Employment: Tourism and Hospitality

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the noble Baroness absolutely strikes the right note. Tourism is at the heart of much of the UK economy. If you look at the countryside, there are constituencies where a very significant proportion of jobs are involved in tourism. It needs to be taken extremely seriously indeed. The other point is that whether the apprenticeships are in large organisations or smaller ones, there are great opportunities for young people coming into this industry. I take the point about SMEs. BIS is working extremely hard on apprenticeships. We very much hope that tourism will be part of the next tranche of Trailblazers’ apprenticeship activity.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the arts in the widest sense play a terribly important role in tourism, whether it is the West End theatre, the National Gallery or the Royal Opera House? These things are very important and a lot of organisations are quite stretched with declining subsidies. Given what he has just said, does he agree that subsidies should be seen as an investment?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

To pick up the noble Lord’s first point, it was very interesting to see in the list of those who went with the Prime Minister to China the number from the creative industries and tourism and heritage sectors. It is a very important part of why lots of people want to come to this country. It is why Britain is fourth in terms of culture and tourism on the Anholt brands index. I very much take that point. On the question of subsidy, it is a balance of the great opportunities our culture has to generate its own funds and government grant in aid.