Chamber and committees

Good morning to the panel. Thanks for joining us today. Where did the recommendation come from that the City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council leaders’ salaries, given their responsibilities, be pegged to MSP salaries? What was the rationale for that? As an Edinburgh MSP, I see our leaders at most things that I attend, so I know how busy they are. Should they instead be pegged to, for example, the salary of an English mayor?

That is helpful. The principles are the same as those for MSPs in the Parliament.

On the recommendation that councillor pay be a percentage of Scottish public sector average pay from 2022, why was that time chosen instead of more recent pay points?

You have touched on the subject of my next question. I calculate that about £5 million extra is needed for the whole package that is recommended. You believe that the Scottish Government should help to meet that cost. Are there any other options in councils to help to cover that cost, or is it purely for the Scottish Government?

I absolutely do. We have reached stage 3 without the Government being able to work with parties across the chamber—and only recently has the Government had to do that. This is not an acceptable situation. There will be more cases of wild camping and of people not going to organised campsites and caravan sites. I do not think that anyone in the chamber necessarily wants that to happen, but that will be the only way for people not to face a charge of up to 10 per cent or more. When people travel around our country, having to realise where they are, which local authority they are in and whether they are being charged will become the norm. That is ridiculous, and ministers should have fixed it before stage 3. I will press amendment 22.

I have listened to what the minister has had to say. This will be in the detail when the bill is operational, but it is important that businesses know how and when they will get that data from the online booking platforms and how they will be able to report it back without facing any penalties. We need more clarification on that, which is why I lodged the amendments.

Having listened to what the minister has said, I am happy enough not to press amendment 21 and I will not move amendment 33.

Amendment 21, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 4—Meaning of overnight accommodation

Businesses and people who are trying to navigate the levy saw the complex nature of the short-term lets legislation, and this bill will be the same, if not worse. All the businesses that have been copying me into their concerned emails to ministers hoped that there would be a more constructive business reset—which was offered to them—but that does not seem to be forthcoming from the Government.

So that we can test our app, I will move it.

Amendment 26 moved—[Miles Briggs].

I welcome the amendments in this group; they are in line with the amendments that I lodged at stage 2.

It is important to put on the record the fact that the Government has said from the outset that the bill is about improving investment in tourism. Significantly, that will be from income from the accommodation sector, which is not necessarily directly linked to the tourism facilities on which the money might end up being spent. Having an opportunity to input into that is important.

What this looks like on the tin when it is implemented will also be key. As an Edinburgh MSP, I have specific concerns that the Government might want to withdraw from spending on our cultural sector and that it might point councils to the levy if they are seeking money to spend on the cultural sector. I hope that that will not be the case, but we will see once the policy is in place.

I very much welcome that my amendments on reporting have been accepted by the Government.

I thank the Parliament’s clerks for the support that they provided me with during the passage of the bill—albeit that my amendments have perhaps not met with as much success as I had hoped for, today—and the many organisations, businesses and councils that engaged with the Parliament and the committee as the bill made its way to stage 3.

On a positive note, I welcome the fact that the minister has accepted the arguments that I put forward at the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee on excluding children and young people from the levy, and I welcome the amendments that the Government lodged following my amendments at stage 2 on business involvement, the creation of the visitor levy forum and the future review of the impacts of the bill.

I also very much welcome the acceptance today of the amendments in the names of my colleagues Jeremy Balfour and Pam Gosal. I hope that the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 small businesses that have an annual turnover that is below the VAT threshold that the bill will have will be exempt. The issue has been of significant concern for small businesses, and I pay tribute to the work of the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers, the Scottish Tourism Alliance and the Scottish B&B Association, as well as Scottish Land & Estates, for their constructive work towards the delivery of those amendments, which, I hope, will help to protect small businesses from the impacts of the bill.

Once again, though, legislation has been taken forward by ministers as a framework bill. As has been raised in respect of other bills, that presents a number of concerns, challenges and issues that relate to the variation that the implementation of the bill could ultimately produce across Scotland. I fear that ministers have not taken on board the warnings and lessons from the disastrous implementation of the short-term lets licensing legislation and the negative impact that that continues to have on small businesses—the fragmentation, inconsistency and, often, disproportionate costs.

