Leaving the EU: Tourism and the Creative Industries
Debate between Graham Stringer and Christine Jardine(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Christine Jardine
I do not agree that the decline in the value of the pound solves the problem, because it creates other problems elsewhere in the industry, as it suffered its biggest slump since the devaluation under Harold Wilson. However, I do agree that our main problem in this industry will be the workforce and how we will replace the workers who in parts of the country outside Edinburgh make up 20% of the workforce, but in Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland make up almost 50%.
Aviation is one of the UK’s success stories and supports 500,000 jobs in the tourism industry. The current ease of transit to and from the EU enables tourism to contribute £500 million a week to the economy, but 85% of the UK’s air traffic is through our EU membership.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
On the first point, I think we are seeing record levels of tourism in this country, because the pound has dropped—I think that is more or less indisputable. On the aviation point, does the hon. Lady agree that abolishing air passenger duty would give a bigger boost to the UK economy with no cost? A number of studies show that if air passenger duty were abolished, Treasury income from other sources, because of increased economic activity, would benefit the UK as a whole.
Christine Jardine
While air passenger duty might have an economic impact, it cannot overcome the biggest single problem: it will not allow planes to take off. We need a deal on coming out of the EU that will allow our flights to continue to take off and land in Europe, and travel across Europe with the same ease that they do today.
For the creative industries, the figures are, if anything, even more impressive: these industries are worth an estimated £90 billion to the economy and account for one in every 11 jobs. That is something we often overlook. Those jobs are in fashion design, video games, television, theatre, furniture design, radio and many other sectors. International broadcasters alone invest more than £1 billion a year in Britain. It is our fastest growing sector and the UK is currently a world leader in the field, with creative exports from Stormzy and Shakespeare to “The Great British Bake Off”, which define what the UK is to visitors we want to attract from across the globe.