Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the committee's 18th meeting in 2019. Can I ask everyone please to make sure that your mobile phones are on silent? We have apologies from the deputy convener, Gail Ross, who unfortunately is not well this morning, and I'd like to welcome Pauline McNeill to the committee. The first item on the agenda is to continue taking evidence on the policy intentions of stage 2 amendments to the Transport Bill on the proposed working place parking levy. We have two panels giving evidence today, and I'd like to welcome the first panel, which will focus the levy's potential impact on employers, employees and workplaces. First of all, I'd like to welcome Alasdor Brown, the National Director of the Scottish Association of Social Work, Fiona Beall, the head of corporate real estate for Aviva, David Lonsdale, the director of Scottish Retail Consortium, Colin Smith, the chief executive for the Scottish Wholesale Association, Helen Martin, the assistant general secretary for the Scottish trade unions congress, and David Belze, the assistant secretary for educational Institute of Scotland. What I would say to you is that it's a big panel today, and I'd like everyone to have the opportunity to contribute. Members will pose questions to you, and we'll ask you to answer them. If you could keep your eyes on me occasionally, it means that I don't have to signal the gentleman on your left to cut off the microphones because you were going on too far. If you just keep an eye on me, I'll try and keep you right. If I'm going like that, that means that we're coming—I've got it. We're coming to the end of the bit that you'd like, and I'd like to give somebody else a chance to come in. If I feel that anyone's not coming in enough, I'll try and bring them in as well, just so you will get the opportunity. You don't need to touch the consoles in front of you.  I would like just to make sure that if there's any declarations of interest before I go, Richard, you'd like to go with one. Yes, can I point out that I actually received a small pension from Aviva, who took over a pension that I had. Thank you, and Stuart. I have a small investment and assurance vehicle with Aviva. Okay, thank you. Okay, so we have a series of questions, and the first one is from John Finnie. John. It is, I beg your pardon, thank you. Okay. It's to the panel about data and the proportion. Do any of you have any data and the proportion of employees that use on-site workplace car parks, please? You'd like to start off with that. Of course, the danger is if everyone looks away and no one's prepared to offer, I'll have to ask somebody to go, but what about Fiona, do you know how many people are parking using your car parking spaces? Yes, I am happy to help you with that question. Across our two main Scottish hubs in Pateevlus and Perth and Bishop Riggs, we have 1,200 car parking spaces, and that services staff numbers of 2,000. Okay, thank you. Anyone else at all? No one else has data, Colin. Do you… Unfortunately, I don't have specific data relating to the number of spaces that our members have, and Scottish also, the association, represent the wheels to the food and drink industry, and given that our members are large warehouses and out-of-town locations, they also have large car parks, not necessarily for the staff but for the customers, by nature of that business, our business, our members come and collect goods from the wholesaler. I would estimate, and it is purely an estimate, that certainly 80 per cent of our staff commute by car to their place of work, but in terms of rigid data, unfortunately, I don't have that. I'm happy to go away and survey the members and get that information if you would like. You might be very helpful if you could share it with the committee. I'm just wondering, Alasdair. You would have a lot of members that you represent that would have to parking spaces at work. Is it nearly all of them or is it a proportion of them? We don't have specific numbers, but the vast majority of members are using their own cars, and, obviously, there are a lot of members for the 32 local authorities that are in rural areas, and, as you'll see from our evidence, many of them are using their own cars as part of their day-to-day work. I mean, I did obstruct me in the evidence that some people were of the opinion that the cars were seen as a safe place to visit as well for people that are meeting with your members. I think that's absolutely correct. People are constantly doing very taxing emotional work in an increasingly difficult and less resourced environment and feeling under tremendous pressure and having to respond to things very, very quickly. Thank you. That's very helpful. I was going to ask Mr Brown. I wonder what your view is on the public sector relying on an employee to own a private motor vehicle in order to discharge their duties. That's surely a barrier to someone, for instance, accessing a post in the first place. Should you not be pushing for employers to be providing vehicles, a pooled system among local authorities? I mean, I think that that's some of the more strategic issues that definitely need looked at in terms of social work posts that I've held. Mainly, there's been one pool car per team, and that's generally largely insufficient in terms of providing statutory roles in terms of adult child protection and mental health statutory tasks. You need to respond very quickly, and sometimes you need to go out to a client three or four times within a day, so it's not all scheduled carefully. No, I understand that, and perhaps I should declare that my wife is a former social worker who used her vehicle in that way. The principle of an expectation that an employee provides their employer, a local authority, with a private motor vehicle for the public use. Do you think that that's a tenable situation going forward? To answer that question, I fear that John may be going beyond the amendment that you've submitted to the transport bill. Helen, do you want to make a brief comment on that, and then perhaps we can move on to John's question? Well, I would just agree. I think that the treatment of staff in this area needs to be looked at in social work as a whole. I would recommend that the committee of the Fair Work Convention report on social work workers as a very good reflection of some of the fair work issues in that sector. Thank you also for all your evidence. Can I ask what your expectations are about where this levy may be imposed? Do you think that it will apply to? We're hearing that it's intended to be imposed, particularly in cities in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, actively looking at it. I think that whilst we've said in our evidence that we appreciate that there are difficult issues to balance in terms of disproportionate effect on the poor of pollution, that these are a difficult balance. However, until all those other structural things are achieved, it seems to be impossible to move ahead and tax our members a further £500 a year if that is increased and added on. Where did you get that figure from? It's £415 mentioned in the papers, and that would be added in comparison to the Nottingham scheme. There's no figures established that it's simply an enabling piece of legislation that would be for local authorities to determine. In terms of the Nottingham scheme that's been much talked about, it was talked about £415 plus of that. Ms Beall, would you envisage that it's been applied in the two areas that you referred to? We don't know. We have absolutely no idea. I come here today to, Mr Finnie, to say that, actually, Aviva is supportive of a workplace transport levy if it reduces cars on the road, and I think it would be important for those organisations who are already doing things in this area to have some sort of recognition. Whilst we do have some workplace car parking, we also support car share schemes, we've invested about £1.7 million over the last eight years in bringing additional bus access to our sites, we support cycling to work, and we provide loans for season tickets. What I'm looking for is recognition of what organisations are already doing, and where they're already doing something, there should potentially be some exemptions. John, that sort of neatly brings us on to the next question, which is from John Mice. Thanks, convener, and yes, probably Aviva are the ones that I'm interested in speaking to as well, because I thought your paper was very helpful, so I appreciate you sharing with us what you are actually doing already. The question that I'm interested in is the fact that in some areas there is good public transport and in some areas there isn't, and that obviously makes a difference. The first question, presumably the local authority knows if there's good public transport to your sites or anyone else's sites, so it would be quite good if we let the local authority decide if they want to introduce this or not. For example, you say that to Bishop Briggs, you've been encouraging people to use the bus and so on, and I think that there's a bus past your site every 15 minutes, so that strikes me as a good bus service. Why do you think that that's not appropriate for more of your workers to use the bus? Specifically for Bishop Briggs, we bring in a number of services to our site and we invest circa £150,000 a year in doing that. Many people who work in our Bishop Briggs operation live in quite rural areas that are not well served by public transport. I think that it's important that local authorities give consideration to that. The Nottingham case that's been well publicised is a city centre and a lot of our two main sites are edge of town and are not well served by public transport, which is why Aviva has to supplement that. You said that local authorities should take that into account. That would suggest that we should pass the bill, give local authorities the power and then they make the real decision. Is that what you would feel? Aviva's view is that organisations that are already supporting cars being removed off the road should get some recognition. Our view is that any exemptions and recognition should be done at a national level. I suppose that, as an organisation, we wouldn't want to deal with multiple local authorities. We would expect it to be set at a national level. Okay, thanks. Would anyone else like to comment on that area, Mr Smith? Yeah, if I may add, going back to my original point, we, our members, are based on out-of-town industrial estates across the country, so from this high up is the Highlands and Islands down to Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Borders. Purely the fact that we are based on those industrial estates, transport links are pure at the best of times. Equally, 92 per cent of our members that we surveyed have a workforce that is on shift work. We are a 24-7 business. We are open during the day, but equally we are trunking food and drink across the country in the evenings. And our workforce is reliant on their car to get to those out-of-town locations. There isn't public transport necessarily during the day that goes to those, and especially not at 10 o'clock at night when they are going into their work or five o'clock in the morning when they are leaving, which also brings me on to the fact that one of our points and concerns about this is also the safety of our workforce going into their work at 10 o'clock in the morning, potentially having to park on the streets of the industrial estate because they can't afford to pay the workplace parking levy and so decide that they would park on the street, which might be hundreds of metres away from the safety of the place of work where there is CCT security guards and such like. While we would like to see a reduction in car use and certainly our members are already taking proactive approach to make their business more environmentally friendly investing in green fleet technology to improve driver efficiency and encouraging staff where possible maybe to use alternative modes of transport, I think the fact is that there still isn't those transport links to the out-of-town industrial states. John, can I bring in a couple of other members of the panel? I noticed David Belzey and maybe Helen could come in as well and David Lonsdale, sorry, just to bring you all in, if I may. David, do you want to start off? In terms of John Mason's question, I think the problem of giving local authorities the option to introduce the workplace levy and just push the problem to them would create a situation where there are thousands of workers who potentially and through no fault of their own find themselves disadvantaged in financial terms in a flat rate tax being applied to their workplace that will, evident shows from not a gun, be transferred to a large number of workers. It also, many workers, particularly in the out-of-town or rural places or even in some parts of our larger cities, don't have the public transport options to get to their work timelessly to begin the day. By opening that set of scenarios and simply giving the responsibility to local authorities is problematic. Helen, would you like to come in on that? I think that we agree with that. We think that we aren't in favour of the amendment primarily because it will potentially fall quite heavily on low-paid workers. We also believe that it doesn't fit well with other elements of the transport bill as currently constructed. We were disappointed about the proposals in the transport bill around bus travel in particular and about the fact that the transport bill only allows for the local authorities to be an operator of last resort. While that issue is still within the transport bill, integers in a workplace parking levy would combine difficult issues in terms of public transport. For us, we simply say that this is a very small, limited proposal that is likely to place hardship on low-paid workers in particular and that it is not likely to raise the sort of money that is needed to be seen to really invest and transform the public transport arrangements. With the provisions preventing public ownership, we think that it simply won't achieve what Mr Finnie would like it to achieve and therefore isn't something that we should do without a much broader strategy around it because of the hardship that will place on workers. John, you come back and then David. I come back and various points come in there. One is an absolute get-it that where city and rural are different, biggest problem as far as I'm concerned is in the cities and Glasgow has a fabulous public transport system, so it shouldn't be such a problem. Mr Smith and Mr Bellsley, have any of the rural local authorities said to you that they plan to introduce the issue? It seems to me that, by passing the amendment, we are giving the powers to the authorities. Probably the rural ones won't use it. Probably the city ones will at least think about it and that would solve the problem. To Ms Martin, surely in the centre of Glasgow it's not the poorer workers that are taking their cars, and it's the rich directors. Are you defending them? Well, I think that that's it. That's a very simplistic argument. I think that a whole range of workers take their car to work for a whole range of reasons, particularly shift workers. It is not true to say that public transport in the centre of Glasgow is perfect, far from it.  