Tourism Levy

Debate between Lord Livermore and Lord Snape

Monday 14th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Lord is talking about something that, again, we have no present plans to introduce.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Will my noble friend bear in mind that cities as diverse as New York, Paris and Berlin have tourist taxes and that there is no noticeable lack of tourists in any of them? Would this not provide a valuable source of income, particularly for elected mayors, for example? Dynamic pricing—I understand that is what it is called—means that the price of a hotel room can vary by up to £100 a night, depending on the number of potential customers; a fiver or so will not make much difference in those circumstances.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My noble friend rightly points to different cities that have different systems in place. I think I said that different places in different countries choose to raise revenue from overnight visitors in different ways, depending on whether they are seeking to attract them, to accommodate the results of their visits or to deter them from coming. As I have said a number of times, we have no present plans to introduce visitor levy powers in England.