Don’t panic, its only a General Election

Unless you are a hermit, the surprise announcement of a General Election to be held on 4 July will no longer come as much of a surprise to you. If, like me, you feel an obligation to try and better understand some of the almost certainly unintended consequences of the decision to call an election a good 3 months earlier than the earliest date most political pundits and, quite alarmingly, than a good many politicians of all parties were predicting and some 6 month before the latest possible date for an election (late January 2025), you are probably already thoroughly sick of the barrage of news, views and comment on it. I don’t wish to add to that burden, other than to point out what I believe to be a couple of points of potential interest from a tourism industry and, in particularly, a destination management prospective.

Parliament will be dissolved within days, the 30th of May to be precises but it is progued and essentially closed with effect today . That gives/gave a formal wash up period of only two days to bring forward and approve any legislation in progress through the Parliamentary process, the joint second shortest wash up period in living memory and/or my 30 year career in tourism; two yardsticks that at this stage in my life are converging to become much the same illustrative measure of time.

Any legislation not addressed in the wash up will not pass in to law. Bills that fail to be enacted and become Acts of Parliament may of course be reintroduced at some future date by any new Government. Unfortunately it would have start the process again from scratch, meaning considerable additional delays, even if that process miraculously began in earnest on the 5th of July. Few, if any brand new Government’s historically choose to run with their predecessors failed Bills, even where in opposition they may have prepared to support them. There is no guarantee that a returning Government would pick up old legislation either; its often an opportunity to ditch old policy commitment and start afresh. It does mean it wont happen, I am just warning that it would be very unwise to plan on it. Getting Bills through wash up normally relies on the mutual agreement between the major parties, that support isn’t always a given but on this occasion time, or the complete lack of it, is a far greater issue. Bills that everyone might wish to become Acts will inevitable fail.

It is not yet totally clear which of any of outstanding Bills will/have gain that support. Nor is it yet clear, to me at least, in which Bills the specific clauses that may or may not impact directly or indirectly on tourism sit. The Bills that matter to tourism are more often than not framed within some obscure sub clause of some larger, often equally obscure, non-tourism related Bill. I am still trying to figure out which Bills are still in progress and which clauses of what Bills have any direct or indirect impact on tourism and therefore, whether the non-existent period before wash up and the unusually short period being allowed for it, genuinely presents a problem specifically for us in tourism.

The immediate takeaway from this, for now, is don’t just assume that everything that we reasonably might have thought was secured or that was in hand, now will be. There is a distinct difference between proposals (policies and promises), Bills (in progress through Parliament), Acts (accepted in to law) and implementation (physically then actually using the power the Act gives). We have had a Development of Tourism Act since 1969 and there are still critical clauses in that yet to be implemented (and now too old and too out of date to realistically do so)!

As I edit this update, I have just heard that the legislation that would have outlawed no fault evictions in England is not going to be progressed. Relief for those who see the free expansion of Airbnb type accommodation as largely beneficial for tourism and bad news for those who see “open season” on long term let, residential accommodation in favour of more lucrative short-term holiday lets, especially in popular rural and urban destination, as a major (critical?) issue for both tourism and wider community cohesion. I suspect that given the past high profile comments around this “proposal”, that many would have reasonably assumed that that particular piece legislation had already received Royal Assent? Watch this space, as other examples may well follow.

There are also some pieces of tourism related legislation which have already received Royal Accent but which may or may not now be implemented by a returning or new Government. A notable example I would suggest being the abolition of Furnished Holiday Let tax rules announced in the Spring Budget and due for implementation on 6 April 2025. Pieces of legislation of this nature will be obvious to those already actively lobbying for or against their implementation but the opportunity or need for the wider industry to lobby, in support, pre and post election may not be as clear or as obvious to all, as it ideally should be.

Similarly, the legislation to allow the implementation of the long discussed registration scheme for short-term lets has been enacted (buried deep in the Regeneration and Leveling-up Act 2023) but the nature of its possible implementation is, now was, still plodding through the post consultation, consultation response and final agreement, process. Despite the permissive legislation being in place, the decision to ignore or to use it to deliver the current soon to be previous Government’s, promise of action will, now fall to new Minister and a new Government post elections. That almost certainly also demands a potential new wave of lobbying in order to deliver what we may have previously thought was already reasonably secure, albeit frankly long delayed and kicked down the road.

