Tourism

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, as I rise to speak here for the first time, I am deeply conscious of the privilege and honour of joining your Lordships’ House. For me, as a lawyer, it is a particular privilege—and a daunting one—to be joining the substantial cohort of distinguished lawyers who sit on these Benches and across the whole House.

I start by thanking my two supporters. My noble friend Lord Goodhart is one of the most distinguished of those lawyers whom I mentioned and has been a friend and mentor to me throughout my 30 years of involvement in politics. Indeed, it was his wife Celia, herself a well known and widely loved Liberal Democrat, who first signed me up as a member of the SDP in those heady days following the Limehouse declaration in early 1981. My junior supporter, my noble friend Lady Falkner of Margravine, has also been a very good friend to me and a source of advice, information and good ideas over a number of years. I am very grateful to them both.

I am also hugely grateful for the generosity of my welcome here across the House, both from my own party and from Peers of all parties and none. Before arriving here, I used to think that I had a good sense of direction—so good, in fact, that in common, I am told, with many of my gender I never needed to seek directions when lost. Here, however, I have been completely humbled by the layout of this Palace and, had it not been for the enormous help of the Doorkeepers and all the other staff, I would never have found my way anywhere at all. I thank all the amazing staff of this House for their constant help and kindness over the two weeks—two rather full weeks, I might add—since I arrived here.

As a barrister, I have practised in recent years mostly in the largely unrelated fields of commercial and family law, but for much of my career I have had a far wider general practice. I hope to put my experience at the Bar to good use in your Lordships’ House. Politically, I chaired the Liberal Democrat Lawyers Association for six years and served, also for six years, on the party’s federal policy committee. However, I come to this House with no previous parliamentary experience and was never a Member of the other place. That was not for want of trying, as in the 1980s I stood twice as a candidate for the House of Commons, first in Weston-super-Mare and then in Falmouth and Camborne. I also stood as a candidate for the European Parliament for Cornwall and Plymouth.

It was in connection with Cornwall in particular that I became interested in both the opportunities and the challenges offered by tourism, which was then and is now even more so Cornwall’s principal industry. It is for that reason that I have chosen to speak in this debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie for bringing it to this House. For Cornwall, the challenge has been and remains to attract high-quality tourism that is not unduly dependent on the weather and that extends over a season beyond the traditional tourist summer months—and to do so in a sustainable way, where the demands of high tourist numbers do not damage the quality of the very environment that makes Cornwall unique.

Cornwall is of course blessed with a natural landscape of remarkable beauty, but it has also had great successes achieved by the imagination of a large number of people. They include, to name but a few, the development of the Eden Project, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and a great many wonderful smaller private gardens, and the Tate at St Ives and the revival of interest in the Newlyn school of painting. However, one step that would, in my view, further assist Cornwall in particular and the tourist industry generally in Britain—this has been mentioned in a swelling chorus in this debate by the noble Viscount, in his opening speech, and by my noble friends Lord Lee of Trafford, Lady Wheatcroft, Lord Stoneham and Lord Caithness—would be for the Government to give their backing to the Daylight Saving Bill. The one-hour move proposed would have profound economic and environmental benefits at virtually no financial cost.

I would also like to say a word or two about the Olympics and Paralympics in the context of tourism. My wife—I thank her and my family for their wonderful help and support—is Greek. We visit Athens regularly. In 2004, we attended a large number of events at the Athens Olympics. I think that there are lessons that we can learn. On the positive side, the organisers had recruited a veritable army of young people, who were there to give advice and help to visitors to the Games not only at the stadia but at metro, bus and tram stations across the city. For those young people, as well as for those whom they helped, this made a profound difference. There are no doubt many whose experience of the Games has built up their confidence and helped them in later life at a difficult time for Greece.

On the negative side, however, while the transport infrastructure built for the Games in Athens has survived and has given a substantial boost to the city’s economy, the wonderful sports venues now lie forlorn and derelict, covered in graffiti and strewn with rubbish, maintained, or rather undermaintained, at a public cost of tens of millions of euros annually. It is vital that, following the 2012 Olympics, we ensure that the promise of a long-term legacy that we made in our bid for the Games is kept, so I hope that when the Olympic Park Legacy Company meets again to consider the rival bids for the Olympic stadium early next month it will look to enhance the future of athletics in this country and to take advantage of the regeneration in east London that the Olympics will bring about. That will be good both for the future of sport and for the future of tourism in Britain.

Finally, on the importance of sport to tourism, I mention my own home town, Henley-on-Thames, where I was brought up and where I live now. It has, since 1839, and without any commercial sponsorship or outside subsidy, hosted the Henley Royal Regatta, probably the world’s greatest rowing event, which attracts teams and their supporters every year and in increasing numbers from all over the world, to the immeasurable benefit of the local economy of the town and of the wider area. It is a great example of what tourism already does for our economy locally and nationally, but there is a great deal more that we could do to foster and encourage the tourist industry to achieve its full potential. I hope that this debate plays some part in that endeavour and I am grateful for the part that I have been able to play in it.