Extract on workplace parking levy from First Minister's questions in the Scottish Parliament

Extract on workplace parking levy from First Minister's questions in the Scottish Parliament

Douglas Ross: ...All that the First Minister is doing is replacing ScotRail with SNP rail. There will be a different owner but the same problems, and while public transport services are being cut, her Government has turned against drivers as well. She has abandoned plans to improve roads, and now she is putting in the workplace parking tax, without any cap on the amount that people will be forced to pay. When it was first proposed, organisations such as the Educational Institute of Scotland, the Scottish Police Federation and Unite the union warned about the costs that would fall on teachers, police officers, care staff and shift workers. All those warnings were completely ignored by Nicola Sturgeon and her Government.

This week, the Scottish Retail Consortium said that the workplace parking tax is

“a recipe for extra cost and complexity”,

and today the AA is warning that

“workers are going to be hit with . . . levies of as much as £1,000”.

People are already on the brink, with bills increasing and the cost of living rising. Why is the Government in favour of a costly workplace parking tax at the same time?

The First Minister...Let me turn to the workplace parking levy. I remind Douglas Ross that it gives a discretionary power to local authorities. They do not have to use it if they do not want to or if they do not think that it reflects their local circumstances. Of course, I would remind Douglas Ross that, in the Tories’ last local government manifesto—although I grant that this was before he was leader of the Scottish Conservatives—they said:

“We need to empower councils and give them a renewed sense of meaning and purpose.”

We are giving discretionary powers to local authorities and what do we have? The Scottish Conservatives opposing it and moaning about it.

The second point is that the workplace parking levy is simply giving local authorities in Scotland a power that local authorities in England have had for a decade and more, which is allowed to them by the Conservative Government. Not for the first time, there is a deep hypocrisy at the heart of Douglas Ross’s question.

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