Cruise Industry

Royston Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking. This is line with current Government and House of Commons Commission guidance. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the contribution of the cruise industry to the economy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Efford.

They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, and perhaps that should have been the theme of the pandemic. In Southampton, as well as in many other ports around the country, that was never more stark than when we saw the empty berths where once many cruise ships were tied up while embarking and disembarking passengers. Cruise ships have created an ever-changing landscape in Southampton, as the many and varied ships rotate through the port, and when that was missing it was extremely noticeable.

Cruise operations are of huge significance to the UK’s economy. The port of Southampton is the home of the UK cruise industry and the leading cruise turnaround port in Europe. Last year, the majority of all UK cruise passengers passed through Southampton, with the port accounting for 83% of all cruise passengers in 2019. However, it is not the only port to benefit from cruise: Portsmouth, just down the road, Dover, Tilbury, Newcastle, Dundee, Edinburgh, Belfast and Liverpool all benefit from the revenue that cruise brings to their local economies. It is estimated that each turnaround visit for a cruise ship in Southampton brings £2.7 million to the local economy, and much of that will stay local. Its importance cannot be underestimated.

Southampton is like many post-industrial cities of the north, which is why you will hear me repeat that levelling up is not about geography but about opportunity. My constituents depended on manufacturing jobs, from shipbuilding to motor manufacturing. Southampton was the home of the famous Ford Transit van, but Ford, Vosper Thornycroft and Pirelli Cables & Systems are all long gone. That is why the port of Southampton and the cruise industry are so important to our economy and the employment prospects of my constituents.

In a port city like Southampton, one is never more than a few feet away from someone who makes a living from or has their standard of living enhanced by the cruise industry: from Solent Stevedores to the many taxi drivers, dozens of suppliers, Associated British Ports operators, students with jobs in hospitality and retirees working in the terminals during busy times—part time, full time, young and old. The cruise industry in Southampton is integral to our economic success.

However, it is not just our local economy that benefits from the cruise industry. Cruising brings in over £10 billion per year to the UK economy and supports nearly 90,000 jobs. In December last year, Cruise Lines International Association told the Transport Committee that pausing cruise operations between March and September 2020 resulted in £6.7 billion of lost expenditure and 52,000 job losses. Carnival Cruise Line alone employs over 1,100 people at its UK headquarters in Southampton and has over 2,000 British seagoing officers. That is not insignificant. We can calculate the economic benefits, but it is more difficult to put a price on the joy that cruising brings. In 2019, before the pandemic struck, nearly 2 million passengers passed through the port of Southampton alone. This figure is expected to grow to 4 million a year by 2050, and ports are already investing to take advantage of that growth.

Recently, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), opened the port of Southampton’s fifth and latest cruise terminal, aptly named Horizon. The state-of-the-art terminal is fitted with more than 2,000 solar panels on the roof, generating more power than it uses, and it has shore power for ships to plug into while in port.

The demographic of the cruise market has changed. No longer is it the preserve of older people and wealthy pensioners; it is now the fastest-growing sector of the tourism industry and is particularly popular with families. During the efforts to restart cruise, the industry worked closely with the Minister and Government and welcomed the Prime Minister’s roadmap out of lockdown. Domestic cruises were permitted again from 17 May this year, and the cruise industry has gone on to demonstrate how safe it is and how prepared it was to resume its operations. It has introduced stringent measures to keep passengers and crew safe. The UK Chamber of Shipping published a covid-19 framework for the industry that made cruise ships the safest environment in the travel and hospitality sector. Those measures include pre-embarkation health checks, masks and social distancing, and guests are encouraged to use hand-washing facilities and hand sanitiser dispensers at venue entrances. Cruise ships also have excellent medical facilities, including intensive care units on most ships. All adult passengers are required to be double vaccinated, as are the crew. Although it was disappointing that the increase in covid infections last winter meant that cruises were unable to resume, the industry used that extended period to further improve its protocols, learning from the pandemic as it progressed.