If you're working shift work or in hospitality where you're getting terfed out of your workplace at 2am, we're running safe home campaigns constantly with hospitality workers because there is no public transport and they're getting attacked on the way home because they can't afford to take a taxi because their wages are so low. So do they take their cars in at the moment to the city centre? Well, some people do, some people don't. The ones who don't are getting attacked on the way home, so you're potentially putting more people into that category with this amendment. That's what we're concerned about. I absolutely appreciate the desire to do something about modal change, but I'm not sure that this is the tool in and of itself to do that. Can we bring in David Lonstel and then somebody that sort of sparked everyone on the committee with questions? Bring in David and then I'll go to Jamie Stuart Stevenson and John Finnie. David Lonstel first. Thank you, convener. John Finnie's policy narrative and amendments are admirably clear. This is, first of all, a tax on premises. As you will have gathered from our submission, the industry feels that it's had quite a lot of taxis and costs on business. Property costs are the second biggest outgoing after employment costs. Obviously, anyone who's had the pleasure of being in front of their committee before talking about things like business rates will know some of our points on that and that's articulated in our submission. The poundage rate or the tax rate on business rates has gone up markedly since the start of this decade. We now have a tax on business rates at a 20-year high. For retailers alone, our business rates bills went up £13 million last month. We're very much looking at it from the prism of this is going to be an additional cost on business. I think the points that have been made earlier on about whether or not that's been passed on to staff is a good one. The evidence is mixed. We can probably come on to that later on. However, first and foremost, this is a cost to business. We're already paying business rates on parking spaces as well. As you will have seen from some of the data on retail sales and the short prices out today, this is a tough time for the industry. It's very difficult to absorb a lot of these costs. Jamie, do you want to ask your question? I know that it's one of two panel members wanting to come in, so I'll try to bring you in at the break for a moment. Good morning, panel. There are so many different areas being covered, but I'll try to focus on one area. Given that, when we discussed this with Nottingham City Council last week, when pressed upon what the main purpose of the parking levee was, it seemed to appear that it was primarily used to be raising funds to improve public transport in the city and that any secondary objectives to reduce congestion or improve air quality were secondary. Is there then a worry that, if the power is given to all local authorities, it may be used by those local authorities in non-city areas simply as a mechanism for raising money to invest in capital and infrastructure projects, rather than to tackle congestion in our cities?  I think that that is actually our concern, and it's about the context upon which we are putting this amendment into the transport bill. Local authority budgets have been very stretched in recent years, and I would go further than what you just described. Local authorities will raise the levee to replace money that is currently going into transport so that they free up funds for other areas. I would imagine that there would be local authorities who are tempted to do that, because such is the stretch on local government finance, that this is a way of simply funding essential services. I would have sympathy for local authority who fund themselves in that position, but I do think that it's potentially quite damaging for low-pay workers who are in that position and who are not seeing an improvement in their public transport as a result. David Belze, do you want to come in on that? Yes, I think that this also comes back to John Mason's point earlier. He was saying that rural local authorities probably won't introduce this, but the reality is that because it is a means of raising revenue at a time when it's generally acknowledged that councils are stretched, then they will be tempted to implement them. It raises a relatively small amount of money for within Nottingham. If a local authority has implemented its own scheme with its own exemptions, I appreciate that, some workers will be paying into something and seeing the small revenues raised and spent elsewhere are not affecting their own commuting or travel habits at all. That is a worry. Stuart, do you want to come in on that? David Lawden still correctly identified that there is a physical infrastructure when a employer provides a workplace to provide it and that it attracts business rate liability potentially. That is a further cost associated with provision of parking. Can anyone on the panel tell me of any substantial employer who currently passes on the cost of providing parking to cover physical provision and business rates on to employees? If not, why would the workplace parking levy, which is a levy on the provider of the parking, not on individuals? Why would it be passed on to individuals when the previous costs are not? Who would like to—Alistair, you would like to head off on that and then probably Colin. Is the City of Edinburgh Council passes that cost on to employees already for key locations, particularly city centre locations? Colin, do you want to— I have maybe picked you up wrong, but the business rates that our members are already paying between £130,000 a year up to £0.5 million a year is excluding the large business supplement that a lot of them will fall under. The businesses are already paying a tax on that workplace, that parking space, and that is not passed on, obviously, to the employee. You say that it is obviously not passed on to the employee. Would it not also be obvious that you would not pass the workplace parking levy on to the employee? Where is the philosophical reason why suddenly we are talking about employees paying? The business rates are a cost to run your business, as we have given, and that is absorbed as part of your business costs. Workplace, parking, levy is over and above that, so that is an additional cost that 82 per cent of my members surveyed will be passing that on to their employees because they cannot afford it. However, that said—I would need to go back to the members and ask them—should business rates be reduced as a result of the workplace parking levy and not being double taxed, they would look to potentially absorb the WPL? I may have got this wrong, but when you are assessed for business rates, it is on the rental value of the property that it could achieve on the open market, and that sets the value of the property and then the business rate is raised on a percentage of that value. If you did not own your property and you got hit by a workplace parking levy, surely you would go back to your landlord and say that we are paying an additional tax, therefore we want a reduction in the rent that we are paying. That would be the first thing that I would do. Does anyone see the logic behind that? Aviva, your company owns the buildings, do they? No, predominantly we are renters. Would you see an opportunity to reduce the rental value of the building? We honestly have not given that any consideration yet as to whether we would appeal our rates if it was introduced. Perhaps as a surveyor, somebody might see the opportunities there. David, then come to John Finnie. Thank you, convener. I think that Stewart Stevenson picks up on a good point. Obviously, from our perspective, it is too early to say that if this legislation is passed and if those levies come into effect, whether employers in our industry would look to pass on some of the costs, there may be other options. For example, Fiona talked about some of the support that her company gives to staff to encourage them to use public transport, whether that is season ticket loans, providing buses, cycle to work facilities and schemes like that. One option might be to cannibalise that budget in order to pay for the levy, so that might be an option. However, as I say, it is too early to consider what the detail is and whether it is passed on. I think that the other point that I would probably just want to make. Obviously, if this is brought in, if the industry in our sector leased, a number of our members often have multiple sites in a local authority area, so that could potentially increase the bill. What would then happen in that case is yet to be determined, but the bill could be quite large for the levy as well. There are some unintended consequences with bringing in the levy. We may see reductions in areas that are supporting people to use public transport. John Finnie, you had a question that you would like to ask, and then we will move on to Richard Lannan. It was for Mr Lonsdale. All our papers are readily available online, Mr Lonsdale, and people will note your written submission, which I stress is very helpful. Initially, you talked about the background to your organisation and you talked about £180 billion of retail sales. It is about Mr Stevenson's question about the philosophical approach to that. I mean, people do not like paying taxes, I get this, but this is just a line that the latest one and a number of things you are unhappy about, because you are unhappy about apprenticeship levy, you are unhappy about employer pension contributions and the statutory minimum wage. That is just the latest winch, is it not? I think that that is an unfair characterisation of our position. Can you confirm that you have expressed concerns about each of those contributions that you feel you have to make in your written submission? The argument that we are making is that this is an industry in some flux and some change. There are obviously perfound shifts in the way that people are shopping. Shopping in stores, physical bricks and mortar stores, is declining. People are shopping increasingly online. At the same time, consumers have less money than they had before, and the third sort of strand is that costs are rising. Many of the policies that you have just mentioned, touched on in our submission, are ones that we support, but the cumulative burden, the wave after wave of costs increasing, without any sort of recognition of the economic impact, it is quite incredible. You are right to finger. You do not know the impact that this would have where it applied, and the likelihood is that it is going to be applied perhaps to local authorities. You have assessed the impact, but you are unhappy with what you say the impact is going to be. I take your line of questioning. I would like David briefly to answer that, and then I would like to move on to Richard, just purely because we are on question 2. I proceed that there may be multiples of 10 of that to get through in the time that we have. David, if you would like to briefly answer that, then I am going to move to Richard. In terms of those other policies, as I say, we have been supportive of a lot of those things. Often they all come at once, and that is very challenging for employers, particularly in tough market conditions. The one thing in favour of a lot of those other policies is that, frankly, there was some sort of economic assessment. In a Scottish context, we are talking about a business and regulatory impact assessment. As far as I can see, there is nothing along those lines associated with this levy. I have no idea where the Scottish Government's regulatory review group has had a chance to consider that and put it into it. I find it quite astonishing that we are talking about this levy. Without any sense whatsoever to what the impact would be on consumers, on businesses and on local authorities, it is quite startling that we are doing policy making in this day and age in this way. We are very supportive of evidence-based policy making in the round. We work constructively with the Scottish Government and the UK Government on a whole host of issues, but I find it astonishing that there is no impact assessment at all at this moment. John Finness, I am going to leave that question hanging, because it is a question that has been answered before. I did say that I would leave it. Richard, I am going to come to you because you are listening to the next question. Good morning, panel. I say to Mr Lonsdale and anyone else, good luck with the assessor, and good luck with your landlord in order to get it. I think that some other people are trying that now to try to get the rent reduced. Good luck with that. I want to go on about the fact that, if a workplace parking levy—that is in the name, workplace parking levy—that means a parking space in a workplace. Do you think that employers who are under pressure and we are paying this, paying that and all the rates, whatever, would require their staff who use a workplace parking space to pay the levy instead of them paying the business payment? Would it be realistic—in the point that Helm made earlier—to expect employers to exempt lower-pay workers from paying the workplace parking levy or would they just say, well, everybody will just pay it because I'm not going to pay it? Richard, can I bring Helen in first because I didn't let her answer the last question and I see that she's keen to answer this one. Me, I'm always keen. The reason why we are concerned that employers are going to pass this on to the employees is because the evidence from Nottingham suggests that around half employers pass it on to employees. That's the only thing we really have to work on, and that's why we think that it's likely to impact employees. From our point of view, as trans-unionists, if this was coming in in a unionised workplace, the union would defend the terms and conditions of the worker and try to ensure that the employer paid it and didn't pass it on to the employee. I think that the reality of how that shakes out over the long term is that it's difficult to know over time that things can creep in to the employee's pay slip, even if they're not necessarily agreed just by other changes in terms of conditions. The other thing to note is that those things tend to be backwards if left to the wrong devices. It tends to be the lowest pay workers who aren't exempted from the levy because it'll go into the package of a CEO that you get your parking space. It won't go into the package of a cleaner that you get your parking space. In some ways, the logic of the workplace is backwards when it comes to defending low-pay employees. Alice Stutt, do you want to come in on that? Well, I mean just agreeing with Helen's evidence there that Nottingham is the most publicised scheme and from what we hear, they have passed the cost on and because local authorities just are so pressed and we don't need to talk about how adult social care is breaking down because of lack of resources, I imagine that they would seek to recoup any costs that they possibly could. Who else? David? So, I mean I've obviously answered this in part already and just drawing the link between your question and Stuart Stevenson's question, I guess the issue with business rates is that firms pay it once. With this, they're paying, if this comes in, they'll be paying a tax twice, business rates and the levy on top in terms of their parking spaces. So, I think the principle changes somewhat and therefore at the point that Alistair makes about trying to recoup some of the cost from staff. It lends itself to that. I think the other thing to bear in mind is obviously our members are extremely concerned, as Colin mentioned earlier on, they're acutely aware of the fact that actually not just companies but individuals have a number of pressures and strain at the moment. We've obviously seen council tax rises, employee pension contributions have gone up, we have things like deposit return schemes coming into effect, there are a number of other issues in the budget accord between the Scottish Government and the Greens that will push up the cost of living. So, you know, workers, employees will have a number of issues challenging their own pockets as well. Richard, is there anyone else because