5. Statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government: Visitor Levy Consultation

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:00 pm on 20 September 2022.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 5:00, 20 September 2022

Well, I think you're wrong in the sense that we're not introducing a tourism levy imminently. I think this is something that I do regret that the Conservatives have been portraying to people in the tourism industry as if this is something that the Welsh Government is going to be introducing overnight and imminently. It's absolutely not. We're introducing a consultation today to hear people's views on the proposals. And as colleagues will know, this will take a number of years to come to fruition. So, it's certainly not something that will be introduced imminently and that's because we have to consult, we have to consider all of those responses to the consultation—and I'm expecting a really strong response to the consultation—and then, of course, we have to formalise our legislative proposals, bring them to the Senedd, go through all of those stages in committees, through scrutiny, through amendments and so on, and then obviously move on to the implementation phase; all of that time looking at the kind of infrastructure that would be needed to support the implementation of a levy. So, for example, the registration scheme for businesses in the accommodation sector. That might help as part of the model for delivering on the levy and allowing us to implement it. The consultation document looks at a number of ways in which it could be implemented, and I'd encourage colleagues to express their views on which of those would be the most appropriate way forward. So, all of this will take a number of years. There won't be any tourism levy introduced imminently, but you'd never guess that when you look at the contributions from the Conservatives on social media. So, I do think that it does no justice to the tourism sector to be making them worried about something that isn't going to happen for some time and which they will have the opportunity to help us shape, in partnership, as we move forward.