Meeting of the Parliament 24 March 2026 [Draft]
I agree with that point from my friend Mr Carson—he is absolutely right. As he will have done, I have seen surveys that start by asking people, “How would you like to see this money spent in your community?” It is interesting, however, that, in so many consultations, even against that backdrop, people are coming back with a negative response. Even with that biased wording pointing in one direction, people realise that there are downsides to a visitor levy.
The bill that is before us makes a number of significant changes. It allows councils flexibility to introduce a flat fee—or tiered flat fee—visitor levy, rather than a percentage. When the original legislation was before us in 2024, we submitted amendments on having a flat fee, but the SNP and the Greens voted against them and Labour abstained. I am pleased that, following substantial pressure here in the Parliament and from the industry, the Government has finally accepted its error and the legislation will give councils greater flexibility. It is just a pity that the Government did not do that in the first place.
That change has been welcomed by industry representatives. For example, Marc Crothall of the Scottish Tourism Alliance has said that a flat fee
“would be much more transparent and easier to display to the guest”.
Fiona Campbell of the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers has said:
“it is regrettable that … challenges were not addressed earlier and that the legislation was not … fit for purpose from the outset.”
The second problem identified, which the bill seeks to correct, is that booking platforms were not able to properly charge the visitor levy for guests staying more than five nights, so businesses had to process manual refunds for those staying for such periods. In October last year, David Weston of the Scottish Bed and Breakfast Association said:
“We’re in a ridiculous and unacceptable situation … where hotels and B&Bs are forced to either break the law on the visitor levy or break the laws on price marking and price quoting, because they’re literally in the position where systems can’t do it.”
In May 2025, 78 representatives of the tourism and hospitality industry co-signed a letter to the Scottish Government demanding that such problems be sorted out.
We have the bill before us, which is welcome, but there are significant problems with the visitor levy, which we highlighted in our amendments at stages 2 and 3. Councils still have the power to charge it to people travelling within Scotland to stay overnight for medical appointments. As we heard from my colleague Tim Eagle during last week’s discussion on amendments at stage 3, City of Edinburgh Council has granted no exemption for travel from other parts of the country. Indeed, there is no incentive for it to do so, because the charges impact not on Edinburgh residents but on residents from other parts of Scotland, such as the Highlands and Islands. There is nothing that people from the Highlands and Islands or their councils can do about that. We should have had a more generous and extensive national exemption scheme to deal with such unfairness, and we should have considered whether low-cost affordable accommodation, such as in camping and caravan sites, should have been exempted.
The legislation that is likely to be passed today will not be the last word on the visitor levy. I hope that we will see further revisions in the future. In the meantime, I hope that councils will not see the levy as a means of making up for SNP cuts and will consider carefully the negative impact that such levies have on local economies. Every week, hospitality businesses are going to the wall due to rising costs, exacerbated by the current rates revaluation. The visitor levy should not sound the death knell of the Scottish hospitality and tourism sector. Scottish Conservatives will support the bill, but a lot more needs to be done to support our tourism sector.