Regulations of short-term lets in the UK and Scotland
15 January 2025, 10:00am (GMT)

00:00:07 Speaker 1

Hello everybody.

00:00:11 Speaker 1

I am Jessica Stacy, Situ's Partner Engagement Manager.

00:00:15 Speaker 1

Situ is a global accommodation agency and we're so proud to launch the first beyond booking webinar series.

00:00:21

All right.

00:00:23 Speaker 1

I will just to let you know we will be waiting for our last speaker, Alistair to join, but without any further ado, I will now hand over to Richard from VR Consultants Ltd, which will be our brilliant host today. So, Richard, I'll hand over.

00:00:41 Speaker 2

Thank you, Jessica. Yeah, thank you for calling me a brilliant host.

00:00:46 Speaker 2

I will correct one of the things on the e-mail is I'm not an expert in legislation. The two incumbents here, Fiona and Alistair. When he arrives are the go-to people and all things related to legislation in this industry.

00:01:00 Speaker 2

Anyway, so thank you for having me. This is a really super important topic and will affect everybody in the short-term rental industry.

00:01:12 Speaker 2

You've had an introduction. I have a small consulting company and I work with situ on some topics and I'm super happy to be involved in this beyond booking webinar series.

00:01:24 Speaker 2

So we're really aware that the audience is seeking clarity on lots of these issues and I suspect there are people from all across the country here which will be England, Scotland and Wales.

00:01:39 Speaker 2

And I'm going to hand off to Fiona initially and then ask there when he when he arrives.

00:01:48 Speaker 2

And give yourself an introduction, Fiona, but also explain the role of the association. Also roll back the rocks today in terms of what you actually do, because associations are often seen as something in the background.

00:02:03 Speaker 2

And they are becoming hyper important I feel.

00:02:07 Speaker 3

Thank you very much indeed. And thanks, Jessica. And everyone at city for this opportunity. It's lovely to see everybody and hi, Alistair.

00:02:16 Speaker 3

The Association of Scotland Self Caters was established in 1978, so we've been around for an awfully long time. It feels like I've been there for that whole time, but I actually haven't. I've only been here for 10 years. We are the second oldest association representing this sector in the world.

00:02:33 Speaker 3

And we currently have around 1700 members.

00:02:37 Speaker 3

So obviously we support the sector in terms of guidance sheets.

00:02:43 Speaker 3

Support and advice and marketing platform and all of those are the good things, but a lot of the reason why people Join Now is for the reason that we're here today, which is around the advocacy and lobbying piece. So we become the voice of all of our Members. We make sure that we are putting the SCC at the front of all conversations when it comes to regulations.

00:03:03 Speaker 3

Whether it's about specific regulations for our sector, for example, short term licencing and planning up in Scotland.

00:03:09 Speaker 3

Whether it's a wider conversation like visitor levies, which is taking up an awful lot of my time at the.

00:03:15 Speaker 3

At the moment, so I think yes, you're absolutely right, Richard. Associations are actually becoming more and more important because our sector is so diverse and so divergent and made-up of multiple, multiple small operators, that's really critical.

00:03:31 Speaker 3

For organisations like the air to see and past to represent those small voices as one united voice, and that's what Alistar and idea across the whole of the UK, I concentrate on Scotland he concentrates, bless his heart on UK, on England and Wales and Wales.

00:03:47 Speaker 3

So I suppose that's kind of a very fast whistle stop tour. We also work with valued partners such as situ and people that work behind the scenes to support our sector.

00:03:59 Speaker 3

Thereby kind of creating this amazing community vibrant community that represents the ecosystem that is short term, led licencing or self catering. We call it self catering.

00:04:07 Speaker 2

OK. Yeah, you can call it vacation rental, safe catering, short term rentals, holiday homes, holiday, letting holiday, let's. We've been through all these, but that's a nice segue into Alistair who's been around the block as well.

00:04:16 Speaker 3

Oliver.

00:04:37 Speaker 2

Or did I break up there? Did I break up?

00:04:41 Speaker 3

Does Jessica. Jess, do you need to allow Alistair to come off mute or something? Possibly.

00:04:50 Speaker 1

Alistair, I do believe you have access to your mic.

00:05:01 Speaker 3

Apparently not even.

00:05:03 Speaker 2

Apparently no.

00:05:06 Speaker 2

Can you hear us all? Listen.

