§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will publish a table showing nationally, regionally and for each district, the central Government provision in the standard spending assessment for tourist expenditure and the expenditure on and income from tourism; and if he will take steps to encourage local authorities to recover expenditure on tourism from a tourist tax.
§ Mr. KeyI have been asked to reply.
Tourism will have an impact on a range of services provided by local authorities. These include those provided by districts, for example, on environmental health, refuse collection and street cleaning. There will also be an impact on a wider range of services, predominantly provided by counties, such as police and highway maintenance. For some services it is possible for the authorities concerned to offset expenditure with income from charges; car parking and leisure facilities are the most obvious examples.
There is no explicit element for tourism within the standard spending assessment for an authority, but, within the standard spending assessment components for district and county level services generally, the annual number of domestic visitor nights spent in the authority is one of the factors used in the distribution. A table showing the amount of standard spending assessment distributed on the basis of this factor alone for 1991–92 has been placed in the Library.
I am also placing in the Library a table showing the latest information on estimated central Government expenditure on tourism-related activities; and one on income from tourism as measured by the estimated spending of visitors.
On the question of a tourist tax, the Government have no specific proposals in this area. However, we are willing to consider as part of the local government review any suggestion for new local sources of revenue which might assist authorities in this area.