1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on business rate relief for the tourism sector? OAQ52538

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. We support businesses across Wales, including those in the tourism sector, through a range of relief schemes. In the current financial year, we will provide £210 million in reliefs, supporting more than three quarters of Welsh business rate payers.

There is a system called check, challenge, appeal that operates in England, which allows businesses to check the facts about their properties and view valuations before deciding whether to challenge the valuation. This seems to minimise uncertainty and ensure businesses reach a resolution quicker. It also reduces uncertainty for local authorities, who, of course, have to set aside money to cover potential appeals. So, I wonder whether you intend to bring forward such a system here in Wales.

Secondly, I wonder whether you could comment on the need to reform business rates in the tourism sector, with the likes of Airbnb and other businesses competing with those types of businesses, and also the likes of businesses, such as in my own constituency, where some operators own, for example, four self-catering units on one site, and they're competing against businesses that have far more self-catering units but scattered across a wide area and who pay no business rates at all, but they do pay council tax at a much lower rate. So, I wonder whether you could comment on the reform that's needed in the tourism sector in this regard, and I have written to you with a proposal from a constituent about a flat rate of 25 per cent across all tourism businesses, regardless of size.

Well, Llywydd, I thank Russell George for those follow-up questions. We have recently completed a consultation on reform of the appeals system in the business rate sector, and it is an area that is ripe for reform, and we do intend to bring forward proposals. We do not intend simply to import into Wales the check, challenge, appeal system as it has been applied in England, where there are many businesses who feel that the playing field has been tilted significantly against them and that their appeals are not fairly heard. So, while I agree with Russell George there is genuine room for simplifying the system, for making it more efficient, for eliminating appeals that never end up finally being heard, I still want to retain a system that is clearly fair to businesses who have a legitimate reason for making an appeal.

The Member is also right to point to the unfairness, as many in the tourism sector see it, in competition from organisations like Airbnb, who are not physically located in Wales and therefore don't have to pay business rates, while a business on the street somewhere in a town in Wales does. We are looking to see whether it is possible to address that issue. It is more likely, I think, to be addressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has recently said that he intends to investigate changes to tax legislation to see whether Amazon—another example of an organisation that doesn't pay business rates, while a small bookshop on a high street will—. So, we keep a watching brief on that issue, knowing that there are some unfairnesses in the system.

And, finally, on his point in relation to self-catering units, I've had correspondence, as he says, from himself, I've had it from Kirsty Williams, I've had it from Eluned Morgan, and we will look carefully at the proposals that have been put to us. I think it's fair, Llywydd, for me to say that we already provide extensive rate relief to small business—it's a small business rate relief scheme. And, sometimes, organisations that have a large cluster of tourism outlets do not qualify within the rules of the scheme as it stands. But I'm aware of the issue, grateful for the correspondence, and we will continue to take a close look at it.

Cabinet Secretary, the tourism sector is a wide-ranging area. It covers places like the Glyncorrwg ponds, or the mountain bikes that are in Glyncorrwg, but those also cover the self-catering units where people stay at to use those systems. But what serves that self-catering sector also are our small businesses, which serve the community as a whole, and very often as a single business within that community, and, if that business was lost, at off-peak times we would see the community suffer as well. Will you look at expanding the opportunities to small businesses in communities that serve the tourism sector but also serve the community, because the business rate relief for some of those is still forcing them, in off-peak times, to struggle?

I understand the point the Member makes very well. Llywydd, there are just over 5,000 properties classified as self-catering businesses in the data collection exercise carried out in 2017, and, of those, 96 per cent of them, over 4,800, were in receipt of assistance from the small business rate relief scheme. The wider point that David Rees points is to the case for aligning small business rate relief with the social as well as the economic purposes of the Welsh Government. We have an indiscriminate system. Businesses get small business rate relief whether that relief is essential to their business or not, and I'm interested to look at reforms that would better align the money that the public purse provides in this area with the economic and social outcomes that we are seeking to achieve.