National Trust for Scotland has called on all political parties fielding candidates in the May 7 election to “commit to action to save the nation’s built heritage.”

The charity said: “Most restoration and renovation of existing buildings is subject to 20% VAT imposed by the UK Government, yet new builds and demolition to make way for them are zero rated.

“This penalises the preservation, retrofitting and refitting of the historically important and characterful buildings in towns and cities and actually incentivises their disrepair and destruction.”

National Trust for Scotland, which has over 340,000 members, says that current Scottish and UK policies are actively encouraging the neglect and demolition of historic buildings and that the public agrees that this must change.

“In a ‘double whammy’ of policy failure, the ability to save and reuse built heritage is further compromised by acute labour and skills shortages due to an absence of adequate government planning and support for vocational training,” said the charity.

“Addressing these matters is supported by the electorate: a survey conducted by the Trust in December 2025 showed that 58% of respondents wanted VAT relief to be applied to historic buildings as well as new builds, and 71% wanted increased investment in the skills required to preserve Scotland’s heritage.”

National Trust for Scotland CEO Phil Long OBE said: “Current policies are far from being joined up and actually mitigate against our built heritage, as we are seeing especially in Glasgow where the degradation of some of the city’s finest historic buildings is appalling to see.

“That’s why the new intake of Scottish politicians must work with their counterparts at Westminster to address the anomalies and bring forth a wide range of benefits that we know the public wants to see.

“Independent research has shown that a reduction or elimination of VAT on historic buildings would be offset by injecting £15 billion into the UK economy and the creation of 95,000 new jobs.

“At the same time, negating the unnecessary demolition of buildings that could be saved and brought back into use would stop enormous amounts of stored carbon – circa 240,000 tonnes of CO² – being released into the atmosphere, thereby helping us to achieve vital net zero targets.

“It may have been repeated often but is nevertheless true: the greenest building is one that already exists.”

Diarmid Hearns, National Trust for Scotland’s Director of Conservation and Policy, said: “There’s an urgent need for new housing and for buildings that are configured to adopt energy use that is sustainable and climate-friendly.

“Of course, new builds will play a part in addressing those requirements, but it seems needlessly myopic to ignore the fact that existing buildings are a necessary part of the equation and to adopt the required policies.

“Almost 20% of housing stock in Scotland was built before 1919; simply maintaining this requires a workforce with the skills to work with stone, slate and other traditional materials.

“That need and the range of specialist skills necessary multiplies when you also consider the many other public and private buildings that make up so much of the character of our towns and cities that are anything from 100 to 300 years old.

“Yet vocational and traditional skills training in Scotland has reached its nadir. FE Colleges face chronic underfunding and some have dropped vocational courses, such as stone masonry, altogether.

“We have to address this, not least because we are going to need people with these traditional buildings skills to retrofit older buildings for new heating systems and to ensure their survival in a wetter, stormier and warmer climate.”

CEO Long added: “We are calling on all political parties and candidates to recognise the issues and to commit to changing these inadequate and contradictory policies. We also encourage the public to raise the issues with candidates on their doorsteps ahead of the May election.

“Righting these wrongs make economic and environmental sense in the long run: not only do well-maintained and used historic buildings make our towns and cities better places to live, they also make a significant contribution to tourism which generates £9.7 billion for Scotland, much of which is attracted by our cultural and built heritage.”