 Welcome to the 25th meeting in 2023 of the local government housing and planning committee. May 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 today is to decide whether to take item 4 in private. Are members agreed? The committee has previously agreed to take item 3 in private. The next item on our agenda today is to take evidence on the visitor levy Scotland Bill from two panels of witnesses. We are joined on our first panel in the room by Jamie Baker, who is the service manager in economic development at East Lothian Council, Moryr Johnson, who is the director of financial and business services at Glasgow City Council, Paul Lawrence, who is the executive director of place at the City of Edinburgh Council, and Councillor Bill Lubin, who is the convener at Highland Council. We are joined online by Fergus Murray, who is the head of development and economic growth at Argyll and Bute Council, and Kathleen Morrison, who is the economic development officer of innovation at Corleon and Elienshire. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. We will try to direct our questions to specific witnesses initially, but if you would like to come in, please indicate this to the clerks. Fergus and Kathleen, as you are appearing virtually, please do this by typing anr into the chat function. For everyone, there is no need to manually turn on your microphones, as we will do that for you automatically. I will ask a broad question, and maybe I will start more ag with you to give you the heads up that is coming your way. I would be interested to hear from your perspective what impacts you think there are either positive or negative that a visitor's levy could have in your local authority area, and I would be interested to hear if your local authority intends to introduce a levy. The council's view is that it is looking with interest in introducing a visitor's levy. It is fair to say that we still need to do a bit of work to understand what the implications are, but it is something that the council has indicated that it would be willing to consider. In terms of the implications, certainly from a finance perspective and I am an accountant, the visitor's levy provides an opportunity to generate funds to invest in the city to support tourists and residents alike because of the impact that tourism can have on our services and city infrastructure. I certainly think that there is that positive impact to be had. Obviously, what we would need to take into consideration—I think that this is something that we would look at—as we further develop our business case for this is any potential negative impacts. Obviously, we are aware that the hospitality tourism sector has concerns about the potential impact that additional levy might have on the basis that it will pass it on to its customers and the implications that it might have on affecting tourists and making decisions about where it wants to visit. Those are the definitely positive aspects, but some considerations that we would need to take into account as well. Would anyone else like to comment on this? I would be interested to hear if you are interested. Maybe Paul would just go to you. Thank you and good morning to the committee. It is the view of the City of Edinburgh Council that we would want to move forward with a visitor levy. Elected members have discussed it on a number of occasions and voted in favour of moving forward. Obviously, it is subject to the legislation being enacted. As the committee will be aware, we have responded to the consultation, and I hope that you have that in front of you. We, like Highland, have a long history of campaigning for this measure primarily because we think that it is a way of generating resources to invest, if I can put it this way, in the product. People come to the City of Edinburgh for reasons that you see in this building out of this window on the streets of the city on a day-to-day basis, yet the council's ability to yield any revenue from that activity at all is extremely limited. It is well known that people come to the City of Edinburgh Glasgow elsewhere for example for major events. Generally, promoters and venues often do pretty well out of those, but generally there is a cost to the public purse of those, both at a financial cost, an environmental cost and often a community cost. Members of this committee will be aware that in this city, certainly pre-pandemic and probably even now, there has been a significant debate about the impact of tourism in the city, both for good and for ill. We view that as a way of trying to rebalance that debate to make sure that positives can be brought both to the industry, to the city and to local communities. That is the view of the council as it stands at the moment. I will add another question, which Morag touched on and others can bring in. In the case of Edinburgh City Council, has there been work done, analysis done on the possible economic impacts of a visitor's levy? How would you respond to the statements that a visitor's levy will lead to fewer tourists, less spend, reputational damage for Scotland's industry and lost competitiveness? We have done research on that. I think that our research started in about 2017-2018. We have done research both with the local sector, who I think it is fair to say, as Morag said, have concerns about the overall fiscal burden that they are facing, but also international comparisons. We have also done demand-based research and we have looked at the overall impact that we think it will have on demand for people to come to our city. Our view very strongly is that a visitor's levy is only one factor that would impact demand. The most important thing is reputation and quality of the experience. People have a great experience when they come to Edinburgh. Our view based by evidence is that they will come back. If their experience is poor, for whatever reason, then clearly that will have a negative implication. We have worked very closely with a group called ETAG, the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group, the Edinburgh Hoteliers Association and our view. I do not want to speak for them, convener, but I can speak for themselves. Broadly, we think that there is an acceptance that this can be a good thing if it is done in the right way. Thanks very much for that. Bill, you indicated that you wanted to come in. Just to confirm, convener, that Highland Council has been talking about tourist tax, as we originally called it, way back maybe 15 years ago. It has been very supportive and the council is fully committed now to if the Parliament so decides that we will introduce a tourist visitor levy. Highland is in slightly different circumstances than some parts of Scotland. Tourism is our main industry. We would do nothing that impacts on that industry negatively. One of the big things is that in Highland, for example, you have the best scenery in the world, some of the best food in the world, some of the best accommodation in the world, and all that pales into insignificance if a tourist rips a tyre off their car on a pothole or has to go to the toilet behind a bush. Tourism brings huge benefit to the area, but it brings huge costs. To provide the best possible visitor improvement, we need to fund it in some way. That is the logical way to fund it without putting massive resources there on behalf of the Government or the council. I think that I will just reiterate the points that were made from Morag, Paul and Bill, from a Slothian's point of view. We have not yet decided whether we will introduce a levy. We have really yet to start the analysis in a lot of detail. We would like to particularly acknowledge that our accommodation sector is probably slightly different from Edinburgh, our near neighbour. A lot more short-term lets, a lot more small operators, fewer hotel rooms, so we would be really keen to understand once we get into the consultation and discussion around it to understand what that impact would be. As you indicated, that claim came out clearly last week in evidence in terms of concerns right across the board from those representing small businesses. As others have said, the local authority put a lot of resources as it stands into supporting our tourism industry and our communities, and East Slothian markets itself is Edinburgh's coast and country sites. We have a lot of visitors coming from Edinburgh to enjoy the coast all the way around to Dunbar. In a similar situation in terms of Highland, we have a lot of people moving around the county. We need to have the facilities there, as has been said, toilets, roads, parking and all the things that people rely on. Thanks for that. I am going to go to folks online. Kathleen, I would like to bring you in and hear the perspective from the corollia in terms of whether you are considering bringing in and any of the other questions that I asked. The decision has gone to the council members, and they have supported the introduction of our levy, but we still have to go out to the community. We have been liaising with the destination management organisation as well. It is a red tourism, and while they are broadly supportive, they still have to go out to the community. We are not as far ahead as some of the other areas. We do see the benefit of the levy, the income that it can generate to support the structure. It was mentioned just a minute ago from Council Loving that what can be used, because we do have some of the issues. We do also have the same—we have not done the research as our colleagues in Edinburgh have, but we do have the same reservations as well, because it does cost quite a bit to travel to the islands, as it is, whether it is by ferry or air travel, and then adding another amount on it. We have to be mindful of how the levy would be added, whether it would be the flat rate of percentage, and what the difference would be. Is there a plan for our garland butte to bring in the levy? Are you interested in that? In terms of the council, I think that we have accepted the principle of it, but we have not gone into the finer details of what it would actually mean on the ground. Similar to the Highlands Council area, tourism is a major industry in our garland butte, and we have far more visitors than residents. Tourism impacts quite strongly in our communities. We are looking at it from a levy's point of view. How can we use it to help our communities to deal with the impact of tourism? How can we make tourism experience a better experience? We do not want to put off tourism. As I am coming into our area, we want to improve the experience. We need to do further work with our local elected members and our communities on what that would actually mean. We are at quite an early stage, and we have been just looking at benchmarking or looking at other areas across Europe and others to see what potential impacts that could be, but we have not come to any as much detailed work as the Edinburgh Council, but we are positive. We are also helping through the regional economic partnership with the Highlands and Islands to look at the issue across councils and highlight some of the positives and negatives of a levy. I might stick with you, Fergus, because it is a fascinating year that our garland butte has more visitors than residents. One of the things that can come up in our discussions so far is that this is an accommodation levy rather than a visitor's levy. As many visitors such as day trippers, wild campers and some motorhome drivers will not be paying anything. I am interested to hear what your views are on those provisions. Do you think that the bill could be amended to capture visitors who do not pay for accommodation but clearly have an impact in the area as they visit it? Obviously, we have just heard yesterday that the cruise ship passengers will actually be, if possible, included in the bill now, so that is an interesting development. However, in terms of day trippers, wild campers and motorhome drivers are coming to our garland butte. Do you have any thoughts about how we could include them? That is a very important issue that needs to be looked at closely in our garland butte. Unlike some others, we have a lot of day trippers with their proximity to Glasgow. Of course, as it stands at the moment, they could be excluded from this kind of infrastructure levy. The council is interested in exploring if there are ways that they could be included, but the practicalities of doing it are quite difficult. We have got new trends in tourism that we have got to be mindful of in terms of motorhomes and how would they be captured into the visitor levy if they do not actually make use of official facilities? Maybe we have to look at being stricter in terms of where we guide people to stay in our communities if that might be part of something that has developed over time. We are also mindful of the cruise ship passengers coming in, which is another growing trend in tourism, and it has been quite impacting quite significantly in rural areas, and I am sure in cities as well. Members are also keen to see how we can capture some revenue in there to improve facilities and improve and impact some communities. In terms of the cruise ships, that can be more easily delivered if councils are in control of the assets, but there are other ports that cruise ships come into that are privately run. It probably has to be fair and consistent across the board, but we are very interested to see how those visitor numbers can be included. Thanks for that. Anybody else? I mean Bill and the folks online would be interested in hearing from you. Basically, in particular camper vans, we have to find some way of including camper vans in the process. It may require a technological solution that maybe we do not have at the moment, but by having it in the bill it would allow us to come forward in the future. I think that when you consider that between 21 and 22 camper van numbers increased by 33 per cent in Highland, and those numbers are allegedly increased even further in 23. It is almost inconceivable that if you have a camper van and you stay overnight in a registered site and you are paying an overnight accommodation rate, you would then be charged a visitor levy, but if you park in one of our labios by the side of the street, you would not. I think that camper vans really need to be included. We have 325,000 cruise ship visitors every year. Even