Anas Sarwar pledges 'Amazon tax' to breathe life into Scotland's high streets

The Scottish Labour leader said it is “not fair” for retail businesses to pay “30 to 40 per cent” of their turnover on business rates, when online distribution centres pay only “two or three per cent”.

He promised to “make sure more of the cost pressures are put on the online giants in the distribution centres” and bring in “more reliefs for the individual businesses in town centres and high streets”.

Scottish Labour wants to abolish business rates and create a new local business levy.

It comes as some firms are facing huge increases in rates, with Glasgow’s saying it faces a £500,000 hike.

When asked if his new measures were an Amazon tax, Mr Sarwar said: “Yes. We've listened to the concerns of the hospitality sector, the retail sector.

“We recognize that our town centres, our high streets and city centres are feeling really under pressure right now, and we do accept that our business rate system is broken and not fit for purpose.

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“And neither is our assessor system, where you've seen the assessments put some people's rates up by multipliers of 100 per cent which is not acceptable.

“So we will introduce a chief assessor to make sure there are national standards and there is national limits to what someone's rates can go up by when those assessments happen.

“We'll go further than that, though, which is we will abolish business rates and create a new system designed in partnership with business that resets the balance.

“It shifts the balance away from the pressure being on the high street shops, which is rigged in favour of the online giants, and instead makes sure more of the cost pressures are put on the online giants in the distribution centres, and therefore more reliefs for the individual businesses in town centres and high streets.

“And then we want to go even further than that. Not every business has the same level of turnover or the same level of profit margin.

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“So we think that has to be built into the system as well. So for example, a retail sector will have a different level of average margin compared to a hospitality business will have a different level of margin. That should be part of the feature.

“And then also, how do we incentivize local authorities to want to attract people to go into their town centres and sectors?

“So we'll also put an element of what the rate system looks like for turnover for businesses based on that profit margin too, so that then it becomes incentivized for local authorities to attract people towards their town centre, city centres.

“Rather than right now, take Glasgow City Centre as example. It feels like the local authorities actually working against the city centre and against those businesses.”

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When asked how much distribution centres could pay, Mr Sarwar said: “We will model that, and obviously that will be built in partnership with with the with the businesses.

“But there are many examples where there are retail businesses who are paying 30 or 40 per cent of their turnover in business rate costs, but many of the distribution centres are paying two or three per cent of their turnover in business rate costs.

“How is that fair when many of those distribution centres are part of multinational international companies making billions of pounds of profit whereas the high street shops are literally living hand to mouth, sometimes week to week, month by month?

“That is not a fair system, and we will address that in balance.”