Employment: Tourism and Hospitality

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right in saying that tourism must be taken seriously, whether it is business tourism, sports tourism or cultural tourism. Tourism is worth £127 billion to the UK economy. I am aware of the Deloitte report and my noble friend’s reference. I am nervous of offering advice to the office of the leader of the Opposition, but I suspect that a letter should be swiftly drafted.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Deloitte report also referred to the fact that 630,000 additional jobs will be created by 2025? That puts the figure at 9.9% of GDP. That is up there with some of the major industries in this country, such as financial services. There is a real need to put tourism at the heart of this country’s growth agenda. There are a couple of caveats in the Deloitte report. One is the need to encourage SMEs to get much more comfortable with the digital economy and to concentrate on emerging markets. Is there not a case for BIS, together with DCMS, to develop a programme specifically focused on encouraging SMEs to grow their offering in the tourism market? I should draw attention to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests.

[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.