Pauline would like a question, but if you'd like to direct that to anyone on the panel who hasn't answered that, I'd like to bring in Pauline then and come back to you for your second question. I'm interested in the question of exemptions that might be discussed at stage 2. Maybe Helen could give the answer that I need but anyone else. The Scottish Government's poverty strategy identifies that single parents are among the poorest. We know that people with a disability are among the poorest and we know that lots of people who work are on universal credit. I just wanted to give you a view on the impact of those groups, but any information that you also had about a number of single parents in the workplace, the range of salaries for shop workers, for example, and any information, even if not today, at some point, would be interested to know if there's any information about the number of people who come to work with a mobility car? I think that that's quite a lot of information for somebody to have prepared to bring to the meeting. It may be something that could be submitted if people were able to track down that information relatively quickly and submit to the committee in writing. Pauline, I'm not saying that anyone's general answer would be fine. Does somebody want to try a general one on that? Okay, yeah. I think that the amendment did helpfully say that blue badge holders would be an example, and I think that that would be absolutely essential. It wouldn't make a lot of sense not to do that given the use of such schemes as the mobility scheme. The more challenging issue is around lone parents, for example, or parents in general, actually. One of the things that you have to do as a parent is take, and as a working parent in particular, is take your child somewhere to be looked after and then go to work. That means that, for a lot of parents, using public transport isn't really an option, because you have to make the nursery run and then you have to get to work for the start time and then you get back for the nursery run. As a working mother for many, many years, I was always chasing my tail, I was always working through my lunch, I was always running everything up to the deadline to get back for the nursery pick-up. The idea of suddenly putting in an extra tree in or putting in a tree in and then a subway and then a bus, for me that was just on tenable, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would have had to have suddenly found a completely different childcare option because I wouldn't have been able to use the local authority nursery. I think that that's an issue that is difficult to get around with just a pure exemption because those people will fall into a whole range of categories, they'll be hard to identify, but it's a very, very real pressure and that's a pressure that falls on women in particular. Okay, thank you Helen, I think that was a good answer that.  Just to say quickly, our workers are 80 per cent women and they're working on average 13 hours a week extra that they're not being paid for and unfortunately still women are disproportionately taking more of a role in family life caring for children and parents. Richard, you want to follow that up? So many witnesses have raised concerns about the employees may switch from parking in a workplace car park to an on-street parking following the introduction of workplace parking levy. That may antagonise the relationship between employers, residents, pose a safety risk to the loan and shift workers. Anyone who parks in, I've got quite a number of industrial estates in my constituency, anyone who parks in their workplace may actually take it out of there and go in park on the road in the industrial estate or the business park and clog up the streets there. Would you support the concerns that people are making that if this is introduced it will cause a lot of bother? Colin, you nodded first. I'll bring you in. I already picked up or mentioned that earlier. That is a real concern and it has been noted in Nottingham. Some of our members have depots across the country and one in Nottingham. That is reality that there has been a move from workplace parking on street parking. That has meant that the council has had to go around and put double yellow lines, which then moves people further out of those areas. Indeed, we have had congestion issues that are now having to spend money on, re-organising roads and so on, to deal with the congestion that this workplace parking levy has created down there. The problem that is happening and it is our concern that, under the safety of our employees, parking on streets is going to end. David Bells, do you want to come in on that? I think that the displacement of parking on the street is an obvious way for workers to save money if the employer transfers a new tax on them. It will work in some places, but in other places, such as Edinburgh, the cost of parking on the street is very high in itself. I was going to echo some of the comments that Alistair made earlier about teaching, for example, that the majority of teachers are women. Many have caring responsibilities and therefore echo the words that Helen Bells was saying. Finally, I would say that, looking at the submissions, Unison has made a submission, a sister union, and they make the point that Nottingham raised collective grievance on behalf of low-paid workers who feel have taken a disproportionate hit with the workplace parking levy in Nottingham. I want to pay attention to the number of teachers that park in the school. In the school that I was standing at on Thursday, there were 25 parking spaces for the teachers. If everybody went out and parked on the road, which does not have a double yellow line, as you see quite a lot of people misuse their car parking near a school when they are collecting, if they could park up at the classroom, they would. Do you think that most teachers would then take their cars out, if they had to pay this, would take their cars out of the school and park them on the road somewhere, and again, that would affect their safety? Yes. I think that a workplace parking levy would affect teachers' behaviours if they park in schools. We are assuming that the local authority will transfer the cost. We are assuming that it will be around £500, so it might be more or it might be less. For those teachers who have seen the value of paying real terms fall in over years and years, then every expenditure is carefully monitored. If you can avoid making that expenditure, you will. For some, they might go on the public transport, but for many, that is not going to be a credible option.  Also, teachers tend to carry their work home, and that includes materials and pupil work. Therefore, parking the car on the road, having a longer walk, is problematic for many teachers. Therefore, those are all areas of concern for us with this proposed levy. I think that having heard what people want to talk about, we have not really addressed the safety issues. Does anyone feel that there are safety issues? Helen, you have mentioned shift workers in the evening, but there will be some people in employment who are worried about parking their car away from where they were because they could be accosted on the street. Is that an issue, David? Do you want to push on that? From where you park your car to where you work, I think that it is problematic. For those of us who have seen outside schools and where you have bought a people park, it is dangerous. Powers are often parked close together, and I think that it will add a raised road safety concerns. Whenever you are adding an extra journey or an extra element to your workplace, it always raises a risk. Fiona, do you want to— I would just like to say, convener, that, in our two key Scottish locations, we have a lot of shift workers and there is overnight work, so it is really important—because they are out of town locations—that our people are able to bring their car into the office. As yet, we have taken no decision whatsoever as to whether we would pass on any levy if it was implemented, but we would like to continue to press that we want to see some recognition of those organisations who have taken some measures. Is it the case that all of your members have access to parking at the premises that you work from? I did not quite appreciate how dangerous parking in the street was. It seems to be a big issue to a number of people. I do not believe that all teachers have access to car parking in their schools. It depends on the nature of the school premises. Given the concerns that you have raised about the implications— John, I have said one question. You have had quite a few years and I am concerned that we have got a lot to go through. I have to be more— Colin, you have got the next question. That is very much convenient. It was mentioned earlier that this is effectively enabling legislation. It enables 32 different local authorities to have potentially one or more workplace parking levy schemes within their particular area. I am just keen to get the panel's views on what challenges potentially have in multiple different schemes in different parts of Scotland that it is likely to bring to your organisation. I guess that that is probably directed at David and Colin, primarily to start with. Who would like to go first? I am happy to go first, convener. Thank you for the question. Clearly, if multiple local authorities introduce the levy, there will be multiple billing authorities to deal with. Going back to business rates for a second, one of the strengths of the reform agenda that the Scottish Government is pursuing at the moment is that it is looking to standardise bills across Scotland. We would like to see something similar if the levy is approached. My understanding is that in Nottingham, it can apply online for the levy. Simple mechanisms that make it simple and easy for companies to apply would be hugely beneficial. Obviously, making decisions in good time so that companies can factor this into their budgeting would be helpful as well. I think that I saw from either Mr Finney's paperwork or from the Nottingham example that we talked about for eight weeks or something like that, where, as the Scottish Government signals its tax decisions in terms of the amount to be charged and who is going to be liable four months in advance. Those are some of the things that we would look to see a degree of consistency and approach across councils in Scotland who are implementing the levy. Colin, do you want to come in on that? I certainly agree with everything that David was saying. It is the complexity of our members working across different councils with, I guess, some standardisation of what defines a workplace or a parking space, because I noticed in amendment 8 that it talks about workplace, including business customers, business visitors and so on. If the definition is left up to the council to determine, that causes problems across our members and, I guess, for any business. Last week that Nottingham Council was saying that the beauty of this proposal or the workplace parking levy is that the flexibility is good and well, but it is clarity that it would require within this in a standardisation, as David said, across the councils and how it is implemented to cost, especially to be equal so that everyone knows what they are paying. Colin. Given the advocates of the levy, I strongly argue that this should be passed on to the workers, because the reality is that they see it as a financial stick, if you like, to encourage people not to use their car. That is the whole point of it. According to organisations, for example, the lead councillor for Glasgow City Council on Transport actually argued that point to this committee last week. One of the concerns that some people have, though, that if it is passed on to employees, it does not really reflect the ability to pay because it is a flat rate. Do you think that there should be built in to the legislation that this has to be based on ability to pay or should that be left entirely up to each individual employer to decide? As I said, a little bit like Aviva, we would wait to see whether or not the power came into effect and whether any councillors would want to flex it before our members took a view on whether or not to pass over the cost to staff. That might be an option. It might be—I am not an HR person or a finance payroll person, so that might be easy to do. It might be complicated to do, but obviously there are some things that this committee could usefully do. As we look at the amount that is going to be levied, we consider, as we said in our submission, whether or not there should be a cap. We have business improvement districts in Scotland and they are term limited. I think that this committee could usefully look at whether or not that should apply in this instance as well. Another point that perhaps should have raised earlier on, I think that my reading of Mr Finney's amendments and the policy narrative, if it is correct, is that councils could opt to apply the levy in parts of the local authority, as opposed to the local authority area in its entirety. I guess that one, perhaps minor, perhaps somewhat unfounded concern would be that councils might decide to draw a line on a map that excludes their own council headquarters or their own premises, or indeed other bits of business parks or commercial parts where they have their own fidishery or financial interest at stake. I think that this committee needs to be alive to that as well. Does anyone else want to come in on that? Colin, I'm happy to push on unless you got a follow-up to that. I do have a follow-up that has been suggested earlier that the number of schemes may be a limited because it may only simply be on cities. In fact, there could be more than one scheme in a city, but it could be on cities where it has been argued, and I think wrongly, that there is sufficient public transport. That completely ignores the fact that not everybody who works in a city actually lives in that city. A substantial number of my constituents in the south of Scotland—thousands, in fact—travel every day, for example, from the borders into Edinburgh to work. However, the levy is simply based on local authority boundaries and not wider boundaries. Do you have any views on how you could overcome the fact that a constituent of mine, for example, lives in the borders, where there is very limited public transport, would have to travel into Edinburgh city centre using their car, but they have absolutely no say whatsoever on whether that levy is imposed because it matters entirely for Edinburgh City Council. Not a single penny raised by Edinburgh City Council will be spent on improving public transport within the border's area to help that particular constituent. Do you have any views on how you can overcome that challenge that this is, local authority boundaries, but thousands of people out with that boundary will have to pay that levy but get none of the apparent benefits from it? I am looking at Helen and Alistair for input into that. I do not have a solution, but I share the concern. I think that it is very clear that that would impact commuter times, potentially quite negatively. There is a whole range of people who would be travelling into work who have no choice but to take their car. For them, it is a matter of simply paying the levy and continuing to drive, which is one of the reasons why that does not impact congestion very well, because a lot of people just have to pay. However, the improvements are not seen by those workers. For them, there is just no way to avoid paying, and that is one of the unfairnesses within that. There is a range of unfairnesses here that are difficult to get around. The system becomes more and more complex as you try to solve small issues with exemptions or different ways of running the scheme. To