The Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 (1987 c. 47) was an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. The Conservative government of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

was committed to the reform of local government finance; the solution decided upon by the mid-1980s was the introduction of the per-capita " community charge" -also called the Poll Tax - and the abolition of the previous "rates" system, which had been based solely on property ownership. In

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, a revaluation of the housing rates in 1985-1986 had increased the burden on homeowners. It was decided that the poll tax would be implemented in Scotland before the rest of the United Kingdom, and a bill was drafted and put before Parliament in late 1986 with this intention - it was the final major piece of legislation introduced before the election. It received its second reading on 9 December, when it was described by

Malcolm Rifkind Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind (born 21 June 1946) is a British politician who served in the cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1986 to 1997, and most recently as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament from 2 ...

as a "radical reforming measure". Two significant amendments were made in response to backbench concerns. Firstly, it was to be implemented in one sweep in 1989, rather than progressively between 1989 and 1992, against the advice of the Scottish Office. The second change was to make each individual liable to the tax responsible for paying rather than designating a single "head of household" in each residence and requiring them to collect for the others.

References

*''Failure in British government: the politics of the poll tax'' (pp. 101–104), David Butler,

Andrew Adonis Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis, (born Andreas Adonis; 22 February 1963) is a British Labour Party politician and journalist who served in HM Government for five years in the Blair ministry and the Brown ministry. He served as Secretary of State ...

& Tony Travers. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994. *''Chronological table of the statutes''; HMSO, London. 1993. {{Authority control 1987 in Scotland Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning Scotland United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1987