00:05:10 Speaker 2

OK, but you can't speak.

00:05:13 Speaker 2

No, in which case while you're figuring that out, I'll jump back to Fiona because one of the things I think we're all really interested in is the.

00:05:21 Speaker 2

The challenges you've faced in Scotland and how that's going to potentially affect the decision making processes South of the border because we're obviously looking for more holiday makers South and you've probably lost some going north.

00:05:35 Speaker 3

We're pushing them down South, we're doing a super job up pair. I tell you, the Scottish Government, in their infinite wisdom, has been listening to a lot of people who have created since 2017 very decent narrative around the fact that self catering or short term let impact.

00:05:52 Speaker 3

Housing stock and create antisocial behaviour and.

00:05:57 Speaker 3

Leave litter in the streets and and I think it was pizza boxes specifically the other day that we were criticised for. We've also been blamed for being sex traffickers, drug dealers and puppy farmers in a public forum which I constantly push back at them, for which.

00:06:14 Speaker 3

The head of police does have not has no evidence whatsoever, but that's what she was saying anyway. That aside? So they decided to introduce short term licencing and associated planning regulations.

00:06:26 Speaker 3

A long time ago, the conversation has been live since about 20/17/2018. They then introduced said regulations in 2022 and the result has been absolutely catastrophic. So.

00:06:41 Speaker 3

Our our sector has paid 15,000,000.

00:06:45 Speaker 3

To continue operating in the way that some of them have been doing for decades.

00:06:49 Speaker 3

So.

00:06:50 Speaker 3

It's yet another kind of tax. Essentially, it has not improved antisocial behaviour, it has not improved health and safety and it is most definitely not solve the housing crisis. So as far as I'm concerned, the whole thing has been an absolutely unmitigated disaster. We've won four legal challenges.

00:07:08 Speaker 3

Against Edinburgh Council and Highland Council and we continue to push back the Scottish Government on top of all of this, we're seeing people leaving the sector left, right and centre.

00:07:18 Speaker 3

We're now seeing more people leaving on the basis that the visitor levy is now coming in and again it has been pushed through legislatively, very, very poorly, terrible drafting. It's open for legal challenge, which?

00:07:32 Speaker 3

Spotted and flagged to the Scottish Government yesterday.

00:07:35 Speaker 3

Yeah, it's just another disaster. You know, I do think it's really important regulations and legislation is meant to support sectors, not clobber them. And unfortunately, the policies that Scotland has developed has done the diametric opposite.

00:07:49 Speaker 3

That so we will continue to work on behalf of the sector to support the people in it and to try and mitigate against some of the worst excesses of the regulations.

00:07:51

You don't think?

00:08:01 Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks, Fiona. Kind of segues into Alistair here. So welcome, Alistair. I'm glad everything's working now.

00:08:09 Speaker 2

So jump back to the beginning, a bit of an introduction of yourself. Why the association between you past LSC is so important and why everybody should pay attention because of the the avalanche of legislation.

00:08:25 Speaker 2

And potential legislation coming down the line.

00:08:28

And.

00:08:29 Speaker 4

OK. Thank you, Richard. Thank you City for inviting us on.

00:08:35 Speaker 4

We are much, much.

00:08:38 Speaker 4

Much more recent than the ISS, we've only been going for nine years.

00:08:44 Speaker 4

But it does appear and say for a little.

00:08:45 Speaker 4

Longer one of.

00:08:47 Speaker 4

The main reasons that trade associations across the whole hospitality sector are growing.

00:08:54 Speaker 4

Is because of the level of interventions.

00:08:58 Speaker 4

You know, if the government left us alone completely and had done for the last decade.

00:09:02 Speaker 4

And I would have much more time on my hands, I'm sure. So it's partly driven by.

00:09:08 Speaker 4

By the interventions of government and businesses of all sizes, from very large agencies, right down to somebody who has a yurt or a shepherd's heart and every diverse.

00:09:21 Speaker 4

Option in the middle has got no idea how to keep up with all of this. There is so much stuff it's almost you used to an avalanche. I normally agree with you entirely, Richard, but I'm I prefer the word tsunami. It it, it describes it better. So you know it's it's.

00:09:38 Speaker 4

It's a ridiculously.

00:09:40 Speaker 4

Complex.