a tiny amount of a disembarkation charge would make a fantastic difference in some remote communities. I think that those two particular things are really important. It is great news that the Scottish Government will be looking at bringing in the cruise ship passengers into the bill if they can get the consultation and all the work done in time. There is a keenness not to hold the bill up, and a keenness to see it come through. Does anybody else have any thoughts around daytrippers, wild campers or motorhomes and how we can… Jamie? Again, in a similar position to others, we have quite a lot of daytrippers from Edinburgh and elsewhere. When it comes to camper vans again, we are concerned of a shift from, I guess, chargeable accommodation to other types of accommodation. As Bill was saying, camper vans who would potentially avoid parking in a registered site and parking somewhere else and causing an impact to communities. Wild camping has certainly over the Covid period became quite an issue. We are not talking about wild camping where someone is camping on a hillside for a weekend. We are talking about a large number of wild campers all in one beauty spot, which leaves the place looking a bit like a festival by the time they leave. Those sorts of things would be keen to understand how that could be captured. Thanks for making that distinction, because I think that that is right. There are certainly people who wild camp very respectfully. I think that I have heard it now being called irresponsible camping. Anybody else who wants to come in on this particular question? Kathleen, you have indicated. Come on in. We have indicated in our response on the consultation about the need and the councillor that our local elected members have mentioned the need for motor homes and camper vans to be included, as has been mentioned because of the wild camping. We did mention in our response that, as we add islands, we are in the unique position of the goth ports of entry, whether that landing levy could be on it to get the vistic rate capture of the motor homes on the campers who wouldn't use paid for registered sites. Then we are unique in that we add islands and we aren't on the mainland. It's a unique situation now. Thanks very much for that. I'm just going to check, Pam. Did you want to come in? Good morning, panel. My question is just to probe a little bit more. Jamie, you spoke about micro and small businesses. Obviously, you heard last week that we warned that small accommodation and self-catering sector was increasingly high costs of doing business in Scotland. They've talked about quoting that shrinking our sector and then taxing them on top. Do you have any concerns that the visitor levy could lead to small and micro businesses in your local authority closing their doors for good? What impact assessment have you done on the negative side of the impact of the visitor levy on small and micro businesses? We're about to start consulting and surveying in a little bit of detail. We're not a full consultation but to start conversations with the industry and also doing some visitor surveys as well, which will touch on the sort of attitudes and reactions that people might have to a visitor levy. No, I think that certainly from any Slothian perspective we would want to at all time guard against those negative impacts, so making sure that any levy that the council might choose to bring in in the future had the lowest possible impact, the lowest possible administrative burden on small businesses. We've certainly seen over the last period with short-term licensing coming in, just the complexity around the requirement to have a license, all the various checks and potential for planning applications. That has been quite a burden on local businesses and a number have come out of the sector and have chosen to do that. It might be that they've come out and gone into long-term lets, which is part of the policy purpose of the legislation, but some are just selling their properties, selling their businesses and doing something different, so we're really keen to ahead of time guard against that as much as possible. I could ask, if it's possible, for Gaelan but and Edinburgh, because they've got a lot of small businesses, please, and Glasgow. Fergus, do you want to come in? Yes, I think it is an important issue and we're very mindful of any kind of impact on, as you say, the micro businesses. We have a lot of micro businesses, small businesses, and I think it's going to really depend on the simplicity of the collection methods that's applied to these businesses, so that we can make it as simple as possible. We're not a burden on the business to collect it because they're not paying the levy. They will be collecting it off their guests. I think what we have to convince businesses is that this levy will do positive good within the area for the tourism industry and help increase the customer base, and that we have to work in a kind of collaborative way across that. I think there was a concern expressed about whether or not the levy may push some of these micro businesses across back thresholds. I think we need clarity on that because these businesses won't be in receipt of this money. They'll be simply passing it through to another party, so any kind of new cruelty on that kind of aspect will be helpful for businesses. I think it's up to the councils or local authorities to demonstrate what the positive impacts of this levy will be on the wider industry and also the communities that they live in, but it's something that we're going to have to look at very painfully. Fergus said the same thing, which is that we are mindful that there is a big SME accommodation provider sector in the city. It's not just the big hotels and the big chains, and they have been participating in the various surveys and engagement sessions that we've had, and we've got a further engagement session starting later this week, which we'll be specifically trying to reach out to that sector to talk to, but the two points that Fergus makes are how to reiterate. First, of all, the burden of administration needs to be as streamed and streamlined and lightweight as possible, and secondly, the impact, the benefit, will that sector see benefit both for their businesses? For example, will there be an opportunity for the city to be promoted in new ways to new markets and therefore new customs? I think that direct benefit and simplicity of burden are the two key features, particularly for the smaller providers. It was just simply to say that we haven't done any specific engagement with small businesses within Glasgow. Obviously, that would be part of any future work that we do on this, but again, we just reiterate the comments of others, I think, simplicity of the process and making it as easy as possible. It has also been really clear about the benefits that that will bring to the key points that we would be taking up in Glasgow. Thanks, Bill. I think that if I could add in the fact that in Highland it's almost exclusively relatively small businesses, we don't have many major international hotel chains, and in fact the visitor lebu would directly impact them in a much higher way because the spend that they can't afford on their own, we could probably provide via their associations, so we could make some massive improvements to what's available to the end user just by using the visitor level carefully. The VAT part is really quite important, and we need to be ensuring that we are not adding additional workloads on really small overwork businesses as it is. If you look at it, I think that one of the things that we could do to help would be to allow councils in particular rural areas like Highland to be flexible in the way the fee is charged, rather than a percentage fee if you have a small business with three different sizes of rooms differing charges at different times of year, having to work it out. They won't have a computer that you just press a button that tells you what the tourist levy is. If we could make it give the option to have it as a simple, chargeable fee, a fixed fee, all be tiered. I think that that would help many small businesses. I'm going to move on to continuing that theme that you've already introduced, Bill, on how the levy revenues will be raised. I'm going to bring in Ivan McKee. Thanks very much, convener, and morning panel. I'm quite a bit conversational ready about the importance of the tourism sector and businesses and small businesses in your local authority area, so that's great to hear. Following on from Pam Goswell's question, you'll have heard from the business panel last week that the way that Bill has written specifying that the liable person is the accommodation provider, there's a concern that it's a tax and business, rather than a tax on visitors. It also concerns that accommodation businesses are effectively being asked to be unpaid tax collectors for local authorities. Given that councils are able to recoup their costs for operating the scheme from the revenue raised, do you think that there's a case for businesses being able to recoup their costs from the revenue raised by the scheme likewise? I don't know who wants to come on that. Personally speaking, I don't, in Highland, with particularly small businesses, I don't see the additional burden being that high. Therefore, I don't believe that there's a case for additional costs to be added on. You could end up in a situation whereby you are taxing tourists for no financial impact, and I think that we need to bear that in mind. You say no financial impact. Do you mean no additional revenue to the councils? No additional revenue to councils. Right. I suppose that businesses would argue that although those costs are actually there, so they are having to pay for it effectively. I think that that's an opinion that they may have. I just happen to disagree. Paul? I'm sympathetic, as you suggest, to the costs of any scheme being, as it were, recoupable. I would agree with Councillor Lobb, and I'm not convinced that the cost would be that high. Clearly, it is different—go back to your question—the difference between something for one of the big hotel chains in the centre of Edinburgh, who are used to it. I think that most of us—not all of us, but most of us—have mechanisms in our cities such as business improvement districts, where those mechanisms are not that difficult to put in. I'm sympathetic, particularly in the smaller businesses, if it could be proven that the costs are high, which may relate to future questions that the committee might have—I don't know—about complexity. Clearly, the more complex the scheme is, the more challenging it's going to be, and therefore potentially the more expensive to administer. If the scheme is relatively simple, if there are some one-off costs for SMEs, the idea of recouping those doesn't seem to be impossible to me through the proceeds as a one-off. However, if the scheme gets very complex, then it gets more difficult and it does start eating into the revenue. I think that it depends on the business and depends on the scheme a bit. Broadly, I don't particularly see the costs as being that significant. I suppose that that's an incentive for councils to keep the scheme simple. Indeed, sir. Does anyone else want to come in on this? No. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to come back to Pam Gosall. Thank you, convener. Just on what my colleague Ivan has just spoke about, and we've been talking about simplifying the process and helping the micro in small businesses because you spoke about the fact how do they calculate. Would you be open to discussions around a flat rate with a nationally set cap? Bill, do you want to start with that one? First, I don't think that there should be a nationally set cap. I think that that must be for individual local authorities to decide. Certainly, a flat rate fee would have to be a tiered flat rate fee. If you're in a small guest house, you shouldn't be maybe paying the same as a five-star hotel. I think that it needs to be tiered quite specifically. I think that it would simplify the matter and might alleviate some of the problems that Mr McKee is detailed. If you keep the costs low, that directly impacts the local operator and small local operators. Don't have masses of staff in the background. If you make it simple for them, the better. For example, if the charge was £1 or £10, they would know automatically. When every guest checks out, that's what they charge. Rather than having to go, right, okay, this weekend it's £135, the percentage rate is this etc. It would be much simpler to allow councils. In some areas it may work if it's a percentage fee, but I think that in Highland it would work better if it was a variable flat fee. I disagree with that from an Edinburgh perspective, which I suppose shows to members that there is an issue about local variation in the scheme. We have looked at the pros and cons of a flat fee versus a percentage. Broadly, our view is that we think that a percentage is fairer all around, both from the point of view of the industry but also in terms of ability to administer. For example, in Edinburgh, hotels will often charge different prices at different times of year, depending on demand. I'm sure that some members will remember last year very large-scale concerts at Murrayfield. When prices respond to market demand accordingly, if you have a percentage fee, then clearly you are effectively taking the percentage of whatever the hotel chooses rather than, let's say, setting whatever it is, and then you might say, well, we want to change that for this time of year and you start changing it for times of year. It starts getting a little bit messy, so our view is that a percentage seems a more transparent and market-sensitive mechanism in order to do that. However, it is to Bill's point therefore that there are different circumstances in different parts of the country, so I think that local authorities are autonomy to determine the best way based on their markets should be a hallmark of the legislation. In our consultation, we proposed that our reference was for a flat rate fee. That was primarily in recognition of simplicity, but also potentially in terms of predictability of future revenue streams. However, depending on what is agreed, we would consider a percentage as well. I think that in terms of