Tourism

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions—40 of our major attractions, all of which get more than 1 million visitors a year. I am delighted to say that National Museum Wales is one of our members. I am also absolutely delighted that 17 Members of your Lordships' House are speaking today, including six who are delivering their maiden speech. I must say that this is far more than we normally get in a tourism debate; nor do we normally have the same number of Peers speaking as there are piers in the Weston-super-Mare constituency of our present Tourism Minister.

I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for his maiden speech, which we all found fascinating. He and I spent many years together in the other place. He was hugely respected. He is a magnificent ambassador for Wales, and has done a huge amount for the disadvantaged and the disabled. We look forward to many excellent contributions from him over the years; from all sides of the House, we welcome him.

I also congratulate the noble Viscount on moving the debate. I had the privilege of serving under his father as a junior Minister in the Ministry of Defence. As a Minister, he commanded huge respect and was a gentleman in the very finest sense. I am delighted that his son is moving our debate today.

Tourism is probably the number one industry in more parliamentary constituencies than any other industry, yet previous Governments have paid little regard to it. It has hardly featured in party election manifestos. Over the years, there has been a steady reduction in the funding of our national tourist boards. Past Prime Ministers have not taken a great deal of interest. Gordon Brown could hardly be described as the happy holidaymaker. Tony Blair tended to prefer warmer climes in Tuscany. At least the present Prime Minister is spending a little more time in this country.

The Government regard the chair of our national tourist board, VisitBritain, as only a six-day-a-month job, which is frankly ridiculous given the scale of the industry, as we heard earlier. Of course, tourism is not in the title of its sponsoring Ministry, the DCMS. As we have heard, it is a huge wealth creator and, potentially, a huge jobs creator. We must all be conscious of the number of overseas people who provide most of the workforce in so many of our major hotels and restaurants. There surely must be great opportunities for many of those in the UK who are at present, sadly, unemployed.

Many people tend to denigrate tourism as a service industry, but of course there is a relationship between service and manufacture. When I was Tourism Minister in the 1980s, the largest steel contract at that time was placed by the Blackpool Pleasure Beach for one of its big new rides. A big hotel development programme is currently under way in London, as we will no doubt shortly hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. Eighty per cent of the content of a new hotel used to be of UK-manufactured origin. As for our civil airline industry, we should think about how many of the aircraft carry tourists. Therefore, there is a relationship between service and manufacture.

Our domestic tourism industry is relatively buoyant at present. One has only to look at the number of people who increasingly caravan. The figures from the Caravan Club show an amazing growth in recent years. Of course, as was said a little earlier, we have a tremendous national heritage with our great museums and galleries, but they need extra resources. I ask the Minister whether the Treasury is making any progress in encouraging lifetime giving by those who are willing and have the resources to support many of our great heritage institutions.

As for the regions, there is considerable concern at the phasing out of the RDAs, which used to provide most of the funding for the destination management organisations. It is of considerable concern to read today that Visit Lincolnshire, the county council body that promotes Lincolnshire and tourism in that county, has been forced into administration after apparently losing £670,000 of funding.

However, the biggest single boost that the Government could give our tourism industry would be to support the Lighter Later campaign by altering the clocks and extending the useful hours of daylight. I was absolutely delighted that this was referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, who is a Scot, as it is of course from Scotland that historically the criticism of a possible change has come, so I am delighted to hear his support for this proposal.

There is huge potential in overseas markets; China has already been referred to by other speakers. The visa situation is particularly unsatisfactory, and I end by reading an e-mail that I received yesterday from the managing editor of China Ethos:

“The UK is a very attractive tourist destination to the Chinese people. However, their enthusiasm to holiday in the UK is dampened down by the inconvenience encountered in obtaining a separate UK tourism visa in addition to a Schengen visa which allows entry to most European countries. Unless visitors have specific reason to come to the UK on their European trip, most will not bother applying for a UK visa due to the elaborate and time-consuming procedures. It clearly seems that the UK is losing out by keeping its door shut to the wealthy Chinese tourist on a shopping spree in Europe. In 2010, Chinese shoppers alone contributed to nearly a third of the UK post Xmas sales in luxury goods”.