The Chancellor’s decision to hand mayors the power to introduce overnight accommodation levies might not grab many headlines. But make no mistake: it’s a game-changer.
This is a power I’ve been calling for since I was first elected as Mayor in 2017 – and it’s a long-overdue step towards economic common sense. Because the truth is, places like the Liverpool City Region have been expected to compete on a global stage with one hand tied behind their backs.
Tourism is one of the UK’s most successful industries. It supports millions of jobs and injects billions into our economy. In the Liverpool City Region alone, the visitor economy is worth over £6bn a year and sustains more than 55,000 local jobs.
But until now, we’ve had no way of reinvesting even a fraction of that success back into the services, spaces, and experiences that underpin it.
That changes now.
It’s only fair that those who enjoy everything our region had to offer play a small part in helping to sustain it. Visitors expect it, they understand it, and frankly, many are surprised we haven’t been doing it already.
When people visit Barcelona, New York or Berlin, they pay a small fee that helps support the place they’re enjoying. British tourists pay it abroad without a murmur. Paris raises over €100 million a year through its levy. Barcelona generates around €95m. Why shouldn’t places like Liverpool, London or Newcastle have the same opportunity?
Done right, an overnight accommodation levy is a pro-growth, pro-business policy. It gives local leaders the ability to support the very things that draw people in – our public realm, festivals, cultural attractions, transport links and digital infrastructure.
Hospitality businesses understand this. They know that clean, safe, vibrant cities attract more visitors, conferences and investment. That’s not a threat to business; it’s a platform for growth.
In Liverpool, an overnight accommodation levy has the potential to generate up to £17m a year for reinvestment into the things that make our region stand out: our world-class culture, iconic events, vibrant public spaces and the infrastructure that ties it all together.
That’s not money disappearing into a Treasury black hole. It’s not money to go on central government priorities. It’s money staying local, enhancing the visitor economy offer – working hard for our communities and our businesses.
But this is also a deeply political moment. England is still the most centralised democracy in the G7. Nearly 95 per cent of all taxes are raised and spent by Whitehall. That’s not just inefficient; it’s undemocratic. It holds back regional growth, weakens accountability, and keeps local leaders dependent on handouts instead of having the tools to drive change themselves. Is it any wonder we have such an unequal country and unbalanced economy?
This decision proves what can happen when Labour mayors and a Labour government work together. This wouldn’t have happened under the Tories. In fact, a former Conservative Secretary of State told me that they weren’t even interested in hearing the argument for an overnight accommodation levy, because they were completely ideologically opposed to it. That same ideology has done enormous damage to our country over the last decade and a half, but this feels like a real turning point.
People are tired of top-down government. They’re tired of having things done to them, rather than with them. They want decisions made closer to home, by people who understand their patch and are directly accountable to them. They want to take back control.
That’s what devolution offers: not just better policy, but better politics. A chance to reform the system so that it works with people, not around them. That’s what we’re doing in the Liverpool City Region. And with powers like these, we can go even further.
The real test now is whether this is the start of something bigger – a genuine shift in power away from Westminster and towards the towns, cities and regions that drive this country forward.
Because if we’re serious about long-term growth, we need to stop micromanaging it from SW1 and embrace a new era of genuine partnership, where the centre and the regions work together in harmony.
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