Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2023 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Thanks very much. It is helpful to have that overview of the steps required.

I will start by asking why the legislation is required. What is preventing councils from introducing such a tax now? Does anything in previous legislation expressly forbid local authorities from raising their own income? Additionally, why did the Scottish Government decide to introduce enabling legislation with, potentially, 32 local levies rather than introducing a national tourist tax?

Thanks very much for that.

I come back to the question on clarification of why you chose to introduce what could be 32 local levies, rather than just a national tourist tax.

That is a good point. There is potential for more.

Related to that question, we are aware that there might be, for example, high numbers of day-trippers who stay in Edinburgh and travel out but do not stay overnight. Could it be that those other areas continue to shoulder the cost of delivering and maintaining the services used by tourists but do not receive any benefit from the legislation? Have you given any thought to that?

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?