The first day of October will mark the official beginning of the disastrous short-term lets legislation. All evidence is pointing towards a catastrophic effect on the tourism industry and thus Scotland’s wider economy.
The legislation requires all short-term let owners to license their properties. Despite the good intentions, namely to tackle anti-social behaviour and the “party flats” issue in cities, it has created significant additional expense and bureaucracy. But instead of implementing a targeted approach, the Scottish Government has chosen a blanket requirement for the entirety of Scotland. The reach is as far as traditional B&Bs, rural guest houses and individuals renting rooms - even mountain rescue clubs.
Of course, there is no evidence of anti-social behaviour issues in the vast majority of these cases so a sensible approach would have been to devolve responsibility to the individual local authorities to decide on their own case by case basis.
The Scottish Conservatives attempted to halt the legislation by using our opposition time to call for a delay in the licensing scheme. Despite Labour, the Liberal Democrats and SNP backbencher Fergus Ewing backing the motion in the name of my colleague Murdo Fraser MSP, the simple Holyrood party arithmetic means that the SNP and Greens have managed to force this unwanted scheme through Parliament.
This is in no way opposition scaremongering but is instead a legitimate response reflecting on directly what the industry and experts are telling us. A survey by the Association of Scottish Self Caterers has shown that two-thirds of short-term let owners are thinking of leaving the sector. An AirBNB study revealed the laws could cost £133 million to the economy and risk 7,000 jobs, and a report to Edinburgh Council forecasts up to 80% of short-term lets may have to close. This is in addition to the numerous individual accounts from business owners, warnings from senior spokespeople in the industry, and the constituents who have written to me directly about this scheme.
It is deeply regrettable, yet unsurprising, that another anti-business and anti-growth policy is on its way with a reckless disregard for its consequences on hardworking people. It is once again a sad example of the SNP-Greens’ ideologically driven approach as opposed to what people expect to see from their government – pragmatic, consensual and evidence-based decision making.
The scheme joins the large list of previous policies including the unworkable Gender Recognition Bill, the botched Deposit Return Scheme, and the devastating Highly Protected Marine Area proposals, to name just three examples that have happened in the last year.
It is no surprise at all that recent figures showed that just 9% of firms believed the SNP understands business. If this isn’t a wake up call to the SNP backbenchers who have enabled this scheme, and many more like it before, I don’t know what will.
