SNP attack on end of VAT-free shopping for tourists is surely a joke – John McLellan

Tourists won’t be put off coming to Edinburgh because of VAT, but they might go somewhere else after the abolition of Marketing Edinburgh, writes John McLellan.

Tourists wear face masks as they visit Edinburgh Castle in January this year (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

I could almost see Nationalist Angus Robertson chuckling to himself as he penned his attack on the UK Government in these pages earlier this week for ending VAT-free shopping for tourists next year.

Bad for business said Oor Angus, but at a time when the UK Government has spent around £2.5bn supporting 900,000 furloughed Scottish jobs, is it really an outrage that tourists should have to pay the same as the rest of us for their goods?

In the independent Scotland of Mr Robertson’s dreams, the Government would face over £15bn of cuts or tax rises to even get close to balancing the books, so perhaps next week we’ll learn which taxes for Scots he would increase to fund tourist discounts.

If Mr Robertson is worried about putting off foreign visitors, perhaps he should have spoken to his SNP colleagues on the city council about their tourist tax plan and before they abolished the city’s international marketing agency.

Tourists won’t be put off a premium destination like Edinburgh because of the local VAT rate, but they won’t come in any number just because we have a castle on a rock if they are targeted by rivals who know how to sell themselves.

And as for being bad for business, I can’t think of a worse strategy than seeking to end a union with the one country that takes three-quarters of your exports.

Like Mr Robertson, I was a Remainer. Unlike him, my position is consistent, and I have accepted the result of two referenda.

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