being able to communicate with tourists and also just thinking ahead to how you try to predict what that revenue might be, because at some point you want to make some commitments against the income that you are going to receive. One of the areas that we need to look at is how we determine that we are receiving all the income that we should. Again, without going into a lot of detail, there is something about a flat rate fee. We have been able to equate that to the number of visitors, the number of room nights versus a percentage, which is obviously going to be based on spend. There is something there for me as well. I think that we need to look at it and just being able to monitor the income that is coming in and maybe the flat rate might be something that would be simpler. However, as I say, I would say that in our consultation we were not saying that it had to be a flat rate, that was just our preference based on the limited work that we have done so far. I see Fergus Ewing wanting to come in. I think that there is a kind of difference of opinions on this from different local authorities. I think that from our perspective we want to probably have the choice to introduce whether it is going to be a flat rate or percentage. I think that there are pros and cons for each of them. There is complexity through the percentage because we are unclear on whether hotels offer discounts. They vary their prices enormously, but if there was a flat fee you could start to look at identifying what the money should be. The other kind of thing was a point of fairness in terms of whether you are paying a lot of money for your accommodation or paying not very much. You are still using the infrastructure of the council. You are still using the things that perhaps the money from the levy would be spent on. There is an issue of fairness there. However, I think that our kind of response was that it is something that should be flexible because each authority has different views on this. That is just one of the points to make. Thanks very much for that. That is kind of interesting. I think that, Mark, you have been together and you want to come in. Before I bring you in, Paul, I will come back to you. Your Edinburgh City Council has laid it strongly down that you are keen for a percentage, but given that you have already acknowledged that you have a considerable number of small micro-businesses, how do you think that the system—that is one of the things that has come up—is concerned that the percentage approach makes it more onerous for calculating that. Have you, in your analysis, looked at systems that could be given to those businesses to support them? We have not just yet, convener, but, as I said before, we are starting a further round of engagement later this week, and we will do. Obviously, the concept was only just floated in the legislation, but it is relatively straightforward and common overseas and in Europe. Both mechanisms are common, both for a flat fee and a percentage. I do not really get the complexity. What I think is difficult is if you start—I think that the tiered system that Bill referred to does have some potential for complexity. If you stay in this hotel, you pay this. If you stay in that hotel, you pay that, or if you charge this price. Again, back to the point of simplicity. If it is a simple percentage, I do not think that the calculation is that hard or that the software is that hard. I think that it does respond to different pricing at different times of the year, but we will talk to the industry in detail about that in the coming weeks. That is good to hear. Mark, do you want to come in? I have a real interest in the debate around flat fee versus percentage. I wonder if there is any concern about, essentially, tax avoidance with a percentage fee, with, say, a large hotel chain charging and the breakdown of their price. I urge the proportion of that for access to a spa or a gym—a bigger proportion of that towards a breakfast or other facilities—and potentially a percentage fee being used as a mechanism for tax avoidance? That is something that we have considered. There is no doubt about it that there is the potential for that. However, if you charge a flat fee, that is probably not the case. If you charge a flat fee, it gets rid of the idea that if you book late at night on a Friday, it is £150 a night. If you book noon on a Saturday, it is £250 a night, and the fee keeps changing all the time. It is small operators, to be quite honest. Normally, the room rate is the room rate, and that is it. I think that it is probably more a problem for major international groups than it will be in Highlands. It is not something from a tax avoidance that we have looked at. It may well be something that we need to take away, and we will have a look at that. I do not think that we have thought much beyond that. If I go to a hotel in Aviamore and I want access to the gym and so on and I am quoted that fee, the percentage will apply to that fee. If there is evidence that the provider says that he will charge you that fee and therefore that rate, and I will chuck these on, that is clearly a debate that we would have to have with the industry. We think, as I said before, that it works in terms of market sensitivity and simplicity, so that you are not changing the fee at different times of the year. Otherwise, prices go up and the mechanism does not keep rate or inflation if you do it once a year, so we think that a percentage is significantly fairer and more transparent. I will give an example. I checked into a hotel in the middle of the summer in another country, and the fee was different. If I paid by credit card, the fee had a tourist tax added on to it, and if I paid cash, there was no tourist tax. Interesting. We are certainly unearthing. We have a lot of variability here. We are going to move on and bring in Miles Briggs. Thank you. Good morning to the panel. Thanks for joining us today. We heard earlier about motorhomes potentially being included, but I wondered if there are any accommodation providers currently covered by the bill that she believes should not be. For example, the boating sector argues for the removal of recreational vessels and moorings from the scope of the bill, so I just wondered if there is anyone including the bill who you think should not be. I do not think that we have actually considered the boating sector, but now that you mention it, it is a very important sector to us, so that is something that we would need really careful consideration. Certainly, we have mentioned world campers, and there is a difference between world campers and dirty campers. As we go through the consultation process, we will need to find out, and some of them will come out of the woodwork that we have not thought about. We have gone into this in a big way, and I am a sailor and I have never thought about it. It is good that you mentioned it. It is not exactly answering your question, Mr Briggs, but it is adjacent to it. In our response, you will see that we were concerned that some of the wording in the bill talked about leisure tourism, and we believe that that excludes people coming for business tourism purposes, who, as you see, we have suggested need to be included in the legislation. It is not quite the same as boats, but it is that point about a more all-encompassing approach. I wanted to ask a few questions about exemptions and how they could work in practice. Last week, I raised the fact that, in many cases, people will be coming, especially to Edinburgh, to visit, potentially, family members in hospital—the sick kids, for example, with national services there—people potentially visiting family members in prison. Edinburgh festivals have obviously called to exempt artists and technicians who would be working and, generally, people who are undertaking work. First, if the panel believes that we should have exemptions for these, secondly, how you think that that could be delivered. The council tax, for example, is being used to book that accommodation by, for example, someone in the capital here who is receiving care from a family member who cannot stay with them but is in a hotel during that period. Most certainly, we should have exemptions. It would be a difficult process to work out exactly what those exemptions should be, but, specifically, purely looking at my own council, we have one major hospital covering the entire of the islands. I would reckon that people who are visiting—it is my personal opinion, because we have not debated this in the council—should be exempt because they are not transient visitors who are there for a specific purpose for a few days. I think that there may be many more of those exemptions. However, it is important that those exemptions are left to councils to decide what would be best. Just to pick up on the question in general and specifically around festivals, and we are aware of the position that the festivals in the city have adopted. As you are probably aware, our proposal, as it stands at the moment, is subject to the legislation and further consultation. We would look at a cap of seven nights. We did that specifically with the festivals in mind. If you are a performer or whatever it might be who is coming to Edinburgh for the last week of July to the first week of September, you would only pay for seven nights. We think that that is in keeping with the spirit of the legislation and does not penalise someone who comes to the city for long-term work. Clearly, we would also see—and maybe we will come to this, convener—we would see the festivals and the cultural infrastructure of the city as a key beneficiary of any scheme in the city. Therefore, as it were, funding would come from the other end. That is the balance that we are trying to strike there. We do think that exemptions are justified but complicated. As we said before, simplicity in delivering this is going to be important. We would like a more detailed conversation, for example, with our colleagues at the NHS, about how something like that could work. I think that the council of the lobrin is right that there are some instances but, again, it is back to that complexity point. That is something for further dialogue that we would like to look into in a degree of detail. However, I do think that that piece about limiting the duration of a charge helps to meet that to some degree. I would like to bring in Kathleen and then I see Jamie's indicated as well. Thank you, convener. Really, on both of them, the first of all, the moorings question, just going back to that, sorry, that we have discussed that and with the Stornoway port as well. It needs a bit more clarity because of how it says that they are going to be stopping at different ports. Some of the vistine leisure boats and the yachts that do come into into Stornoway port are coming from other areas throughout the islands, whether it is down from a gallon upwards or the other way as well. Whether they are going to be charged at different parts because it is a bit not clear, there is so clarity on that. The other one about exemptions, I agree with what has been said. Obviously, we do have a lot of islanders who go to the mainland, go to Redmore and Inverness, go to Glasgow and Edinburgh hospitals and it is the same with working in Shetland and the cost of going to there and it is not just the patient, it is their carer and somebody has to travel with them as well. Exemptions for that and also bereavements, so we do have people coming over for just family members, coming over for bereavement for funerals and the other way as well. We have discussed how that would be, now whether it is when they are picking their flights away, whether it is using the post codes of where they are staying. It is still a lot to be discussed, but it is definitely an exception that we want to have included. Thank you for that. Jamie. Again, just to come in on the exemptions point, I think just to reiterate the need for transparency from a businesses point of view and also for people visiting an area that is actually really quite straightforward for them to understand and like picking up on a point that was made last week, that should not be something that businesses have to police that should be within the systems. As I think someone said, it should not be for someone on reception to decide whether or not someone is due an exemption. I think that this will be something that we will consult on as we go through the process of working towards making a decision around a levy. Again, as Paul said, a cap is a reasonable local mitigation in terms of transient workers or people who are ineslothian for events, festivals and large sporting events. We also have ineslothian quite a bit of pressure on short-term accommodation for transient workers associated with large infrastructure projects. We are looking to the future in terms of the decommissioning of Trenas Power Station. That will require a large number of workers to be in the area, and we would not necessarily expect that to be captured by the levy. If there is no one else wanting to add anything that really must be on the record, I will move on, because we still have quite a lot to get through. I think that we are beginning to touch on some of those other things. I would like to bring in Marie McNair. