There is currently no national framework governing when or how police forces can charge for escorting or authorising the movement of abnormal loads. This has led to inconsistent and, in some cases, excessive charging practices across different police force areas. For businesses in Wales, including those operating in the tourism and holiday park sector, this lack of consistency is creating uncertainty, delays and significant additional costs.
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Members of the British Holiday & Home Parks Association (BH&HPA) – who are also members of the Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA) – have raised serious concerns about the impact of rising police escort charges on the movement of caravans and other essential abnormal loads into and within Wales.
Working with industry partnersTo address this issue, BH&HPA has been working closely with partners across the road haulage sector, including the Road Haulage Association (RHA) and the Heavy Transport Association (HTA), to push for a fairer and more transparent system.

As part of this work, the Association recently met with Lord Attlee, former President of the HTA and a long-standing campaigner on this issue. Lord Attlee has tabled a number of amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill, currently progressing through Parliament. These amendments are intended to reduce regional disparities, prevent excessive charging and ensure businesses – including those in Wales – can continue to operate efficiently and contribute to the economy.

Parliamentary scrutiny and next steps

The House of Lords is currently scrutinising the Crime and Policing Bill, with peers expected to vote on Lord Attlee’s amendments shortly – potentially as early as this week. Further scrutiny will continue into January following the Christmas parliamentary recess, before the Bill returns to the House of Commons.

Take action: Welsh businesses urged to contact their MP

The Wales Tourism Alliance is encouraging Welsh tourism businesses that have been negatively impacted by increases in police escort charging to support this lobbying effort.

• If your business has experienced higher or inconsistent police escort fees, please email your local MP to express your support for Lord Attlee’s amendments.
• You can find your MP’s contact details here
• A template email is available and can be adapted to reflect your own experience.
• Given the time-sensitive nature of this issue, emailing your MP is recommended rather than sending a letter.
  
  

Why contact your MP when the Bill is in the House of Lords?

Although the amendments are currently being considered by the House of Lords, it is vital that Welsh MPs understand how this issue is affecting businesses in their constituencies:

• MPs can raise concerns directly with peers, particularly within their own political parties.
• MPs are likely to vote on the amended Bill when it returns to the House of Commons in the new year.
• Members of the House of Lords are not directly accountable to voters in the same way MPs are and are not obliged to respond to correspondence from the public.
  
  

If you already have a relationship with a member of the House of Lords, or know one personally, you may also wish to contact them directly. 

Further information

More detail on abnormal load movements and the HTA’s parallel campaign can be found here: Link
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The Wales Tourism Alliance will continue to work with BH&HPA and industry partners and will keep members informed as this issue progresses.

On Sunday 10 March our Chair, Roland Rees Evans was invited to take part in BBC Politics Wales to discuss the closure of Oakwood Park and whether this is just the tip of the iceberg for the crisis in Welsh tourism.  Watch the episode here: ​Politics Wales - 09/03/2025 - BBC iPlayer

The Wales Tourism Alliance welcomes the Welsh Government’s additional funding for health and social care.  We also welcome the £1 bus ticket pilot for under 21s.  Many young people in Wales start their careers in the tourism and hospitality industry and this initiative will make public transport more accessible and making their earnings go further.

However, it is disappointing to see tourism still receiving so little financial support from the Welsh Government.  As an industry that generates around £3.8bn annually for the Welsh economy we would like to see the Welsh Government investing more in our visitor infrastructure and promoting Wales as a destination. 

Instead our industry is facing a raft of challenging and costly policies from Cardiff including the minimum 182 days for holiday lets and the proposed visitor levy.  We are deeply concerned that the Welsh tourism industry, far from being supported by the Welsh Government, is instead being pushed to the brink. 
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The knock-on effects, particularly for areas that are reliant on tourism and hospitality employment, could be devastating.

This is disappointing news for Welsh tourism and jobs.

In Pembrokeshire over 20% of working people are employed in tourism and hospitality, so this closure won’t just impact the Park’s employees it will negatively affect the local economy as a whole.

A combination of Welsh Government and UK Government decisions including increased national insurance, council tax premiums, 182 day minimum occupancy for holiday lets and proposals for the Welsh visitor levy(tourist tax) risk seriously damaging the Welsh tourism and hospitality industry which contributes £3.8bn to the Welsh economy annually.

