1. Sporting Events Bill

  • Purpose: Enables the UK to better host major sporting events, such as UEFA EURO 2028, and future bids like the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2035.
  • Key measures:
    • Establishes a legislative framework for all major events (so new laws don’t need to be created each time).
    • Creates a UK-wide criminal offence for reselling tickets to major sporting events.
    • Protects event commercial rights and regulates advertising/trading near venues.
    • Improves transport coordination through statutory transport plans.
  • Economic context:
    • Cites sport’s value of £53.6 billion a year to UK GVA.
    • Past successes (e.g., Commonwealth Games 2022 generating £1.2bn) used as supporting evidence.
    • Events deliver both economic benefits and social/national pride.

2. Draft Ticket Tout Ban Bill

  • Purpose: Tackles industrial-scale ticket reselling for live music, sport, and cultural events.
  • Key provisions:
    • Makes it illegal to resell tickets above face value.
    • Caps platform service fees.
    • Empowers the Competition and Markets Authority to issue fines up to 10% of global turnover.
  • Impact: Aims to reduce average resale prices by £37 per ticket, saving fans £112 million a year.
  • Wider context: Linked to the creative industries growth strategy.

Tourist Tax / Overnight Visitor Levy

Overnight Visitor Levy Bill

  • Purpose: Implements a tourist tax, allowing mayors and local leaders in England to introduce a small charge on overnight stays.
  • Objective:
    • Devolve revenue-raising powers to regions.
    • Fund local projects improving tourism infrastructure, public services, and the visitor experience.
  • Key features:
    • Bills local visitors, not residents.
    • Brings England in line with Scotland, Wales, and other G7 nations, all of which already have accommodation levies.
  • Economic rationale:
    • UK’s local tax share is very low (only 5.8% of total taxes, compared with 20–45% in G7 peers).
    • Local areas can reinvest revenues in tourism, public spaces, and cultural assets.
  • Support:
    • Backed by mayors including Sadiq Khan, Tracy Brabin, and Steve Rotheram, all stressing that funds would reinvest in regional economies and tourism.

Overall Summary

  • Events and Tourism Policy Direction:
    The government seeks to solidify the UK’s role as a global hub for major cultural and sporting events, while using fiscal devolution (via the Overnight Visitor Levy) to empower local areas to benefit economically from tourism.
  • Key themes:
    • Economic growth and regional empowerment through tourism and events.
    • Stronger consumer protections (ticket tout bans).
    • Legislative readiness for global events like EURO 2028.
    • Fiscal devolution and reinvestment in local visitor economies.

In short:
The King’s Speech 2026 outlines two major tourism-related strategies – one to support the events economy (through modernised regulation and ticketing reform) and another to finance local tourism improvements (through a new Overnight Visitor Levy, effectively a UK-wide “tourist tax”).