jim smart

John Swinney won't be able to pop into his local for a pint any more. Brown & Blacks in Scone is run by an entrepreneur called Katie Long. Her story sums up everything that's wrong with business rates. Katie put around £140,000 of her own money into the business. She's done everything she can to make it work. Her energy costs have risen from £25,000 a year to over £100,000. But the real stinger is that her business rates have gone up from under £20,000 to over £52,000. How is anyone supposed to make a living with that? Now think about the knock-on effect: potential job losses at a time of high unemployment, which means less tax coming in and a greater burden on the state. The First Minister has appointed Jonathan Murphy to look at rates. So here's my offer to Jonathan: let's spend a day together visiting the businesses whose livelihoods are threatened by the current system.