Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Perran Moon
Main Page: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)Department Debates - View all Perran Moon's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy
Perran Moon Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Jim McMahon
It sounds like there is no intention to introduce an overnight visitor levy in that area for the foreseeable future. [Interruption.] Well, who knows? There may well be a change of heart in the future.
In the spirit of devolution, I do not think it is right for a Government to impose terms and conditions in a way that prevents local authorities from doing what they instinctively believe is right for their area. But equally, they will have to present their plans through the consultation, they will have to do the impact assessment, and they will need to get local agreement. Surely the best democratic accountability framework is holding elections, and the thing about mayors is that they are directly elected and accountable to the voting public.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Meur ras, Mr Speaker. As a Cornish MP, I am incredibly proud that this Government were elected on a platform of devolution. That means trusting the decisions of local authorities to raise an overnight levy or not. I appreciate that the Opposition parties do not trust their local authorities, but no one is forcing local authorities to raise the levy. Does the Minister agree that fiscal devolution is an essential aspect of moving powers and funding out of this place and directly into the hands of local people?
Jim McMahon
I think those are really important points. My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Cornwall and its economy, and he also recognises that the local partnerships that are developing are marshalling around devolution in quite an interesting way. Because of the representations that he and others have made, we have included foundation strategic authorities, so a mayor is not needed to introduce the levy. I think the wider growing-out of fiscal devolution is really exciting. We cannot have devolution if local authorities do not have the resources to get things done in their areas. Business rates retention, income tax retention and the overnight visitor levy are the first steps in that package of fiscal devolution that we have been waiting quite a long time for.