Tourism: Bedfordshire

Debate between Roger Gale and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

Sir Roger, you are not Jurassic. You are a mere slip of a boy, in parliamentary terms anyway.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) on securing this debate. I think one of his first parliamentary questions was on this subject. He is obviously very determined to make sure that tourism and the expansion of the tourism offer in his constituency is a key part of securing economic development in his area. I guarantee that if he comes up with any good ideas that we can steal off him, we will be like the proverbial magpie—we will pick it up and run with it. If he ever wants to have a meeting with officials in my Department to discuss specific issues around tourism in Mid Bedfordshire—perhaps we might do that with all the Bedfordshire MPs—I would be more than happy to arrange that.

It is good to have an MP called Blake. The hon. Member might be the first MP in the history of Parliament to be called Blake. I noted the other day that “Blake’s 7” is back—Sir Roger, you can probably remember “Blake’s 7”.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

I am afraid I do not.

[Chris Bryant]

You can remember some things still, Sir Roger. By the time “Blake’s 7” ended, it did not have seven people in it, and it did not have a character called Blake in it, which was a bit rum.

I agreed above all with a point that the hon. Member made in his very first paragraph. He talked about Bedfordshire not just being a place that people pass through. I am very conscious of that. My brother lives in St Albans and I am endlessly getting on trains that say the final destination is Bedford, but I never go to Bedford, because I get off at St Albans.

There is a key aspect to what we need to achieve in our tourism and visitor economy strategy over the next few years. It is all very well people coming for a day or half a day and going out with the kids or whatever, but we need to make sure that there is the right kind of accommodation and accommodation mix at different price points in a whole series of different places around the country. Matching the accommodation with the needs and desires of both domestic and international tourists is a key part of what we need to secure in our tourism strategy.

The hon. Member gave us the Cook’s tour, but when he was talking about Wrest Park, which is run by English Heritage, he did not mention that 194,693 people visited in 2023. It has a great Narnia event, which starts, I think, next week or at the end of this week, and that is why parts of it are closed at the moment. He also referred to Houghton House, Woburn Abbey and the safari park. Some 489,751 people visited the safari park, and that was in 2015, so it is likely that the numbers have gone up since then.

The hon. Member focused on what is in his constituency, but we should look at the whole county—of course, tourists and visitors do not say, “I wonder whose constituency I am going to visit today”; they think about the whole offer in an area, including transport links and whether they will be able to park. One of my ambitions in life is to have one parking app for the whole United Kingdom, so that people do not have to use a phone to download a new app every time they go to park somewhere. It is especially irritating when the local council has just changed the app to another app, and people cannot remember the passcode and all the rest of it. Those are the aspects of someone’s journey—every bit, end to end—that we need to think about when we try to create an effective tourism strategy for the United Kingdom.

I would add to the hon. Member’s list the John Bunyan museum in Bedford and, for that matter, the Panacea museum. That is something that politicians have been seeking forever: if only there were a panacea that could cure all ills—although the danger with a panacea is that it is a mirage, and does not really offer what it proposes.

Let me talk about some of the things we are already doing for the visitor economy across the whole United Kingdom. From representations that were made to me immediately after the Government came into office in July, I know that a lot of people in the visitor economy and hospitality industry were particularly worried about the cliff edge that they saw coming at the end of this year in relation to business rates. I am glad that we could take forward the 40% relief. I know that it is not 70%, but placing it on a permanent footing is important, because it allows hospitality businesses to make investments for the future and have a secure financial footing.

One issue in Bedfordshire and many other parts of the country is short-term lets, whether through Airbnb, individual people renting out a room or whatever it may be. In areas with heavy concentrations of visitors at particular times of the year, the art is to come up with a scheme so that we get the benefits of the visitor economy—all the footfall and added money that that brings to a local area—without the danger of ending up with a completely vacated town or village when the tourism period has ended. That is why, following the previous Government’s legislation on short-term lets, we will soon consult on precisely how to implement the legislation, so that we can, at the very least, have a clear understanding of what short-term lets there are across the whole country and then, if necessary, take further action.