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Some businesses believe that local flexibility will make regularly landscape more complex. One witness last week said that it is localism for localism's sake. Councilwoman, you have touched on it slightly, but can you expand why you feel it is important that local authorities have freedom to decide on exemptions, rates and remittances issues imposed on them? It is really important that there are different circumstances throughout the whole of Scotland. What might be suitable in Highland might not be suitable in East Lothian or North Lanarkshire or wherever or even in the major cities like Edinburgh. It is really important that you allow the people who are on the ground to decide what is suitable. That includes the rates that are charged, exemptions and so on. It is almost inconceivable that we would not do it in that way. Anyone else want to share their views? I agree with that very strongly, but it is incumbent on local authorities. My experience is that local authorities are pretty good at this. I hope that our industry colleagues would agree that that kind of local flexibility has to be predicated on strong partnership working. If what you have is the sector going, while the council does what it wants and never speaks to us, then potentially that is problematic. The bill does talk about the importance of a local tourism strategy that has been consulted on by old stakeholders. It talks about partnership working arrangements. That flexibility, if it is founded on strong public-private partnership working, is the right way to go. That should be a precondition. I agree with the requirements to consult, report and review schemes, including the need for the 18-month lead-in time. The tourism sector would like that lead-in time to commence only if and when the bill has been enacted. Can witnesses share their view on that? We do agree that we have been discussing it through the Highlands and Islands regional economic partnership as well. There is a long lead-in time of the 18-month, but we do also definitely agree that it has to be consulted with the communities and businesses. We cannot go forward without including them in it and also to ensure that if the levy is to go ahead that it is done with their co-operation. That is a major key point with them locally as well, especially because we do have a lot of our small, medium-sized businesses. The consultation period needs to come through with the requirement to regularly report. It is always good to go and see what has worked and what has not. That should be included in the bill to have some feedback. Sometimes it does mean that the bill does not give enough time after the levy has been introduced to review a proper review and we do have queries on that. I think that I totally agree that we need to do this with full consultation with the industry. Indeed, we are working with the local tourism industry in Argyll through a strategic tourism partnership that we have and others like HIE, VisitScotland and others to understand what the key priorities are of our strategy going forward and their vision for tourism in our area. We would extend that to the levy through making sure that businesses were very well aware of what we were doing and that they were completely bought into the process. We have concerns about the delay of the introduction, maybe in contrast to my colleague previously. We are keen to see this levy be introduced as quickly as possible following all due diligence of course and everything else in consultation because we see it as a vital tool for us to help the developer industry and also safeguard our communities from negative aspects of tourism. That is what I wanted to say on that. Can I come in with a clarifying question? When you say that you want to see it introduced as quickly as possible, do you believe that there is not a need for an 18-month lead time or do you still think that that is necessary? I think that the council has quite a concern about the 18-month delay. We have issues in terms of destination management organisations funding support coming through from a recovery situation to a growth situation. We would like to look at the possibility of the levy if that could help with that. Building in an 18-month delay is quite a long time and that is probably the views expressed by our local members and others why that delay. I am conscious that the industry has requested that as well, so there is a balance to be struck. I think that I had to say that the 18-month delay seems quite an excessive period of time. Exmissions, obviously. There was a number of local authorities that shared that view. Council Loban, do you want to come in on that? Certainly consultation is really important and we have been discussing this or consulting with tourism bodies etc since 2019. I do think that the 18-month delay is far far too long. It should be really significantly shortened. If Parliament decides to go ahead with this, I think that we should be allowed to bring it in as quickly as we possibly can. Anyone else before I hand back to the convener? Thanks, Marie. I am now going to bring in Willie Coffey. Thanks very much, convener. My opening question is probably to you, Jamie Eastlawden, on your submission to the committee. You talk about the benefits of national or regional schemes and so on and the relative merits of both. Is Eastlawden reached a position in what it prefers, national or local? No, it is not a question that has been put to members at this point. Our consultation response is based on, certainly from that national regional perspective, thoughts around transparency, thoughts around ease of administering, guidance being clear across Scotland and thinking about that whole of Scotland approach in terms of visitors coming from outside and understanding the offer that they are coming to receive in effect. There have been some discussions regionally about how we would co-operate through our regional partnerships around potentially collecting the levy. There is also regional cooperation in terms of potentially infrastructure projects around tourism infrastructure, which again would potentially draw on revenue from levy that would benefit visitors from a wider area. I think that from our point of view, acknowledging the large number of day trippers that would come from Edinburgh and elsewhere, if we are able to act regionally in terms of larger projects that benefit the whole of the area, that would be quite a positive outcome. Other views and national guidance about local implementation and decision making, is that what the committee in the panel feels is the best approach? I certainly think that the ultimate decision making should be local, but there has to be collaboration. There are many cases whereby, as you say, we will be collaborating with other local authorities. On the map, tourists do not understand the line on the map. They would like to have significantly the same facilities that they get on one side of the line as opposed to the other side of the line. In many cases, there will be a lot of co-operation and we will have to go on. It is the sensible way to do it. Members will be aware of the city and growth deals around the country. For us in Edinburgh and south-east Scotland, that has been a real boon to partnership working across the region. As Jamie indicated, between ourselves and East Lothian and others, we have talked about co-operation. Obviously, different councils will move at different places, so that collaboration needs to be flexible rather than fixed. For example, in our region, where in our region we have some councils and five who are part of other regions, as well as Scottish borders, similarly. There has to be some flexibility, but nevertheless, as Jamie said, where there are programmes of regional scale that benefit business and visitors, we have been having early conversations about what that kind of collaboration could look like. National parks, we have not touched on that and the possibility that we will cross local authority national parks and so on. Have any of your authorities had a chance to think about that issue and how we make sure that we manage that, such as Bill probably first and then, maybe? We have a national park and I have to declare that I am a board member of our local national park. We have discussed it in some ways and the national park is quite supportive of the idea of a tourist tax. The difficulty is that we have five local authorities and it would be getting those five local authorities to agree to some form of similarity. I do not think that we have quite got that far yet, but certainly the discussions are taking place and the national park is a major tourist destination in my own particular area. So you have just developed the funds by five, Bill? No, I think that it would be half on one side. I was going to come in the first part of your question in terms of the national guidance. I think what we are kind of pleased to have very strong national guidance and unambiguous in terms of we can easily interpret it going forward so that we have a robust framework to work within. We are exploring through our Gillunberg for the regional economic partnership of the islands to see if there can be some kind of agreement on approaches, but obviously ultimately it is about local decision making as well within that. So it is quite of a mixed bag, but if we have a good framework to work with, I think that will help us to deliver the best outcomes from the levee. In terms of the national park, we are in very early stages with the national park. Also the Loch Lomond national park comes into our Gillun butte. At this stage, we are just recognising the difficulties or the challenges in working across a number of different authorities and that will have to work together on that once or if the levee is introduced. Thanks very much for that. I want to turn to another section on penalties and enforcements that came up in discussion last week and some of our contributors felt that they are perhaps a wee bit on the draconian side too severe in some cases. Have you any views on the enforcement possibilities and whether you think they are far too strong or not, Bill? I think that we need to be careful that the penalty is, I suppose, suits the crime. You could get to a stage whereby it is cheaper to pay the penalty than it is to pay the tax. That is something that we really need to consider. Penalties, I think, need to be consistent right across the board. Although I am a great advocate of doing things locally, I think that probably the penalties need to be decided upon nationally, but there needs to be something set and hard. It needs to seem to be fair, but it also needs to be not avoidable. Paul? I agree with that. I think that our general view and we are working closely with the industry on this to support an approach to voluntary compliance thus far. We have not had any great difficulties with that. I do think that the penalty should be proportionate to the levee being set and maybe that is slightly out of kilter just at the minute, but I agree with what Bill has said about a national approach that is then locally applied. Any other views on penalties and enforcement, Morag? Those views are important. The penalties are there to ensure that those people who do not voluntarily comply have the ability to obtain the information or to follow them up so that there is a fair collection. They need to be proportionate. For something that is set out in national guidance, it would be useful to leave it up to local discretion. I want to touch on the costs to local authorities, just to get your perspective on whether the costs that are set out in the financial memorandum are accurate and realistic. The other part of that is the set-up costs that occur before you have raised any revenue and whether you have given any thought to how the council would manage those set-up costs. Morag, I do not know if you want to go first. Again, I would open by saying that we have not done any specific work on set-up costs. We have reviewed the financial memorandum and what was contained in it did seem reasonable. Obviously, it is very important to us that we are able to build in the costs and recover that from the levy that is raised. Probably for us, the biggest uncertainty will be around what kind of system will be required in order to collect that. It is important that, as local authorities, we collaborate on that and make sure that we get something that can be used by those local authorities that decide that they want to implement it to try to reduce those costs as far as possible. The other area that is certainly from Glasgow's perspective and the work that we have done is a bit of an unknown is just those on-going administration costs, which, to a certain extent, will be influenced by what information we are able to have to hand about what providers should be paying so that we get monitoring in the level of follow-up that we would need to have with individual accommodation providers if funds have not been paid in the way that we thought. I will touch on the point that I made earlier, if we feel that we need to use penalties and enforcement, because those tend to be the areas that will increase your costs, how much you have to use penalties and enforcement. As I say, in our response, we did not make any specific comments to contradict the figures that were in the financial memorandum, they were obviously provided in broad bans and we thought that they seemed reasonable. The analysis that we have done so far, which we are reviewing at the moment to check it, shows that we believe for the city of Edinburgh that the cost per year of running in a minister in the screen would be in the region of £0.5 million. That calculation takes into account the set-up costs, maintenance and so on. We would like to challenge those numbers a bit, because there is obviously a pretty chunky number, but we think that it is going to be in that kind of region. As long as that can be recouped from the levy itself, we do not anticipate any great difficulty with that, but the less spent on the administration, the more to the benefit in terms of economic and social outcomes. However, it is of that order, but, as I say, we are looking at that again at the moment to see if we can drive that number down further. Does that include set-up costs in the first year and then lower in subsequent years? It does. Basically, it is quite similar. I think that we need to focus on the outcome and delivering what we need to deliver for the tourism sector, rather than filling council coffers full of additional costs that we need to minimise wherever possible. I think that, probably by working across local authorities, we can help to minimise that as much as we possibly can, because it really is about keeping the costs down and spending the money where it is wanted. Yes, absolutely. Yes, I think that just to reiterate those points, the purpose of the levy or any tax that is collected should be for reinvestment, so we should be looking to make things as simple as possible to operate. That collaboration across Scotland, potentially in terms of the software that might be used or the systems, would be really key. As others have said, from an East Lothian point of view, the figures within the memorandum we were reasonably happy with, but, again, acknowledging that there was a bit of a broadband there, so it was probably going to be quite