Can I just remind Members of my declared interest in that my husband is the partner in a tourism business? Cabinet Secretary, I’m still hoping that this bed tax is something of an Aunt Sally and is included in the list of Welsh Government taxes being considered so you can be seen as a listening Government when you drop the idea. At the moment, it’s a little bit like threatening a child with spinach for breakfast because it’s good for them, and then claiming that you’re being merciful when you don’t carry out that threat. All this time, of course, that poor old child is regarding this threat as punishment for some unknown wrong that they don’t deserve, and that’s how the tourism sector is feeling at the moment.

Members of the tourism cross-party group, who were there at my invitation as chair, not because of Darren Millar’s exhortation, members who represent more—many, many more—than 305 people and represent all parts of the Welsh visitor economy, are very nervous about the fact that this is even being considered. English councils on the Welsh border are asking: will it be good for them, or will they be losing business because their marketing offer crosses the border? They’ve all seen world destination cities like Edinburgh and Bath, and even communities like Camden, pull back pretty swiftly when they recognised the wider implications and ask, ‘Why is Wales thinking of this?’ No-one wants to open the sluice gates to the UK charging bed tax when those beds are already more visibly expensive than their equivalents in other countries. And, yes, I know that VAT is a matter for the UK Government, and like you and MPs from all parties, including my own, we think that there is a strong argument for reducing VAT, but we cannot make that decision in this Chamber. What we can do here is agree not to impose further taxes on our tourists.

I just want to use my own example of why high VAT counters the point made by many that we are only talking about a few pounds and that no one will notice. Rome is a world destination, and people will definitely pay more to go there. You pay bed tax on top of your 10 per cent VAT but, not being widely advertised, it can come as something of a surprise to visitors. And it was a 12.5 per cent surprise for my family when we went in February, on a budget, to see the rugby. You do notice an extra €35 when you’re planning to spend just €280. Would it stop me going to Rome rather than London? I don’t think it would. Would it stop me going to Aberystwyth rather than Whitby? Well, you know, quite possibly. Let’s remember that, at the moment, the majority of visitors to Wales are from within the UK and are already facing the heaviest tax burden, generally, of our European counterparts. Of course, a budget for that holiday is a feature in anyone’s decision making, and we don’t want even modest bed taxes affecting those decisions and reversing very good trends for Welsh tourism at the moment.

I want to mention specifically Barcelona and why the tourism tax was introduced there. This is something that I discussed directly with the Catalan tourism agency and Barcelona tourism when I went to visit them not long after the tax was introduced. There were two reasons there. The first was that, in the wake of the crash, tourism was basically all they had left that was making money—all they had left to tax. The bed tax was introduced to assist the region’s economic recovery, with 25 per cent of those receipts going to health and education. The remaining money was destined for a tourism development fund, into which the sector itself directly paid extra money via its chambers of trade. That money was used to support a quality tourism offer, but it was also used to develop tourism in such a way that it was better balanced with the lived experience of residents.

That was the second reason: residents of the region were starting to object to the way that their standard of living was being affected by the economic collapse of sectors on one hand, and the way that their quality of life was being affected by the very high numbers of tourists in their space, pushing up the costs of goods and services. For that particular audience, the bed tax was held out as a deterrent and a way of balancing numbers. In any event, I think it’s probably worth mentioning that the majority of the Catalan Parliament did not support the introduction of the tax, and it only passed due to a considerable number of abstentions. Part of the reason for those was the issue that Ryanair was receiving huge subsidies to bring budget tourists to smaller airports in the region. I’m wondering if that kind of confused and contradictory support for the sector is what supporters of the tourism tax may have in mind. Thank you.