It was just one UK seaside town but they spoke for the nation – Labour’s nuisance new ‘Tourism Tax‘ just has to go. Earlier this month Housing Secretary Angela Rayner excitedly unveiled a Keir Starmer policy that new PM Andy Burnham has also gleefully been flag-waving, to charge an extra 5% on B&B, hotel and Airbnb stays across England.

It will be up to regional mayors or councils to decide if they green-light it in their area, but when offered a stack load of extra cash to pump into their struggling public services or crumbling infrastructure, who will say no? But ‘no’ is exactly what concerned hoteliers in Blackpool told me last week, because they simply don’t want it for their seaside town.

Angela Rayner announced a new tourism tax earlier this month (Image: Getty)

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Overnight stays need to be encouraged in Blackpool – not discouraged (Image: Getty)

Claire Smith, 62, and husband Mark Smith, 65 run a hotel in Blackpool (Image: Dave Nelson)

Andy and Angela will be scratching their heads. What’s wrong with some extra cash off punters for our mayors and councils? Wealthy American, European and Middle-Eastern tourists can afford it!

They think it’s free money. Labour have always loved tax because they spend loot like it’s going out of style. But anxious hoteliers told me it could come with a serious price.

The trouble is England’s full of towns, villages and seaside resorts that barely ever see a single foreign tourist.

When you’re jetting in for a fortnight’s break to the British Isles from Montana, you want to hit Edinburgh, maybe fly to Ireland, perhaps visit the Cotswolds, Cambridge, Bath, Oxford or York and obviously do London in a big way. If you get two free days after all that why not head to Windsor Castle or Stonehenge?

It’s unlikely too many foreign tourists will flock to Southend-on-Sea, Skegness, Blackpool, Cromer, Weymouth, Morecambe or Scarborough – or ‘Scarbados’ as its proud residents dub it.

Hoteliers in Blackpool told me they estimate about one in every 100 guests there are foreign tourists. The other 99% are Brits looking for a fun but affordable family staycation.

Overnight stays are the lifeblood of these seaside towns, because staying over means you’ll eat dinner in a restaurant, maybe look for an evening show or sporting event, pay to park your car and maybe go shopping the next day.

Paul Gregory-Ward (left), 60, and husband Richard Gregory-Ward, 57 run The Corona Hotel in Blackpool (Image: Dave Nelson)

Seaside towns in particular are eager for MORE overnight visitors, not frightening them away with sky-high bills.

The sneaky ‘just 5%’ line doesn’t wash either, because when you’re on a budget planning a hotel stay in Blackpool for three nights and it’s £150-a-night, that extra £22.50 added to your bill may push you to say: “Tell you what, let’s just make it two nights.”

Claire Smith, 62, and husband Mark, 65, run Blackpool’s 5-star Number One South Beach hotel boasting 11 bedrooms but told me current trading conditions for hospitality are worse than the 2008 financial crisis.

She told me of the tax: “I cannot find a single positive for this, either from the business side or from the visitor side.

“We’re already noting that these attractions in Blackpool are noting a 25% increase in ‘basket’ abandonment rates. So they’re working out the cost of a stay, bringing it all in an online basket, and then thinking, oh my God, no, we can’t do this, and then abandon it.

“This tourism tax would be absolutely horrendous.”

Paul Gregory-Ward, 60, has been running the four-star Corona Hotel with husband Richard, 57, for 25 years after taking the 22-bedroom hotel over in 2001.

Paul told me: “People are being savvy about their money at the moment so any new overnight levy may just encourage families to have day trips to Blackpool rather than stay overnight.”

Chris Rinder, 58, runs The Fossil Tree Hotel in Blackpool (Image: Dave Nelson)

While Chris Rinder, 58, who runs the nine-bedroom Fossil Tree Hotel, in North Shore, Blackpool, with wife Christine, told me: “It would be totally bonkers to introduce an overnight levy to a place like Blackpool, which is specifically geared towards tourism and relies on it so much.

“Overnight stays can also lead to restaurant bookings, more paid-for attraction visits, more use of the shops and paid car parking which all adds to the town’s revenue.

“But a Tourism Tax would effectively be penalising people for staying overnight – and that is bound to put people off coming. It would be detrimental to this town.”

If the rest of Europe has a tourism tax and the UK doesn’t that’s actually a good thing, as visitors might decide to come to London instead of Paris and spend their money in our economy.

