s housing spokesman, said his party could not support  at stage one.

Mr Griffin, Central Scotland MSP, told Parliament: “The Scottish Building safety Levy Bill contains proposals that are, in my view, and it seems in many others’, disproportionate, vague and, most importantly, at risk of reducing the supply of new homes in Scotland, exacerbating the government-declared housing emergency.

“For those reasons, we will not be supporting the Bill as principles at stage one.”

Mr Griffin said while he supported the principle of the levy, “how it has been designed and applied, the vagueness, the uncertainty and the risk to exacerbating the housing emergency means we can’t support it in the form that the Government has presented it in”.

The Tories, who also voted against the Bill, warned it could negatively impact the housing sector and add thousands to the cost of each property.

Tory MSP Liz Smith said she supported improving building standards but said she had “serious doubts” about the Government’s legislation.

Citing a Holyrood committee report that did not back or oppose the Bill, she said: “The major issue concerns the likely impact on the housing market which, as we all know, has already been facing very significant challenges for quite some time.

“And the most significant concern among witnesses and finance committee members was the fact that the proposed Bill could actually reduce house building capacity because it would make certain sites unviable and thereby have a detrimental effect on the ability to deliver much-needed, affordable housing.”

Public finance minister Ivan McKee said: “The tragic events at Grenfell tower in 2017 shocked us all and highlighted the need to address the issue of unsafe cladding across all four nations of the UK.

“The Scottish Government has been clear from the outset that it will do what is necessary to fully address the challenge of remediating buildings affected by unsafe cladding.”

He said the the Bill to tax housebuilders, which he said was a small amount of the total cost of a property, was needed to ensure a “disproportionate level of costs” do not fall on taxpayers.

“This Bill is about funding cladding remediation in a way that is fair,” he added.