a certain degree, it does not create that much money for the local authority to transform their public transport potentially. There is just a whole range of questions that need to be considered. I will briefly bring in John before I ask another panel member. On that point, one of the amendments to the amendment that has been lodged is suggesting that regional transport partnerships, as well as councils, might be the better body to implement that challenge. Would any of you think that that was better than a council, or at least an option? Alasdair, do you want to go on that? I certainly think that a lot of people are travelling, and a lot of our members are travelling particularly to city centres. The type of work that they do in communities does not usually live in the communities that they work in. Okay. Does anyone else want to come in? There are lots of questions, so I am happy to move on. We may cover it later. Mike, would you like to come in with yours? Good morning, panel. My question is really focused on David Lonsdale and his submission, in which he said in paragraph 15, that we would be concerned if the workplace parking levy opened the door to allowing local authorities to extend the levy to customer parking. I do not know if he is aware, but in the amendment from John Finnie, it includes the phrase that is therefore caught, business customers. The customers of the business are being caught by this legislation. David, are you aware of that? Thank you for bringing that to my attention. This is something that we have—obviously, let me take it back a step. Retailers tend to provide parking. Where they provide parking, it tends to be focused for customers, but it is not necessarily delineated for staff, unlike maybe in Aviva or other companies in other sectors. This is a real worry. I did notice from Glasgow Council's evidence that they said that they want a wider power on parking. Our concern would be the thin end of the wedge on that front. Obviously, if wider parking at retail shops or retail properties and premises were brought in, we are talking about a significant increase in terms of the cost of that—quite marked increase in the cost of it. That would be a concern. What you are saying is that it would have major effects. We are not just talking about the workplace parking for the employees of the businesses, but the amendment is talking about business customers. In my interpretation, that is certainly—I am going to pursue that because I have lodged an amendment today to take those phrases out to make John Finnie's bill more acceptable. Not that I think that it is anyway, but it would make it more reasonable. I just wanted to make that clear to John. The question is, I am surprised that you have not focused on that as a more of a bigger impact on your members. I understand my interpretation of that. It means people like contractors and suppliers and people like that could come into it. Part of the problem, if I may, is the fact that we simply do not have enough detail. It is the positive detail about what all that actually means in practice is startling. That is why I said right at the outset that we do not have any economic or impact assessment about that. We have not teased out. A lot of the questions are great questions, but should have been teased out to a certain extent by some sort of impact and regulatory statement about this policy is startling. You cannot pass on a charge to customers other than through higher prices, so the impact of this amendment would, I assume, if you correct me if I am wrong, I am assuming to your members that you would have to either absorb it into the business at a profit or you have to pass it on and increase prices to customers. Isn't that the logic of that? Well, retailers are in the business of trying to provide excellent value to their customers and will do as much as they possibly can to ensure that the keep price is down, but it is incredibly difficult for all the reasons that we talked about earlier on, this sort of great wave of cost pressures that are coming through. We understand that the public sector does not necessarily have the money itself, but the other side of the equation is that these things do have to be paid for, so you can only spend the money once. Colin, you want to come in on that. Yeah, I am just picking up on your comment there, Mike. You are absolutely right, and that is why I was mentioned about amendment 8 and the definition of what is a workplace parking. Certainly, if it includes business customers, we are talking about convenience stores throughout all your communities, the 4,972 convenience stores, your local cafe, pub, club, restaurant, anywhere you go and buy food and drink is probably serviced through one of our members. Certainly, a lot of our members operate a cash and carry depot whereby the convenience store operator will come and pick up their juice, their crisps and such from those locations. By nature of the animal, they come in a van, they are going out with trolley loads of goods, not carrying bags. If we are suddenly being hit, the business customer is in effect being charged or our members have to absorb it, that is prohibiting our members to operate. A car park space for our business members is an absolute by nature of what we are doing and what we are offering. In terms of being able to absorb that cost, being right at the very start of the supply chain, the wholesaler is the one that is actually squeezed the most because he can only raise his cost so much because actually the cost price to the convenience store or the restaurant tour is dictated by the market price, and that comes from the multiples, the supermarkets and the discounters. They are the ones that are dictating the wholesaler's cost price because the retailer cannot go much beyond the price that a supermarket is paying, otherwise they become uncompetitive and they cannot compete and survive, etc. On the cost, our wholesalers, their net margins are less than 1 per cent. That is a high-volume, low-margin business that we are operating in, so that is why we are opposed to the workplace parking levy, because that cost will not be able to be absorbed by our members. As I said, 82 per cent will pass the cost on to the employee, the same employee and ultimately the consumer that will pay for it. It cannot be absorbed within the cost stream unless everyone is willing to pass on those increased costs in the form of the final goods that people buy. Jamie, you wanted to lead off on some questions. I am going to ask a question of why this is perhaps a confusing issue for the committee. We are receiving very conflicting evidence in terms of our written submissions from various stakeholders as to how we should approach this levy. The next panel will include some proponents of it, and we will have a perfect opportunity to ask them suitable questions. However, in the submission from Sustrans, one of their statements is that, I quote, a workplace parking levy is a progressive policy that is likely to be of greatest benefit to people on lower incomes. If I look at the STUC submission, I believe that you represent over half a million workers in Scotland, you say that this disproportionately has a negative impact on those with the lowest incomes. Who are we to believe? I think that we are both trying to present an analysis of a policy that is not in place yet and that we do not have the firm proposals of it. It is probably a question of assumptions that we are making within the policy, so I can lay out what my assumptions are, and I am sure that you can ask the next witness what their assumptions are, but the assumption that I was making here was that a lot of low-pay workers are going to be faced with this levy and that it was not going to revolutionise public transport to quite a degree that I think maybe the next panel might believe that it will. The reason that I believe that is because I look at the transport bill as a hull and I see problems within that bill that prevent bus transport in particular from really getting the investment and the attention that it needs in order to improve. I look at the costs associated with other large-scale transport schemes, which run to hundreds of millions of pounds for tram upgrades, for rail upgrades, for that kind of transformative thing. I look at how much the workplace levy raises in Nottingham, which is £9 million. Nottingham has done some interesting things here. Nobody can say that it has not, but it has not done it on the workplace levy alone. It is right to think about the wider context of the Scottish economy. The issue of austerity and the on-going austerity for local authorities is an issue. The fact that the Scottish National Investment Bank will not be able to invest in the public sector and will therefore not be able to support large-scale transport infrastructure is also an issue that needs to be taken into account. We need to think about where the other sources of funding would come from in order to develop this transport infrastructure. I go back to the issue of buses. The one area where £9 million might actually make a difference. However, if the local authority cannot run a municipal bus company and cannot really invest properly in that local network, which the transport bill does not allow them to do, I do not think that it unlocks the potential sufficiently in order to get the sort of impacts that would benefit low-wage workers. Instead, it just becomes a tax on low-play people who already live in poverty and already have no difficult time. I am sure that the committee will reflect on your comments on bus franchising and will address that next Wednesday when we meet for stage 2. However, do you know the panellists of a view on— David wants to come in on that particular point, Jimmy? I think that the first thing to say is that the levy is proposed as a flat-rate tax, and I think that it is generally accepted that flat-rate taxes are not progressive. A person who is on £15,000 a year, who is hit by a £500 tax, is going to have quite a hit. That may affect their lifestyle, whereas some of your £100,000 company director—I think that one of the committee members referred to earlier—would not be affected by that. There is also an assumption in some of the submissions that I read that poor people do not use cars, so they will not be hit. I think that that is fundamentally wrong. Another thing is that the benefit of the taxes that are raised will somehow affect some parts or the poorer parts of local authorities more than others, as if some poorer communities have different air than other parts of the city that they live in. I think that that is quite a stretch to take that with the current evidence before us. Can I move on to another question? I think that that is one of the fundamental issues that are facing as to whether we should accept those amendments. That is the proponents of the policy saying that this simply is an enabling power that gives local authorities the ability to decide for themselves if they want to implement the levy. I come back to the early line of questioning on that. What would your advice be to the committee when considering whether we should or should not give this power to local authorities? That seems to be everyone down the table. Is there anyone, particularly Jamie, who wants to target that? Have you ever had a strong view on it? David, convener, we are not supportive of the levy, so that is a short answer to your question. If I may go back to your previous question about people on lower incomes, an impact assessment might have teased out that even if the levy is not recharged to staff, it can still affect them. For example, a number of our members operate a bonus scheme that is dependent on the profits derived from individual stores. You may find that money that was available for staff bonuses is somewhat diminished because of that. There is a more rounded consideration of the policy, and I think that we have teased out some of those issues as well. You may find that staff are affected even if they are not necessarily themselves recharged for whether it is £400 or £500. Anyone else wants to come in on that? My point is that, if the panellists are saying to us that there is merit in a conversation around this as a matter of policy, but this is not the way to introduce it, would it be better, therefore, to take it out of this bill and postpone it and have a proper sensible grown-up consultation about it in terms of how it may be implemented and the effect that it may have on workers or businesses? I mean, we are against the workplace parking levy. You bring it back in another bill next month. We will still be against the workplace parking levy. I think that we would maybe take a different view if it was coming with a big strategy around it, a green strategy and investment and other forms of money and an end to local authority austerity, but unless that is what you are proposing, I would not be expecting different answers next month than what you are getting this month. Just a question that I have got is one of the issues that people are using cars. Part of the bill is that there are low-emission zones that will require people to upgrade their cars from to meet a Euro 6 classification, whether there are low-emission zones in Scotland. That would mean that a lot of cars, pre-2015, cannot be used without a cost to go into the low-emission zone. Do you think that the combination of a charge for the low-emission zone and a workplace parking levy may hit those who can least afford to pay it hardest? It is just a question. Helen, do you want to do on that? I think that that is right. We are also particularly concerned about how that hits public vehicles. I hope that the committee would reflect on that. We are concerned about the impact on that and the fact that people do not often have another choice. I think that that is what we are trying to say primarily. Sometimes there just is not a public transport offer available to people that is effective and that meets their needs and that allows them to balance their other responsibilities. They have to make a decision about whether work is still profitable to them. That is a really hard choice. I think that most people want to work and they want to continue to work, and we would never want to ever prevent people from being able to do that. The reality for most workers is that they will have to continue to work. It will just mean that they continue to work but live in a greater level of poverty. I think that we move on to the next question, which is from Maureen Watt. Thank you, convener, and good morning, panel. It has been a really interesting discussion so far. There has been this assumption that the workplace parking levy, which is a levy on business, will automatically be transferred on to employees so that it protects the bottom line of the business owners and their shareholders so that they are not affected. Then you have all talked about the possible implications on employees in different ways. I wonder just how many of the organisations that you represent have actually done a proper analysis and a cost-benefit analysis on passing the levy on to employees. In relation to, for example, the Scottish Wholesale Consortium, you say that you conducted a survey of your members. Can you maybe tell us what questions you were asked, what proportion of members responded to the survey and what are the key findings of the survey, and have they actually looked at the total costs to businesses and whether it really is something that you genuinely want to pass on to employees, given all the problems that you have all highlighted for your employees? Scottish Wholesale Association, for clarity. We sent a survey out to all our members on the workplace parking levy prior to coming here today. We did not have much time, I will be honest, to do full and depth analysis of the answers or get a full response rate. I will say that within the week that we had out there, we had a 35 per cent response rate from our members, which is quite high, certainly considering consultations, except when it will only take three months. There were a host of questions asked from whether they wanted it, what their concerns about it were, whether they were on agreements that councils should have the power to implement this, or whether it should be a Government-led. As I said, I have already quoted some figures that 92 per cent of our membership have shift workers. 