Many accommodation businesses across Scotland feel that they have been under consistent bombardment from Scottish National Party and Green ministers, which has negatively impacted on their businesses and has involved the loss of many businesses in Scotland. Evidence from the Scottish B&B Association suggests that 67 per cent of its members say that the cost of the STL licensing has impacted on their business revenue and affected their viability as businesses.

I am concerned that ministers have failed to develop a robust exemption scheme in the bill. My amendments today would have helped to deliver that, and I think that we will look back and not be happy that those were not taken forward. I do not believe that the Parliament should have to hope that the Government will make statutory guidance and that all 32 councils—if they all decide to implement a visitor levy—will then implement a set of exemptions that will deliver.

For argument’s sake, if it is left to each council to decide on local exemptions, we could see a situation in which the parents of children who are receiving treatment at the sick kids hospital in Edinburgh would be forced to pay a visitor levy if they stay in a hotel, while families in Glasgow whose children are receiving treatment at the Queen Elizabeth hospital would not. That is not acceptable, and I do not think that anyone in the Parliament would tell their constituents that it is. However, we have failed to act by putting that exemption in the bill. I am disappointed by that. Members representing islands will know that the family and friends of patients from the islands often accompany them to hospital for treatment, and, under the bill, people who come from Orkney to support someone who is going into Aberdeen royal infirmary will pay a tourist tax to stay in accommodation in the city, which is wrong. I hope that the minister will pay attention to that and to what exemptions could still be created in the statutory guidance.

We should be proud of and celebrate our outstanding tourism sector in Scotland. The visitor offering that tourism businesses across Scotland provide is world class, and the importance to our local and national economy is significant and must never be underestimated or undervalued. Tourism is estimated to be worth £4.5 billion to the Scottish economy. It is critically important, and it directly supports more than 250,000 jobs across our country. Importantly, some of those jobs are in some of the most economically vulnerable rural and island communities.

We have heard that many businesses, in different parts of the country, still do not feel that they have recovered from the pandemic and that the levy will have another impact on them. The Scottish Conservatives have said that there needs to be more at the heart of the visitor levy to develop funds for the investment in and improvement of our tourism sector, rather than councils simply looking at it as a revenue stream. When the legislation comes into force, we will have to see whether councils are forced to look to it to fill voids in their funding. It is important that councils do not see the new power simply as a golden goose to make up for funding cuts that have come from the Scottish Government.

I also want to ensure that money is not raised and then taken away under funding formulas or cuts to culture budgets.

That is why I lodged a set of amendments, working with the caravan and camping sector, which were intended to ensure that the sector would not be impacted by the levy. I hope that the minister can include some of that in the statutory guidance that he will create, especially for businesses where accommodation is not the main source of income, and for the council areas that may exempt camping and camping sites, as Edinburgh has suggested that it will.

I do not believe that the Scottish public has been informed properly about the impact that the legislation will have on them. Perhaps that is why ministers were so keen that it should come into force before the 2026 Holyrood elections. For most Scots, the issue is not about visitors; it is about them. It is about the fact that they will be paying a 10 per cent additional cost to stay in a hotel when their house is flooded and that, potentially, when they go to hospital with their children they will have to pay the tax because we have no exemptions. When many people see that, they will question why Parliament has not created exemptions.

As things stand, there remains a significant vacuum in many aspects of the bill, with ministers insisting that statutory guidance will provide the clarification to help the accommodation sector to limit the costs and negative impacts that the bill will have on their businesses. We have not seen that guidance, but we are desperate to see what it will look like, and I hope that the sector will help to work to define it.

Our Scottish tourism sector already faces tax burdens that are among the highest anywhere in the world. Scottish Conservatives will not, therefore, support the bill at decision time. Throughout the bill process, we have worked constructively and tried hard to improve the legislation. We have worked with the minister to try to see where limits can be set—