Aviation, Travel and Tourism Industries — House of Commons, 2021-06-10
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alexander David Sobel (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will try to be as brief as possible, to give Members the maximum time. My role as shadow tourism Minister means that I am lucky enough to visit many of the wonderful and various tourist attractions that Britain has to offer. Just a few weeks ago, I celebrated the reopening of museums and galleries by attending the launch of Grayson Perry’s "Art Club" exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. More recently, I visited the beautifully kept gardens and buildings at Chiltern Open Air Museum and enjoyed the gardens at Batsford arboretum. School holidays for my children have been made more enjoyable for the whole family thanks in no small part to Legoland Windsor, the Wave in Bristol, Whipsnade zoo, the Wild Place Project and Roger Tuby and Stewart Robinson’s fairgrounds. I also visited Stratford-upon-Avon, one of our biggest tourist magnets, and was delighted to see it so busy, and I visited Scarborough to welcome back domestic coach tourism. While all these attractions are still doing what they do best—educating, entertaining and enchanting their many visitors—they have one thing in common: they have all been let down in one way or another by the Government’s lacklustre and patchy support over the course of the covid-19 pandemic. Last September, I stood here and impressed the need to protect the hospitality industry. We know that hospitality is one of the major forces powering the UK tourism economy. Establishments providing food, drink and accommodation rely heavily on the tourism trade and must be protected for their sake and the sake of tourism—an industry worth £155 billion and responsible for more than 3 million jobs. That is why my party—the party that supports frontline businesses—is calling for a flexible repayment scheme to tackle the £6 billion debt burden facing the hospitality industry without harming the recovery of businesses that are still unable to turn a profit. It is the fair thing to do We also need to consider the other huge threat to hospitality recovering: the staff crisis. Venues have been hit by the triple whammy of changes to the immigration rules post Brexit, many workers deciding to return to their country of origin in Europe, and the pandemic and previously furloughed workers retraining and moving on. I have heard this time and again from Bristol to Scarborough. The Government must address the shortage of workers To protect the tourism industry itself, we were promised a plan, to which the Minister referred. In April, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston)—who is present and can advise the Minister—assured me that the tourism recovery plan was on the way and would be announced by the end of spring. But the sector is starting the season late and there is still no plan. Neither our domestic nor our international travel and tourism industries know what support they can count on as the summer season starts. Instead, we wait. Will the Minister tell me whether we are having the longest spring on record? When can we expect the plan? I am sure his DCMS colleague will help him with that The coach industry waits for a package of support that aligns it with other areas of the leisure and hospitality sector. Tour guides, events staff and other excluded workers wait to see whether they are eligible for Government support in the plan. Fairground operators wait to see whether there will finally be a Government support package that does not exclude them because of their lack of static business or shop front. Travel agents wait for sector-specific funding, while the lack of inbound and outbound travel and the uncertainty over testing regimes and quarantine continue to hit bookings. Zoos and aquariums do not wait; they continue with the inadequate zoo animals fund—which many in the sector call the "zoo closure fund"—and ask what the tourism recovery package will do to help them, their staff and their animals I should mention that the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire, has chosen this period to undertake a review of destination management organisations. It is important that DCMS aligns the review of DMOs with the tourism recovery plan to best support the promotion of local and regional tourism. Any funding must be used to encourage co-operation and streamline processes, ensuring that DMOs are best placed to be at the centre of the English tourism ecosystem, while ending the need for them to compete for limited funding. I hope the Minister will give us clarity on both the tourism recovery plan and the review of DMOs when he responds to the debate Nowhere is uncertainty felt so keenly as by the outbound travel industry, with so many yearning for a holiday abroad. We have been told that we absolutely should not travel to amber-list countries, but essential travel is okay. Then we were told that perhaps holidays could be essential—then that, actually, it is dangerous to travel abroad this year and we should not do it, but to just be careful if we do. "Go to Portugal." "Come back from Portugal." "Why did you even go to Portugal?" Why were there so many mixed messages on outbound travel? It is key to the UK economy and, right now, clarity on holidays is critical to the UK’s collective psyche. The Government must step in to bring reassurance It is worth remembering that planes are not the only way to get abroad. The pandemic has hit Eurostar and other train operators hard, yet the Government have not supported them at all. We need a comprehensive strategy for our regional, national and international railways that goes beyond the current franchise-support programme to address the impact of covid-19 on operations such as Eurostar We all want to go back to normal. As a country, we have endured so much. We are tough. We do not need to be infantilised by the Government; we just want clear, truthful messaging. We know that uncertainty hurts our economy and that financial support promotes recovery and levels the playing field with the competitors in Europe—many of which have received the sort of support that we should provide to our tourism industry—that are taking advantage of the lack of support for our sector. Now is the time for the Government to step up and deliver a package that will give businesses certainty, the ability to plan for the future and a chance to rebuild.