82 per cent would be looking to pass that on to their employees. That goes back to the fact that we are a low-margin business. Every cost at the top needs to come off the bottom. David is talking about the rates. That is a huge implication and a huge cost to our business, as is the deposit return scheme that is coming in, and members will have to build extra warehouse space to hold the dual stock, the English stock and Scottish stock. That is a cost of £500,000, as one of our members said. Tracking trace has just been implemented within our sector by tracking tobacco all the way through the market. All those cumulative costs impact profitability. If our margins are low, ultimately the quick fix is on staffing, to be honest. There is only so much that you can take out of the cost of a packet of crisps. As I said earlier, there are some affiliate members down there. One of them has registered their workforce in the past year by 20 members, not just the cost of the WPL but the cumulative costs that are hitting the food and drink industry. I would certainly be more than happy to share some of the other figures that came out of our survey with you if that would help. I am not sure if I answered fully your question or if there is anything else that you would like to ask. The next question is... Sorry, David. I did not see it. I apologise. I think that it is important not to look at the levy as simply a tax on business. It is a potential tax on workplaces, on schools, on libraries, on colleges, on places where social services are carried out. It is a tax on parking in workplaces. The other point that I would like to make is that people are talking about the assumption that it goes on to staff and some of the early questions. In order for it to deliver, it is environmental aims to reduce congestion, to improve the air. It has to be passed on to workers and it has to change workers' behaviours in order for fewer people to drive to work. That is the logic of it. I find it quite ironic that some people are saying, well, why has it been transferred to workers? That is the only way in which there is an environmental benefit to offset a cost on workers. That is the balance that the committee is posed with. Ms Watt mentioned cost-benefit analysis. There should be a cost-benefit analysis, but it should have been accompanying the amendments, or at least signalled in advance. I totally get that the Government needs to work with other parties to pass its budget, and there will be a give and take on those things. However, I think that the issue actually throws up a broader question about the approach towards budget accords in the round and whether sufficient rigor and analysis is given to policymaking. I do not have a solution to that, but I think that it is unsatisfactory in the sense that you get policies like this, and I do not disparage Mr Finney's thinking behind it. I am going to let him come in afterwards when he has answered when you have answered this. However, I think that that raises broader questions about policymaking in the round on that front. It is difficult for companies to work out what the impact would be. We simply do not know who is going to be liable. We do not have a clue what the tax rate would be. We do not know whether it is going to be a slab tax, whether thresholds are going to apply, and how long it would apply for. It is a sort of pig-in-a-poke policy. We have no idea what we are buying into in many respects. I am going to let John Finney come back and ask a question. Ironically, it is not to Mr Lonsdale, who is clearly very familiar with all parliamentary procedures. Everyone seems to commend localism, and everyone seems to think that there is an issue about climate emergency. It is a question for Mr Bellsy. Do you imagine, given some of the representations that we have heard, that your members would say that you have already seated that they are going to pay for this? As someone who has been involved in working place negotiations for two decades, it is a peculiar position that both yourself and the STUC seem to have taken on it. Behaviour can be shaped in many ways, and improved availability of public transport, for instance, would make everything suggest that if there is better public transport, people are less likely to use them. David and Helen, you both get a chance to come back. I think that we would all welcome improved public transports, improved links to allow commuters to use public transport more effectively and allow people to make that choice themselves. I guess that the worry for people who are concerned about this particular amendment is that it is a Government-sponsored amendment with the Green Party, which means that it is quite an in-built majority. That is the most important amendment, and I think that that is unfair. I would make a comment to you, David, that not all members of the Government necessarily support this, as we have seen. Democracy will take its course, and John, with the greatest respect, I think, criticising— I avoid them from the doubt. The reason for these comments is that people are making overt party political comments, so we appropriate the time facility to the opportunity to respond to them, as I did there. I will leave it at that. Right. In fairness, Mr Finlay, I do not know whose party politics is around this table. I am just listening and taking evidence from a mixed group of people. The next panel may have a different party political view. I do not really care. I am listening to the evidence, as I hope all the committee are. We park our politics at the door. We are looking to see if we can pass good legislation. On that basis, Helen, I will let you briefly come in while I get rid of my cough. We absolutely have not seen the point. If this amendment did come in, tree unions would defend our members' terms and conditions, and we would try to ensure that the employer did not pass it on to the employee. The irony of that, though, is that it is easier to defend the terms and conditions of higher pay workers than lower pay workers, because lower pay workers often work in sectors where there are very low margins and where the employer is seeking to push things down on to the employee more and more regularly. If you are going to pass an amendment, an exemption for social work, for example, would be absolutely essential within this, because of the crisis that exists within social work at the minute and the difficulty that tree unions would have in defending our members in that sector. However, I would be concerned about our members' retail, and I would be concerned about our members' wholesale as well. I would say here, though, that you have to remember that not everybody is covered by a tree union and not everybody has the protection of a tree union, and there are an awful lot of low pay workers who would find themselves basically bargaining alone with their employer on this issue, and I would be concerned about those workers. In fairness, we are going to come to exemptions, I am sure, at some stage before this panel is finished. Stuart, the next question is yours. Thank you, and this is a question for Fiona Bale, based on what you say in your submission about your passing the charge on to your staff. Let me just give some assumptions before I form my question. They are essentially Edinburgh-based, so they are not wholly applicable to their locations that Aviva are in. There were five parking spaces in Bred Street in Edinburgh advertised recently for a capital cost of £50,000, an indication that the business rates would be £3,700. That works out at £740 per space, so that is a cost that one can project. Given that business rates and rental go hand in hand, I am assuming that the rental cost would also be £740, so I have got £1,500 near enough. It is very round figures, and it is very rough and ready, but I want to explain where I am coming from. I have also looked to offer space in Edinburgh as £28 per square foot. The average space for a worker is 75 square feet, so that is £2,100 in rental, rates are the same again, so we are up to £4,200. I personally have estimated services to provide for that office worker, so that is the least robust of a not very robust calculation, £1,000. Just for the physical provisioning for an employee, it is £6,700. We then look at average earnings, about £27,500. We are now up to £34,000 for provisioning for an employee with a car parking space. We are now looking at, if we look at Nottingham, £400. What is that in addition to the overall cost? The answer is that 1.2 per cent of the cost of employing someone is attributable to the workplace parking. Furthermore, I will make the little point that, if it is passed on, the VAT that would be charged on workplace parking, that Aviva can recover because they are VAT registered, if you pass on to employee, is an £80 charge that the employee cannot recover, so you are creating a tax on the employee that the company would not pay. So, why that 1.2 per cent increase in the cost of provisioning for an employee or 2 per cent, if we can play with quite big bounds on my numbers, why when it is 1.2 per cent on this particular increase in your costs are you saying that it would be passed on to your employees when other costs, variations in co-operation tax, variations in business rates, variations in rentals, because there will be rental review periods for the rental premises, why that 1 particular small proportion of your costs of employing someone are you saying that you would pass on to your employee. I have not even talked about subsidised canteens, I have not talked about holiday pay and all sorts of other costs there might be. Well, it is a simple question. Fiona, just before you answer that, can I just say that thank goodness Stuart isn't a commercial surveyor because that's not the way rents are worked out and cost attributed, but Fiona, no, it really isn't Stuart, but Fiona, do come in and then I'm going to bring in Richard I do think I know where Mr Stevenson my colleagues you're reading this in my colleagues letter and actually I think it's been can I say quite poorly worded because actually we haven't taken a decision as to whether we would pass on the cost to staff at all and actually in town so in the centre of town we do charge our staff for car parking we actually charge £58 a month because broadly speaking Aviva is supportive of measures that reduce congestion and take cars off the road in town and we do think that staff have a range of choices so where we do have 2000 employees in Scotland we are in out of town locations and that's where Aviva's concerns lie and we absolutely have not committed that we're going to pass this on to staff because we've got we've already demonstrated we've got a range of transport support options for staff that we're funding already okay Richard you wanted to come in on that I agree with all the figures that Mr Stevenson has just detailed that actually shows how much businesses are paying and how we should not load on more on to businesses and is it a tax too far who'd like to go with that I'm gonna try and break do Fiona why don't you you start on that and then I could bring the others in I don't know if I'm the best person to comment on that Mr Lyle I am a I'm working in the property and facilities team at Aviva I'm I'm I'm not an expert on this legislation speaking on behalf of Aviva and operating in Scotland it will be another cost that any organisation will have to take into account when choosing where they're going to locate and indeed whether organisations choose to to operate and locate in Scotland and it won't impact Aviva's thinking we're you know we've got over 2 000 people here we're massively committed to Scotland we work with the Scottish Parliament we work with our local representatives but it may it may have impacts on others David I think Stuart Stevenson's information in the way he built his case teases out one sort of key fact which is there are a heck of a lot of fixed costs and that's before a retailer sells a single good or product so there are a lot of fixed costs that have to be to be met I mean I would throw into the mix things like the large business rate supplement it's higher in Scotland than it is at south of the border that cost Scottish retailers alone an extra £14.1 million a year that's ministerial figures not my enough not made up the top of my head you could add into that the business improvement district levy that many many employers pay as well and as I said on if you're paying tax twice then I think you might be as a company more inclined to think well should we actually be looking either to pass it on or make some savings elsewhere and as I said one option might be to reduce your spend on active travel that might be worth considering another might be to take a less positive or generous approach to supporting business improvement districts when they come up for renewal because one percent you pay a levy one percent of your business rates on that so there are a number of potential consequences that frankly would have been teased out if we'd had an impact assessment to accompany Mr Finney's amendments Colin, do you understand anything or are you in broad agreement? Yeah, I'm in agreement. Okay, I'm just looking to see if anyone else is wanting to come in. I think we'll move to Peter's question next Peter. Thank you convener and I will be concise unlike Mr Stevenson. My question is specifically for Mr Brown because you have said Mr Brown in your submission that social workers should be specifically exempt from the WPL along the same lines of course NHS sites are already being going to be exempted so can you explain why you think that your workforce should be specifically exempted and have you a concern that if this was an exemption it should be a national exemption or should individual local authorities have that decision to make for your worker? Thank you. I think as has already been expressed a number of times because local authorities aren't under so much pressure and I guess a requirement to look at wherever they can make savings because the budgets are so tight that we do feel it should be expressed as an amendment and with all the respect in the world to the members that Helen and David represent I guess we were making an argument that we feel that social workers have a particular and peculiar role of being very actively out in their cars all day visiting people at home trying to get people out of hospitals and back to other care facilities and doing difficult work dealing with adult and child protection, minimising public harms, carrying confidential and sensitive material and dealing with people and interacting with people in difficult circumstances and so we've had a lot of members being very vocal and vociferous about their requirement to access their cars use their cars that therapeutic work goes on in their cars as well so you know we're kind of taking that on board and I guess we think that you know that exemption needs to be thought about because of that they'll put those particular statutory responsibilities whereas I guess a blanket kind of saying NHS you know I think that that's got to depend on is that person does that person have good transport links to the work are they a shift worker and are they just