The hon. Member rightly referred to local visitor economy partnerships and the fact that there is not one in Bedfordshire at the moment. That is an issue of concern. As he knows, the local visitor economy partnership programme was part of a new vision for England’s tourism management landscape and was recommended by the independent destination management organisations review. In February 2023, VisitEngland launched the LVEP accreditation programme, which will continue through 2024-25 and which seeks to accredit high-performing, strategic and financially resilient organisations that can lead visitor economy development in their areas, working with businesses and local authorities. As I understand it, VisitEngland is working closely with Experience Bedfordshire and other local stakeholders in Bedfordshire to support their progress in building capacity and moving towards local visitor economy partnership status. Over the coming months, I will ensure that I keep in touch with my officials about how that progresses. I am sure that if it does not progress to the hon. Member’s satisfaction, he will call for another of these debates and I will have to answer to him.

In the Budget, the Chancellor confirmed the Government’s support to deliver the East West Rail scheme in full, which is good news; the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire referred to it. It will strengthen the region’s thriving life science, technology and innovation sectors, but it will also facilitate journeys for tourists and locals throughout the Bedford area. East West Rail is set to bring billions of pounds-worth of growth to the Oxford-Cambridge region, along with tens of thousands of new homes and jobs. I note that the hon. Member was not quite so happy about the tens of thousands of new homes. For what it is worth, my personal view is that the most important thing when developing large numbers of new homes, which we all know this country needs, is to ensure that we have all the infrastructure to be able to cope with them. If there is going to be a significant expansion of the tourism industry, or the visitor economy industry in Bedfordshire, the people who are going to work in that industry will need houses to live in. All those things have to come together.

The hon. Member referred to the prospect of a major development with Universal UK, which is a new theme park. Obviously, I cannot enter into the specifics of the ongoing discussions—that would be unhelpful to everybody —but I am hopeful that we will get to the significant and dramatic change that it would make, not only to visitor numbers in Bedfordshire but to the whole of the United Kingdom.

That takes me to my final point. Of course we should be ambitious for the whole of the United Kingdom in our tourism strategy, but it would be counterproductive if every single person who came from overseas to this country—and we still do not have the numbers that we reached before covid—decided that they were going to visit only London and did not even get to Bedfordshire, let alone farther-flung parts of the United Kingdom. That is why, in all the work we do on behalf of VisitBritain and VisitEngland, we need to ensure that our tourism strategy is genuinely sustainable. It should take people to see not just the historic sites in the capital city of London, or, for that matter, Bath, Stratford, Oxford, Cambridge or Edinburgh, but the full diversity of what we have to offer in this country.

We are a country with extraordinary things to see. There are enormous adventures to take part in across the whole country. The hon. Member has highlighted some of those in his own constituency. I am keen to ensure that many more people come to the United Kingdom, including Bedfordshire, and, as he said, they do not just pass through but stay the night.

Question put and agreed to.

Tourism: Northumberland

Debate between Roger Gale and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

I again welcome you to the Chair, Sir Roger, and it is good to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris). He is actually named in my documents from the Department as “Joe Hexham”; that is probably how he will be presenting himself at the next general election as well, I should think—unless boundaries change in some bizarre, unhelpful way. It is good to see so many new MPs wanting to talk about tourism and the visitor economy, because it is so important to so many parts of the country. As part of the creative industries, it is important that the Government are saying that it is also part of our industrial future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham said in passing that this is about not just the legacy of the past—he listed some of the things in Northumberland from our historical past that are important—but what we do today. One of the things we need to change about our whole tourism strategy as a country is that there is a danger that international visitors think, “The United Kingdom never changes. It’s always got that Parliament building, castles, the monarchy—things like that. You can go next year or the year after.” Actually, we want people to think that now is the time to come to the United Kingdom: “We’re not going to put it off. We’re going to come now.” If they come now, they might come again next year because they want to see a different part of the United Kingdom.

I have a word of caution. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham said, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if, when we as the UK are selling our tourism abroad, we specifically mention Northumberland?” I get it. I am a Welsh MP, and I have often said that it would be good if we started mentioning Wales a bit more in our tourism marketing around the world. The question is whether it works.

I have an anecdotal story, but it is true none the less: Charlotte Church, a young Welsh singer—at the time much younger—was asked to go and sing, for George Bush I think, in the White House. She sang very beautifully, and afterwards George Bush was introduced to her and asked where she was from. She said, “Wales.”. He said, “What state is that in?” To which she said, “Terrible.”. There was a complete meeting of minds.

