Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE, incoming Leader of Westminster City Council, joined BBC London's Eddie Nestor MBE to reflect on the King's Speech, in particular in relation to the Overnight Visitor Levy and on the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.
Watch their interview and read the transcript below.
Eddie Nestor MBE:
Look, most of us pay it already when we go abroad, I certainly pay it when I go abroad. What are you hoping for? That they give it to you and you can keep this little tourist tax thing. What is it that you want?
Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE:
Well, look, first of all, I mean, at the end of the day, it sounds like something that's very straightforward, but actually it's not, because if you're going abroad, most of those hotels are paying very different levels of VAT. So, typically in Europe, it's around about 10-12%. Here it's 20%. So this levy is on top of that. And so that is a concern for the businesses and their competitiveness in terms of if it is raised, which it looks like it is going to be with the bill being put in the King's speech, then the important thing is it's spent where it's generated. So here in Westminster, you know, we spend hundreds of thousands of pounds a month servicing the needs of nonresidents. So that's visitors, tourists, businesses, etc. and we need the support on that financially. So while the mayor is the person who would be able to raise the tax, London Councils, a cross-party group, have already called that 50% be then allocated to the borough in which it was raised.
Eddie Nestor MBE:
I know that Adam Hug, I know that the other guys, or the Labour members on the council, weren't particularly, you know, big fans of the idea that the mayor of London will get together with the Department of Transport and supersede the wishes of the people. They weren’t keen on that. And I'm fantastically interested because I know, as you do, it's a big campaigning point, and it's a reason or one of the reasons that you might have been voted back in. So, so what are you going to do differently?
Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE:
Look, the mayor has run roughshod over Westminster Council for the last 18 months on this. The previous Labour administration just didn't stand up to him. And they gave far too many things away, far too freely. Clearly, we're going to. I've already instructed the chief executive to look at all the legal avenues that we can potentially pursue. But what we want to make sure of is that whatever happens, Oxford Street works with residents and visitors. So you don't think in its current format, the plan does that? Well, the current plan, I mean, it's so unambitious in its nature. So if you are going to do it, then do it right. And so, for example, it doesn't tackle the biggest single issue on Oxford Street in terms of accessibility, which is the fact that Oxford Circus tube station doesn't have step-free access. So you’re going to take out all the buses that the less mobile used to get up and down Oxford Street, I mean, it's a mile long.
Eddie Nestor MBE:
But you got it at the top and the bottom. I mean, I'm mobile, right? So I guess that I'm probably taking the mick with this, but you've got it at Bond Street, and you've got it at Tottenham Court Road.
Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE:
Yeah, but in between that's a massive that's a massive distance. And the buses that they are proposing are going to be going, you know, much to the side of Oxford Street, so that doesn't solve the problem. And it also doesn't solve the problem of where the taxis are going to drop off. The real problem is he hasn't told people what he's really doing yet because he's put out a consultation asking, "Do you think this vague idea is a good idea?" He's taking that as evidence to say, right, I can press on with exactly what I want. He needs to lay out exactly the details of what pedestrianisation means, how it is going to be funded, how it is going to be delivered, how he is going to solve those accessibility problems, and how he is going to solve the crime issues.
