Martin Hannan: Put this to bed once and for all

I can understand why the cash-strapped council is looking for ways of raising money. The council’s broke, after all, and I would have thought that a few grey cells in the City Chambers might have come up with a good idea or two by now.

Maybe they have. It surely can’t be true that some mastermind in the High Street has put forward the idea of a panda tax, charging visitors to the zoo an extra quid to go to the public coffers. Our furry Chinese friends get all the bamboo shoots they can chew, and we get a bung to help pay for the trams. Makes sense of sorts.

Yet all joking aside, the council needs to raise money and fast. There is an obvious and simple way of bringing in oodles of cash, but the political fallout of, say, selling off some of the city’s rarely seen – because there’s no room to display them – works of art would be too damaging.

The point is that our councillors will not think the unthinkable. They will not allow things which should stay public, such as schools and playing fields, to be sold to the highest bidder, and that is the way it should be.

For some reason, however, you just have to say the word tourist and certain council officials and councillors respond in almost Pavlovian fashion by saying “tax them”.

Why kill the goose that is laying the golden egg? Study after study shows that Edinburgh is always second only to London as the most favoured UK destination for international travellers.

We are popular, because we have a unique selling point – our history and heritage. We should not impose taxes upon visitors who are here to see things that, after all, belong to the whole of Scotland. You might as well charge for paddling in Loch Lomond or viewing the Eildon Hills.

For what you do if you charge a bed tax, the form of tourism tax being considered by the council, is damage the whole product. If you charge, say, £2 or £3 per bed per night, that will be a family of four down a tenner or more. That’s money they won’t spend in visiting the Castle or buying souvenirs at the National Gallery.

Blinkered politician after blinkered politician has said: “How can we screw a few quid out of those tourists?” Their reasoning is always along the lines of “if they can afford a holiday, they can afford to cough up some dosh”, though they never add the rejoinder: “So that we can blow it on trams or whatever other expensive folly we’re promoting now.”

A tourist tax, therefore, breaks all the rules on good taxation – it will take no account of ability to pay, will cost the less well-off a proportionately greater price, it will be difficult to collect, and the direct benefit to the public purse might well be outweighed by the consequences in lost jobs and reduced income.

I can’t remember who it was who said during the week that the tax was unfair because it targeted one sector when plenty other parts of the local economy should be paying their dues – banks, for instance. Now there’s a point I can agree with – especially as certain financial institutions have reduced their sponsorship of local events since they got themselves in a fankle.

Supporters of a tourist tax say look at Venice, which has recently introduced a five euro bed tax. The difference there is that Venice’s tourism tax is going towards projects that will preserve the sinking city, and that is highly sensible because if tourists don’t contribute to Venice’s future, there won’t be any Venice for tourists to visit.

Here the fear is that a tourist tax would not go towards supporting events and organisations such as the Edinburgh Festival, but would be drained away into that vast public purse that pays for trams – oops, that word again.

And while I am at it, I merely pass on an observation from a friend in the marketing industry that allowing major brands to sponsor the Edinburgh festivals would bring in more money for them than any tourism tax.

The only hope is that the SNP government will tell its colleagues in the council to think again and veto the tax. The Scottish Government is very dubious about the tourist tax, very dubious indeed, and as a good SNP member I think the chaps and chapesses at Holyrood have got this one right.

VisitScotland also wants it like a hole in the head, and the city’s conference organisers know only too well that Glasgow and Manchester, and even Newcastle and Liverpool, are standing by to offer cheaper alternatives should Edinburgh commit financial suicide.

The good thing is that a tourist tax in this city will require primary legislation at Holyrood at the least, and possibly a full referral to Westminster.

It would get short shrift at the former and has no chance of seeing the light of day at the latter.

It is a bad idea whose time hasn’t come. Bin it, councillors, and save yourselves some opprobrium.