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Yes, so it is something that they might draw out in a consultation. That is great.

I have a follow-up question. I totally take the point that it is up to the local authority to run a consultation on scheme design. Ben Haynes mentioned the north coast 500: I wonder about hospitality issues in the Highland Council area, for example. In your work to develop the bill, did you come across any thinking around using some of the money to train people into the hospitality sector, as is much needed at the moment?

We have a little bit of time in hand.

Okay—that is something that a local authority could look into in its consultation.

Great—thanks very much.

I will pick up on something that you might have said in your opening remarks, Ben, but that you also mentioned when you were talking to Ivan McKee about local authorities. You said that the system would be reported on every year. Will it be reported on to the Scottish Government?

On the back of that—Robin, you might have covered this in your response—I would be interested to hear whether, if a council decided to apply a levy in part of its area but not in others, there would be a case for any revenue that is raised to be spent in that same geographical area?

Okay. That is great: it sounds very straightforward. One of the other things that come up with us in conversations about the new deal is the onerous reporting that local authorities often end up having to do for national schemes, but that sounds pretty straightforward. I just wanted to check that.

Thank you so much for coming this morning—it has been really helpful. We got all our burning questions answered and we have a lot more clarity on the bill, which I really appreciate.

Because we agreed at the start of today’s meeting to take the next items in private, that was the last public item for today. Thank you.

That is great, thanks. It gives them that flexibility.

Some local authorities might see the bill as being of benefit to a select few—you have already indicated that some might choose to use it and some might not—with no obvious benefits to councils that decide not to introduce a levy. From the Scottish Government’s analysis, how many local authorities are likely to introduce and benefit from a local visitor levy, and why should other local authorities and their communities support the legislation?

We need to move to an ecosystem approach and look at everything as a whole.