As they say, the devil is in the detail. 

Mike Weir MP, the SNP’s Business and Enterprise spokesperson at Westminster has discovered a major sting in the fine print of the Labour Government’s Pre Budget Report (PBR – and note than PBR used to stand for Public Borrowing Requirement – same thing really).

What Mr Weir discovered is that a discrimination – with funding implications (of course) is to be made between B&B operators and those who run self-catering businesses.

The former is to remain classified as a ‘trade’, eligible for business grants. Operators of self-catering businesses are to be classified as ‘landlords’, losing ‘holiday lets relief’.

Mr Weir has now tabled a series of emergency questions to the Treasury in a bid to uncover why the UK Government is pursuing this action. He has also tabled an Early Day Motion in parliament. His actions are vigorously supported by Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP.

Mike Weir points out: ’6,000 small holiday letting businesses across Scotland are a vital part of our rural economy. They cannot be allowed to suffer as a result of this technocratic stitch-up.

‘People who run self-catering lets are professionals offering a whole host of services from cleaning to providing information on local attractions. They must often conform to strict quality standards to gain VisitScotland ratings. To suggest that they operate the same service as residential landlords and are less skilled than people who also offer a simple meal is insulting and wrong’.

Even more unfairly, Mr Weir’s investigations have revealed that private owners of a single holiday home abroad and who let it out, will still be eligible for holiday lets relief where self-catering businesses in the UK will not.

Jim Mather, who, also as Minister for Enterprise and for Tourism, has a triple vested interest in the matter,describes is graphically as ‘the nightmare before Christmas for many small businesses’.

He says: ‘The SNP Government at Holyrood has helped many self-catering operators with its small business bonus, only for the Treasury to pull the rug from under their feet with this sort of ill-considered proposal.

‘These proposed changes will put many businesses at risk and jeopardise the valuable local trade that holiday lets generate for pubs, restaurants, shops, newsagents and other local businesses – often in remote rural areas where jobs and customers are at a premium. This is a serious threat and one that informed sources would have identified.

‘With our tourist authorities putting their energies into improving the standard of welcome that visitors to Scotland experience in bright, welcoming, well-equipped and furnished accommodation, it is unthinkable that the Treasury appears prepared with this proposal  to slam the door on those in the front line.

‘I will certainly be taking the matter forward with my colleagues and supporting Mike Weir’s efforts.’

Texts of Mike Weir MPs interventions at Westminster

Text of Weir’s Early Day Motion (EDM):

‘That this House calls on the Government to reconsider plans to abolish furnished holiday lets relief; recognises this decision will impact on the rural tourism industry by increasing the taxation burden on small businesses; understands the Treasury was attempting to close a loophole that allows people with a single holiday home abroad to get relief, but regrets Ministers have failed to differentiate between such cases and small tourist businesses; and further calls on the Government to urgently rethink this tax change before irreparable damage is caused.’

Texts of Weir’s questions to the Treasury

• ‘To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what representations his Department and HM Revenue and Customs have received from operators of long-term residential lets (a) on the equity of the system of furnished holiday lettings relief extended to operators of self-catering holiday properties and (b) seeking the abolition of such relief. (307292)’
• ‘To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what field research and site visits to self-catering properties were conducted by HM Revenue and Customs prior to the publication of its technical note, Withdrawing the Furnished Holiday Lettings Rules from 2010-11, published on 9 December 2009. (307293)’
• ‘To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HM Revenue and Customs took to determine the range of services characteristically offered by providers of self-contained accommodation prior to reaching the conclusion that the services and facilities provided by self-catering operators in receipt of furnished holiday lettings relief are not appropriate to secure classification as a trade. (307294)’

Related Posts

• Mike Mackenzie: a complex Nationalist (30)
• Raised taxes on fuel and whisky to hit Argyll and rural Scotland (1)
• Gary Mulvaney – no standard Tory (11)
• Jim Mather: over to us (20)
• Bute 2020 (8)

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