Aviation, Travel and Tourism Industries

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]]

No one wants to throw away our hard-won achievement of massively reducing the numbers of deaths and hospitalisations from covid by doing anything irresponsible. We have lost too many lives and caused too much pain and suffering to do that. It is, however, a legitimate expectation that our wonderful and deeply appreciated vaccine roll-out should be laying the foundations to get our freedom to travel back, and there is not enough clarity on how we will do that so that the sector can plan ahead.

Large parts of the travel, tourism and aviation sectors are prevented from trading their way out of the pandemic, with less of a safety net than other businesses that are now open. The fact that the safety net will start to be withdrawn from next month cannot be a fair or reasonable response. London Luton airport, where many of my constituents work, has had to lay off large numbers of people despite the furlough scheme, and the airport continues to lose millions of pounds every month. I know it has plans to be the most sustainable airport in the UK, and I am a strong supporter of zero-carbon aviation and the work of the Jet Zero Council. We need to make sure that international travel fully plays its part in getting to net zero.

One of my travel agents wrote to me to say that she has worked continuously since March 2020, but that work has involved cancelling, rebooking and cancelling holidays again and again, and refunding payments with hardly any income coming in at all. Now she has to pay back £200 every month from her bounce back loan. How is she supposed to do that with no income? A significant number of travel agents are limited company directors and are not eligible for the self-employed income support scheme either.

I think United Kingdom holidays are brilliant, and we have an amazing offer that I have been lucky enough to enjoy myself in the past, but people are not bad if they want to travel overseas. All those whose livelihoods enable people to travel overseas also deserve our support. It has been very disconcerting to have Ministers from outside the Department of Transport speculating on overseas travel. Across the whole Government, can we please just have the relevant Ministers from the Department for Transport providing official information without unhelpful speculation?

I think it is wrong that travel agents are in strand 1 of the restart grant scheme, given that they have, in many cases, virtually no income. Hospitality, leisure, personal care, gyms and sports businesses are in strand 2 and getting the higher £8,000 grant if their rateable value is under £50,000, even though they are open and able to trade. At the same time, travel agents, who have virtually no income coming at the moment, can only get the £2,667 grant. In addition, it cannot be right to reduce furlough payments from next month for any business in the aviation, travel or tourism sector that is still effectively unable to trade because of Government restrictions. That would not be fair or right either.