Eden Project: Morecambe and the North-West

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, for my first time at the Dispatch Box. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) very much for securing this Adjournment debate on a subject about which he spoke so passionately, and in his usual inimitable style. It is a delight that he is present for my first time at the Dispatch Box.

I have only recently stepped into this role as the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism, and I am delighted to have done so. I am very pleased to be kicking off with a debate on something in which I am personally so interested. It links tourism with many environmental issues and the beauty of our countryside. I am very well aware of how important the tourist industry is to the nation, and how important and significant the Eden Project could be.

I want to look at the value of tourism generally. It contributes a really significant £68 billion directly to the UK economy every year—around 4% of the UK’s gross value added. In the past three years, inbound tourism has hit record levels in the UK, with 37.9 million people visiting in 2018 and spending a significant £22.7 billion. I highlight that because the Economic Secretary to the Treasury is listening to me.

This is a really important industry that we can build on. Tourism is a really wonderful vehicle for spreading wealth across the country, and for reaching some of those parts that perhaps other things do not reach, particularly in more rural and coastal areas.

If we can get visitors out to the highlands of Scotland, the glens, the moors, the peaks, and the Somerset levels, we can do it through tourism. Tourism creates a great many jobs in this country as well. I have seen how important tourism is to the south-west, just as it is, and can be even more, to the constituency of my hon. Friend, as he pointed out very strongly. Tourism creates many opportunities for everybody.

Morecambe, of course, has a very rich tourism heritage, as we have already seen, and has a great deal to offer. I know that my hon. Friend is working hard to ensure that it can build on a strong and sustainable future. Things are looking very positive already. In 2017, visits to the north-west, in Lancashire, hit new heights. I recall going there back in the day, filming a number of television programmes. We based one gardening series in Morecambe, so I do know how much it has to offer and how very beautiful it is.

I was particularly interested to hear about the proposals for the Eden Project in the north-west. The original Eden Project, as my hon. Friend so eloquently explained, is in my region of the south-west, in Cornwall. Having been there filming on a number of occasions, I was completely bowled over by how magical it is and what it has done for the area, because it transformed an old china clay pit in quite a deprived area into this magical biome of plants. People can just walk through this journey of plants. The project has done so much for the local economy. Some 1 million people visited the project last year, bringing in, as my hon. Friend mentioned, an estimated £2 billion for the region. It attracted people not only from the south-west, but from all over the country and, indeed, from all over the world. The project has done a really good job in getting people down to the south-west, introducing them to a whole world of plants from the Mediterranean, the rainforests and Cornwall, and bringing people up close and personal with nature, which, I believe, my hon. Friend would like to do in the north-west.

The project showcases world-class horticulture and environmental sustainability and builds very strongly on education links, which my hon. Friend is keen to promote and support. Crucially, in tourism terms, it has helped to extend the season, so that visitors go not just in the summer but all year round; there is just so much on offer. That is one of the aims of the project in the north-west.

Eden Projects are extending around the world. Eden International is building projects in other places. Last summer, I went to Qingdao in the Shandong province with the China all-party group to see the building of another Eden Project on an eroded habitat originally used for salt. It is creating an enormous and beautiful Eden Project, which is based on the theme of water conservation. Again, it will transform the area, and that is the kind of thing that my hon. Friend is talking about. There have been great successes so far and there is an awful lot to think about.

My hon. Friend highlighted the fact that the Government have already given £100,000 to supporting the development of proposals for the feasibility study, and others have contributed towards that. Ministerial colleagues, such as the northern powerhouse Minister, have been very supportive so far, so that is all encouraging.

The project is of particular interest to me because it builds on the wonderful coastline and natural habitat. The Government are seriously trying to help with regeneration of coastal areas. A recent House of Lords Select Committee report on regenerating seaside towns highlighted the merits of projects such as the Eden Project in helping to regenerate coastal areas. We need to help them by getting people there at times of the year other than the summer. It is tremendous that private companies and investors are looking quite widely at opportunities for linking into the tourism potential across the length and breadth of Britain.