catch-all. It would certainly be something that we will look carefully at in terms of looking at a business case for bringing in a levy locally, is what is the balance between the revenue that can potentially be raised and reinvested as opposed to the cost of running a scheme. Anyone online want to comment? Bergus? Yes, I would just reiterate what my colleagues are saying. I think that we would be trying to make every effort to minimise that kind of cost burden on us so that we can reinvest it back into the community for actions. We are trying to make use of existing systems that we have. I think that a lot of it is down to the software and everything that we can apply and make it the most efficient process that we can. Morag, Jamie, you both talked about the idea of software that maybe is being collaborated across Scotland. Is that something that is being discussed? Is that something that is likely that could happen? Morag? My understanding is, but we need to be clarified. As we do with a lot of these things, I think that COSLA is an organisation that we would work closely with in terms of looking to see if we could collaborate. We obviously have the local government digital office as well, and those are routes that we would want to consider. I want to touch back on spending that money. Since accommodation providers, as one witness described, will become unpaid tax collectors for local authorities, as well as facing additional administrative burdens, do you agree with many in the sector that revenue should be ring-fenced for the tourist-related spend, and how do you foresee that working in practice if I could aim it at Paul first? We took a report to the Council's Policy and Sustainability Committee not that long ago with our first attempt to set out areas of benefit spending programmes for one of a better term. Those ideas are now going to be the subject of the next phase of dialogue with the industry, which I indicated earlier on, and will be subject to change. Broadly, they fell into five categories, one around the infrastructure of the city, where we may convert some of the revenue into capital, particularly in terms of major capital spend in the city. Secondly, to your point, promotion and marketing, making sure that the city is national and international profile is effective and is what it needs to be. Thirdly, as I indicated before, culture heritage festivals are part of the city's international DNA. Fourthly, Bill touched on this, what you might call basic city services. We have had a lot of debates about public conveniences in the city of Edinburgh over the past couple of years. It seems that it is a national debate, but those kind of basics will be something that we will be seeking to enhance for local people and visitors. And then lastly, a fund for the visitor economy around industry growth and resilience, particularly as that sector faces up to the net zero challenge and to changing international patterns. We can have defined five potential programmes. We might not end with them exactly like that. As you can see, they are, I think, founded on supporting the sector, but also a broader application to the city. To specifically answer your question, we don't believe the ring fence to specifically tourism-related spending should be tight, but we do understand that the money has been raised by visitors and therefore visitors need to see the benefit of that spending. We strongly believe, I think, with our local authority colleagues, that local authority should have the flexibility to spend it, but it should be reflective of where the revenue has been generated from. We believe that the kind of programmes that I have articulated would try to achieve just that. Yes. Again, in our response, we recognised, as Paul has said, the income that is raised from visitors, and it is there to support the city and the services that it delivers for visitors and tourism. Again, I suppose that it is the flexibility in the definition. We talked about the ability to use those funds to support some of the work that we already do, whether that is in festivals, events or even supporting some of the major museums that we have in the city, because they are one of the big attractions that we know for tourism in the city. It is important that we are able to use the funding to support that. We also indicated in our response that wider city infrastructure is something that should be used. Bill mentioned things such as roads infrastructure. It is important that our visitors use that, particularly within our city centre, ensuring that we have a city centre that is attractive for tourists. Certainly, we have not done the work that Paul has outlined. We have not had that engagement within our council about what our priorities would be, but the expectation is that the wording in the bill is broad enough that it allows us to provide it as long as it is to support. I think that what it says in the bill is that it is mainly to support work of tourists, but it can also be citizens as well. I think that some of those things that I have outlined would support local citizens of Glasgow as well, because they also make use of a lot of our events, museums, facilities etc. I feel very similar about this. It needs to be very flexible. We need to work with our industry partners to ensure that the spend is appropriate, but there are many, many things that we provide that tourists use, and therefore there should be no restriction on us funding them. However, we also need to work closely with the partners to ensure that there are specifics, as you have just heard mentioned, that we could fund those directly out of the tourist levy, that probably we do not have the funding source available to do it at the moment. I think that I will probably just reiterate what my colleagues have been saying there. There is a need for flexibility. In our Gaelanbyg council, we have not really discussed that in great detail in terms of what the funding would be used with in terms of our members or indeed the wider community as yet, but we do support the idea that this money is spent on the visitor experience coming into our Gaelanbyg, but also that will benefit our communities and so our infrastructure are key aspects of how we get around the place, how we look after the place, but it should be able to demonstrate a positive impact on the visitor experience. So again, it is something that we have to go into much more detail with our members and also the wider community. Kathleen, you have wanted to come in too. Yes, thank you. Just to agree with everyone that we do, I also believe that the funds should be used for the visitor economy. It was welcomed yesterday's announcement about the cruise, because cruise visitors are going to be representing a large proportion of our market as of next year when our Deepwood terminal does open. I think that the flexibility of the local authorities has been able to use where it is needed as well, so I believe in that flexibility before local authorities, but also not having any stipulations about areas that should not be included, for example, like how our whole island, sometimes in some funds, you had it sometimes with hands and hands enterprise, sometimes in main towns, were not included or some outlines. So it is making sure that anywhere, according to where the local authority and the community steams needed, the sports needs should be included. Is there a danger that with local authorities going through so many cuts that this money, when you talk about roads and infrastructure, how is the balance going to be striped that this money is used for the tourism side and not the day-to-day? Is anybody worried about this, the councils, especially with so many cuts that have built you on a star? I think that everybody is worried about the level of council funding at the moment, and that is right across the board, irrespective of where the income comes from. From my authority particularly, we are not actually considering using this as general funding. For example, we are not thinking on using it to fund the building of schools and stuff like that. We are thinking on the basis of tourism as our main economy, and we need to improve our tourist economy. We would like tourists to come here and to come back again, and if we provide a better experience for them, they will come back again. We are not actually thinking about sticking it in a big pot that hides the really big hole that we have in our council finances in the forthcoming year. I think that there is the possibility for some into play between council general funding and visitor levy. Let me give you an example. We struggle with graffiti removal in the city, and it is something that visitors comment on. They do not like to see graffiti in some of the most historic parts of the city in the country, and we want to spend more on it, and we do not have the money to do so. At the moment, we spend £200,000 a year on graffiti removal. Maybe we could double that, but it could all be funded by the visitor levy. Therefore, the council could potentially see some modest saving, but there would be an increase in the amount of money that is spent on graffiti removal in the city. With Bill, I think that there are not that many examples like that, but there is the potential for some easing in some areas, as long as there is added value for the industry and the visitor. As with all councils, there are always difficult decisions to be made and there are balances to be struck. I would expect that that is the approach that our council would take, although they have not discussed it. We have a tourism strategy, as many local authorities will have, as Bill has indicated. Tourism is an important part of lots of local authority economies, so that is an opportunity to allow us to have a bit more investment. Because of the financial challenges that we are all facing, that might be an area of our budgets that might be under more pressure because we are having to protect those more front-line vital services such as education and social care. It may be that that additional funding allows us to maintain the services at the level that they are at, rather than necessarily using it all to put into a road's budget. For example, as I said, that is obviously a decision for our council. However, as I have indicated at the start, it is always that balancing act between them. I was just checking to see if anyone else online wanted to come in. I think that it has also been really helpful in this conversation that a number of you have talked about the fact that you are working on local tourism strategies. This levy is not something that just arrives into a vacuum, but it is something that you already have relationships, partnership working and you have a strategy. Those discussions have been on-going, so I think that that has been a really useful insight. I would like to bring in Mark Griffin. To continue on the theme of how the money will be spent, perhaps I will come to Councillor Lobbyn, because maybe one of the officials will be devoid. It is just the interaction of the objectives of this bill with the Verity House agreement. There is an ambition in the Verity House agreement to reduce or remove ringfence or directed spend, whereas we have a bill that effectively introduces directed spend. Do you have any views on perhaps competing government and local government objectives? I think that the Verity House agreement is a good thing for councils. It allows councils basically to impose what I have been asking for for a long time. I do not think that this particular bill does that if you allow local authorities the discretion to spend the money and raise the money locally and decide how to spend it locally. I think that that is the big thing. As we can't be so prescriptive that you tell us that if we raise x, y, z pounds, this is how you spend that x, y, z pounds, we must be allowed the discretion to be able to spend that where we think that it is appropriate for the biggest impact for our tourist economy. I think that over-direction is not a good thing. I think that my second question was probably directed to yourself again, because you represent such a large area. I think about how that money is raised perhaps in one particular locality and whether councils are taking a decision to retain the spending in that particular locality or to spread it across a whole local authority area. We have considered a rather more blended approach whereby a specific part of a percentage of it would be spent directly locally to the benefit of those businesses that are effectively directly raising the fee but also that another proportion of it would be spent strategically. For example, if you go to a hotel in Skye, you have to drive there, you have to drive on some other areas roads to get there. That is just probably a rather simple example, but we would consider a more strategic spend as well as a locally-based spend. Any other witnesses who want to come in? It is related to the question that Mark asked. Glasgow airport and Edinburgh airport have about 6.5 million visitors to Glasgow and about 11 million to Edinburgh, but those visitors do not necessarily stay in Glasgow or Edinburgh, despite the obvious attractions that they are doing. People will come in and leave and go elsewhere. Glasgow and Edinburgh residents, for example, will get all the pollution, the noise, the congestion and potentially no benefit from those visitors' landing in those two cities. If Glasgow or Edinburgh has a view on that, will I try to do something to capture that issue within the boat? No. I hesitate to say this, convener. If I was the managing director of Edinburgh airport in front of you today, I am sure that he would talk about the existing fiscal burden on the cost of air travel and so on, and the way in which that money comes back into the Scottish economy. Thus far, it comes back to the point of simplicity, really. We see this as a very simple way of trying to capture spend. I do not see an extremely good question of what percentage of arrivals at Edinburgh airport spend at least one night in the city. I suspect that it is a reasonably high proportion, but it is a really good question that I will take away because I think it is worth looking at. However, my answer would be that it is captured elsewhere in the fiscal burden on the industry. Obviously, we are not majorly impacted on this