00:09:41 Speaker 4

That makes coming down and I think that the and I work together all the time. We have a an MOU between the two associations to collaborate wherever we can works really well. But the biggest problem is that none of the governments, England, Scotland, Wales.

00:09:58 Speaker 4

Ever look at everything in the round? Each economic impact assessment, if they ever do 1, is only based on that silo. It's not based on the combination effects. And I say if I have one new year wish it would be that each of the three governments did a combination economic impact assessment.

00:10:15 Speaker 4

Because then we would see significant, significant.

00:10:17 Speaker 4

Change so that all sounds a bit negative, but you know what the associations are there for and the wasteful I was explaining this to an agency group yesterday was we've got your backs so that you can keep up to date with all this. Be informed, know the information is accurate and reliable.

00:10:34 Speaker 4

Without having to use Google, Google is wonderful, but has its flaws. Facebook is occasionally wonderful, but has deep flaws if you're searching.

00:10:42 Speaker 4

Anything that's on taxation or regulatory, and we're very careful about what we published, so we can be relied upon. And I think that's another message to get across to people on the call that you need to be very careful where you're getting tax and regulatory information from because you're running a business based upon.

00:11:01 Speaker 4

I still think that.

00:11:03 Speaker 2

Yes, another segue there, Alice through, because the guy going to get into the detail of some of this now as well, just to know exactly what the regulations are across England, Scotland and Wales. So you know number of.

00:11:14

OK.

00:11:18 Speaker 2

Days stay and everything else related to that and then.

00:11:21 Speaker 2

You know, be quite good to move into the FHL challenge coming as well, but could you just explain that the fundamentals of what needs to be covered if you are a short term renter of any description, I don't know if you're going to pick this up for England or Wales or separately for Scotland or they cross borders?

00:11:40 Speaker 2

But maybe.

00:11:41 Speaker 4

OK, if we do Scotland first ladies 1st and then.

00:11:47 Speaker 4

Any that differ because they do differ in England and Wales we can. So if Fiona does Scotland Pacific, I'll do Wales specific and then do a short summary of the ones coming in England.

00:11:58 Speaker 2

OK. Fiona, over to you.

00:12:00 Speaker 3

Thank you, Alistair, ever the gentleman. So in Scotland, I suppose this makes sense because in Scotland it's done. So the short term, let licencing any property that is rented out commercially overnight has to have a short term let licence unless it is a part of landlord.

00:12:15 Speaker 3

Tenancy agreement. So you need to apply for your licence. There are 32 different schemes across the 32 different local authorities. They cost anywhere between 205 and 5962 lbs.

00:12:28 Speaker 3

For a licence between one or three years, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I won't go into the detail, but you can of course get all of that detail in our extremely extensive FAQ that we developed for the government and for Visit Scotland.

00:12:43 Speaker 3

Which can be found on the website which is Asse.

00:12:48 Speaker 3

In addition to that, they've introduced planning control areas.

00:12:51 Speaker 3

Again, broadly speaking, there are only two at the moment, one in Edinburgh and one in Ward 20 of the Highlands. But other places such as Fife and Moray are mooting the point that they want to introduce a planning control area essentially in a planning control area.

00:13:07 Speaker 3

You need to have plan. You need to get planning permission in order to operate as a short term. Let secondary let specifically so a self catering an entire property.

00:13:18 Speaker 3

Three of the legal challenges have been around the fact that they cannot apply that retrospectively, but they all tried to so going forward. If you're an existing operator, you do not need to get planning permission unless there's a material change.

00:13:32 Speaker 3

But new operators will have to get planned permission. The point is, I've just done a huge piece of work on number of empty homes and 2nd homes in Scotland and some of the data is quite shocking. So, for example in Argyll and Bute, there's something it's 2700.

00:13:50 Speaker 3

Secondary, let's say self catering units.

00:13:52 Speaker 3

And 12 1/2 thousand empty and 2nd homes. You do the maths? Are we creating the housing crisis? No, we're not. So that's planning control areas. Obviously we've got the visitor levy coming in, which is a massive hit. You have to pay VAT on top of the visitor levy and the money that comes in from the visits levy is.

00:14:13 Speaker 3

Turnover. So you'll be paying tax on the visitor levy. Great. And for many it will push them into the VAT threshold.

