Holiday Pricing

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Toby Perkins

Monday 24th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. You have only just joined us; I assure you that you have missed an excellent debate. I will attempt to do some sort of justice to it, in my own modest way, but you might chose to read Members’ words for yourself later.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) on bringing the issue for debate and on the way in which he presented it. The strength of opinion that has been articulated in the debate, the size of the petition and the testimony we have heard from hon. Members clearly show how important the matter is and how right he was.

A couple of hon. Members have reflected on the fact that the Minister is from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and I am responding as a shadow BIS Minister. The initial petition looked very much at the business aspect of the matter, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley was right to say that the whole aspect of the debate has changed since the initial petition first went on to the e-petition system. That was reflected in the debate, which did not dwell much on the business aspect but focused much more on educational policy. That perhaps leaves me at a slight disadvantage.

The issue is of great concern for my constituents, many of whom have taken the opportunity to raise it with me at my weekly surgeries, by e-mail and at the school gate. I did a summer survey in which I raised questions about the changes, which demonstrated powerfully to me how strongly people feel about the matter. We all know how desperately difficult it is to get that balance between the fact that we want our children to be in school at all the right times and the huge increase in the cost of holidays during the school breaks. It was therefore no surprise to me that 150,000 people across the country took action by signing the online petition and demanding that MPs discuss the issue. That is why we have had so many valuable contributions from Members on both sides of the House. I will touch on those in a moment.

A situation has been created in which many families who have not previously faced the dilemma of how to afford an annual summer holiday now find themselves financially squeezed and wondering how to do so. All of us know how important holidays together can be for a family. We are an incredibly time-poor nation, and, often, many people are stretched. We struggle to have time with our families given the huge number of pressures on us, so family holidays are incredibly important. It is tremendously difficult for people when they feel that their opportunity to go on those holidays has been removed. We all recognise how important the issue is.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley was right to say that this is another demonstration of how powerful e-petitions can be. It has shown how issues that we do not immediately see as significant can have their significance powerfully demonstrated to us by our constituents. The response of people to the e-petition demonstrated the importance of this issue.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of staggering holidays, something to which many hon. Members referred. That is an important part of the whole equation. Colleagues in the Department for Education have been looking at that issue and exploring how greater flexibility can be given to schools. The point was made powerfully that we do not want a parent such as myself, with one child in secondary school and one in primary school, to find that their children’s schools have holidays at different times. Perhaps we can try to stretch out the holiday season on a more systematic basis, recognising that although we are not blessed with sunshine all year round in this country, as some areas are, we could none the less stagger holidays to take a bit of pressure off.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the fact that this issue has been debated in this place since the mid-1960s. It is interesting to question why people feel so strongly about it now. The broader pinch that people are feeling at the moment and how the holiday market has changed in recent years, as well as the recent changes to Government education policy, are perhaps some reasons why what has been to an extent a hoary old chestnut for 40-odd years is now being raised powerfully.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) suggested that discretion does exist—a point repeated a moment ago—and the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) raised the important question of what constitutes exceptional circumstances. We heard examples of circumstances that have not been considered exceptional. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke about a child with autism whose parents might have specific reasons for not wanting to be on holiday when resorts are most crowded, and asked whether such a case would be considered exceptional.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) highlighted the case of someone whose child had a brain tumour; that was not considered by the head teacher to be an exceptional circumstance. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) highlighted the case of someone who was exceptionally busy during school holidays because of the kind of business they ran, but their circumstances were not considered exceptional.

It is clear that there has been a change of policy. The Government have communicated that quite deliberately, and it is their right to do so. However, exercising that right has had an impact because of how the policy has been implemented. One aspect of today’s debate that I have found interesting was that no contributions have been made by any hon. Members from Scotland—unless we count Corby as representative of that nation. That is not entirely surprising, because Scottish schools have holidays at a different time of year and Scottish people probably benefit quite nicely from the fact that they all go on holiday in July, when prices are cheaper than they are for us in England. That is an interesting observation.

I will now reflect on some of the other contributions to what I think has been an excellent debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire said something that was repeated by many colleagues: across the House we all agree about the importance of children being in school, and recognise the disadvantage there is to children when they are out of school, for whatever reason, for any sustained period. None of us is saying that we think it is good for children to miss huge amounts of their schooling. We are all always conscious of our responsibility in this place to ensure that our children have the best opportunity to be successful at school. However, we also have to recognise that there is a cost of living crisis, with families feeling the pinch, and that we need to do what we can to support them in those circumstances. My hon. Friend powerfully highlighted the reality faced by time-poor, financially stretched families at this time, and the difficult circumstances that they face.