because there is not a huge amount of tourists flying out of the airport, but many American and Canadian states use the charge of departure tax, so it might be something that the cities need to consider. I think that the other thing that Bill has said is that I am sure that many members will have seen that. If you go to the high street in Edinburgh at 7 o'clock in the morning or Waterloo Place, you will see a lot of people who will have stayed overnight in Edinburgh who will then get on a bus and go elsewhere for the day. As it is designed at the moment, clearly the financial benefit under this legislation would fall to Edinburgh because we would collect it, but thinking about the points that Bill and other colleagues have raised, potentially some of the cost would land on other local authorities because those daytrippers need the facilities that we have talked about. Again, that is something about inter-council co-operation. That is something that we perhaps need to think about as this process moves forward. I think that it brought up some more thinking. On both sides, food for thought is everywhere on this. I think that it has been a very useful conversation. Thank you for joining us today, both online and in person. I now briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses. We are joined in the room by Tim Fairhurst, who is the director general, and Simon Smith, who is the policy manager at the European Tourism Association, and I welcome them both to our meeting. I am going to start with the questions. There is no need for you to operate the microphones, we can do that for you. It would be interesting, so it is great that you are here to share your perspectives of what is going on in terms of tourist taxes across Europe. I would be interested to hear from you about good examples where ones have been less successful and what are the factors that lead to others that are being successful. What are successful and what are less successful? I will kick off and maybe explain our respective contributions. I will probably offer a bigger picture of political characterisation of the topic, as regards our experience of dealing with regional, national and local authorities on the topic. Simon is much more expert than me on the detail. He maintains Atoa's website, which has a database of over 100 destinations, so he is monitoring the developments day to day. He would be best placed to provide some concrete illustrations of exactly how that process works in that place. Characterisation of benefit and perception, if I could take a step back, Scotland is already in a good place because you are doing such a thorough job of consultation. Bad is when people do not feel that they have an opportunity to input to the process and understand what is going on. From a broad regional tourism policy in Europe, there is lots of evidence that suggests that the population is more likely to be supportive of tourism as an industry if they have an opportunity to feed into the strategy that governs tourism. Tax would be part of that strategy. Running a good consultation involving both industry and the community is the first thing to do, and you are clearly doing an extremely thorough job. I was just checking my own dates. I think that the first time I was involved in this topic was 2018, when Kate Forbes chaired a round table in Aberdeen if I am not mistaken. No one could accuse Scotland of rushing into this, and the pandemic clearly got in the way, but it is an exemplary process to be commended on that front. Perception matters. What the actual number is and what the mechanics are is very important, and we will get into that. However, how it is presented and how it is seen—sometimes that is a bit unfair, because you can be very well intended but misunderstood or misrepresented. Clarity, to a fault, is just repeating that this is what it is for, this is the thinking, this is how it is going to work. If other narratives take shape in our world of social media, we see a lot of people mischaracterising all kinds of policies. This is being used to control tourism, not as far as I can see. It is very important that you own the narrative and can support it, because there are lots of agendas on this topic of varying degrees of accuracy, and there are some very persistent agendas. One of them is that tourism tax is a control mechanism for demand. I have not seen any evidence of that. If you were trying to control tourism or move demand from one place to another, there would be other ways of doing it. That would be an example of counter narratives that can just muddy the water when it comes to explaining what a particular instrument is for and how it is going to work. I am sorry for a slightly warfully first answer, but I think that perceptions matter. The industry is a bit traumatised, as others will no doubt tell you in terms of getting back on its feet. It is very easy to say, well, tax is another burden, it is terrible. It is the case that you cannot, for example, hypothecate more VAT to regions in Scotland, because that is not how VAT works in the UK at the moment. You have got an instrument that you can introduce. Within the powers available to you, what is the sensible way of going about it, and if that feels like the question you are very sensibly engaged on. Simon, do you want to characterise… Is it process or numbers you are most interested in in terms of good practice? I have got another follow-up question, which might draw something out in that way. Documents accompanying the bill suggest that the introduction of tourist taxes in a number of cities across Europe has not led to reductions in tourist numbers. I would be interested to hear if you agree with this analysis. Are you aware of any research or examples showing that the introduction of tourist taxes has had a negative economic impact? I understand that the knowledge on this is quite limited. There has been research from OECD. It is quite old now, it is a few years. Certainly from our perspective, we are a trade association for businesses across the world to bring a business into Europe. This could be continental Europe, but we focus a lot, particularly on EU, EEA states in Switzerland as well as the UK. Most of the evidence today will focus on EU plus Switzerland and the EEA states as well. I can give some knowledge regarding Ukraine, Turkey, etc. We did use to monitor this, but the implementation of tourist taxes is quite widespread across Europe. In the EU, 21 member states have a tourist tax. Within those member states, not all have a tourist tax, so there is an ongoing debate in Spain. Madrid does not have a visitor levy. It has been talked about recently regarding upcoming elections. You might have heard that the Valencian region was going to introduce, but that has now been overturned by a new Government early this year. In Spain, you only have the regions of Catalonia and the Balearics. However, this is an ongoing topic. Just to highlight Germany, you might have seen Munich would like to introduce a tax, but the state Government has blocked it and it is going to court. While it is widespread across Europe, there are key cities that do not have a tax. If I give a number, it is in the thousands that have the visitor levy. If I understood your question right, has there been a negative economic impact following the introduction of a tax? I think that just to come in on where Simon started, it is not that I am aware of. It is very hard to do a control because you cannot say, well, let us try Barcelona doing it for six months, then stop, see what happens. You would have to pick the same six months of the year, the same external circumstances and see if there is a difference. Someone who visits Scotland will know well because he visits Scotland is a member of next tour, which is a network of regions interested in competitive and sustainable tourism in Europe. I have had the benefit of reading Visit Scotland's submission to the committee and I am sure that I will speak to it next week. But Manuel Alejandro Cardinata used to be the vice minister for tourism in Andalusia, so that would be a region that is very interested in tourism and not deterring it, but he is an academic economist and he has returned to academia following elections. He would have been very strident where he here to say tourism tax does not work as a control mechanism. At the levels that we see in Europe, if it is a couple of hundred dollars a day because there is only so many people you want to allow into a protected environment, different story. But at the sorts of numbers that we are talking about, it is very hard to see evidence. What Simon is referring to, I was just double checking the year, was an OECD report in 2014, which was about the cumulative impact of local and regional taxes on national competitiveness. OECDs members are nation states. At that time, for example, Italy was introducing a lot of new taxes, so if you needed to get a coach into a city, you pay. The enabling legislation to allow local taxation was introduced. They were really just saying, if you are a nation state, look at the cumulative effect. If something previously cost this and you are visiting five different places, it is now going to cost a much higher number because of all the cumulative costs. From a travel industry perspective, because a lot of particularly long-haul tourism, American and Canadian visitors have been mentioned by the previous witnesses, lots of those programmes are planned a good 18 months, two years in advance. The reason for friction and opposition was that you have just sprung this on us and we cannot price it in. Has demand for Italy fallen off a cliff as a result of imposition of taxes? No. Going back in time, this is before I was active in it, first Gulf War at around that time, Venice was thinking of an access tax, abandoned it after transatlantic travel fell off a cliff. Then there was a return now, which has not yet been introduced to the idea of a day tax. Hotel taxes are there and they have been enabled in Italy, but the idea of having just paying to go in, if you are not staying the night, the enabling legislation is there, but how to do it has not yet been established. We do not yet know if visiting for the day tax is going to have an impact on the number of people visiting, so all eyes are going to be on Venice. I think that that is the only example of a day visit. There are others like Cinque Terre in Italy, where if you want to permit to go on a particular sort of itinerary, that is a way of managing capacity to some extent. I am not aware of it. In terms of the convener's question on do we know of any negative impact on volume, I think that the answer is no. No. We know some tourism strategies, particularly Amsterdam. We can address that shortly, if you like. They would like to discourage tourism. We do know the Venice day tax. The fee originally was proposed, so there will be a trial basis next year of five euro per day. The fee was originally going to vary between three and ten, so a visitor would not necessarily be restricted entry, but by booking early you would get the cheap rate and then potentially on certain days it might be ten euro to disperse demand. We might have examples of the rate being lower in lower season. Some destinations do that. We also have destinations that I can talk about good practice regarding. We know that there is a debate about the people paying overnight, who generally will contribute more than maybe a day visitor. We do have examples, particularly a place like Switzerland, where they would give a guest card to the visitor staying overnight. That gives them free public transport and discounted to visitor attractions. That is recognising that the visitor overnight is spending money. It is quite a unique example. Elsewhere we see destinations say how they are going to spend it, and I think that that is important going forward, is to be open and transparent. We do have some, particularly like the Balearics, for instance. They have a website particularly on what projects they use the money for. Rather than saying that we have this X amount of money, we might have a website that visitors can look at and see how their money is being used. I am happy to go a bit more in detail regarding why most of it is overnight and also regarding how the money is used. I am going to move on and bring in other members. Maybe they will have that question and draw that out. Pam, you wanted to come in with a supplementary. Good morning, panel. My question is around the VAT side. We heard from witnesses last week that, although many European markets have levies in place, they do not have our levels of VAT. A new levy in Scotland would be an addition to the VAT, whereas in 25 EU countries a discounted VAT is applied. Do you have any thoughts on that and how it might impact the competitiveness of Scotland's tourism industry? Some of that is just factual, as you described. Some countries choose to, from an EU perspective, VAT is an EU competence, but it is down to nation states whether or not they apply reductions on certain categories of service. There is quite a lot of resistance to using discounted rates of VAT in some countries, because it is seen as an unnecessary revenue sacrifice. It is a highly vexed issue at a national political level. Why would we do that? What is the benefit? There was some good work done, good eyes and thorough work done, by both Germany and Ireland, where they said that, if you reduce VAT on accommodation, that has a positive impact and allows a bit more money in the system. The majority are moving towards the view that you can discount, but what is the benefit? As I understand it, in the UK, it is not a choice that you have. To your statement, it is just true that the UK is expensive in terms of the tax on top of services because we do not discount on accommodation. To that extent, the relative competitive disadvantage is there, but that would also be affected by exchange rates. Post-Brexit, the pound is probably softer. What is the overall impact of that on demand? Probably not that big, but it is certainly true to those who say that we are already taxed highly. Factually, that is the case. What is interesting about this debate is the bit that you have got control over, what are you going to do with the revenue and what impact is that going to have? Your premise is bang accurate. UK would be towards the upper end, but take Denmark, 25 per cent VAT, not discounted, and a city like Copenhagen would be leading on its sustainability credentials. They are not being a shrinking violet about its expensive relative to other places in Europe, but they have got an offer. They stand behind and the money is used to sustain the quality of that offer. It is a different approach, but in some of the exchanges that we have had with officials prior to today's hearing, it might be interesting for Scotland to look across the North Sea and feel a bit more commonality with Nordic approaches. It is absolutely not for us to say what is right or wrong. It is very much for Scotland to determine. However, having a high tax burden does not necessarily mean that you have problems with attracting visitors. Have a look at cities like Copenhagen. I am not going to bring in Willie Coffey. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning, Simon. I wonder if you could offer a few thoughts on the issue of the wild campers and the motorhome fraternity throughout Europe. You have heard lots of discussion at the committee both today and last week about this particular issue. In fact, those visitors are not subject to the levy, and it is indeed very difficult to apply it. Could you share some thoughts on what happens in Europe with regard to camping and motorhome users and whether they do pay a visitor levy and how they do it? Most of our members are tour operators and we do a lot of city tourism. We would monitor briefly regarding what is house elsewhere. You might have heard that Norway would like to potentially introduce attacks, and they have raised this very debate. The latest, in my understanding, is that they are looking at attacks on arrivals into the country now, rather than an overnight collection. On camping, because of the problems with collection, they have mentioned previously regarding automatic cameras in an area and a resident. Potentially, they would have a database of the licence plates and they would see who is a visitor and who is not. I have not gone into detail regarding how this is for work and practice. It is an example that they have looked at. Norway has been discussing attacks for quite a while now. In the Nordics, no-one introduced attacks apart from Iceland, but that has only suspended Iceland as well. I do not think that we are aware—just to your precise question on is anyone seeking to tax campsites? We do not monitor campsites because it is not what our members sell. It may not be knowledge that we have, but are you aware of any campsite taxing policy? Not offhand. I can share information afterwards. We have a database with web links for all the sites of the destinations. We go to the official pages and you can see in further detail who taxes, how it is appropriate and how it is collected. If I could slightly enlarge the context of your question, because it would be related to rural tourism partly as well. When you are trying to describe what the benefit or what the permitted use of the revenue might be, and I think that some of the questions in the previous session anticipated it, if people arrive in one place but then do day visits, whether it is visiting national parks or the Highland 500 or where you are benefiting from infrastructure but not necessarily spending overnight money there or what is an equitable way of managing that and what is a practical way of spotting who is coming in and out. That is highly topical in terms of—as I said in Italy, Cinque Terre would be an example of a region where if you want to access what is contested space at this point it can be very crowded. That would be an exception to my general observation at the beginning that that is deliberately a control mechanism. There is a suggestion, because wild camping, as I understand, is permitted in Scotland. If there were a tax on a campsite, would that suddenly mean that lots of people go camping informally? What would the impact be? I suppose that one approach would be, as Simon said, a number plate recognition of whoever is coming in and that locals do not pay visitors or hire cars do etc. I can see that being very complex, but there is no doubt—again, talking to officials before this meeting—thinking about the scope of permitted use of revenue. I was even talking about nature wardens. There are jobs in the rural economy around tourism that are absolutely helping to attract people and looking after the natural heritage. It would not be irrational to try to hypothecate money from visitors to support the nurturing of natural heritage in that way, but I do not think that we are aware of any scheme in operation. There are eco-taxes, so Balearic has got those. That was really a consequence of, as you know, Spain has got devolved powers to some extent. Balearics would have liked to impose a tax on aviation. That is a Madrid competence. The outcome was instead an eco-tax, and as Simon has mentioned, you can have a look at what they do with that on sustainableislands.com. We have quite a few questions to get through. You have given us a sufficient response in response to Willie's question on wild camping. The other question that I was hoping to ask you was about the cruise ship levy in the Scottish Government's announcement that it intends to include that in part of the legislation. Is it an experience that you could also share from our European friends about the cruise ship levy and does it work? How does it work? Is it successful and otherwise? It depends. Take Amsterdam, our favourite. When a cruise ship levy was introduced, it was noticeable that the ships moved, but there are other places that you can dock in the Netherlands that are still day-trippable from Amsterdam. The immediate consequence was more road traffic, because cruise ships were in Imadden, in Rotterdam and got on coaches into Amsterdam. That would be a good example if that is just not enough joined up thinking. If there is an alternative that is low attacks to achieve the same thing, then industry tends to do that. You need to look at it holistically, but if you are awkney, you cannot go somewhere, you need to go to awkney. I think that it is very sui generis. It is very hard to generalise, but Simon, do you want to give an idea from the lower amount to the higher amount? What are the ranges that we are talking about for cruise? It is quite limited, the application of cruise. The highest rate is currently Amsterdam of €8. They have proposed from €24 that this will increase to €11. That is for sea and river cruise. However, if the cruise starts in Amsterdam or ends in Amsterdam, you do not pay. It is only for stopovers. Catalonia also does that. Balearics is slightly different. It is where the ship is registered in the Balearics, then you do not pay. The only other country that looks at cruise ships is Croatia, but it is local discretion regarding whether municipality introduced it. Croatia is quite controlled in how the tax is implemented, in what is called a lower and upper band, and local discretion within those bands. France does not have tax on cruise ships, for instance. Miles Brown, I wanted to ask a question with regard to the Scottish Government's consultation, because that took place before the pandemic. What has been the change in European tourism that we have seen since things have returned to normal? What impact does that have on the bill as it currently stands? There is a big before and after. For the sorts of tourism that we represent, demand is already at or above 2019 levels, so long-haul tourism is doing well, particularly from the United States. What we would generally observe, and this would be a common sexual position, is that we participate in something called the tourism manifesto, which gathers together the best part of 40 pan-European associations in the sector, is that, if you like, the social acceptability of tourism is different now than it was. We missed it during the pandemic. It was very clear that there was a very big economic loss, and the general service sector was in deep trouble without visitor revenue to complement domestic demand, but it seems to us that there is less tolerance for crowding. The sensitivity to overtourism is more acute now than it was before. I think that some of that is frustration that people are saying, what was building back better going to be, and look here we are, same old, same old. There is less tolerance and understanding of the compromises that arise from the competition that visitors bring to a domestic place, whether it is the hurly-burly of the summer months or what have you. General context, as an industry, we are aware that there is a bigger hearts and minds problem about tourism than there was before, but I think that that is a catalyst for a constructive and collaborative debate. The framing of your proposed legislation here allows you to have that discussion. What is good about tourism? How can you maximise the benefit? How can you minimise the negative impact? It feels like this measure provides an opportunity to give that a good airing. That is helpful. You will obviously be aware that the Scottish Government has recently brought in legislation around short-term lets, which here in the capital has been a huge part of our offering for tourists. Are you aware of unintended consequences in other countries where you have two different bills brought in at a similar time that could limit accommodation being provided, but then also look to provide a tax on those as well? The impact, negative or positive, do you think that is sad? Sure. Again, some countries or few countries have a national approach to this. Portugal would be one example. Most have local approaches to it. This is leaving aside regulations around platforms and so on. What we have observed is that, take a city like Florin or Tuscany—just to be correct—Tuscany region has now introduced legislation that offers a tax incentive to return property to the normal private rental market as opposed to holiday lets because they are concerned that, as it were, too much of the housing stock has gone to holiday lets and there is not enough for the full-time population. There is observable hollowing out of full-time residents at the expense of holiday lets. I think that the issue is that it is very easy to stigmatise the visitors, whereas really what your problem is, if you think that there are too many holiday lets, what is in the toolkit of the local authorities? In Tuscany it is licensing and there are some opportunities around tax. Some places, peer-to-peer rental, is an absolute key asset where hotel investment is prohibitive, either the season is too short and no one is building accommodation. How else do you bring visitors and give them somewhere to stay? Again, one-size-fits-all answer just does not work for peer-to-peer. It is very valuable in some places. It provides complicated, contested competition for the same asset in cities where accommodation is expensive for younger people and so on. It really depends on the place approach, but what we observe is that authorities have to be quite creative of what tools they have at their disposal, is it licensing? Inevitably it does mean that if you are a provider, I have got my national obligation, I have got my regional ones, that is quite normal in continental Europe. People do not mean that it is good, but it is quite clunky administratively, and you might have a few things that you have to comply with if that is the game that you are in. It was a question about the way of calculating a visitor levy, whether a flat rate makes more sense than a percentage, including the pros and cons in both. We have heard that in a bit of complexity versus simplicity and cost, but also the potentially aggressive nature of one over the other. I suppose that it would be good to get some sense of how you see that and what examples there are from across you. I will give the high level of time and give some examples. Simple is good, for sure. Amsterdam keeps coming up on this topic, but when they are going to go to a more proposing, a higher percentage next year, rather than a flat rate plus a percentage, just have a percentage from next year, it is probably the only city that has got the combination. All the OTAs, like Expedure and Booking.com, had to reprogram their back end to cope with Amsterdam having this particular approach. The point about being aggressive is very important. It is very hard to justify someone staying in a budget accommodation and paying the same amount of someone in high-end accommodation. It is necessary, given that it would be easier as it were to put a penny on VAT and remit that money back for the purposes that you are interested in, that you cannot do that. There has to be some other way of doing it. In general, it is not very efficient introducing a tax for a small amount because of the frictional cost of collection, but you know all of that. It is a question of doing it as optimally as possible. There are e-commerce versions of doing it, trying to make it as smooth as possible in the back end, is desirable. Simon also said that there are benefits to go with, but do you want to address the simplicity of the process? You may be aware that we have spoken to the Government of VISA Levy team as they repair the bill. They are examples of elsewhere in Europe. The information that we will share after this with our database is what the VISA Levy team has seen. We know that the percentage rate is the proposed approach by the Government and the countries that implement a percentage rate. I mentioned earlier that there are 21 member states and there are five member states that introduce a percentage rate. Again, it can be a mix. For instance, in the Netherlands, as we said, Amsterdam has a hybrid rate, but there are other destinations in the Netherlands that have a fixed rate. The key examples are Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania and Austria. Austria is slightly different, because they have a flat rate on top as well, but it is a fixed flat rate. The reason why Amsterdam was quite complex was the fixed rate of free euro on top of the 7 per cent. The children, under a certain age, were exempt. For the OTA, it was very difficult to calculate what that tax would be. Again, just the higher in Germany, regarding the calculation on percentage rates, some of them include the