based at one site when they're there all day is transporting and is working with the people they work with part of what they do with their car so that doesn't seem to have been articulated in any way so while we're not as clearly coming out against this we're kind of saying that we're supportive of modal shifts we're kind of saying that we acknowledge the impact of pollution particularly on the poor and some of those other submissions and we don't we don't have as clear a position we do feel that our members are very strong on this and we do think that there should be an amendment for social workers you you obviously think that that should be a national thing that that should should be decided nationally rather than by individual local authorities well I think it's very complex picture and local authorities are using a mixture as I say there might be pool cars or there's the odd electric car or some would say would give you access to the enterprise car club and there's all these kind of mixtures of things but at the end of the day there's not a there's not a robust and our members are telling us there's not robust transport options in place to let them replace this constant dependence on their own private vehicles which they're using for work purposes because they might need to go out for example if you were to if I as a mental health officer was to go and get a warrant to get somebody to hospital who unfortunately was unable to look after themselves was a significant risk to themselves or others I would have to go and visit them several times that day before I was to go to a justice of the peace or a sheriff and get that warrant it's reactive work it's you know it's got to be there and then we've got you know got to respond immediately and several times it can't be scheduled in that way thank you for that I mean hell I knew did just recently I just 10 minutes ago speak up for the social workers I mean you would obviously have a similar view to to mr brown have you yes well we would see them as part of part of a health car workforce but it's there there are a lot of issues within social care at the minute and the treatment of the workforce is is is a very serious one and there are lots of social care workers who are very low paid the living wage is the living wage implementation is something that the stucie has been supporting the government with for a number of years now and and to have a workforce who are doing primary healthcare on the living wage then facing workplace parking levies when they can't really not use their car is you know it isn't a good situation to be in and I think we also have to recognise the fact that there are recruitment issues within social care already and this would potentially it's a small thing but it would potentially impact the cost of the cost of work for workers in this sector and because the reality is that for an awful lot of social care employers or private sector employers they and they will or they are likely to pass on very good thank you now my second question is specifically to mr belsey the eis is opposed to the introduction of the workplace parking living you've said that you've made that clear just wonder have you spoken with with your colleagues in nottingham to understand the impact that it's had in that city on the on the well I'm afraid there are no eis colleagues in nottingham but I haven't I haven't had an opportunity to speak to our sister unions the any you or others in nottingham no so you have no idea how it's impacted and teachers and in nottingham really I haven't had any specific contact with teachers in nottingham okay Jamie you want to fill up thank you I think the comment was made earlier is to one of the substantive questions we have to address is why should employers pass this on to the employees to protect their bottom line or I think the words where bottom line or shareholders but the reality is that actually many in the public service don't account to shareholders they account to publicly funded organisations with very tight budgets so can I ask the panel's opinion on if we are looking at exemptions for nhs workers social workers teachers and teaching assistants then why not police officers firefighters those who work in care homes or hospices or volunteers who man RNLI stations and so on and so on should that exemption list be comprehensive therefore to be fair and equal or should we just target specific types of workplace Helen you nodded and then I'm going to bring Fiona in I think you're getting to why we just don't want to see the levy because you could make a case for all of those workers that you just you could make it in case for the entire public sector and then you could make a case for the kind of outsourced public sector like some of the social care workforce like some of the childcare workforce you know you'll have workers who are providing free funded hours in the childcare expansion who will be in a private sector setting and so you know you can keep going and going and going here but at some point I think you've got to consider whether or not you should just have this power at all Fiona you wanted to come in a general observation mr green because you're you're asking that question and it makes me think because we're having this discussion in committee I'm wondering have have we allowed enough time my understanding is that this has been introduced the workplace parking has been introduced at a late stage in the transportation bill and it's a general question is have we had enough time for consultation and discussion it's an interesting question when the committee's when the committee's asked questions by the witnesses but Jamie if you'd liked I'm very happy to answer questions from witnesses and the answer is quite simply is no we haven't okay David and then I'm going to come to bridge line thank you can you know so I think I echo Helen's point about there are so many examples or of different parts of society asking for exemptions that really does ask a fundamental question about the policy at the point I would add is there are plenty of good and deserving jobs within the retail industry so one of the very topical issues at the moment is about loneliness and people having contact on a regular or semi regular basis with people they know and respect in their local community and obviously there you know the retail sector and shops provide an element of that I guess the sort of more fundamental point is that I think there is a strong argument for having relatively few exemptions that means you have a more broadly based tax and you can actually keep the charge or the levy down I guess that goes back to Mr Finnie and the object was behind this which is really to put a tax on premises but then use the money to fund particular green initiatives if we're going to actually narrow the tax base markedly then surely that the actual tax or the levy charged is going to be even higher than the figures that Stuart Stevenson was talking about. Thank you. Richard, do you want us to ask questions? Yeah, would you agree basically this is bringing in creative accounting the council is going to be paying the council because the council people who are in at schools will need to pay or the head teacher will have to pay and therefore the council will be charging the council. No one's disagreeing David. No, nobody's disagreeing. That's fine. I think we've come to the end of the question so I've got a question which based on the evidence that we heard last week is that and some of the evidence that we've heard this morning is that the message seems to be that if we are going to get the modal shift to people to using other forms of transport apart from their car that they really have to buy into the process and the only way they'll do that is not by their employers paying for the workplace parking levy it's for them to actually feel the pain of it that's that's what we've heard this morning and we heard last week that there were three options on the table when Nottingham considered this there was a congestion charge there were low emission zones on workplace parking levy and they felt that you could only go for one of the three and it was wrong to hit people with more than one of the three because it would be unfair do you my question to each panel member briefly is would you favour another way of achieving the modal shift apart from workplace parking levy higher congestion charge or a low emission zone who'd like to start off with that David I can give you a very very simple response to that convener which is we simply don't have the information at hand to make those decisions and picking up on miss what's question earlier on where's the cost benefit analysis for any of these options so I think that goes really to the heart of this the problem our fundamental problem with the workplace parking levy we as I said earlier on it's a bit of a pig in the poke we have very scarce detail about this week and so being asked to make a decision or take a view now on three different options of which we don't have any sort of economic analysis is too challenging that was what I recall the slopes shoulders on that fear and do you want to to make an opinion I probably agree agree with what David is saying and obviously the areas that I'm representing in Aviva are unlikely to need any sort of help with air emission and congestion so I'm probably not best place to talk about the options as they impact wider city centres our recent working condition survey said that up to 40 percent of social workers were feeling so stressed and overloaded that they were thinking about leaving the profession and I think that it's true to say that any further pressures are going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and certainly if there's more than one impacting them on the time because and and what we're saying is there needs to be more sophisticated thought particularly for workers that are actively using their car to carry out statutory and legal duties in a stressful situation thank you very much Alasdair David I think everybody would support the aims of a modal shift in car usage and teachers are no exception to that I think the problem is around the use of attacks against workers or could be used against workers as a stick approach and teaching as Alasdair pointed out to social work there are places where teaching is difficult to recruit and difficult to retain teachers especially in rural communities and some of schools in poorer areas and the workplace levy and the congestion charge low emissions zones they seem to smack of using the stick and I think there are more supportive ways in which the workers can choose of their own volition without feeling that they're being pushed into something when they see a more attractive way of travelling to work and I think that is the way that we would look at going forward we've been put simply we haven't got any policy in place on congestion charges or low emissions zones so I can't give you a specific answer either thank you Helen what we would really like to see is investment in public in public transport and we particularly like to see buses looked at there's currently 298 million of public money going into the bus system in the private companies and we don't think that money is being well used at present we're concerned about the franchise and system in general there isn't much competition for bus franchises in local areas around half of all franchising contracts receive a single bid there's no contract there's no there's no competition there at all which doesn't exactly get the best price for the local authority and we think that that this system needs to be looked at desperately because right now the number of buses are falling and fares are rising by 18 percent and the buses are being withdrawn from local communities there are now towns and areas in Scotland where there is no bus this is what needs to be looked at desperately this is what needs to be unlocked and we we believe that more could be done in this space to create a modal shift by ensuring that there is a mode to shift on to and that's really where we need to look thank you Helen Collin briefly I would just agree with everything David had said and especially in the cost benefit analysis the one point I would make is that regardless of what is introduced and where it's introduced our members are delivering across multiple councils all over Scotland so they could be in Glasgow one day where an LEZ is already in place coming across Edinburgh where at the moment it's not and then potentially going up to Dundee where it is or it may be a congestion charge I think it just creates a whole lot of complexity whether it be an LEZ congestion charger workplace parking levy and again it just goes back to the cost and managing that and how how it's paid it's just becoming burdensome on on business okay thank you very much thank you all for coming in and giving us your views this morning it's been extremely helpful as the committee does go through the democratic process of working out whether this is a good amendment to the transport bill which we would decide when we go through and look at the amendments to the transport bill but thank you very much for the time and also for your written submissions and if you have volunteered any additional information that you can give to the class I would ask you just to make sure you do that as quickly as possible I'm now going to suspend the meeting for nine minutes to allow the committee to take a break and also for the witnesses to change thank you I suspend the meeting thank you I'd like to reconvene the committee meeting to hear from the second panel for this session which will again be focusing on the workplace parking levy's potential environmental transport and social impacts I'd like to welcome Sue Flack the policy advisor for Transform Scotland, Alexander Cwylel, the senior policy officer from Sustran Scotland and Stuart Douglas, smarter choices, smart places manager, paths for all so thank you we have a series of questions as I said to you if you catch my eye if you want to come in unless the member asks you directly to answer that question I'll try and bring you in and again if you can just not look the other way when you're answering it so if I feel you're going off Stuart on the wrong path I may call you back so the first question is from Richard Love Richard thank you convener and if the convener will allow me in my constituency I have quite a lot of industrial estates and business estates that are not served by buses so how would you respond to the concerns that a workplace parking levy would penalise those working in premises not served by adequate public transport or linked to cycling and walking infrastructure who'd like to go off on that Sue well one of the things that the workplace parking levy does allow for is by the provision of revenue over a period of time to improve public transport in places where it's poor so I would suggest that the council that's involved with that that those industrial estates talks to the people there talks to the employers talks to the employees about what the issues are and devises a plan that could be implemented with help from the levy itself as a revenue support for that plan so that might be increasing the frequency of buses it might be putting on new services it might be cycle routes it might be just putting in a path that's not very well lit and needs safety improvements all those things to help the situation of people who who feel that they've got no other choice but to go by car and then I think if if that is done it will soften the impact of the levy but will also mean that people have got choice they've actually it's actually improved the situation for workers because they'll have more better choice of how to get to work Alexander do you want to come in on that yeah and