That story makes an important point about our tourism strategy. I completely agree that it is embarrassing that so many international visitors conceive of coming to the UK as being only about visiting London—or, as I said in the other debate, perhaps Bath or Oxford and Cambridge as a day visit and then maybe Edinburgh. There is far more to see in the United Kingdom. The question is how we best effect that change.

We may be able to do several things. There is no point in my rehearsing the numbers of people who go to the north-east in compared with London, and the difference in spend; my hon. Friend did that perfectly. I want to change that, but that will require a five or 10-year strategy, which I hope we will be able to publish over the coming months. I would be interested to talk to people from different parts of the country about making sure that we put a strategy in place that will genuinely work.

My hon. Friend also talked about the difficulty of ensuring that local people are not shunted out by the tourist influx. One of the things I am keen to work on more is the question of short-term lets. If, as often happens on the coastline, large numbers of short-term lets are all full for two or three months and completely empty for the rest of the year, that does not seem like a win for the local community. That is why, building on what the previous Government did with their legislation on short-term lets, we hope to launch a consultation fairly soon on how we can develop a register of such lets, so that at least we know what is out there, and on how we could use that register to better effect to try to get the benefits of tourism, including visitors not just coming during the day, but staying overnight, without the downsides that sometimes come with that.

Several Members mentioned particular places in Northumberland. I think “Vera” got a look-in several times, which is inevitable—I do not know what Northumberland is going to do if “Vera” ever stops. Brenda is a wonderful actress, but I do not know whether she has another 50 years in her.

My favourite place, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), is Lindisfarne. We have a little painting of Lindisfarne in our downstairs toilet at home in Wales: it is a place of phenomenal beauty and extraordinary history. It is extremely well run and has thousands of visitors every year. I have swum in the sea at Cullercoats—in winter, too, which is quite an ambitious thing.

Both Bamburgh castle and Alnwick castle have been referred to. In fact, I think I am right in saying that Northumberland has more castles than any other county in England. Wales might beat everywhere else on the castle front, but that is Edward I for you. I think Alnwick castle is the second largest in England; it certainly has the second largest number of rooms. It is still the home of the Northumberlands and an extraordinary place to visit.

Tourism for music was not mentioned, but the north-east has a phenomenal music tradition. Sam Fender was on in Newcastle when Pink was on in Gateshead: I know that because I went to Pink. It was a phenomenal concert—the whole region was alive, with every single hotel room in the whole area taken—but people may wonder whether it is a good idea to have two massive concerts at the same time, how that can be managed to best effect and whether it is good for the local economy or whether it would be better to spread them out.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody) referred to having the best fish and chips. I have been in many debates in my years in Parliament, and I must have heard nearly every MP say that the best fish and chips come from such and such a place in their constituency. I warn her against that, because you end up eating an awful lot of fish and chips in the process. I am sure her frame can take it, but I would just say that what makes a good fish and chip shop is actually its range—and the best fish and chip shop equipment is provided by Preston and Thomas. It is no longer functioning in Cardiff, but it had the best range none the less. I know that because my father’s best man was either Preston or Thomas. I can’t remember which.

I turn to the destination development partnership pilots. Up in the north-east, as I saw when I visited not long ago, there is a real determination to seize the opportunity, not just in individual constituencies or local authority areas but across the whole region. I really praise Kim McGuinness: she is absolutely determined that the numbers are going to change. A key part of it is about trying to bring in a new centre—let us hope that it may become a national centre of excellence for hospitality and tourism—based in Newcastle, but working across the whole of the region. It would be good to get additional investment in that.

One thing that has often worried me—this relates to a point that the shadow Minister made—is that in many other countries around the world, people are so proud of tourism that they think of a job in the hospitality industry not as something you do if you really have to, because you have to pay for a course at university or are on a gap year or whatever, but as something people do for the whole of their life, because they are proud of the community they live in and want people to enjoy it. It is a proper career for a whole life.