00:14:20 Speaker 3

So that's hugely difficult to follow in Scotland, we have got the small business bonus scheme and in order to be eligible for the small business bonus scheme, you have to be available for 140 days and actually let for 70.

00:14:38 Speaker 3

Now that for us is fine, we supported that position. What we didn't support was what Wales did, which alastair's going to come on to in a moment. And I will let Alistair talk about a furnished holiday, let taxation abolition, because that's a fun one.

00:14:53 Speaker 3

Over to you.

00:14:54 Speaker 4

OK, there are a couple that will have UK wide impacts. Fhl abolition is the first that takes away various tax allowances for people who operate in the sector.

00:15:10 Speaker 4

It's very complicated. It does depend how your business is structured, but this was a specific structure created.

00:15:19 Speaker 4

About 40 years ago, for short term self Catering holiday labs. So it's not a taxable, it was a regime designed by HMRC to.

00:15:31 Speaker 4

Work for that sector so it's being abolished. We believe that it will be abolished. We've worked our.

00:15:38 Speaker 4

What's it's off to try and stop it being abolished or mitigate it? The only thing that's likely to happen now is that we may get it. We may get a delay to align with other Finance Bill legislation.

00:15:53 Speaker 4

And this I want you to bring this one up first because this is the danger of bringing in any tax measures and this will be repeated again when we come to the Wales tourism levy when you don't have the data.

00:16:06 Speaker 4

And the data that would be provided by statutory registration, we did a Freedom of Information requests to the Treasury on it, and they're basically they're they're they're their data on it, their economic impact assessment is that the, the, the number of people that will be affected by this is not very many.

00:16:25 Speaker 4

Well, I beg to differ really. So if you don't have the data, it's very difficult to have good policy and you're going to hear that as a repeating theme through all the work that Fiona and I do together.

00:16:37 Speaker 4

So FHL, we have got some expert advice in to help us table a formal amendment asking for a year's delay we on advice.

00:16:46 Speaker 4

People much more expert than myself. That is possibly the maximum that we would be able to get.

00:16:53 Speaker 4

We then move on to we got.

00:16:56 Speaker 4

Labour reforms coming and how housekeeping, you know, casual labour may be employed. I'm not going to say any more than that, but we are watching what that will mean like a hawk, because it will have an impact on the peaceful that deliver.

00:17:09 Speaker 4

The actual service at ground level. Then there is EPC for England and Wales. You already have them in Scotland.

00:17:18 Speaker 4

That's a whole consultation in England and Wales, on the whole EPC system and anybody doing commercial letting will be rolled into that. We were previously exempt. That closes on the 22nd of February, the consultation. So we're all over that and we'll be asking our members and readers.

00:17:36 Speaker 4

Information on that and last of all, there is and by no means least of all.

00:17:42 Speaker 4

Report.

00:17:44 Speaker 4

Large number of our Members do long term lets in the sense of what we've always caused in our centre. Winter let's you know in the winter you let the property for 2-3 months at a reduced rate or whatever. It's been a common practise for 40 years.

00:17:58 Speaker 4

That may become impossible under renters reform, or so difficult as to be.

00:18:05 Speaker 4

Not worthwhile. We do not have the detail we we keep trying to. We've requested again another meeting with it's now called Ministry of Housing, not Department of Levelling Up. We requested again yesterday another meeting to get a full update on the direction of travel of.

00:18:20 Speaker 4

Essentially what really WREX? It is the desire to have a hard and fast section 21.

00:18:26 Speaker 4

Which means that you can't evict anybody pretty much for any reason at all, and therefore, even if you let somebody in for 60 days, if they don't choose to pay at the end of it, how do you get them out when you want to bring your summer guests in very complex? And we have a work thread on that.

00:18:42 Speaker 4

Then we come down to what might be a positive.

00:18:46 Speaker 4

Which is statutory registration.

00:18:48 Speaker 4

In England, I'll do England first because England could actually be a case study of how to do it. If DCMS get it right, which is just a safe and legal aspect.

00:18:57 Speaker 4

Have you got a fire risk assessment? You've got a gas certificate. Do you own the property? Where is it? How does it sleep? Register and off you go.

00:19:07 Speaker 4

That would give the data that would be. That would be sufficient. That would also give the consumers confidence and would create a level playing field. That's all it needs to be, and currently that's what it is in England. In England, the number of days that you have to let for, for, for, to be on business rates.