yeah i'll just mention that the first thing would be that local authorities will take a long time to implement such policy for example Nottingham's one was agreed in 2009 for a 2012 implementation so there is a reasonable leading period to allow local authorities to to work with premises to make a change and the other thing I would add is that local authorities would be able to set the geographical scope and we've seen from the workplace parking levy debate that it can be quite controversial and I think that one of the things that will inform the choice of where they set it will be the fact that there will be choices or alternatives and they won't want to exclude whole areas from having access of workers and still you want to know that okay the next question then will be from John Mason John thanks very much i've got a couple of questions one follows on from what Richard Lyle was asking aim do you think there's enough in the bill or should there be more in the bill about where the money would go in this area of you know should it be improving public transport i think Nottingham did improve trams improve train station and improve buses is there enough in the bill about that the funds are meant going where they should be going there's something like it should go towards improving transport it leaves a wide range open and it's transport according to the strategy of the local authority that's promoting it as I understand it as I understand it it's really important that the strategy that the local authority is promoting is one which is widely agreed and widely consulted on and covers the sorts of points that were being raised there by Mr Lyle so it's really important that there is a almost like a jointly prepared transport strategy where people who are going to be affected by the levy in whatever way buy into it as much as possible and I think on your direct question I think there is enough in in in the in the bill it may be that further guidance might be helpful to local authorities who are considering doing workplace parking levy I don't know if you've thought about that as a possibility I I also advise transport for London and there the mayor is responsible for approving workplace parking levy schemes not not it's only it's all the responsibility of the mayor and not the government and they are providing guidance for for the boroughs within London and when the department for transport was considering workplace parking levy for London and Wales they they did they were going to do guidance and do some extra put some extra guidance but it never actually got published so that that's another option yes the bill allows local authorities to work together do you think regional transport partnerships should have a role in this as well they should have a co they could have a co-ordinating role they could do guidance perhaps that they could act like transport for London and do guidance for the councils within their areas mr kale or mr Douglas you give that yeah it's about having that variety there's no no one answer so ensuring that the local authorities have got got the strategy understand what those issues are and what the best solutions are so it needs to be as weight as weight as possible there's definitely benefits to co-ordinating regionally though i don't think such trends would support workplace parking levies having to be implemented with regional agreement i think it should be on a single local authority basis on the question of does the bill say enough about what the funding is for i think it's vital that the funding is rinfanced so we agree with that provision within the bill we appreciate the flexibility of it it is revenue funding but it could be used for example to match fund for active travel grants that sus transit ministers on behalf of transport scotland and one thing i was very taken with from the evidence session last week was within the funds that it takes to run the workplace parking levy there are officers that help work with workplaces in order to ensure that they know that they are complying but also to help them work with their employees to offer alternatives as well so we think that that's that's a very valuable tool that should be included thank you the other area which has been raised with us i wanted to ask you about was the thought that workers if they've got a choice and if they think they're going to be impacted by a charge it might just choose to park off site and that that could cause well further congestion say nearer school or or near some other workplace what would your reaction to that be the local authority promoting workplace parking levy is likely to be the same one that has the responsibility for parking on streets as well there may be issues at boundaries but it's likely to be the same authority and that authority can control parking on streets and what Nottingham has done is basically have a programme of going around all the areas where there was displace parking due to workplace parking levy where people parked outside instead of parking on site and control those control those streets in some cases in some places they've actually put in charging mechanisms on street where it's suitable to actually park on street and in some cases they've put in residence parking zones and similar to actually prevent that parking on on street where there's a boundary the the council that's promoting the authority that's promoting workplace parking levy has to work with their neighbouring council and again Nottingham has done this as well for the edges of the area so you think it's something it's fixable it's fixable you have to have a programme of of of doing on street parking controls or on street parking charges as well and go around this this can also be funded from the levy receipts so it's not an additional cost to the authority okay thank you i'm at it's time did you want to come in on that yes um i think displacement absolutely could be an undesirable consequence of this but to use your phrase yes it's it's definitely fixable local authorities have the powers available to them in scotland and in a way it comes timely as the transport bill will iron up some of the issues with parking enforcement that we do have as well i just come back on on that subject you know you say you say it's fixable what you what you actually mean is you're going to prohibit the driver from parking on street as well so you know you're really you're really using the stick very very heavily against the driver and you know that we've got to recognise there are many many people that there are no other option to get to their work on time than to use their car and you are you're just saying you're going to make it increasingly difficult for that to happen you're really you're really are you know using all the powers that there are you're going to charge them if they park on use the the parking on the within the workplace and if they decide to park on the street you're going to stop them doing that as well so you're really just saying you know two fingers up to anybody that's driving their car um i'm not sure that's an expression that i'm going to allow in the committee but i'll draw that expression driver car i think you understood the basics of that question i drive a car i cycle i walk i think most people in this room will use public transport cycle walk drive at different times as well i have no interest in upsetting or offending any group of travellers but um i'm not trying to talk in absolutes i'm saying if that there is problematic displacement if there is an overspill of cars that is blocking carriageways or making pavements dangerous for people walking along them then yes local authorities have a suite of tools available to them i'm not trying to imply that local authorities will be painting the yellow lines on every street as soon as a workplace parking levy comes into effect i'm not i'm not talking in these terms can i just add that i used to work at Nottingham i led on the development of the levy there and um what Nottingham found was that many they were already controls in many places so there were already issues it wasn't you know it wasn't directly related to the workplace parking levy there were already issues that needed managing richard very briefly yeah okay suflack you you worked in Nottingham so why is it you know the hundreds of councils in england more than what there is in scotland why is it only nottingham have brought in this parking levy i now i now work as well as helping transform scotland i now work as a consultant advising other authorities on workplace parking levy and i can i can give you lots of names of authorities that are now progressing workplace parking levy they haven't they waited a while they wanted to wait to see what happened in Nottingham i think and to see whether um they were longer term implications of what Nottingham had done so they waited a good five years but there now are a number of authorities i can tell you some of them if you like um Reading Birmingham Leicester um Oxford and Cambridge TFL is providing a supportive environment for the London boroughs and the one the one leading in London is Hounslow also Sutton and Merton and Camden i have started preparing um those are all the ones that have actually done something committed money um there are lots of others that are talking about it but haven't actually committed any money um and prefer to keep their proposal secret thank you okay uh my question is is is well the next question is me is is is that we heard in the last evidence session that this was going to place a large financial burden on businesses um and they were really concerned that some of the smaller businesses uh which actually have very low margins and have no access because of their remote locations to public transport will will face a huge financial burden um Stuart would you like to is that wrong well i think it's up to the that's the joy of the legislation and it's up to the local authorities to look at where this piece of uh where the work where the WPL would have greatest impact and where it would not it doesn't have to do it where it can uh you know those those businesses that are really remote require people absolutely to drive to you would suspect would not come under the guise of the legislation um because local authorities would would make smart decisions about where to apply it and where not to so sorry so where one of those small businesses is is in an area that you just draw the line around it and and take it out out with the area so if it was on the edge of Aberdeen you just draw the line inside it so so it doesn't affect them and again it goes back to what are you trying to resolve are you using the workplace parking levy to reduce congestion or use it to try and reduce pollution and you need to determine which parts of the geography of your city are most affected okay alexson do you want to um the first thing i'd say is i wouldn't necessarily recommend a workplace parking levy is an effective policy in a rural area i think it is something that the benefits are likely to be seen much more likely to be seen in urban areas with a critical mass of congestion for businesses in those areas with with margins i'm not an expert enough to talk about the business mechanisms but i think it is absolutely the case that there are externalities to car travel that are not at the moment being properly picked up such as air quality through carbon emissions and i think the workplace parking levy is actually a fairly small mechanism to rebalance this okay and see maybe maybe in that you could i mean what they also said we also heard was that unless it was actually paid by the driver of the car it wouldn't change anyone's opinion do you see it i think what they were saying earlier on mrs out one stage which is that the employer i i disagree in the sense that the employer has a role in managing car travel of their commuters in managing the travel of their commuters so i don't think it is an either or either the employer pays and nothing happens in terms of change of mode or the employee pays it and there's consequently a mode a mode change what happens what happened in nutting was employers acted to reduce their parking because they acted to reduce their liability so they took on some of that responsibility of managing their employees car travel they basically did travel plans we'd already done a lot of travel planning before the levy came in so they were used to the process but as um as alex said um there's an officer whose job it is to go around and advise on travel planning and managing parking and so they there was employers also have a role in reducing their liability they i think that even the people here would would have said that um and by doing that they can they can help understand how employees need to get to work and therefore they can talk to the local council about how to improve those alternatives so it's it's like a circular mechanism okay pauline you want to come in to pauline did you want did you want to come in yes um so what interests me in all of this um from what you're seeing is to get the modal shift although there's a choice between applying it local authority is applying it to the employer to get the modal shift you would have to really apply it to the the worker i think however um i mean i aware for instance that transport scotland's own figures show that of the total two lowest income groups 50 percent of the lowest paid in scotland used their car to get to work and you would you be concerned that uh applying it to workers are actually going to penalise the lowest paid workers who are already trying to manage many families are struggling there's plenty evidence of this and a 400 pound a year charge is possibly going to actually lead to people losing their jobs because they can't afford to get to work is that a concern it depends on what the charge actually is and the the amendment does allow the promoting authority to decide what the charge is doesn't have to be 400 pounds it can be another figure secondly the charge is for the employer that the liable person is the employer not the employee and the employer doesn't have to pass it on to the employee in the same form so can i just stop you there so is it your view that it shouldn't be passed on then no it's i think it's up to the employer whether that you know is it your view that it should be passed on or not i i'm just following what the legislation says and i know what the legislation says but you represent organisations that are arguing for a modal shift is it do you not have any concerns about low paid workers and all of this i do i have concerns and you didn't let me finish which was that employers can pass the levy on it doesn't have to be in the same form they can charge lower paid workers less or nothing and they can charge higher paid workers more and that's what Nottingham City Council does okay and i think in fan is uh pulling that's as close to the answer to the question you will perhaps get on that steward i'd like to could you ask bring you in at the stage please yes i've got a wee supplementary before i start and it is we just at alexander quitter um there is a ready of course a charge that's differential for different vehicles i pay 10 pounds a year in road fun tax for my little hybrid car um if i had a Range Rover i would be paying 450 pounds per year so there is a mechanism already for discouraging people from having large emissions footprints is is that a better or worse way of dealing with us than introducing an entirely new tax and all the things that come with it yeah in principle i have no objection to the idea of some stepped way of implementing this tax so that people on lower income were paying less um regard to whether people are already paying enough because of road tax i mean since 1997 the cost of motoring is down 10 percent in real terms bus