There are opportunities for tourism because it is a booming industry. International traveller numbers to this country are increasing. We are trying to attract even more travellers to our glorious isles and we want them to explore them widely. It is up to the UK to ensure that we have top-quality services to provide to our visitors—not just the best attractions but the best accommodation, transport, food, drink and even the digital links that suppliers use to sell their products, such as websites and so on. Linking into all these opportunities through green tourism can really help.

My hon. Friend touched on what is so special about the Morecambe area. It is an internationally renowned environmental area—a Ramsar site—and is the largest continuous intertidal area in Great Britain. It is a glorious stretch of not just sand, but mud and so on. It is great for wildlife and nature, and there are so many opportunities to be built on.

The Government have already demonstrated how they are building on these unusual and unique places and opportunities to up the tourist offer. We put £40 million into the Discover England fund, which has been working on certain projects. I happened to go to the round-up conference yesterday, to talk about how well lots of the projects have gone. It was my first speech in this role outside of Parliament. There are projects such as using Manchester international airport as a gateway for international tourists, and then ensuring that they spread northwards to the Lake district and Scotland, as well as into Wales, to experience all the exciting opportunities in those places such as the coastline, attractions and food—all of it. That is working so well.

Another project is Visit Lancashire’s “Discover more than just a holiday” project. People can do everything, from beekeeping courses to running courses and cycling tours. Lots of opportunities are being built on. The buzzing for the weekend programme led by Warrington Borough Council encourages travellers from Spain and Portugal to enter the country through Liverpool John Lennon airport and to explore that region. Similarly, the Great West Way is building on the structure of the Kennet and Avon canal and all its spin-offs—Bradford-on-Avon, Bath and further up to the 27 locks at Devizes. I do not know whether anyone here has ever tried going through those locks on a barge—one has to be quite fit. Of course, the cathedral city of Salisbury is also on the way, with the tallest spire in England.

On the coastal front, as well as the money given to the Discover England fund, which is going so well, the Government awarded the coastal communities fund £2.35 million this year to create major new attractions. I believe that much of that money went to Morecambe bay. I notice that it even funded the refurbishment of the Winter Gardens theatre’s heating system. That might not sound glamorous, but theatre audiences do need to be cosy and warm, so I am sure that will help.

The Secretary of State is well aware of the impact of tourism, and is working so hard with others on the proposed and very exciting tourism sector deal, which I can report is progressing well. I know that lots of people are listening out for what is going to happen with that deal.

[Bob Stewart]

The Minister sounds extremely enthusiastic about the idea of a north-west Eden Project. In fact, I know she is and I know that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, although he is a Treasury Minister, shares her enthusiasm. Could the Government salami-slice the money and give a little each year so that come 2024 the £40 million to £60 million is there? Is that how they could do it, and would the Minister support such an idea?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for his cheeky intervention.

[Bob Stewart]

No, no; I come from that area.

[Rebecca Pow]

Aha! The Treasury Minister is here listening, but I think that the money we have already had for the Discover England fund is working really well. It demonstrates the great value we can get from seedcorn money and the productivity it can generate, so I hope the Treasury Minister is listening. That is what we need to build on. There is enormous scope to do that, in Morecambe or wherever else, so it is a good point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale mentioned the lido. I do not think they will be bringing back the lido as part of the project—I swam in the one at Bridgwater before it shut—but I am sure there will be a lot of water in the Eden Project, if it ever gets going, because water is involved in plants in almost all the Eden Projects, so perhaps there might be an opportunity there.

In a world where environmental issues and sustainability are rising right up the agenda, the ethos of an Eden Project is going in absolutely the right direction. There is so much to build on, using nature and wildlife and all the benefits people get from that. I think my hon. Friend said he would like to see people being part of nature, which I thought was a very good way of putting it. That could be built into the project and bring so much benefit. His references and ambitions for increasing education and productivity, benefiting the coastal area, and all those things that such a project might bring, are highly commendable. I obviously cannot influence whether it actually comes to fruition, but this is absolutely the right place to raise it, so I thank him for doing so. I wish him well in his endeavours and look forward to hearing how it progresses.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

May I congratulate the Minister on her ministerial maiden speech? I think she has left the House happy this afternoon.

Question put and agreed to.