00:19:25 Speaker 4

And in most cases benefit from small business rates really is 70 days left, 140 days available.

00:19:31 Speaker 4

We now skip to Wales in Wales, the threshold got raised three years ago to 182 days left.

00:19:40 Speaker 4

And 252 days available. This is this is way too high. I mean, if you've got a, you know, lovely £2,000,000 property on Abersot beach and you price it right, you'd probably do 365 days if you got a boppy in the Brecon Beacons, you haven't got a chance. If you're really good at marketing, you might be able to get 182 days. If you're just a small diversified farm, you.

00:20:00 Speaker 4

On every social media course.

00:20:02 Speaker 4

It's A1 size fits all calamity. It's causing massive mental health problems. It's causing all kinds of issues, especially as Wales is down 23 percent, 2024 or 2023. How do you hit an artificial target?

00:20:17 Speaker 4

If the market is reducing by 1/4 so we have got a major campaign to try and get that reduce.

00:20:24 Speaker 4

I'll take any questions on that.

00:20:26 Speaker 4

In Wales they have talked about strategy registration, but they're aiming towards a licencing so nearer to Fiona's somewhere in the middle, which is why we're desperate to get England done to show the benefits. But what they're also doing in Wales.

00:20:41 Speaker 4

Is they brought the statutory registration in at pace because they can't bring the levy that they're proposing to bring in unless they have all the registered businesses to tax. So they're not doing any of the bit that we want. They're just doing the bit so they can.

00:20:56 Speaker 4

The owners, now a really interesting statistic on their own data, is that they assessed how much this would impact the Welsh economy and they said that there was somewhere between 6:00 and 15,000 businesses.

00:21:12 Speaker 4

Sorry 6 and 16,000 and 55,000 businesses that would have to charge it. Now how do you do as business people out there? And then we got economic impact assessment if you don't know how many customers you might target.

00:21:26 Speaker 4

In a campaign, well, says the marketing direction between 15 and 55,000, the MD might say. Could you be a bit more precise on that a bit more, a bit more focused, bit more. So it's again, like Fiona said, very flawed and we're pushing back on that. We have oral evidence in at the end of this month.

00:21:45 Speaker 4

I think there may well be some changes on the levy. The difference about a levy rather than something that appears to hit second homeowners or property owners is that a levy?

00:21:56 Speaker 4

Public's pocket and.

00:22:00 Speaker 4

Charging children Welsh children to go on holiday is going down like a sack of spuds. OK, so you know, there are sometimes we have to use strange allies and strange angles to win arguments.

00:22:15 Speaker 4

I think.

00:22:17 Speaker 4

That's the fastest I can do. There are 17 all together. If you've got time, you haven't. But if you follow past, if you follow the nssc, you will be kept up to date on all of these.

00:22:31 Speaker 2

Well, thank, thank you, Alistair. That was almost.

00:22:34 Speaker 2

Poor tent of doom.

00:22:36 Speaker 3

Can I jump in then? Can I jump in there just just to follow up with what Alice was saying? I think the argument in Scotland certainly, and it will be the same in Wales and anywhere else that bring it in as well, we pay a visit tourist tax when we go to Italy or or Spain or whatever.

00:22:38

Yeah.

00:22:52 Speaker 3

Yes, but the fact is, in Italy and Spain A they do not charge their nationals and B they have a very simple small fixed.

00:23:00 Speaker 3

Fee and they don't have 20% VAT. So for anybody to compare like for like is just completely pointless. But when I go out into the street and I said do you realise that you're going to be paying it when you go on your next break to the Highlands or the Argyll and Bute or you're going on business?

00:23:18 Speaker 3

To Edinburgh or you're going to visit somebody that's in hospital in Inverness. You'll be paying the visitor's levy. That's gone down like the said.

00:23:27 Speaker 3

Sack of spuds. It's exactly the same thing. People just don't realise it applies to them. It's a tax on the British.

00:23:32 Speaker 3

Eole.

00:23:33 Speaker 2

So. So a couple of questions for.

00:23:35 Speaker 2

Of you actually.

00:23:38 Speaker 2

One is you have an incredible amount of knowledge about what's going on, and I know personally that you deal at very high levels as well, and I think it's probably quite good for the audience to know what level you're dealing with. This isn't. This isn't website information, this is dealing with very high level government individuals. It's quite interesting to hear.

