Debate on the Address

My Lords, I shall use today’s debate to talk about our tourism industry. Sadly, it seems to have only limited interest here at Westminster, yet the industry employs over 2 million people, 7.7 per cent of our workforce. It is our sixth largest industry, with revenue production around £75 billion, and it is still growing. It is the dominant industry in the West Country, the Lake District and Scotland. It plays, and has played, a major regenerative role in many towns and cities in our country. It was a great privilege to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. With his interests in food, wine and beer, I am sure he is a great supporter of our tourism and hospitality industry. We look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, who, as chairman of the Welsh Development Agency for a number of years, I am sure will appreciate the contribution that tourism has made to the regeneration of so many towns and cities in Wales. I declare my interest as tourism Minister between 1987 and 1989. I have served on the English Tourist Board for a number years, chaired the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester for many years, and currently chair the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, a trade body for our larger national visitor attractions which have more than 1 million visitors each per annum. Successive Governments have treated tourism as something of a Cinderella industry. Rather like an unwanted child, it has been passed from the DTI to the Department of Employment, then to the Department of National Heritage, and now to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Ministers over the years have done very little, apart from minor fiddling with the structures of the industry. The tourism industry had hoped that the current administration, which came into power in 1997, would adopt a more supportive and appreciative approach, but that has not been the case. My criticisms, primarily of Government, are attitudinal, structural and financial. Turning first to the attitudinal—that is, the lack of interest or recognition—tourism is not included in the title of the DCMS. In a letter earlier this year to the Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, setting out her priorities, the Prime Minister hardly mentioned tourism. The chairmanship of VisitBritain has been demoted to a six-day-a-month appointment, a totally insulting role that is something of a joke, given its huge responsibility for promoting England and the huge ambassadorial role it has overseas. We have also a lack of joined-up government. Witness the disappointing and short-sighted decision recently to reduce funding to British Waterways, resulting in a significant reduction in their maintenance programme on the canal network, which is one of our most undervalued and underdeveloped tourism assets—purely, it would seem, because Defra has failed to control its budgets. Above all, though, I criticise the relative disinterest of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, where the axis of power in government really lies. To my knowledge the Prime Minister has held only one major tourism industry breakfast, and I cannot recall the Chancellor attending any significant tourism event. Indeed, for the tourism industry, the prospect of Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister is about as attractive as Britain on a dark, wet, windy November afternoon. Turning to my structural criticism, Wales and Scotland have clearly benefited from devolved tourism, both in decision-making and in terms of spend. In England it is vital that we have our own national board working with the regional partners—the RDAs—to market England effectively, to co-ordinate activities, not least research activities, and to share best practice, leaving VisitBritain to market the United Kingdom overseas. It is also vital that there is some high-level governmental co-ordination—perhaps a committee chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister or the Chancellor, to include the Secretaries of State for the tourism-related departments, the chairs of our national tourist boards, the chairs of the Tourism Alliance, the chairs of the RDAs and the equivalent representative of the Local Government Association, to lead and co-ordinate our national tourism policy. I turn to my financial criticism. The current funding of VisitBritain is of the order of £35 million a year, which would these days barely buy half a Eurofighter. It has declined in real terms by 17 per cent since the Government were elected, and there is talk of a further 7 per cent in prospect. Surely it is madness for a country to spend £6 billion or more on the Olympics, the majority of which will be capital spend, and yet not adequately support in revenue terms VisitBritain, which really should be taking advantage of this spend and of the huge tourism opportunity. Currently in the USA, our most important tourism market, 24 nations spend more than we do. Ireland spends four times as much in the United States. The industry certainly does not want a bed tax. As for the ability of our museums and galleries to add to their collections—we had a debate on this very recently in the Moses Room—the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has 70 times the purchasing power of the British Museum and eight times our National Gallery. Next March there will be a British Tourism Week to raise tourism’s profile among the public and politicians. It is under the patronage of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. My own ALVA organisation has His Royal Highness the Duke of York as our president. The Royal Family plays a major role in supporting tourism in this country. Perhaps senior politicians will use British Tourism Week to demonstrate real interest in the sector and for the first time take tourism seriously. The changes that I have advocated are relatively modest and easily achievable. But I have one final recommendation. Nothing would give a greater boost to domestic tourism than the bringing in of double summer time. It would substantially expand the tourism opportunity, save hundreds of lives and significantly contribute to a healthier nation. I urge the Government to embrace it without delay.