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Tourism boss calls for moratorium on Vat to help hoteliers

Urquhart Castle. Picture by Sandy McCook.
Urquhart Castle. Picture by Sandy McCook.

A Highland businessman has called on political parties to introduce a moratorium on Vat to help hotels survive the winter months.

Willie Cameron, who runs Loch Ness Marketing, said suspending it would enable owners to take on more staff and generate more tax for the UK Treasury.

He made the remarks yesterday as the Conservatives stated in their election manifesto that they had no plans to increase Vat from the current rate of 20%.

But Labour leader Ed Miliband has claimed voters would not believe the pledge because the Tories increased Vat from 17.5% not long after they took office in 2010.

In an interview yesterday, Mr Cameron, who believes Loch Ness is a world class tourist destination, said: “The big problem we have in the Highlands as far as the politicians are concerned and what they should be looking at is to overcome the problem of seasonality.

“For a start we in the trade would like to see the possibility of looking at a moratorium on Vat.

“If you are paying £80 for a room, about £20 of that goes straight to the government and your other costs come off which leaves very little to the hotelier to sustain a 52-week a year programme.

“If there was a moratorium on Vat we could employ more people over the winter time which would be generating income tax and national insurance contributions.”