Tourism

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in two minutes I can make only two points. The first is to stress the need for support for tourism in my home area—the north-east of England—and the second, which echoes concerns that have already been expressed, is about the way tourism is being damaged by decisions taken by the Home Office on passport and visa policies.

Regarding the north-east, I declare my interest as chair of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums. I should perhaps mention some other activities I am involved in, including being chair of the Northumberland National Park Foundation, president of the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society, and having been for many years one of Newcastle’s volunteer tourist guides, doing regular walking tours of the city to show off our 2,000-year heritage to locals and visitors alike. Time does not permit me to extol all the north-east’s tourist assets, but I take some comfort from the fact that the Minister, whose title includes “Whitley Bay”, must already be aware of the region’s great tourist offer.

The helpful Library briefing for this debate points out that the Government are considering whether there are better models and ways of supporting English tourism at the regional level, and I certainly urge the Government to do this in the north-east. When we had regional development agencies, the north-east agency, One North East, did some excellent work in promoting tourism. But since its demise no other organisation has had the same impact, despite the good work being done by smaller or geographically more limited organisations. The north-east has a bigger population than Northern Ireland and it is not much smaller than Wales, but it has far less to spend on tourism in comparison. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they should look at this urgently.

Secondly, and all too briefly, I urge the Minister to lobby the Home Office to continue to allow ID cards and group travel arrangements for school visits from our EU and EEA neighbours. The Home Office says it wants to treat all countries the same, but I am not aware of any school day trips coming to the UK from, say, Sydney or Singapore, but there is huge demand for groups coming through the Channel Tunnel. If the Home Office does not change its policy, it will harm our tourism industry, and its current approach seems simply petty and self-defeating.