In a recent evidence session to the Senedd finance committee, Mark Drakeford MS denied that these policies would be having accumulative effect on the tourism industry. It is surely becoming obvious that a single sector cannot swallow so many changes without there being a cumulative - and wide-ranging – effect which will filter out to the whole economy.

Many parts of Wales are reliant on tourism and have limited alternative employment opportunities. This means that without jobs in tourism and hospitality local people may be forced to leave their communities in search of work.

We fear that this closure is just the tip of the iceberg for Welsh tourism.

The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA) is deeply disappointed with many of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Mark Drakeford’s, comments to the Welsh Government Finance Committee on the proposed Welsh Visitor Levy.   In particular we highlight the following:

Job Losses

Mr Drakeford claimed that the [tourism and hospitality] industry employs “a million” people and “would not struggle to accommodate” the several hundred job losses that are predicted in the industry if the Levy is implemented.  Mr Drakeford further claims that many of the jobs in the industry are seasonal, have “elastic” hours and are high-churn – suggesting that these job losses will be easier to absorb. 

In fact the number employed is around 159,000 (Welsh Government data) making the loss of “a few hundred jobs” far more significant.

It is also frustrating that Mr Drakeford apparently dismisses seasonal, part time jobs and completely ignores the fact that this provides many young people and those with caring roles (particularly women) with the flexibility to work, earn money and develop skills they might not otherwise enjoy.

Data

Mr Drakeford claimed that those speaking to the Finance Committee before him – including the WTA – had been selective over the data they had cited in their evidence, choosing to reflect on the worst-case scenario.

The WTA refutes that it has done this.  We have serious concerns about the data upon which the Visitor Levy modelling has been based and therefore the reliability of that data as a basis for legislation.  We are not alone in raising these concerns.  Even the author of the Welsh Government’s own Visitor Levy Economic Impact Assessment, Professor Calvin Jones, said in his evidence:


“We know very little about how the tourism economy in Wales works…we know very little about what drives visitors to come to Wales; we know almost nothing about how much they’re spending when they’re here…there isn’t even any data any more on…how much is spent on accommodation…it should be a very uncomfortable place for Senedd Members to be when they’re trying to make policy or audit policy on tourism.”


Children impacted by the Visitor Levy

In support of the inclusion of children in the Visitor Levy, Mr Drakeford said “Children buying sweets pay VAT.  Children are not excluded by virtue of being children from the taxation system”.  He has clearly forgotten that children’s clothes, shoes and books are all quite rightly zero VAT rated.  He is also ignoring the fact that many other countries exclude under 18s from their tourism taxes.

In fact, the Levy will disproportionately affect families and children because it is a per person tax.  That means that two adults staying in accommodation for a week will pay a levy of £21, but a family of six staying in the same accommodation for the same amount of time will pay £63.

The levy will also be paid by children staying on educational visits.


Cumulative effect of legislation on the tourism industry

Mr Drakeford dismissed the idea that the Visitor Levy would contribute to the cumulative effect of recent legislation on the tourism and hospitality stating that these are different issues and “do not collide on all of the sector”. 

The WTA disputes this.  Tourism is holistic and an impact on one part of the sector will inevitably impact on another.  There are already significant challenges across the board, particularly in self-catering accommodation which is being hit by the 182 day rule, National Insurance increases and the removal of furnished holiday let relief.  Small self-catering providers – often local people – are already pulling out of offering accommodation and this will inevitably have an impact on the whole sector.

Rowland Rees-Evans, Chair of the WTA said:

“We are disappointed that Mr Drakeford is apparently dismissing the valid concerns about the Visitor Levy proposals raised by industry experts and academics and that he is making claims that are factually incorrect.

"Many people in Wales are unaware that the Visitor Levy will be applied to anyone staying in “Visitor Accommodation” in Wales.  This includes children staying overnight even on educational visits and people working away from home – whether or not they already live in Wales.

