Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the number of short-stay educational visits to the UK from EU schools; and what steps she is taking to encourage more visits from EU schools to the UK.
As set out in the government’s Tourism Recovery Plan, we are committed to supporting the tourism industry’s return to pre-pandemic levels across England, including tourism for educational purposes.
So far, the government has provided over £35 billion in support to the tourism, leisure and hospitality sectors over the course of the pandemic in the form of grants, loans and tax breaks.
The continuing desirability of English language skills drives the UK’s soft power on the world stage. The Tourism Recovery Plan recognises educational travel as an important part of the visitor economy and highlights the 2021 updates to the International Education Strategy, which sets out how we will promote English Language Training in the UK.