Mike Weatherley, the Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade, has joined the growing group of local hotel owners, business owners and politicians opposing a Labour national proposal for a tourist tax, describing it “unworkable and damaging”.
Brighton & Hove relies heavily on the revenue that it receives from the tourist trade and the jobs that are directly and indirectly supported by the tourist industry which are vital to the local economy.
Many countries levy a tax on overnight stays in order to raise revenue, but this does not currently happen in the UK. However, Labour politician Sadiq Khan MP recently came out in favour of introducing such a tax in London.
Mike says he has asked hundreds of local businesses for their views on the tax and not one has replied in favour. Simon Kirby MP.
He said:
“A tourist tax implemented in a piecemeal fashion is totally unworkable. Even worse, it could be potentially very damaging to Brighton & Hove’s booming tourism industry. A huge number of local jobs rely on our tourism industry and costs are already high for people choosing to holiday in Britain. Labour needs to learn that taxing people, particular tourists who can simply opt to go elsewhere, is not a good way boost revenue.”
Simon Kirby, MP for Kemptown and Peacehaven recently wrote to the Labour leader, Ed Miliband asking for a guarantee that he would not introduce a tourism tax for Brighton & Hove if elected at the next general election.
Tourism is worth over a billion pounds a year to Brighton & Hove and supports many thousands of local jobs (over 13,000 full time equivalent jobs in the sector in the City).
According to labour market statistics there are 137,000 jobs in Brighton & Hove. Based on a recent Brighton and Hove City Council report, around 14% of these jobs are supported by tourism generated turnover.
Warren Morgan, leader of the Cooperative and Labour group, dismissed the claim saying:
“This is utter nonsense; there are no proposals for a tourist tax for Brighton and Hove from Labour, and indeed we’d oppose any such move by the Greens or Tories.
“It is just an attempt to distract attention from the half a million people now reliant on foodbanks, the million workers now on “zero hour” contracts, and the fact that over the life of this Tory government people will be £6,600 worse off.”
Local hotelier and former chair of Tourism South East, Nick Head, said:
“Brighton and Hove derives 70% of our staying tourism customers from overseas; predominantly from Scandinavia, Benelux, Germany and France. In all these countries the VAT rate for B&B and Visitor Attractions is circa 6%. In the UK vat rate is 20% – some 14% higher which already makes us the most expensive holiday destination Europe. To put an additional tax on visitors may well be the deciding factor for people to spend their money elsewhere.”