To enable that here, we need to do several things. We need proper determination across the country that that is what we are going to do. We have to change the whole ethos around serving people in the hospitality industry. We have to enable the industry to work with the Government to develop more career pathways. Tourism must be a key part of the industrial strategy. All the different bits of it, from the moment somebody lands in this country to the moment they leave, need to be singing in the same way. We also have to reform the apprenticeship levy so that it works for small businesses and the creative industries in general. We have to bind together all of the creative industries: we have already talked about music, but lots of people travel for sport as well. It all needs to work together if we are really going to change the prosperity of this country as it derives from tourism.

That is why what is happening in the north-east is so important. I visited not long ago, and I expect to visit in the next fortnight as well. I am very keen to work with those on the ground who want to ensure that tourism becomes an even more significant part of the economy in the north-east.

I welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti). I have written down, “Welcome him and be nice.” To be fair, I am quite fond of him: we were on the Foreign Affairs Committee together. Where it is possible for us all to drive the economy forward together, there is no partisan advantage. I am very happy to work with him. I know he has my number and I have his, in more ways than one. I very much hope that we can work together.

The hon. Gentleman asked about a sector-wide plan. As I said, in the next few weeks I will make a speech about tourism in which I hope to lay out some of our ambitions. It may be that we want to do a much more substantial piece of work on our long-term and medium-term ambitions in tourism for the whole of the United Kingdom. We will be thinking about that over the next few weeks.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the issue of seasonal staffing. That is a legitimate point that relates to issues that other parts of the economy have had with seasonal workers coming in from other parts of the country. I was really struck, when I was talking to the French Tourism Minister a couple of weeks ago, by the fact that we have a seasonal workers deal with France so that British people can work in ski resorts there. It affects the best part of 100,000 people, who go over and work there every year. It may be that there are perfectly sensible arrangements that we can come to in that regard.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the additional support that we will provide. That sounds like the Conservative party asking for additional spending, but the problem with additional spending is that it normally requires additional taxation—this is one of the problems of opposition. My party has been in opposition in Parliament for more of my years than it has been in government. If I may make a suggestion to him, it is that you cannot ask for one without willing the other. If the Leader of the Opposition made a fatal flaw last week in her questions to the Prime Minister, it was not recognising that if you are going to ask for more money to be spent, you also have to will the ends and the means.

I fully understand the problems that the visitor and hospitality sector faces. It is tough running a pub or a restaurant, and it has been for many years. The margins are extremely narrow. The hon. Member for Cheltenham said that we had slashed business rate relief, or cut it—I don’t know that he used the word “slashed”—from 75% to 40%. He could have said that we took it from 0% to 40%, because it was not guaranteed beyond the end of the year. We have made it permanent, which is a good thing.

I fully understand the problems that the sector faces, but some of them relate to long-term stability and sustainability and trying to ensure that businesses have the staff they need. I hope that the north-east will be essential in developing that for the whole of the United Kingdom, perhaps in association with other countries around the world. We also need an NHS that functions, buses that turn up on time, a railway system that works, local authorities that mend the roads and a planning system that works and is properly resourced. The whole public sector needs to function in order for the private sector to function. That is why I am proud of the Budget: in the medium and long term, it will help us to secure our economic future.

As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham and all Members in this Chamber will agree, tourism is an essential part of our economic future. It is the fourth largest industry in the world. We have lost share in that over recent years, but even if we were to continue losing share, we could still grow it within the United Kingdom. I am absolutely determined to do that, but it cannot be based just on bringing more and more people to London. I would like more people to come to London, but it cannot just be about that. It has to be based on understanding the full panoply of what we have to offer across the whole of the United Kingdom. Sometimes that will be based on art forms, like being able to see where films or TV series were made or where musicians are from. I note that Framlingham castle is now apparently more famous for Ed Sheeran’s song “Castle on the Hill” than it is for Queen Mary discovering that she was about to be Queen, which was historically what it sold itself on.

I go right back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham made at the very beginning. It is not just the legacy of the past that we need to celebrate in our tourism; it is what Britain is today. That is the best way to secure a long-term, secure economic future for our tourism industry in Northumberland and across the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

As the Chairman I am not allowed to participate in the debate, but as the Minister comes from the land of song he might like to know that Brenda lives in Thanet and is the chairman of the Thanet male voice choir.