fares are up 7 percent rail is up 5 percent last year chancellor of exchequer said since 2010 that holding back fuel duty has saved the average motorist 850 pounds and the average van driver over 2000 pounds since the same time the average train season ticket has gone up 694 pounds so we the point is that the least socially desirable modes of transport right now are being prioritised in a flat way regardless of your capacity to afford them or not there is no means tested train ticket if you have to get the train to work i think this is a relatively small financial mechanism that can rebalance that okay now let me move to my substantive question community that one of the parts of the discussion around this is the is relieving potential burden might transfer from the company or the employer paying us tax down to workers health service workers have been identified and indeed the previous panel there was a case made that you end up exempting everybody because there's a case you could make for virtually everybody so how should such exemptions be operated especially given that the the workplace parking levy is a levy on the employer how do you end up doing it now i know that nottingham have done some things in this and we had evidence but but how could you make an exemption system work that makes any sense you'd like to go on that so i if i was personally doing a workplace parking levy and i and i was god and in that working workplace parking levy i would only exempt operationally necessary vehicles which are which i think is a a blip in the legislation and your people earlier on didn't mention that but in nottingham it was a really big thing that fleet vehicles suppliers and people calling to fix you sit there in those days used to be to fix the photocopier in these days it'd be an it contractor or something those sorts of people who just come occasionally to park that is exempted in nottingham and i would exempt that i would also exempt blue badge holders i personally i wouldn't exempt NHS social workers teachers or anybody else you've said exempt vehicles but this is a charge on employers it's not a charge on vehicles it's not a charge on workers although it might end up being passed on i accept that and the example you gave of vehicles that are going to serve as photocopiers the only parking levy that could apply to them is when they're at their base i presume so i'm really i'm because i don't think that there's a workplace parking levy associated with providing a space for someone there or or is it all right all right in your amendment it's the same as in the england and wiles and the london legislation but and it you the in in the legislation is charging for the the space used by those vehicles well while those vehicles are using it and just and just by the way that the guy who was sat here talking about social workers if social workers are out all day then they won't be charged because it's the charge only applies when the space is occupied by a car so sorry sorry can i just understand that so you've got a somebody in and out of the office all day in a car and it's only charged when they're using it who's going to record when they're in and out of the office the employer has to do some work so so you've got 900 employees and you're not sure who's in and out there's somebody on the car park recording who's in which space you can use technology um you could what happens in Nottingham is that you declare how many spaces are required um and then those spaces are basically shared by the people who um work there if you've got a lot of social workers or you've got a lot of people who are out at different sites you declare a max a smaller maximum number of sites of parking spaces that are liable for the levy and then people share as they come in and out okay john for that description of a version of it it's it's not the version that's covered okay john okay john uses the next question say oh yeah right um thank you very much indeed well thank you can be narrowing in good morning panel i wanted to maybe just before asking this question just to pick up on a point that mr quail made and it's in respect of evidence that we heard from mr douglas and it's about the relative costs that have been going on and um if i may quote here for example UK public policy has seen fuel duty remain constant for the last nine years costing the UK treasury approximately 10 billion a year 10 billion a year and for avoidance of doubt that comes from the RAC foundation um would either of you like to comment on that mr douglas and when we're talking about the costs of things that does seem to be a significant interval we're going to use the Barnett formula there's sorry john i'm totally confused is fuel duty as part of the working place parking levy we're talking about the relative costs of different modes that's what the witnesses were talking about a minute ago i'm adding to that by evidence we've got from one of the witnesses convener that's why i'm mentioning it okay well let's gave you my statistics a moment ago but um it's quite evident that the trend for however long you measure it um for the last 10 20 40 years has been to make motoring cheaper has been for public transport to get more expensive um that is that's especially important that that is considered right now when we know that we need to be tackling air quality and congestion which is a major cost to the biggest cities in scotland we also know that um early this month the first minute of declared a climate emergency as well and making motoring cheaper continuing to make it cheaper is something that will only encourage more people to drive mr douglas yeah and at the same time as fuel duty has remained static the car ownership has continued to increase and increase and increase um so what do you get more congestion more congestion the slows up affects negatively on business it impacts on public transport because buses become snarled up in the congestion they become less reliable less people use them so bus services become less so more people drive so the roads become more congested it's a vicious downward cycle because of because and the cheaper you make car driving the greater that cycle becomes okay thank you can ask about a response that we've received to the the survey had quite a number of folks said that um the travel infrastructure should be improved before the work partnering levy is introduced um thereby giving workers a viable alternative now the creation and publication of a local transport strategy will be a prerequisite for any local authority looking to implement awp or can you comment on the relationship between these the strategy and the implementation please you'd like to go on that too the the linking of workplace parking levy to the strategy is really really important and also the linking of the funding that workplace parking levy to bring to the implementation of that strategy is really really important for various reasons one is that there's no point in doing a workplace parking levy unless you've got stuff to spend it on that is going to be things that are going to be useful for people um so that the two is really important to link them together and then I think that it's that consultation should be done on the basis of the package of the local transport strategy and in terms of implementation um there what what Nottingham did was borrow from in effect borrow from the flow of workplace parking revenue to be able to implement early public transport improvements so lots of people said that they would like to have the public transport improvements first before the levy started so the the sort of promise was made that things would be delivered quickly and they were in fact delivered within three years of the workplace and that includes a tram so that was pretty good pretty good going within three years of the levy coming in I think it's unfair to people who are paying the levy um to not have the promised alternatives there and what Nottingham also did was keep the levy low for the first three years to reflect the fact that those alternatives weren't there um until they came in on the on just about on the third year okay thank you um um yeah at workplace parking levy should be one aspect of a basket of measures that you're implementing at the same time improving bus services better public transport all round um and better provision for active travel and helping workplaces so having that within the context of a local travel plan um I think is is a strength of of the bill of the amendment um it's it's we talk about it as a revenue or having the potential for revenue raising but because that is ring fenced we can already talk about that as being money for investment already and you're already looking at that shopping list of what is going to give people who do drive to work an alternative a cheaper more affordable alternative to get to work and the point I would make is that what we are actually investing Scottish Government is investing significantly in infrastructure there's been great investment in the in the rail infrastructure just recently we know such strands through working through its local authorities is delivering substantial improved cycle ways throughout the country so there is one of the findings from the smarter choices smarter places programme that I run which is also funded through transport Scotland is that actually people don't know about infrastructure we had a project in Edinburgh a workplace project in Edinburgh that by working with local community or with local employers we increased the awareness of the quiet routes in in Edinburgh by over 27 percent people don't know about the infrastructure that exists and and there's a whole host of other projects that we've been running that have demonstrated that as well so whilst I accept that infrastructure needs to improve I would also suggest it is improving and a bit of knowledge would help people's understanding of that as well okay thank you very much Maureen You've got the next question As you know workplace car parking spaces are already subject to domestic rates sorry to non-domestic rates so do you consider it's fair that they're going to be then subject to an additional tax through the working place parking lily? The limited way I'm I'm not familiar with the non-domestic rates or the system of charging I think it's certainly true however that the cost of motoring is not being accounted for with externalities through carbon emissions and air quality. See do you want to? The difference between workplace parking levy and business rates is that the workplace parking levy money is a because it's a levy it is entirely ring fence for transport purposes so the levy is it is an addition to business rates obviously but it is a transport levy if you like whereas business rates is used for other purposes and so I do think it's fair for the reasons that Alex just said that because the business rates are not intended to cover the costs to the community of car travel and the costs of the parking space in effect then I think that's fair to to have a to another charge that's aimed at that purpose. I can add there's no such thing as free car parking. It costs the creation of car parks cost money. The infrastructure that goes underneath the more infrastructure you need to get to your the buildings you know you've got more pipes more more cabling all of that extra cost. Car parks create more flooding so your waste water or your water pipes need to be bigger and fatter and longer to deal with all of that runoff water so there's all those additional costs that having these big lumps of tarmarking concrete need to meet and then there's the opportunity costs because we've got you know we heard earlier of 1200 space car parks at a business how many other opportunities could that land be used for so there's a whole opportunity cost and cars sitting on a piece of tar is not a really good use of land they just sit there. Okay more in if you. It's fine thank you. Okay Jamie. Thank you. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that last comment I think the fact that there are people who use those cars to get to their place of work and have a decent living is a valid reason for them to use the parking place outside of it but the non-car users have to pay for that because the cost of the car park infrastructure gets taken up absorbed by the business and passed on to customers to those who buy their services everybody has to pay for it because people choose to drive. Sorry just so I could clarify something is is that when businesses go you get planning permission for a business in the past it was always demanded you had x amount of parking spaces relevant to the office space or the business place that you're using so it was a stipulation a government stipulation that if you were putting in an office like say Aviva were putting in you had to provide x amount of car parking spaces which therefore was a requirement so what you're saying is you think that that should be ignored that it was a government demand put in those spaces and it's right to then tax a business on those spaces and just as an aside as as far as the extra equipment goes some of these I would have to say just as an observation some of the car parking spaces may be underneath businesses which don't take up or use any more land except that last point although the construction costs of the bit that you need to support the building on top of the company but I accept the point about planning however we have a climate emergency transport is the biggest cause of emissions in this country 60% of those emissions come from the private car we cannot accept the status quo sorry Pauline in fairness sorry I don't mean to be difficult I'm trying to let this committee run to allow people to to express their views and you're very welcome to the committee you're you're not welcome to actually challenge the way I run the meeting so I've stood I've heard that point John you wanted to ask a question and then I'm coming back to Jamie John had a supplementary to that no I didn't sorry sorry I misunderstood Jamie you want to ask a question okay let's bring it back to the point of the levy Mr Stevens talked about some of the incremental costs that could be applied to drivers if they choose to drive vehicles which are less environmentally friendly than others and there are a number of ways in which government is able to do that through the introduction of punitive measures through low emission zones you have to drive a certain type of car increased road tax in some local councillors they have increased charges for residence permits for example based on categorisation and all of that is down to consumer choice whether they choose to drive this type of car over that type of car but the point here is about whether that choice exists for many people to get to their place of work and for many as we've heard in previous panels from people who I respect represent a wide range of organisations not just the private sector that many people simply need to drive to work so whether there is choice whether there is no choice why should those people who have no choice have to pay the levy I think I understand your point on the point about the vehicles it would be possible the legislation is very flexible it would be possible to say exempt or to give a hundred percent discount to electric vehicles so you could do that same differentiation that you were talking about in terms of the different types of vehicles in terms of the thing about people have literally no other choice to get to to work by car I repeat my point that the charge is to the employer not to the employee and the employer could change the way that they charge on take the charge on to employees to say that those people who live in places that are very very isolated or very very difficult to access public transport they co