While we understand and acknowledge the disappointment of those who saw their holidays cancelled during the pandemic, we should not overlook the awful time that crew have experienced. The depressing sight of cruise ships anchored off the south coast, visiting a port every few weeks to offload waste and take on fuel and supplies, will be one of the most enduring and disturbing images of the pandemic.

Many crew members have also found themselves disadvantaged by the loss of the seafarers earnings deduction. Seafarers are normally entitled to a deduction from their tax bill; however, this is linked to time spent at sea outside of the UK. Through no fault of their own, many failed to meet the required qualifying period. The Government will therefore benefit from a windfall to the detriment of our seafarers. That has caused some crew members to reconsider whether a job that requires them to be away from their families for prolonged periods is worthwhile at all. It is putting even more pressure on the recovering industry, and driving British sailors to overseas companies and competitors. Retention of existing seafarer professionals is not the only issue: recruitment is becoming a challenge too. One captain has said that without the SED, it is now hard to attract university graduates to embark on a seafaring career.

In conclusion—it does no harm to repeat this—the cruise industry is a UK success story, employing tens of thousands of people and contributing billions to our economy while giving the very best holiday experience to customers. I know that the Minister was as pleased as me to see the resumption of our nation’s fantastic cruise industry, and that he will continue to support it, as he has done throughout the most turbulent time in its history. I hope that he will use his influence with the Chancellor and the Treasury to secure a seafarers earnings deduction waiver, temporarily waiving the requirement to be outside the UK for a period of time in order to qualify. Our seafarers must feel valued for what they do, and receive recompense for the sacrifices they make in the way they would have had the pandemic not happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Royston Smith]

Frequently, the interesting thing about these debates is what we learn when we are in them, such as that Fair Isle, with a population of 60, still has cruises—albeit more modest ones—visiting it. I had not thought about that—I am quite focused on Southampton; I do not know if anyone noticed—but these are really great debates for learning new things that we did not already know. I have found it fascinating, particularly the comments made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about his constituency and why it is the most important place for people to visit. Of course, I would argue that that is Southampton, but I am sure that everyone in here, whether they are from Aberdeen North, Thurrock or anywhere else, would argue that their constituency is the place to visit.

I will say a couple of things in conclusion. Looking back a bit, although it is important to look forward, it was perverse that when we started opening up, we opened restaurants, bars and hotels, but not restaurants, bars and hotels on cruise ships. It is one of those industries that just gets on with it and is good at what it does, and therefore is a bit forgotten.

I wanted to have this debate so that we can highlight the importance of cruise and acknowledge that it is a really important industry to the country. We have learned that it is a truly UK-wide business that benefits all of us and our constituents and will continue to do so, but no one really talks about it because it just gets on with it. It was a bit disadvantaged by some of the Government advice.

The Minister, who is remarkably well thought of by the industry, did everything he could to restart cruising, but then of course there was the travel advice from the FCDO, which said that it came from PHE, and before we knew it no one could make a decision. I hope that sort of thing will not happen again. I hope there will be no pandemic, but in the event that that sort of thing happens, I hope this will be looked at properly.

I hope people will now acknowledge how important cruise is, how many cruise operators we have, how many jobs they create, and how much money they put into our economy. I hope the industry is not left to get on with it because it is so successful. That is a two-way street. Members have said that cruise perhaps needs to work more with local communities and to benefit them more. It should never say, “We are a big cruise operation and you can take it or leave it.” I do not feel that it has done that in Southampton, but we need to be alive to that sort of thing.

There are so many cruise operators. I do not want to namecheck them all, but as soon as we start to look, we realise how many there are. Carnival has its group, which includes P&O and Cunard—those are the ones I am particularly familiar with in Southampton—but then there are Fred, Olsen, Saga and smaller ones that we perhaps have not heard of. It is a massive industry and it is really important to the country.

I thank all hon. Members who have come here today to make their points. I am sure that they have been well heard by the industry and by Government. I again extend my gratitude to the Minister, who has been exceptional over the past 12 months. I know the industry would want me to say that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the contribution of the cruise industry to the economy.