Upcoming announcements on waste and age legislation

There is good news to start the year on the removal of some of the regulatory burden that faces accommodation providers. The Tourism Minister, John Penrose, has recently received a report on regulatory reform from an independent group of experts that identifies some 53 regulations that can be repealed or revised in order to help tourism businesses.

However, at the same time, announcements are due on two new pieces of legislation that could impact on the accommodation sector. Tourism lobby groups have made considerable representations to Government regarding both of these.

First, DEFRA is due to announce the results of a consultation they undertook last year on revising the Controlled Waste Regulations. These regulations enable local authorities to charge for the collection and disposal of waste from premises. When these regulations were put together in 1992, it was decided that Local Authorities could not charge for the disposal of waste from a small number of institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons and, interestingly, self-catering properties. The revision of the regulations looks to remove this anomaly and allow local authorities to charge for the disposal of waste from these properties.

However, in doing so, DEFRA is considering classifying waste from self-catering properties as commercial waste rather than residential waste. This would be costly as it would require there to be a separate commercial waste collection service run alongside the normal residential rubbish collection when, for the vast majority of self-catering properties, the composition and quantity of waste is the same as residential waste.

A second forthcoming announcement that could impact on accommodation businesses is the Government Equality Office decision on the implementation of the Age Discrimination section of the Equality Act.

The intention of this legislation is to prevent anyone 18 or older being discriminated against in the purchase of any goods or services. If the regulations are implemented as proposed, accommodation businesses will not be allowed to refuse a booking, or attach differing terms and conditions to the booking (eg requiring a larger deposit than usual or imposing a limit on group size) on the basis of the customers’ age. This could affect the ability of operators to restrict booking from groups such as stag or graduation parties, which it can be argued are age-related.