PASC UK has been heavily involved with lobbying the Government to try to establish a ‘Level Playing Field” across the accommodation sector.

This simply means that anyone offering their accommodation for payment must meet the same levels of insurance, regulation and taxation that Professional Self-Caterers do.

PASC UK was called to give both oral and written evidence to the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) on the Sharing Economy. The final report was published on Wednesday the 18th July 2019 and was a victory for both common sense and a level playing field for all accommodation businesses having to comply to the same legislation. The Key findings are as follows:

The APPG for Tourism recommends that the Culture Secretary launch a consultation to establish a low-cost statutory registration scheme for tourism accommodation businesses. Such a scheme could be devolved to councils and would help resolve the main issues identified by this Inquiry, specifically:

• Help ensure that all businesses complied with regulations
• Provide enforcement officers with a database of tourism accommodation properties so that they could target their resources to those properties they deem to be the highest risk
• Provide councils with greater ability to manage tourism in their area
• Provide HMRC with a means by which to ensure that all businesses pay the appropriate level of taxation.

Almost exactly two years later we finally have the formal notice that there will be a Consultation on this. It was announced in the Governments Tourism Recovery Plan. This will require a lot of work to prepare a balanced submission, that improves the situation for both businesses and consumers.