00:23:56 Speaker 2

Who you've spoken to and how you're constantly lobbying against these.

00:23:59 Speaker 2

These things, but also I'm pretty sure on the in the audience here as people with traditional short term rental cottages. But there's also service departments and DM OS and everybody else in here as well. And they're all beginning to face the same challenges that you both just raised.

00:24:18 Speaker 2

So are there?

00:24:19 Speaker 2

Into your knowledge, any differences between those?

00:24:22 Speaker 2

Are all these regulations going to apply to service departments? For example, the same as short term rentals? And another question, if I was about to start a short term rental right now, and I know you both have your own businesses as well.

00:24:38 Speaker 2

What would I the list of things I would need to do to cover to make sure that I am compliant because I think the word compliance is super important to hear and particularly for the likes of situ clients because some of the.

00:24:53 Speaker 2

Their businesses are blue chip companies who need to ensure that the supply of inventories, you know it is really compliant. So imagine I have a property today.

00:25:04 Speaker 2

And I'll start in England.

00:25:07 Speaker 2

What would I have to do, Alistair? You know, fire safety, all this sort of stuff.

00:25:12 Speaker 4

The the the popular misconception is is that a lot of what we talk about when we talk about statutory registration in England.

00:25:22 Speaker 4

Is new regulation. It's not. It's about the application of existing existing.

00:25:30 Speaker 4

Legislation to create a level playing field. So for example.

00:25:35 Speaker 4

My business here has a full virus assessment for each of the four different properties we have.

00:25:43 Speaker 4

Gas certificates for each of them because they all have gas, we have a ring main certificate that's never more than five years old.

00:25:49 Speaker 4

We have a PAP testing that's never more than two years old. We have a private water supply, so we have to have water testing certificates done and I'm really beginning to run out at that point. You know, it it it, it's not, it's people talk about millions of things. You know, there are things you've got to do if you do things, if you have.

00:26:11 Speaker 4

You should really have a raspber certificate, but 95% of us don't have play equipment. You see what I mean? We have a swimming pool, so we have to check the swimming pool. If you have a hot tub, you have to check it. These are reasonably.

00:26:23 Speaker 4

Things which are in.

00:26:26 Speaker 4

Unrelated to you, necessarily a short term.

00:26:28 Speaker 4

That you have to do them because it's a commercial property and this is the failing that so many make and is is confused by the sort of notion of I'm not. I'm not a business. I'm an Airbnb. If I dare say that I don't need to do this stuff. Well, you do.

00:26:44 Speaker 4

That's the law. You know, in in, in England and Wales. If you let a room for a single night for money, all of those rules apply.

00:26:54 Speaker 4

That's the law, which got nothing to do with me. I didn't. That's that's what I'm with fire rules. You're not going to change that or lobby against it, OK? It's just not going to happen. It's safety. So that's where the kind of notion of just list your property while you go away for the weekend.

00:27:10 Speaker 4

Causes the chaos and the bad narrative that it does, because then people see all these pink dots on maps and think the whole of Newquay is is an Airbnb.

00:27:21 Speaker 4

It will be much better if only legitimate.

00:27:21 Speaker 2

What you.

00:27:23

So.

00:27:24 Speaker 4

That's that's all you have to do. You know, it's not that scary. So I'd want to say, you know, we do it here and love it. And it's a great business. It's a really, really good business. It's not difficult to do a fire risk assessment unless your property is unsuitable.

00:27:41 Speaker 2

Yeah. Fiona, do you wanna feedback on that in terms of your experiences in Scotland and how it's affected the inventory supply and then the irrational noise that you've you've encountered?

00:27:54 Speaker 3

Yeah, I.

00:27:56 Speaker 3

Agree with Alistair, none of the health and safety regulations are any different to what existed five years ago, and what I've been complying with for 22 years for my own business. And as Alistair says, they're not scary. They're basic.

00:28:11 Speaker 3

Basic common sense.

00:28:13 Speaker 3

You just have to get on with it and it's it's not OK for occasional hosts to think that they can.

00:28:20 Speaker 3

Away with allowing people to stand on the safe accommodation, that's not good enough. So we are entirely supportive of the health and safety element, but we don't support having to go through huge amounts of hoops. And don't forget statutory registration is a notification scheme. Licencing is an authorisation scheme.

