Breaking New Ground? Developing a Scottish tax to replace the UK Aggregates Levy: consultation

UK Aggregates Levy: Reliefs for Industrial, Agricultural and Exempt Processes

Relief can be claimed for aggregate used in the following processes by those who commercially exploited the aggregate and accounted for the levy to HMRC.

Industrial Processes

• Iron, steel and non-ferrous metal manufacture and smelting processing including foundry processes, investment casting, sinter plants and wire drawing
• Alloying
• Emission abatement for air, land and water
• Drinking water, air and oil filtration and purification
• Sewage treatment
• Production of energy
• Ceramic processes
• Refractory processes
• Manufacture of glass and glass products
• Manufacture of fibre glass
• Manufacture of man-made fibres
• Production and processing of food and drink, for example, sugar refining, production of gelatin
• Manufacture of plastics, rubber and PVC
• Chemical manufacturing for example soda ash, sea water magnesia, alumina
• Manufacture of precipitated calcium carbonate
• Manufacture of pharmaceuticals, bleaches, toiletries and detergents
• Aerating processes
• Manufacture of fillers for coating, sealants, adhesives, paints, grouts, mastics, putties and other binding or modifying media
• Manufacture of pigments, varnishes and inks
• Production of growing media and line markings for sports pitches and other leisure facilities
• Incineration
• Manufacture of desiccant
• Manufacture of carpet backing, underlay and foam
• Resin processes
• Manufacture of lubricant additives
• Leather tanning
• Paper manufacture
• Production of art materials
• Production of play sand, for example, for children's sand pits
• Clay pigeon manufacture
• Abrasive processes: specialist sand blasting, iron free grinding (pebble mills) and sandpaper manufacture
• Use as a propping agent in oil exploration, for example, fracture sands and drilling fluids
• Flue gas desulphurisation and flue gas scrubbing
• Manufacture of mine suppressant
• Manufacture of fire extinguishers
• Manufacture of materials used for fireproofing
• Acid neutralisation
• Manufacture of friction materials, for example, automotive

Agricultural Processes

• Manufacture of additives to soil, for example, agricultural lime
• Manufacture of animal feeds
• Production of animal bedding material
• Production of fertiliser
• Manufacture of pesticides and herbicides
• Production of growing media, including compost, for agricultural and horticultural use only
• Soil treatment, including mineral enrichment and reduction of acidity

Exempt Processes

• creating any type of flat stone, by intentionally cutting or shaping stone to produce one or more flat surfaces after it has been extracted
• producing lime or cement from limestone, or from limestone and anything else, including shale
• using shale for something other than construction purposes
• extracting or separating certain industrial minerals from other aggregate

The levy on waste and by-products from an exempt process may have to be paid if they are commercially exploited. This does not apply to material that is entirely processing waste from separating industrial minerals* from aggregate after extraction.

China clay and ball clay are industrial minerals for which there is a specific exemption for waste (not including overburden) from extraction.

*The industrial minerals are:

• anhydrite
• ball clay
• barytes
• china clay
• feldspar
• fireclay
• fluorspar
• fuller's earth
• gems and semi-precious stones
• gypsum
• metal or metal ore
• muscovite
• perlite
• potash
• pumice
• rock phosphates
• sodium chloride
• talc
• vermiculite