House of Commons Hansard Debates for 19 Mar 1993

Column 562

Page 90 is on

"Washington and Virginia. Visit the home of American presidents and tour through Civil War battlefields and countryside where European colonists settled."

Page 96 :

"Britain's top sites. Our inspections reveal that you could be getting a raw deal."

I recognise that the Consumers Association and Holiday Which? have the interests of consumers at heart, but who speaks for the British tourist industry? Who is prepared to say that we are one of the best in the world, and that we are in the top six? The industry has done marvellously in the past and has gone through hard times in the past two or three years, but it will return to greatness with a little help from its friends. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister speaks up for the industry, but words are not always enough ; it needs wholehearted encouragement and selective financial assistance. I invite the Minister to consider some of the points that have been made, to see whether we can find a way of ensuring that British tourism not only keeps pace with that in other countries but moves ahead, of reducing the imbalance between inward and outward tourism potential, and of establishing the British industry at the top of the tree.

1.7 pm

Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall) : It is apparent from the debate that a number of Conservative Members do not share the Minister's hollow complacency. The hon. Members for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) and for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) and the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) showed that they share the concern of many Opposition Members.

The Minister has been invited to Cornwall, but has not yet been able to come. Fortunately, the Prime Minister visited Cornwall in recent weeks, recognising that the Cornish spring comes earlier than the Paris spring. He said :

"The West Country in a sense is its own best advertisement for tourism ; we do not need to tell people about the West Country as a tourist centre, it is instinctively there. When people think about holidays, they will instinctively think of the West Country among other places as somewhere to go."

That was the rationale of the Prime Minister, who was seeking to explain to one of Britain's premier holiday destinations why he and his Government had decided to cut the promotional budget of the English tourist board and the British Tourist Authority. I believe that that cut is a grave mistake.

I agreed with much of what the hon. Member for Blackpool, North said, but he was wrong in one regard. He said that the current contribution of the tourism industry to our GDP was about 4 per cent. It is not. It was almost 4 per cent. in 1989, but it has now slipped to 3.4 per cent. It is precisely because it appears that we shall lose our position in the top five or six international tourist economies that we should be so concerned.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forecasts that, by the turn of the century, tourism will be the biggest single industry in the world. Britain, which founded or invented tourism, looks as if it will slip. It is an extremely important industry at the moment and makes a contribution to the United Kingdom economy three times the size of that of the motor industry. It is bigger than the food, drink and tobacco industries put together, but, let us be clear, we could slip.

Column 563

Three major structural factors are causing that slip. First, as many hon. Members have said, we suffer from an uneven playing field in comparison with our competitors in the European Community. The holidaymaker reading Holiday Which? is faced with a simple fact. If he chooses an ordinary hotel in Greece, he will be charged 8 per cent. value added tax, in Spain 6 per cent., in France--our most immediate competitor-- only 5.5 per cent., while in England our hotels are struggling with a rate of 17.5 per cent.

With the imminent opening of the channel tunnel and the nascent single market, the VAT rate differentials distort the picture. They will encourage the traditional short-break tourist to travel to France and the continent rather than to stay at home. The differentials are a distortion of the single market, which is unacceptable. If the industry had half the political muscle of the motor industry, it would be knocking on the door of No. 10 to make a change. It is a subject for derogation--it is open to Ministers to decide whether to assist the industry by changing VAT.

A second major structural problem facing the industry is the huge discrepancy in the application of fire, health, food and hygiene regulations in some other European Community countries and in Britain. Our competitors find it much easier to circumvent or modify those regulations. An example is the recently introduced regulation on kitchen utensils. To make a traditional club sandwich in a pub, hotel, restaurant or cafe in this country, one must have at least three knives and at least three chopping blocks. Such precautions are not only impractical but extremely costly. The Minister asked to hear about specific problems, and I am sure that the industry will supply him with many.

It is not enough for the Government to set up their own internal task forces to deal with the problem of regulation. Employing poachers to rewrite the game laws has never been a satisfactory basis for changing legislation. Why should there not be an independent commission to take evidence from the industry and others to ensure that there is practical scrutiny?

The third factor is the uniform business rate, to which a number of hon. Members have already referred. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale is no longer here. I raised the issue with the Treasury months ago when it become apparent that the Inland Revenue valuation regulations are paying little regard to the peculiar and special nature of the industry, and the changing and cyclical nature of its business. A business that is effectively open for only four months of the year--perhaps even only six weeks--pays the UBR on a valuation that takes account of a full 12 months' operation. That is inequitable and unfair. The Government need to consider urgently not only the specific questions asked by the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale but the general basis for valuation.

