The Scottish Parliament has formally backed a new housebuilding tax which aims to raise money to repair unsafe cladding.
The Building Safety Levy Bill (Scotland) is hoped to raise approximately £30million per year to support work to replace or repair cladding deemed unsafe in the wake of the Grenfell disaster in London.
MSPs backed the general principles of the bill by 65 votes to 54 amid cautions that the plans could negatively impact housebuilding and unfairly penalise developers, the BBC reports.
The proposed legislation would follow similar rules already in place in England and come into affect on the construction of specific types of new residential properties from April 2028.
The precise level of the tax has yet to be decided.
The Scottish government's Cladding Remediation Programme has been estimated to cost as much as £3.1billion over 15 years with close to 1,500 highrise blocks requiring work.