DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Tourist tax report is a shot of common sense
Earlier this month, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt asked for fresh evidence of the economic impact of the ill-judged and unpopular tourist tax.
So a new study by the respected Centre for Economics and Business Research think-tank, commissioned in part by the Daily Mail, should make essential reading in 11 Downing Street.
Its findings are persuasive – and powerful. Reinstating duty-free shopping for foreign visitors would encourage so many more to come here that Britain would be a whopping £10billion a year better off.
This bonanza wouldn’t simply be confined to a few luxury retailers in London’s West End. Wealthy tourists would also splash the cash in hotels, restaurants, theatres, taxis and other places up and down the land.
Indeed, the CEBR says so much extra tax would be generated for the Treasury it would hugely outweigh the £2billion cost of reimbursing the VAT on their purchases.
Earlier this month, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt asked for fresh evidence of the economic impact of the ill-judged and unpopular tourist tax
This is further proof that Rishi Sunak’s baffling decision, as chancellor, to make it significantly more expensive for tourists to shop in the UK is a classic false economy. They are now simply heading to other cities on the Continent to buy goods.
As Andrew Hinds, chairman of F. Hinds the Jewellers, warns: ‘When we should be straining every sinew to boost economic growth, it doesn’t make sense.’
With the public finances so fragile, Britain can’t afford to deter big-spending visitors.
The tourist tax is iniquitous, self-defeating and un-Tory. Bolstered by the conclusions of today’s analysis, Mr Hunt should scrap it.
Driven to despair
One of the most ferocious debates in British politics is being conducted not nationally, but locally.
It concerns the ever creeping imposition of controversial low-traffic neighbourhoods, which have become electorally toxic.
Unleashed by the Tories during the pandemic but seized upon by Left-wing councils, they are intended to reduce pollution and encourage healthier lifestyles by getting people out of their vehicles.
By blocking roads with bollards and giant planters, these pernicious anti-car schemes are causing misery and inconvenience
It has not worked out like that. By blocking roads with bollards and giant planters, these pernicious anti-car schemes are causing misery and inconvenience.
They divide communities, make life harder for the elderly, families and tradesmen who rely on private vehicles, delay emergency vehicles and damage businesses.
And research suggests that by forcing traffic on to clogged main roads, they have made air quality worse, not better.
So we warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s review of LTNs, which could lead to many of them being scrapped.
A grassroots rebellion is springing up against the illiberal anti-car agenda, so it makes good sense for the Tories to be on the side of the motorist – creating a sharp dividing line with Labour.
We all want cleaner air, but this should be achieved through technological advances, not compulsion.
The damning truth is, too many LTNs are simply revenue-creating tools draped in the robes of green piety.
Running out of energy
Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) has pledged to ban new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea
Before unveiling his latest energy plans in Aberdeen, Mr Sunak spelled out how disastrous Labour’s eco policies would be.
Sir Keir Starmer’s green policies, which include a ban on new North Sea oil and gas drilling, would risk blackouts, cost jobs and leave us more reliant on energy imports.
The PM’s right, of course. But he’d be on firmer ground if the Tories hadn’t spent 13 years neglecting our energy security.
Inexplicably, they’ve shelved fracking and closed gas storage facilities, and a report by MPs dismisses the target to build a nuclear power station every year as a ‘wish list’.
What is the old saying about stones and glasshouses?
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