Travel Agents

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Clark of Kilwinning]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the future of high street travel agents; and what plans they have to appoint a Minister to be responsible for the travel sector.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, we are regularly assessing Covid-19’s impact on tourism businesses. We recognise that these are extremely challenging conditions for those in the sector. High street travel agents have, of course, been able to access the Government’s comprehensive economic support package. While we have no current plans to appoint a new Minister for the travel sector, a cross-government global travel task force has been established to consider what steps the Government can take to enable a recovery of international travel.

[Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Lab) [V]]

I declare an interest as a member of the TSSA parliamentary group. In the summer, nine out of 10 holidays were either cancelled or changed. ABTA said in August that 90,000 people’s jobs were either at risk or had already been lost. That figure increased to 164,000 people by the end of October. Will the Government look at a specific strategy for this sector and specific support? The TSSA and many businesses are asking for one Minister to have specific responsibility to put forward a strategy for this area because responsibilities lie across a number of departments—some are with the Department for Transport, some with other departments, and some fall between. Is this not something that the Government could look at and perhaps discuss with industry and the trade unions?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We have many consultations with the industry and we have put in place a strong package of financial support that businesses in the sector can access, including government-backed loans, various grant schemes and the extended furlough and self-employed support schemes.