There are one or two other incredibly important factors for the industry which, although within the Government's purview, are perhaps not so much structural as tactical. For example, a number of the areas that have traditionally relied on the holiday industry are affected by disproportionately high water charges. The north-west and the

Column 564

south-west come first to mind. Since privatisation, in the south-west 2 per cent. of the population are now paying for 10 per cent. of the coastline to be cleaned up. The effect has been a huge rise in water charges--16 per cent. in the current year--which are likely to double by the end of the century. The absence since privatisation of any effective national equalisation element and the reduced eligibility for European Community help have compounded the inequality. To some extent, such high charges are also charged for electricity, as many areas in the south-west are far away from the main sources of power generation.

Another issue that has been very much in the mind of the industry in recent months--I had a call from Bath last night which highlighted the matter--is that holiday businesses face the problem of bank costs. I am talking not just about bank charges and interest rates, but about bank costs generally. Since the late 1980s, when many businesses were encouraged by the Government and by the tourist industry's own boards to invest heavily both in property and in improvements, the industry has found itself heavily burdened by bank costs. Many businesses are now in severe financial trouble. It is estimated that the biggest single operator of hotel beds at present is a liquidator. Bank managers and business advisers fell over themselves to encourage wanton increases in indebtedness in the 1980s, yet those who were so ready to provide money then have been only too ready to pull the rug out since.

The industry now faces the threat of rail privatisation. As other hon. Members have said, the railways are extremely important, especially to the far-flung resorts that many of us here represent. British Rail has told me that in 1991-92, 100,000 British Rail passes were sold internationally. After privatisation, who will undertake such a function? The sales of passes doubled in Germany in 1991-92 and British Rail international sales grossed £89 million in that year. Bringing people to this country is precisely the sort of objective that one would think that the Government would have in mind. InterCity services have improved in a number of directions, although sadly, with the threat of privatisation, British Rail has already had to look at some of the through services to major resorts such as Newquay, the most famous, important and beautiful seaside holiday resort in the United Kingdom, and to other resorts that might try to vie with it, such as Blackpool.

There are other ways in which British Rail's activities to encourage the use of trains by holidaymakers have been extremely effective in taking pressure off the roads. A particular example are the park-and-ride schemes in operation for St. Ives, for Looe, in the Yorkshire Dales national park, and on the Settle to Carlisle line. The tourist industry will be one of the first victims of the disintegration of the national railway system. Hon. Members of all parties, especially in the south-west, know that that is the case. In that context, I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the representations of hon. Members from all parties about the cuts in the English tourist board. It is not only the centralised board that is being massacred ; the regional boards are also affected. As other hon. Members have said, more than 70 jobs will go as a result of the cuts. Who will be left in the ETB to undertake the important examination to which the Minister referred? What skills will be left for that examination? The seaside resorts initiative, which is extremely important and valuable in a number of areas, is

Column 565

likely to be downgraded. We already have a £4 billion trade deficit in tourism, which is damaging to the national economy as well as to the industry itself, yet the Department of National Heritage appears to be so obsessed with the national lottery that it is ignoring the developments that the industry so desperately needs.

It is in that context, too, that, without in any way criticising the support that the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Northern Ireland and for Wales give to their tourist industries, we must view the extraordinary discrepancy between their enthusiasm for intervention and investment and the attitude that prevails in England. The right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale gave some figures. I am sorry that he is not now in his place, because I should like to give him some additional figures, which the Minister was kind enough to pass to me earlier in the year. Expenditure on tourism per head of population is £6.26 in Northern Ireland ; £5.06 in Wales and £3.20 in Scotland.

I do not criticise those figures because tourism is a proper priority. But for England--and in this context, I include the Duchy of Cornwall, even though Cornwall is a separate celtic country--we are talking about the princely sum of 42p.

That is bad enough, but matters are to get worse. By 1995-96, the figures will have increased to £8.60 in Northern Ireland and to £5.39 in Wales. In Scotland, there will be a modest reduction of 6p to £3.14. England and Cornwall, the biggest destinations for holidaymakers, will have the princely sum of 21p per head of population--precisely half the present figure. That is what the Prime Minister meant when he came to Cornwall and told the The Western Morning News that we did not need any promotion because everyone knew instinctively that we were there. How can we compete nationally, let alone internationally, on that basis?

Some 85 per cent. of tourism to the United Kingdom is to England. Nearly half the nights spent away from home by United Kingdom residents are spent in England. That is as high a figure as those for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together, yet we do not have a Department, a Minister or a Cabinet who are committed to the promotion of this vital industry.

