The BHA has just published its annual report.

Compiling it reminded us yet again that this is one of the most regulatory-minded governments in history.

For example, nearly a year after the election, the significance of more than 40 Government Bills in the Queens Speech has become apparent. During the year, the BHA lobbied on many of them, as well as on the implementation of existing laws and on other proposals.

These ranged from the implementation of the new licensing act (a pretty chaotic process in which converting to the new system cost around £2,000 per property) and the government’s healthy eating campaign to smoking ban dithering to the truly dreadful possibility of a bed tax. In between are other, perhaps less prominent measures which will add cost and complexity to businesses.

The Work and Families Bill, for example, in addition eventually to introducing up to six months’ paternity pay and doubling maternity pay, will add 40 per cent to the number of statutory paid holidays to which employers are entitled. As a result, perhaps four million days a year will be lost across our industry.

The Violent Crime Reduction Bill will allow local authorities in England and Wales to introduce the unhelpfully named Alcohol Disorder Zones (though the BHA has secured from ministers an exemption for hotels and restaurants).

We have been lobbying on all these measures – with some success and increasing contacts in almost all government departments.

The government’s previous position on smoking in public places – potentially excluding pubs that did not serve food and clubs – was totally anomalous. We said this would not work and the government conceded a free vote, with the resulting overwhelming Commons majorities to abandon both the non-food pub and the clubs exemptions.

If these were examples of successes, we now have to fight another possible measure: a local authority-imposed tax on overnight accommodation – the so-called bed tax.

Introducing such a tax – which would increase prices at home at a time when our balance of payments in tourism is approaching a £20bn deficit – just does not make sense. And the fact that some local authorities might impose the tax while others might not is totally iniquitous, gravely disadvantaging those businesses in the taxed areas.

Sir Michael Lyons will report on this later in the year on this but we need to impress upon him now the very real damage that such a tax could inflict on the industry. There is much lobbying still to do!