I currently suspect but don’t know for certain that the parallel and somewhat controversial plan to amend the the Town and Country Planning (Use Class) Order 1987 (and variously amended since) to create a new specific Class 5 for short term lets, let for more than 90 days in England, may still fall somewhere within the yet to be enacted or yet to be implemented category. Where precisely it sits as at todays date suddenly matters a great deal more than it did just two sort days ago. In all likelihood, there will many other similar examples and “oh dear” moments to come over the coming weeks. The key here is to teases them all out ASAP, get them centrally or jointly listed and widely known within our diverse industry so we can then all start to deal with them again, or not, as each representative group or body sees fit.

A quick audit and a short summary of the post election legislative position may be useful? Ideally that might be an appropriate role/task for a sponsoring Government Department, or the policy team in their relevant delivery agency? Failing that, if colleague would find it helpful, then I will happily undertake to either work with colleagues in other representative bodies to produce a definitive list, or if that proves impossible then produce a quick and dirty version of what from experience I think matters to my own paying members. I think this is something that could be usefully done during the period of pre-election mayhem and an enforced period of minimum essential administrative only activities in Whitehall and more widely across public services.

None of the above, apart from the extraordinary short wash up period is that unusual. Specifics of course change for every election but the implications for the legislative and the implementation processes are similar. The problem is that they only generally come round every 5 years so, not unreasonably, they are not at the forefront of our minds and have to be remember or relearnt. What is very unusual this time round is the date/timing of the election itself. There hasn’t been a July General Election since 1945 (5 July if your interested). The previous latest summer election were in June (7th 2001, 8th 2017 and 11th 1987), the rest of the UK’s General Elections have all fallen to a spattering in early May, with everything else falling well before or after the normally closed for parliamentary business “summer season”.

I have yet to give it any detailed thought and I am obviously not in a position to dictate myself or forecast from experience, how such a late date relative to the normal Parliamentary Summer recess will be handled or what impact any variation from the norm may have. Currently the start of the recess is pencilled/inked in at Friday 26 July, 3 weeks, 15 working days and, if normal practice applies, only 9 parliamentary sitting days after the election. The end of the recess is/was, unusually, still left open in the Parliamentary diary but would normally be 5 to 6 weeks later, in the first full week of September.

I am only guessing but I am struggling to imagine a potentially brand new Government wishing to take over and then close down for all but essential administration three weeks later. What that means if anything for us all outside Parliament and if it matters a jot I don’t yet know. Tongue in cheek it may just mean fewer politicians and civil servant holiday in the coming high season! On a more serious note from a lobbying, consultation, policy direction, decision making etc. prospective it means don’t just assume that this year the late July to early September will be a political business as usual period. I.E. a pause for essential business only, back ground consultation, tidying up and preparation for delivery, principally all done by the civil servants and those minister taking their turn to man the fort, whilst everyone else takes a well earned break.

We (me and others with similar roles) may have to be more proactive or responsive during this summer and that in turn may mean rather more questions for and probing of destination managers and in turn of your business partners and stakeholders. At a time when generally you and they are already at the point of all hands to the pumps. The alternative is to trust to those you pay to represent you to use their existing knowledge, skill and judgement to rise to any challenges set during the summer months. As ever I could well be wrong and indeed I hope I am but forewarned of the potential for an unusual parliamentary summer is forearmed

There is lot of background issue opportunities and updates that I have put aside for now from further comment on the crisis in the private water companies, through to more routine news on things like the publication of the VisitBritain annual review to the publication of research on tourism and the UK’s music industry (released in 2023 but only just discovered by me). I will follow up on these and a host of other more routine titbit, once the excitement of the news of forthcoming General Election subsides. On reflection that means you can expect to hear from me very soon.

The election band wagon is now suddenly rolling and for the next 6 weeks there is not that much else or that much more that any of us in tourism can now do to truly influence where it ends up. Don’t panic its only a General Election; it is the consequences of the outcome, not the events leading up to or the event itself that is now important.

In the meantime, please don’t forget the 26 November, the date of our joint British Destinations, Tourism Alliance and Tourism Society policy conference. The date had been selected in the hope of the General Election falling just before or just after it, making it particularly timely from a point of view of genuinely influencing policy direction. The announcement of the General Election date if anything makes the 26th November an even more timely choice, allowing us to debate among ourselves and engage with a new Government only 5 months into power. A Government well enough established to have the time and yet still have the inclination to engage but not so comfortable and established to have made their minds up irrevocably on the kind issues and policy leavers that typical exercise our minds and that influence our industry, often in ways that may not be as well understood in Westminster as we would wish them to be.

More information on the conference and booking links can be accessed at: https://britishdestinations.wordpress.com/annual-conference-19-march-2018/