Ruth Davidson warned the first minister yesterday that escalating business rates risk “pushing firms to the wall”.
The Scottish Conservative leader blasted Nicola Sturgeon over the changes at Holyrood – and accused Finance Secretary Derek Mackay of “hiding” from the companies affected.
There has been growing fury over the revaluation of businesses in the north-east, which could see company bills dramatically increase by hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Captains of industry in the region have argued that the hikes – based on figures taken during the oil price boom – could bankrupt companies already struggling to survive the downturn.
However, Ms Sturgeon insisted her government “recognises the importance of having a fair and competitive business rates regime” – and said 100,000 firms would be taken out of rates altogether through the Small Business Bonus.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Ms Davidson highlighted the case of one firm in Kintore.
She said: “Bev Robertson helps to run a small engineering business called Precision Oiltools, which employs 12 people. She has just found out her business rates will go up by 63% in April. This morning, she described that as “nothing short of daylight robbery”.
“(And) Bev’s firm is not alone.
“Yesterday, we spoke to another engineering firm, Score Group, which is based in Peterhead.
“It is a fantastic firm that runs the largest private apprenticeship programme anywhere in the country, but it has now discovered it will have to pay an extra £120,000 come April, and it fears it will have to turn apprentices away as a result.”
The Tory leader challenged Ms Sturgeon to intervene and help the firms facing rate rises.
She added: “Unemployment in Scotland is up, employment is down and, while confidence for small firms in other parts of the UK is going up, here it is falling through the floor.
“Yet we have a finance secretary who has hidden from companies that say that rates are pushing them to the wall, and we have a Government that taxes people and firms more in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK.”
Ms Sturgeon responded: “2017 is a business rates revaluation year and, in such a year, all commercial premises have their property value reassessed by the independent assessor. The Scottish Government has no locus to intervene in that process.
“All that said, the government recognises the importance of having a fair and competitive business rates regime. That is why Derek Mackay announced in the budget our plans to lift 100,000 small businesses across the country out of business rates altogether.”