The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke about the strength of feeling and support on this matter, and he was right to do so. He also raised the issue of whether there will be a greater amount of discretion for a child who is going to a funeral than for someone who wants a holiday without educational benefits; how the policy is being applied shows that there is a difference between such cases. He also touched on one of the devilishly difficult parts of the judgment call on the matter when he called for clear guidelines but more discretion. That is what we all want to an extent, but we should recognise the central contradiction in that.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) spoke up for the tourism industry, as we would expect. He spoke about the escalation in cost for popular events, referring to the London Olympics and the fact that in attempting to maximise their opportunities some people potentially priced themselves out of business and ended up falling victim to what they thought would be good times, as they had been too ambitious about what they could charge. I do not know whether he has turned his attention to the frankly extortionate cost to hon. Members of bed and breakfast accommodation in Manchester at the time of the Labour party conference. I have recently tried to make a booking and discovered that Manchester in September is far more expensive that one would expect.

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

There may shortly be a plug for having party conferences in Bournemouth.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman has made my point for me: Bournemouth is better suited for party conferences.

[Toby Perkins]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on repeating my suggestion.

It is usual during winding-up speeches to talk about what has been mentioned during the debate, but I will talk about what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley did not talk about: the tourism industry. An important point that some colleagues mentioned is that holiday accommodation is available for 52 weeks a year, or slightly less, and there is pressure to push the customer base into a shorter and shorter period. The petition refers to profiteering holiday companies exploiting people, but that is not the reality. If a crude cap were introduced, they might retain the current price in August but they would be unable to reduce the price in April. The important question is whether people would be better off or whether those who can go away at different times would not get cheaper holidays.

The hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) confessed his sins—it is always good for a Member of Parliament to do that. If he did not quite ask for forgiveness, he at least offered mitigating circumstances. The debate involves the many people who cannot go away during school holidays, as well as the many who can go away only during school holidays—for example, teachers and anyone who works in the education sector and so on. If we increase the pressure, we will push up the cost of their holidays too. The debate started 18 months ago, or 40-odd years ago, depending on how people look at it, but certainly prior to the proposed changes, which, if anything, will push prices up further. What was a problem 18 months ago will be an even bigger problem in a year or two.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) asked why we are talking about the matter now and why it has become so important. I will touch on that, but in his broader view of the debate he said that he supported the petition but not necessarily the proposed remedy. That reflected what many other hon. Members said.

The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) focused on the semantics of “special” and “exceptional” and seemed to question whether there has been a change in policy. The previous Government introduced fines for people who took their children out of school without authorisation. The Secretary of State was clear that he wanted his direction following the statutory instrument to be seen as a change of policy. Head teachers saw it as that, and many in my constituency wrote to parents saying that the policy had changed and that there would be no discretion other than in narrow and exceptional circumstances. That was clearly the intention of the Secretary of State’s policy.

The debate has been consensual and sensible. It has shown that we all believe strongly and passionately that it is vital for our children to be in school for the maximum amount of time, that standards should be resilient and that parents should recognise their responsibility. We recognise that the present situation is desperate because prices have risen faster than wages in 41 of the last 42 months, and families are feeling the pinch. We are discussing another aspect of that cost-of-living crisis. I intended to give some examples of how prices have increased, but many hon. Members have alluded to that so I need not do so. However, the extent of price differences during the high and low seasons is huge and the success of the e-petition calling for swift action is not surprising.

The Association of British Travel Agents has made it clear that price fluctuations are the commercial reality of running a business in a seasonal market, and we understand that. The hon. Member for East Hampshire asked whether the Labour party is proposing a crude cap and rightly gave some reasons why that would be difficult. We do not have a price control policy at a macro level, but that does not mean that there is never a reason to look into whether there is a properly functioning competitive market. I will touch on that.

Many parents believe that they are exploited by the holiday industry, which uses the tight limits on when they can travel to overcharge them, and the huge cost differentials reflect that. However, there have been no thorough studies of the issue in recent years, so it is hard to get to the bottom of the problem and the extent of exploitation. The lack of such a study seems at odds with the Government’s intention of addressing consumer protection concerns. I should be grateful if the Minister commented on whether the apparent contradiction of one group of consumers apparently paying over the odds to subsidise another group is questionable under our consumer protection laws.

Consumer law has strong protections to ensure that the public are charged a reasonable price for a service. That presumably includes arranging a holiday, and does not exempt the law of supply and demand. That is an interesting question for the Government. The purpose of the Consumer Rights Bill is to make those rules clearer, but there is a glaring omission because it does not give consumers or consumer groups any power to access the information they need to check whether that is the case. Does the Minister accept that the only way to resolve that confusion more broadly is to have a proper analysis of holiday prices, and do the Government plan to conduct such research? Was there any research prior to the change of policy?

The situation demonstrates the consequences when there is no organisation to stand up for the rights of consumers as a group. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley suggested that an Offonholiday regulator might not be the answer, but it might be worth considering a broader consumer rights body to act as a useful brake on exploitative practices. Most people accept that the rules of supply and demand will ensure that prices are higher at peak times, but many believe that the extreme divergence in prices is unfair.