00:28:38 Speaker 3

So in England you are saying this is what I'm doing and this is how I'm complying with health and safety regulations and all other compliance needs.

00:28:45 Speaker 3

In Scotland, having operated for 22 years, I had to go. Please, can I carry on doing this? You have to ask for permission now. So that's where we're at. Just in terms of going back to service accommodation is pertinent on this call.

00:29:02 Speaker 3

Is that?

00:29:04 Speaker 3

In Scotland, the service accommodation sector lobbied very hard and got themselves exempt from short term let licencing.

00:29:10 Speaker 3

But having said that, you can't just call yourself a serviced accommodation to a lot of people. Do you know just because you've got a nice little pad in a city, it's not necessarily service accommodation, that of two legislative definitions for service accommodation in Scotland?

00:29:27 Speaker 3

So one, there have to be more than five in one unit, they have to share a front door and share additional services.

00:29:35 Speaker 3

Services.

00:29:37 Speaker 3

Provisions. So essentially you're in a part hotel. You can't just be a service accommodation because you fancy it. It's the same as you can't just be a bossy. You know how some people might call their property a bossy because it sounds all romantic and cute and Scottish.

00:29:52 Speaker 3

Well, a bossy is actually something that is at least 100 metres from the road, has no electricity, water supply, et cetera, et cetera. So there are definitions that you can't just.

00:30:03 Speaker 3

You can't just name yourself a hotel because you want to be a hotel if you're a short term, let you're a short term, let and people.

00:30:09 Speaker 3

Think find that kind of difficult to navigate. Going back to your first question, who do we lobby with? Are we Alistair and I are the same. We constantly speak to ministers, so I deal with the Minister of Public Finance.

00:30:23 Speaker 3

Who's doing the evidence levy, the housing minister, who's doing short term, licencing, the tourism minister, who obviously does tourism, funnily enough, and I believe that I'm in the tourism industry, not the housing industry, but that's another matter.

00:30:37 Speaker 3

Obviously Ms PS I've got a meeting with the Scottish Tourism Alliance Policy Group with the Under Secretary of State for Scotland tomorrow. I've got 2 Ms PS tomorrow. You know, Alistair's the same. We spend a lot of time in Parliament and various.

00:30:51 Speaker 3

Halls of important policy makers and of course, press for us, is critical. So last year we had over 200 press mentions across either.

00:31:04 Speaker 3

Newspapers or TV or radio. So it's really important that we amplify our messaging by the press and social media because actually policy makers and politicians notice that ridiculously.

00:31:18 Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks, Fiona. I mean Alistair for you, before we jumping in, we've got like 6 minutes left and I've got a whole raft of questions. So a brief on the people you speak to, but I'm actually really interested, I think other people are in terms of application of these rules. Are they done at a government level like licencing or registration and taxes or will it be done at?

00:31:39 Speaker 2

What level of what we?

00:31:41 Speaker 2

So you disconnect everywhere.

00:31:42 Speaker 4

OK. OK. Well, we we we try and lobby for it to be things to be national simple and standard. So that it's a level playing field. The trouble is you've seen in Scotland where different councils attribute the rules and.

00:31:56 Speaker 4

The application forms differently in Wales. You're seeing it applied differently by council.

00:32:00 Speaker 4

And you've got devolution coming in England, so I fear we're going to see the mess now. That is a real problem for us as associations because it's much easier if I'm completely honest with you to lobby centrally than it is to have to turn up to, you know, Cumbria Council one day at Kent, the next and Norfolk the day after.

00:32:20 Speaker 4

You can see the challenge that that presents and that's why governments like to devolve power, because they can say, oh, we were elected to devolve power and the councils can do it.

00:32:27 Speaker 4

What they like, so that's a real challenge for us. Who do we engage with our primary ones, our DCMS, where we say the Tourism Minister, Minister of Housing, Treasury, Home Office, because that's where Department of Trades, opportunities there, if we could get the awful package, travel regulations removed.

00:32:45 Speaker 4

Every single one of you in this call will be doing more business.

00:32:49 Speaker 2

Thanks Alice. Though that was a that was a real good snapshot. I mean, we got like 5 minutes left and there's there's a lot in this.

00:32:57 Speaker 2

And I would obviously suggest that anybody in the audience who wants to know more join up to your associations join, but because you actually have so many Members right now, you've.

00:33:06 Speaker 2

Got a.

