Scotland’s cabinet secretary for rural affairs stressed the importance of Scotland’s bars and pubs to the country’s tourism and food and drink sectors at the recent ScotHot show.
Speaking to SLTN, Mairi Gougeon MSP, whose parliamentary remit includes food and drink, said she considers Scotland’s hospitality businesses ‘hugely important’ to the wider tourism sector.
“We are really keen to work with our hospitality industry and to see how and where we can help,” she said.
“Obviously we had the Budget passed in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, which offers 40% relief for non-domestic rates (editor’s note: this only applies to premises with a rateable value up to £51k).
“Again, I know that people would always want us to go further, but we have a number of competing challenges within the financial environment that we’re in.
“I would like to think that in Scotland we want to work closely with our hospitality industry and try and address those concerns where it’s possible for us to do that.”
Gougeon added that she was ‘more than happy’ to raise the issue of a lower VAT rate for hospitality with her counterparts at Westminster, ‘because I do think that everyone is operating in a really tough environment just now’.