“The bottom line is that the Visitor Levy proposals will cost people in Wales money and jobs – even in the best-case scenario painted by the Welsh Government.  Mr Drakeford seems happy to be pushing through a policy which is poorly conceptualised, does not guarantee Wales any income, and will result in hundreds of job losses in the tourism and hospitality sector – a sector which employs over 20% of working people in some parts of Wales.

“In the face of the evidence it is difficult to understand why the person responsible for managing the Welsh budget would even consider imposing a Visitor Levy on its people at this point in time.”

WTA Chair, Rowland Rees-Evans, today gave evidence to the Finance Committee in response to the Welsh Government's Visitor Levy Bill.

Watch the recording below or click on this link.

Read the transcript here.

The Wales Tourism Alliance has today submitted its response to the Welsh Government’s Visitor Levy Bill in papers to both the Finance and the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committees.

In summary the WTA highlights the following issues:

• the Welsh Government’s own Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill and Economic Impact Assessment suggest that this policy will not cover its own costs of administration,
  
• the Bill extends well beyond tourism visits and includes, for example, stays of less than 31 days for work or education purposes,
  
• local authorities will have sole control of any net tax take and the Bill’s is drafted such that spend does not need to have a tourism-led focus,
  
• the data drawn on and assumptions made are unreliable to a concerning degree
  
• the research provided by the industry, including Wales own fora chairs, has not been given due weight
  
• no account has been taken of the additional pressures already exerted on Welsh tourism over the past five years.
  

WTA Chair, Rowland Rees-Evans said:

“The WTA has engaged with the Welsh Government since the Visitor Levy was proposed and we are disappointed that they are pursuing a proposal from which their own Economic Impact Assessment predicts net job losses.

“The tourism industry in Wales is already reeling from the impact of Covid, the 182 day rule on holiday lets and the cost of living crisis.  Alongside other businesses our industry has also have seen a 40% increase in the living wage since 2020 and faces increased national insurance contributions from this April.

“To place another stressor on an already fragile sector which employs over 20% of the workforce in some parts of Wales is not something we feel would be in the best interests of our country.

“We also want people to recognise that this is not a Tourist Tax – it is a Visitor Levy.  It will affect us all in Wales - from children on overnight school trips to people who have to stay in accommodation overnight before early morning NHS admissions.”


Links to our response:
Finance Committee
Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee

The Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA) has released its annual Industry Survey.
 
The findings indicate that many tourism businesses are being hit by recent changes in Welsh Government legislation with the self-catering sector particularly badly affected.
 
The report confirms claims from WTA members that the 182 day rule is having a negative impact beyond the tourism and hospitality sector.  Many professional holiday let owners say they are struggling at achieve the threshold of 182 let days per year which would push them into paying council tax, instead of business rates, on their property - often with an additional second home premium included.
 
Evidence gathered from the report, and other research, shows that many holiday let owners are local people who are no longer able to invest in local tradespeople to carry out improvement works on their properties.  One respondent said:
 
“There is no way we can risk paying local trades for ANY non0essential work – after 10 years of happily ploughing a large proportion of profits into the local economy paying for improvements to our cottage.”
 
The survey also showed that the weather and cost of living both had a significant impact on tourism and hospitality businesses over the 2024 holiday season, with a shift to more short last-minute breaks.
 
When asked what the Welsh Government could do for the sector, 64% of respondents said that there must to be a greater recognition of tourism as an economic driver. 
 
Chair of the WTA, Rowland Rees-Evans said:
 
“This survey, combined with other work the WTA and its members have done recently, shows that the tourism and hospitality sector is being hard-hit by a raft of Welsh Government policy including the 182 day rule, council tax premiums on “second homes” and Article 4 (in Gwynedd).
 
“We are asking the Welsh Government to recognise the significant burdens this is placing on local people who rely on this sector to earn a living and spend their money in the local economy.
 
“Tourism and hospitality contribute £3.8bn to the Welsh economy and employ more than 11% of people in Wales, rising to up to 20% in areas like Pembrokeshire and Ynys Môn where alternative employment is scarce.
 
“Whilst we recognise that many of these policies derive from the need to provide local homes for local people, it is evident that they are not having the desired outcome.   We are only just starting to see the bigger economic impact of consistently hitting a sector that is a significant driver of the Welsh economy.”

View the full report here.