VAT when they calculate the rate. It is quite common for breakfast and other items to be excluded. I would say that, from those who implement the percentage rate, most would exclude VAT from the calculation or the room rate, but there are some in Germany that include that. If I understand what you are saying, of the 21, the majority, so everybody excluding five, does it on a flat rate? Will you be answering that? Is there a banded flat rate within that so that different tax accommodation providers pay a different flat rate? It varies by destinations. For example, in Italy, they use star rating, but in other countries where it is fixed regardless, they might potentially have a different rate for youth hostels or other types of accommodation. However, regarding hotels, between one and five star would be the same rate. Normal is a flat rate rather than a percentage. Flat rate banded according to class of accommodation quite often. However, there is a nuance there just to be aware that that can create perverse incentives to, as it were, qualify for a lower class of accommodation. Star ratings are a little bit anachronistic in some ways, but there are quite rigid rules. If you do not have heating, you cannot be a certain category of hotel in Spain but, in the summer, who cares? It might be the case that it is in your interests that accommodation providers say that they are a hostel. No, we are definitely a hostel. It is a really nice hostel, but they have just managed to fall below the line because of some quirk in the definition. That would be a reason why percentage is easier and ignores those sorts of strange demarcations. A couple of questions. Why did Amsterdam have the percentage and the cap and the other one on the star rating? How would you include, would then BNB short-term let's then have to become part of a star rating system? Answer the second question first. If it were just on a percentage basis, you could ignore that. I just wouldn't start with it because I'm sure that people will have their own experiences. What is meant to be objective is far from it, so you can have very expensive three-star, wise as five-star, very cheap, they're trying to fill the rooms. It doesn't make much sense, so it really ought to relate to the value of the overall transaction. Why did Amsterdam end up having two versions? We have to speak carefully, so this is our understanding of why certain decisions were taken. Right now, Amsterdam is a coalition Government and the coalition can is not always an easy one, so there's different views and whoever happens to be in charge of that particular bit of the council does their decision hold sway. The gentleman called Udo Koch, who used to work at the International Monetary Fund, was the finance vet-towder in Amsterdam, so he introduced it. Straightforwardly, it was to raise revenue because Amsterdam has a lot of visitors that have a lot of costs. It was no hiding about that. It wasn't just overnight taxes. There was a tax that was on tours and activities, so if you had a visit on the canals, a guide to visit, there's a charge visiting cultural sites and so on. There were very clear, bizarrely precise forecasts of how much money would come in. There will be 105 million euros from that. The combination, and this is speculation on my part, so I may have solid knowledge on it, is that, partly, if you're saying we want to get revenue, then there's some certainty if you use flat rate because you know what the volumes are. If Amsterdam bed nights are 15 million, 16 million and it's heading up towards 20 million now and it's expo overnight, that helps you from a budgeting perspective. Whereas if it's a percentage, you suddenly need to know a lot more about hotel yield management and how pricing varies because you don't know what you're going to get. It depends how much they can charge for the room on any given day. I would guess, I don't know if we've got any solid knowledge on that, that there was a combination of budgetary certainty and the reasons why percentage is better because it's not quite as regressive. I would think that it was an iterative approach and they ended up there, but the reason why they're looking at potentially 12.5 percentage and get rid of the flat rate next year is complexity and they've probably got a better handle of overall what revenue that'll be, but I don't know if we've got solid knowledge on that Simon. No, it's just, Amsterdam used to have a percentage rate and I just highlighted with the children aspect being exempt from the fixed rate, so I might understand it would be because of the children that they exemptioned why they had the two different. We haven't seen in detail how children are affected next year by the proposed, we expect a vote in the city council next month, also in November time, so we just know from the budget that they would like to increase the tourist tax. Thanks very much, I'm going to bring in Mark Griffin. Thanks a minute, I had a question about interaction between VAT and tourist levies, but I think it's been covered in previous answers. The committee is interested in tourist tax exemptions in place across Europe and whether they're done nationally or locally, what type of stays or guests are exempt, and how accommodation providers and local authorities check and ensure that exemptions claims are legitimate. I can answer that. First of all, I'll touch on reductions, so we do see reductions throughout Europe. It's a very, there's not really one-size-fits-all, but particularly if some reductions might be, for instance, a child of a certain age who pays a lower rate, and also regarding, sometimes you might pay a lower rate in a low season, for instance. They're two kind of key examples. And that's for anyone, not just a child? Yes, for anyone on the low season. I think the question is about exemptions as well as variations, so maybe just split those two. Yes, so exemptions, children would be generally quite a wide known one, as well as those who are resident in the municipality, who stay. Another key exemption sometimes is business travellers. Now, the actual purpose of visits sometimes gets split up, so if you're attending an event, which is authorised, then that's slightly different. Business travellers would generally be in Germany, and sometimes, I think, Milan does exclude for their events there. Just to say, when we do our research, he's predominantly, we look at the visitor. So there are loads of exemptions, particularly regarding, say, medical personnel, military, states of medical reasons. So we don't really monitor that. We mainly monitor how that affects our members. So that's to say business travellers, leisure travellers. But I'm happy to share our database afterwards, and you can see. I know we have responded to the Wales Government consultation. I know they are looking at more of a sort of a simple approach, but we know, speaking to, say, the Government of Istle Everton here, they were interested on the actual exemptions and kind of any reductions. I think the original proposal from Edinburgh was not to have any low seasonality. I think it was a fixed rate throughout the year. I guess it's related. Are there not limits on up to a week and then no more that some places just it's a maximum number of nights? Yes. So in Italy would be a good example where there are a maximum number of nights, but it does vary between maybe three to up to seven nights, even 10 nights. Just to come up back on the last part there, obviously, how do local authorities and providers check, you know, the exemption claims are legitimate? Yes. So generally the law would explain how this is. The difficulty with school trips will be quite a key one, as in regarding what's classed as a school trip, and also medical, like disabled people, sometimes excluded. So generally the laws do set out how they approve. Sometimes it could be a letter. So in the case of business travellers, it would be maybe an invite to a certain meeting or to an event, for instance, would be a key example of the exemption. Thank you. Thanks, Marie. I'm going to bring in Pam. Given that administrative burden and cost this scheme will have on businesses, some wish for consideration to be given to enable providers to retain, claim a proportion to manage the administration of the levy. Are there any instances in Europe where businesses are using the proceeds from tourist taxis to offset expenses associated with collecting, remitting and reporting levies? I have seen it. I couldn't give it examples because we generally just skim the law to find the rate, but I do. I think Edinburgh particularly, I think their example was they were going to, I think there's a certain percentage where the accommodation provider could retain and then pass on the rest. So and just to highlight as well when the law is introduced, sometimes it's the accommodation provider who's the liable person, which helps collection. But are we aware of any examples of the law allowing the accommodation provider to retain part of the tax in continental Europe? I couldn't give off hand, but I think there could be. Can we get back to you on that? Yes. Could you please do that? It's quite important, yes. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thanks very much, Ivan. Yeah, thanks. So the question I've got is around about the uses that the revenue generated by the levy is put to. And in the draft bill, as we've got it, what it says is the levy would be spent on developing support and sustaining facilities or service, which are substantially for or used by persons visiting the scheme area for leisure purposes. So the question is how does that compare with any limitations that are in place in other countries or areas in Europe? And one of the debates we've had is round about what extent to which that can be constrained or not, and also it says leisure purposes here, and why that should include business purposes as well. So any examples would be helpful. Yeah, yes, there's going to be lots of devil in those details. I think in general, that's those are the sorts of things people spend money on, but some countries have limits on hypothecation. So if there's revenue, it's just revenue and and you know government gets to decide what to do with revenue. There isn't as much. So they don't necessarily have the ability to do ring fencing. So so that's just general sort of tax law. But if you are allowed to do ring fencing, the sorts of purposes described other generally the sorts of purposes. I think one one area where there is a range of views is whether it makes sense to use that revenue for tourism promotion. And again, that's very what counts as promotion. And the sort of good example of Europe versus the rest, and it's not so much a tourism tax, but it's a tax on visitors, is is the approach to visa waivers. So if you go and visit America, you get an ester. Some of that money is hypothecated to USA tourism promotion. So you're a visitor to the States, you're contributing to attracting yourself to the States. Now, you know, we generally don't have when we're not here to be prescriptive, but that's probably the only thing we'd say be hesitant about. Because in a sense, you're sort of imposing a tax burden on the person who's actually doing the thing you want, which is visiting Scotland, which seems to be sort of obtuse. So whereas in Europe, when ETIAS gets rolled out in spring 2025, that's at a much lower rate of seven euros, and that's just to cover the cost of doing ETIAS, the sort of visa waiver thing. So that would be an approach we'd endorse and we supported when there was a chance. So I think as described, I agree that, you know, leisure itself may be the tricky word there because it feels like it can be counterproductive to say there's one tribe of people called visitors and another tribe called residents, whereas in fact a good place to live is often a good place to visit and you want to maximise the mutual benefit. So, you know, obviously leisure is undertaken by people who live there as well as visitors, but I think just trying to be as holistic as possible so that the end result is destinations which are good places to visit and good places to live and work, that's what you're trying to achieve and that will create a sort of virtuous circle. So I think, you know, listening to the bit of the previous session, I think the way local discretion is exercised and the degree of engagement and interest in what are we going to do with this money and how are we going to, what's success going to look like and sharing good practice and just treat the whole thing as a laboratory and share good ideas, I think, would be desirable. Some revenue is put towards tourist boards, so towards their budget. So, creation would be a good example where they do a set percentage of how the revenue is kind of collected, how that is then used by the NTO and the destination authority. And just to give a bit of reality to the economics and this is a before and after pandemic question as well, it used to be the case that lots of local tourism officers were funded by things like city cards, so just revenue of stuff that gets bought and if there's no visitors the revenue fell off a cliff. So funding models of tourist boards, you know, that's sort of out with our competence and interest today, but it's certainly part of the, it's a legitimate part of the debate because those bodies are not these days predominantly about promotion, they're about trying to play a role in overall destination management and I think it's that holistic approach which I believe visits Scotland would endorse. Thank you. It'd be nice if we could tax people for not visiting Scotland. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Ivan, and that concludes our questions. It's been very helpful to have your insights of what's going on in Europe, so thanks so much for evidence today. Follow-up questions and provide whatever detail we can, where we fell short today will certainly come up with that. Yeah, there's something you're going to give to send through for us on the back of Pam's question. So we'll continue to take evidence on the bill at our next meeting in which we expect to hear from representatives of the tourism industry and we've previously agreed to take the next items in private so as that was the last public item on our agenda for today I now close the public part of the meeting.