So will Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham listen, and keep their Tourism Tax to big international tourism hubs like London? Or better still scrap it completely?

Will they listen to hoteliers in Blackpool? I bet a stick of rock they won’t.

Nigel Farage will today announce a new leader for Reform in Wales following the arrest of former leader Dan Thomas.

Reform made a spectacular breakthrough in May’s elections, going from having no seats at all in the Welsh Senned to becoming the second largest party.

But the party suffered a setback when Dan Thomas quit as the party’s Welsh leader, after he was arrested on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour. He said he had been “released without charge”.

Gwent Police confirmed that a 45-year-old man from Aberbargoed, in Caerphilly, has been bailed pending further enquiries.

Latest UK-wide polling from Ipsos found 27% say they will vote Labour at the next General Election, 23% say Reform. 21% say the Conservatives, 13% say the Greens and 8% say the Lib Dems.

Follow our live coverage below:

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (Image: Getty)

Analysis: Burnham v Trump in New York – this is what could go wrong

Andy Burnham faces his first major international test as Prime Minister when he meets Donald Trump in New York.

The PM is travelling to the Big Apple for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

The King of the North is due to hold face-to-face talks with the US President with the Middle East crisis and Ukraine high on the agenda.

But there are other thorny issues, namely the Falklands and Chagos Islands, as well as North Sea drilling and Israel that threaten to make the meeting less comfortable than the Labour leader hoped.

Jenrick blasts Badenoch over new pledge

Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick took to X to hit out at Kemi Badenoch over her pledge to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists.

He said: “Kemi Badenoch claims she’ll bring back tax-free shopping for visitors. But it was Kemi who abolished it in the first place!

“Will she now apologise for personally instigating this? Does she have any humility?”

Davey slammed by Lib Dem council leader

Sir Ed Davey said you “can’t please everyone all the time” after a Liberal Democrat council leader suggested the party could be “sleepwalking into irrelevance”.

The Lib Dem leader told BBC Breakfast: “We’ve grown really fast in recent years under my leadership. Record number of MPs. We’re running more councils than the Conservatives – councils up and down the country.

“Really proud of that record and it means when you have a bigger party, you can’t please everyone all the time.”

He said his party has a “historic opportunity” to win many more seats because of the “right-wing split between the Conservatives and Reform who are fighting each other”.

He added: “But, also, we have a moral responsibility to win more seats. I think it’s vital we stop Nigel Farage getting into No 10 and Kemi Badenoch giving him the keys to get into No 10.”

(Image: Getty)

Labour accuse Tories of U-turn

Labour accused the Tories of a “spectacular U-turn” over their promise to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists as Kemi Badenoch was a Treasury minister at the time of its abolition.

A party spokesperson said: “Kemi Badenoch used to say tax-free shopping was a costly giveaway and now she’s trying to sell it as an economic miracle.

“If they really think it’s such a great idea, they should explain why they scrapped it in the first place and how they’d pay for bringing it back.”

Badenoch promises to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists

Kemi Badenoch has pledged to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists by reversing a post-Brexit rule change.

The decision to scrap the VAT refund scheme for international visitors in 2021 left the UK “less competitive” than many other European destinations as the country left the EU, the Tories said.

The Opposition leader said: “Britain should be the place where the whole world comes to shop.

“We have iconic retailers, inventive designers and brilliant manufacturers, but they are being let down by a tax policy that is chasing their customers away. Holidaymakers are choosing rival cities in other countries for the simple reason that it saves them money.

“British retailers are closing down shops with the knock-on effects damaging small manufacturers, suppliers and jobs across the UK. I want them to know I’m on their side and Conservatives will sort out taxes so companies can create jobs and grow our economy.”

Labour looking at capital gains tax hike

Labour is reportedly considering calls to cut income tax for lower earners by raising capital gains tax (CGT).

Andy Burnham and John Healey are looking at proposals to pay for an increase in the personal allowance by gradually bringing CGT in line with income tax, The Telegraph reported.

The idea was included in a submission to the Treasury by Labour donor and Ecotricity owner Dale Vince, who suggested funding a rise in the threshold by both hiking CGT and ending interest payments on Bank of England reserves.

These two measures combined could raise the money to increase the personal allowance to £15,570, which is just below what it would have been had it not been frozen in 2021, it has been claimed.

The proposal was made by Labour donor Dale Vince (Image: Getty)