00:33:07 Speaker 2

Bit of a weather vane of what's actually happening in the UK right now in terms of.

00:33:12 Speaker 2

Feedback on bookings is it, is it aggressive? Is it soft? I've I've seen a publication by Sykes who've shown that the their numbers or the numbers they broadcast are down. I vote with some managers who've told me that their bookings are way up.

00:33:28 Speaker 2

So you have a much bigger audience. What? What are you seeing, Fiona, what's it look like in Scotland?

00:33:35 Speaker 3

Right. So obviously different people are going to be wanting to announce different things looking positive or negative. We do a barometer survey twice a year, which gives us a real good sense check on on how businesses are performing in confidence.

00:33:52 Speaker 3

Feeling amongst the industry.

00:33:54 Speaker 3

Last year it was definitely down at the beginning of the year, picked up in the middle of the year. You've also got to remember that some people do incredibly well consistently.

00:34:02 Speaker 3

And some people don't do so so well. That might be seasonal issues. It might be regional issues. All of those things. So it is up and down what we are absolutely seeing across the board, not just in our sector is that.

00:34:17 Speaker 3

Domestic tourism has plateaued, slash gone down. We're seeing a levelling off of General International. The only positive strong growth is in North America and the concern is if we have any other kind of international shocks.

00:34:32 Speaker 3

Let's not discuss Trump. What's that going to mean? But Alistair said something very interesting at Summit we spoke at recently, and I think is really worth remembering is that people are always going to want to come and stay in self catering and service departments.

00:34:48 Speaker 3

It is an increasingly growing trend. We are increasingly where people want to stay for independence, for cost effectiveness. All of that stuff. So it's it's it's easy to get bogged down in all this regulatory negativity, but it's also really important to remember the opportunities and the positivities. And as long as we can get through the other side of this mess.

00:35:08 Speaker 3

This regulatory tsunami, then, will do very well indeed. So I think my final sort of parting words would be stay strong, say positive and keep keep abreast of what's happening. Join your association.

00:35:24 Speaker 4

All of that, all of that I agree with that entirely. It's a message that Fiona and I share.

00:35:31 Speaker 4

Yeah, it's going to be difficult, particularly for people who are having to navigate out of furnish or the elect regime, but it's possible to do so if you are really committed to the space.

00:35:42 Speaker 4

You we are going to see some exits from it with a lot of people are trying to exit but they were not perhaps as committed to the sector. I'm sure there are some people who were trying to be careful what I say but you know you can make a really good return on this in this sector if you get it right.

00:35:58 Speaker 4

Businesses, I'm going to say it's soft, but there are always some, as Fiona said, who are doing really well and they've got all their ducks aligned, their pricing, their product, their photography, their marketing. If you get it all aligned, you can still do really, really well.

00:36:19 Speaker 3

Richard just disappeared.

00:36:23 Speaker 4

So I hosted.

00:36:24 Speaker 3

I think so.

00:36:26 Speaker 4

Jessica, you're in charge. Jessica, you're lovely to see you.

00:36:26 Speaker 3

Yes, he might just jump in here. You're in charge.

00:36:30 Speaker 4

You're in charge.

00:36:31 Speaker 1

Hello. Hello not a problem. Well, it's perfect timing, really. I just want to say a massive thank you so much to Richard, Fiona Alistair.

00:36:43 Speaker 1

Your valuable insights and to everyone just joining today, I think it's really really clear that the regularity landscape really presents both challenges, but also opportunities in our industry.

00:36:54 Speaker 1

And these these discussions just really help navigate them together really.

00:37:01 Speaker 1

For anyone here which has any further questions if you'd like to connect, please, please feel free to e-mail the marketing team at [email protected] and we really look forward to seeing you at our next webinar. So part of the beyond Booking webinar series, we've got one coming up in February.

00:37:22 Speaker 1

Which is the regulation of short term let in Spain and Barcelona. The link is in this chat here.

00:37:28 Speaker 1

But do not worry if you if you click the link it will definitely be in your diary there and then for March we've got the regulation of short term lets in Holland and Amsterdam. So really exciting stuff. It's all coming.

00:37:43 Speaker 1

So overall I just want to say thank you again and we really look forward to seeing you all at the next webinar.

00:37:49 Speaker 1

Thank you very much.

00:37:50

Thank you. Thanks.