CLA says new tourist tax sends ‘wrong signal’ for rural Cornwall

A tax that Cornwall doesn’t currently have the power to introduce is still making waves here, because of who it affects if it ever does.

What’s actually being announced

The government has confirmed plans to let mayors across England introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy, a charge on hotel and holiday accommodation stays, worth up to around 5 per cent of the bill. The power goes to England’s 13 Mayoral Strategic Authorities, city-region areas such as London, Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire that have a directly elected mayor. Local leaders would set their own rate and decide how to spend the money, with the levy not expected to take effect before 2028.

Why it doesn’t touch Cornwall, for now

Cornwall Council doesn’t have an elected mayor, and doesn’t want one. In 2023 the council abandoned a devolution deal that would have created the role after 69 per cent of respondents to a public consultation said no to it. Cornwall’s more recent devolution agreement, struck last month, sees the council itself take on the powers of a Foundation Strategic Authority instead, with no mayor and no new tier of government. That means the mayoral visitor levy simply isn’t a power on the table here, at least under the current deal.

The CLA’s objection

That hasn’t stopped the Country Land and Business Association weighing in. The CLA represents landowners, farmers and rural businesses across England and Wales, and its president, Gavin Lane, has criticised the levy as part of a wider pattern he calls incoherent.

“A tourism levy sends entirely the wrong signal at a time when many rural businesses are already under significant financial pressure,” Gavin said. “Business taxes seem as incoherent as they have ever been. Increasing taxes via a visitor levy while at the same time reducing VAT on visitor attractions and business rates for pubs and clubs seems very poorly thought through and confusing.”

He pointed to recent profit warnings from Greggs and Wetherspoons as evidence that hospitality is already struggling with 20 per cent VAT, business rates and rising labour costs, pressures he says are worse still in rural areas with poor transport links, patchy broadband and restrictive planning rules. “Rather than introducing new costs for visitors and businesses, policymakers should focus on creating the conditions for this vital sector to thrive,” he said.

It’s worth being clear that this is the CLA’s own assessment of a national policy debate, not a claim about any specific decision made in Cornwall.

📷fields and cottages in the cornish village of calstock

Where Cornwall actually comes in

The CLA isn’t a distant voice on this one. It has a standing agreement with Cornwall Council, signed at the Royal Cornwall Show, to work together on issues including the visitor economy and devolution, and Cornwall has one of the highest concentrations of CLA members anywhere in the country given how much of the county’s farming land supports diversified rural businesses.

A lot of those farms have diversified into exactly the kind of business a visitor levy would eventually touch: holiday cottages, glamping pods, farm shops and cafes built to keep an income going when the price of milk or lamb won’t cover the bills alone. Even without a mayor of its own, Cornwall’s rural economy leans heavily on the same visitor spending the CLA is talking about, which is presumably why a policy aimed at Manchester and London has a Cornish landowners’ group weighing in at all.