Chamber and committees

It will be for individual local authorities to decide whether or not to apply a levy if they consider it appropriate for local circumstances.

Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area, including ford river crossings, and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic. It would therefore be a matter for the relevant local authority to undertake any necessary EIAs.

Scottish Ministers are responsible for the strategic trunk road network including motorways. There are no ford river crossings on the trunk road network.

Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area, including ford river crossings, and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic. Access to properties would therefore be a matter for each local authority.

Scottish Ministers are responsible for the strategic trunk road network including motorways. There are no ford river crossings on the trunk road network.

Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads, including ford river crossings, in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic.

Scottish Ministers are responsible for the strategic trunk road network including motorways. There are no ford river crossings on the trunk road network.

Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic. This includes any ford river crossings on the local road network.

Scottish Ministers are responsible for the strategic trunk road network including motorways.

In 2019-20 the Scottish Government is delivering a funding package of £11.2 billion for local authorities, a real terms increase of £310 million or 2.9 per cent for essential public services in Scotland.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities having first fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategic objectives.

The Scottish Government invested £100,000 to develop a campaign to promote tourism as a career of choice, to be launched in 2020, building on Skills Development Scotland's Tourism Skills Investment Plan, that aims to address existing and future skills challenges across the sector, particularly those arising due to EU exit. Our new Programme for Government also commits us to encouraging more fair work practices, including payment of the Real Living Wage, which will support the promotion of careers in the sector. We are also working on the Tourism Sector Deal proposals to support careers in the sector.

To date the government has not carried out any research on the impact on local authority income. It will be for individual local authorities to decide whether or not to apply a levy if they consider it appropriate for local circumstances.

We have not as yet introduced a Transient Levy Bill to Parliament.

A number of businesses and business representative organisations participated in and contributed to the Scottish Government’s National Discussion on Tourist Taxes, held at the end of 2018, both by attending round table discussions and providing written contributions.

We are currently consulting publicly on the principles of a Transient Visitor Levy Bill and welcome responses from industry leaders, trade bodies and other stakeholders.

The Transient Visitor Levy will not be a national tax and it will be for individual local authorities to decide whether or not to apply levy if they consider it appropriate for the local community. Money raised by those local authorities who introduce a levy will be additional to money in the local government settlement and will not be subject to any pooling or redistribution.

We heard strong arguments through the National Discussion on Tourist tax, held at the end of 2018, that money raised by any levy should be spent on tourism related activities, including responding to tourism pressures, in the local authority area that imposed the levy. The current consultation seeks further views on this principle.