Tourism and Hospitality

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on securing this debate. He has been a great champion of the industry for many years here and, as he told us, he has had practical experience in Cheshire. If the noble Lord ever thinks about giving up politics, I suggest he would make a wonderful toast-master, as he has the right bearing and a marvellous voice as well.

I had the privilege of introducing the previous tourism debate in the Moses Room in April last year. On many occasions I have said in this House that I believe that tourism is the number one industry in more parliamentary constituencies than any other single industry. Just think about it: there are our coastal resorts, the Lake District, Yorkshire, the West Country, Scotland—where it is perhaps equal with whisky, but certainly very important, as we have heard from the noble Earl—our historic towns such as Stratford, York, Chester, and our big cities with increasing tourism industries, obviously not least London itself.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions—ALVA—all of whose 57 members get more than 1 million visitors a year. I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft is in her place and that we will hear from her a little later. She is a very distinguished trustee of the British Museum. Of those 57, most of the royal palaces are members, and we have our great cathedrals—Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s—great museums and national galleries. They are the icons. With the best will in the world, visitors do not come to this country for our hotels or restaurants, although they want good hotels and restaurants. They come because of our heritage. The members of ALVA also include the National Trust, with a magnificent 4 million members, and English Heritage, with wonderful sites such as Stonehenge. I am sure we will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, a little later, who was recently such a distinguished chair of English Heritage. We also have as members Warner’s studio tour of the world of Harry Potter, Chester Zoo, the Eden Project and the Churches Conservation Trust, which is apposite to the previous debate, on parish churches. Treasure Houses of England is a member, and we have sister organisations such as the Historic Houses Association. Of course, those appeal much more to the domestic visitor.

The vital message overall is that we need continuous investment in our attractions, with continuous refurbishment and upgrading to maintain and improve the quality of our offering. While quite rightly we endeavour to obtain more charitable funding from individuals and the corporate sector, I suggest that at the end of the day the Government have a major responsibility—certainly for the national museums and galleries that they support.

Sadly, as has been said, Governments and politicians of all persuasions have not in the past taken tourism seriously. At the last election, there was no mention of tourism in any of the major party manifestos—none at all. That is why the tourist industry has come together in the campaign for tourism to make sure that, in the coming election of 2015, tourism at least gets a mention. We have had meetings with the Prime Minister and the leader of the Official Opposition, and I am seeing David Laws next week, who is leading on the Lib Dem manifesto. We have meetings with the Deputy First Minister in Scotland and soon, I hope, with the Welsh First Minister, to press the case of tourism.

In recent months, to be fair, there have been some welcome signs that the Government have been getting the message. We have had some improvements in visas—I acknowledge that—and some alleviation on air passenger duty. Of course, last week the new Tourism Council was announced, focusing on employment issues and bringing together BIS, DCMS and the industry. I welcome that council—it is a step in the right direction—but I have some caveats. First, we really need a council that goes much wider and involves many more government departments. The Treasury needs to be involved because of VAT and air passenger duty. Transport needs to be involved because of the infrastructure issue. The Home Office needs to be involved because of visas. Secondly, to succeed, the council needs to be chaired by a senior Minister—a big hitter—not one or more junior Minister. I speak from some experience, having been a junior Minister and having endeavoured to put together just that sort of body more than 25 years ago when I was Tourism Minister.

Thirdly, despite the focus of the council on employment, the industry’s sector skills council, People First, is apparently not represented on the council. Fourthly, also we have no representative from destination management organisations, which deliver tourism at local level. Fifthly, and very importantly, there is no real representation from the SMEs that make up 80% of the tourist industry. I very much welcome the council’s creation but it has to be built up and expanded. I hope that the Minister can respond to some of my individual concerns.

Tourism is a massive generator of new jobs—one-third of the new employment in the past two or three years. It is an industry that has the ability to take on employees at all levels, from the unskilled right the way through to the skilled. I am afraid that there are those who in this country drone on all the time about immigration. Without all those who come from the EEC to work in our tourism and hospitality industries, our hospitality industry would absolutely collapse. This morning, for example, I had breakfast in a small hotel; there were two waitresses, one from Italy and one from Romania. Almost all the staff who come to this country from the EEC are smart and keen and very pleasant. What are the Government doing to encourage our indigenous youth to really participate?

Too few people appreciate the relationship that exists between a service industry such as tourism and manufacturing. They too often denigrate tourism because it is a service industry. The reality is that they are complementary. Let us take our aerospace industry, where we have a major position in the world. How much of aerospace manufacture comes from travel and tourism? Or let us take the construction industry in this country, and the very considerable development in recent years of budget hotels. Another example is that of Merlin, one of our very successful entertainment groups, which has a £40 million annual investment programme this year, with developments at Chessington, Alton Towers and Sea Life in Birmingham. We should think also about all the food and drink consumed by domestic and overseas visitors.

When the noble Earl talked about Northumbria, I was reminded of my experience more than 25 years ago, when, as Tourism Minister, I visited the Northumbria Tourist Board, as it was then called. The very impressive chair of that tourist board told me that the only way she could get funding for tourism in Northumbria was to take money from the fire brigades’ budget because at that time tourism was not acknowledged as a serious industry, particularly in the north-east and Northumbria. Thankfully, there has been considerable improvement in that regard.

I conclude by suggesting two things that would give a huge boost to tourism, and at no cost. The first is to revisit the whole issue of double summer time. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, will appreciate this. The extra hours of daylight that would be gained by introducing double summer time would give a huge boost to the tourism industry and benefit sport and road safety as well. Therefore, I hope that we will revisit that issue. My second point has been mentioned. Given tourism’s importance and its potential, for heaven’s sake let us now include it in the title of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. That is a long overdue and well deserved measure.