The hon. Member for Swindon talked about the Select Committee report. I do not believe that we paid enough attention to its recommendations--in particular to the passage that the hon. Gentleman quoted concerning ways of adapting section 4 grants and making them into effective roll-over grants that did not cost a great deal of money. Rural economies such as Cumbria, Devon, Cornwall, Northumberland and North Yorkshire would benefit enormously from that targeted investment. I hope that the Minister will take that on board and give a firm assurance to all hon. Members that he will look at the matter again.

Tourism is still very vulnerable to the general state of the economy. The Minister himself said that survivors of the recession would be in a better state to take advantage of the new situation. Many people have not survived the recession, however, and we are vulnerable to any squeeze on disposable incomes. Expenditure on tourism is peculiarly subject to such pressures. If we have a national economic revival and if employment improves, it is in tourism that we can gain the most.

It is a sad fact that 11 of the top 20 unemployment black spots identified by the Department of Employment are in

Column 566

areas that predominantly rely on the holiday industry. It is extraordinary that more work is not done to invest in those areas. I have a list, which includes Clacton, Newquay in my constituency, Skegness, Penzance, Torbay, Bideford, Hastings and the Isle of Wight. Those are areas where limited, targeted investment of Government funds would make the most tremendous difference to the local economy and the employment situation.

A number of matters need to be addressed urgently. In addition to the harmonisation of tax, regulations and controls in the European Community, which, sad to say, were totally neglected while the British Government were in the driving seat, we must do something about the inadequacy and inflexibility of the uniform business rate. We must do something about the inequity of water charges and the way in which they cast especially great burdens on areas of low income and those affected by the tourism industry. In a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), the Prime Minister seemed to give that assurance. However, we have yet to see what the Prime Minister will do about that problem.

We need an emergency package, similar to that negotiated with the lending institutions by the Government on behalf of home owners, to help businesses in a similar position that face repossession at the worst possible moment in the cycle of the property value slump. Most importantly, in order to give new confidence to the industry, the question of funding the boards and the section 4 grants, or their modernised equivalents, is critical if we are to extend the season, to modernise facilities and to ensure that promotional budgets can stand up to international competition.

Even on a Friday, when most hon. Members who represent the more far flung holiday resorts find it difficult to cancel engagements in order to be present in the Chamber, it is clear that there is a groundswell of concern on both sides of the House about what is happening to one of our premier industries. It is vital that we have an annual debate and a Minister prepared to take on board the recommendations of the Select Committee. In addition, we must find another vehicle or mechanism to consider these extremely important issues.

During business questions last week, I suggested to the Leader of the House that tourism was an ideal and important subject in respect of which he could reconstitute for England the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs. A rather long-forgotten Standing Order, No. 100, on which dust seems to have settled, has prevented us from having that Standing Committee.

If we are to harness the all-party enthusiasm and concern for the industry, that Standing Committee would be a very important mechanism for achieving that. I invite the Minister to endorse that request so that we can have more discussion and more effective action on behalf of the industry.

1.26 pm

Mr. Barry Field (Isle of Wight) : I also welcome the Minister's recommendation that we should have an annual debate on tourism. I believe that the Department of National Heritage was born from my political loins. John Lee, who gave such distinguished service to the House and to tourism, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) and I went to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister before the last general election.

Column 567

We asked him to combine the arts, tourism and our national heritage into one Department, so that we would have a great package for selling Great Britain. I am delighted that that suggestion fell on fertile ground and that the Minister is with us today.

I am very pleased that the Minister mentioned his visit to the Isle of Wight. I am certain that he will not have forgotten the great problem we have with the international sign for a zoo, which is an elephant. He will recall the difficulties that that has caused us when we have tried to use it to advertise a flamingo park. However, it was of considerable comfort to me to see in today's Times that English Heritage is dealing with a very serious case of tooth decay in a unicorn. I am pleased to see that it is repairing the unicorn using funds from the Department of National Heritage. However, if English Heritage can get the unicorn to open wide to repair its tooth decay, I wonder why I have not been successful in getting English Heritage to open Osbourne house all year round so that our winter tourism can benefit from that wonderful attraction on the Isle of Wight.

As has already been said, tourism employs more than 1.4 million people in the United Kingdom. Of those, 1,115,000 are to be found in England, 185,000 in Scotland and 95,000 in Wales. Tourism accounts for more employment than construction and transport put together. I must also refer--as others have done today--to the fact that Scotland and Wales continue to receive section 4 grants. Scotland, which has only 9 per cent. of the nation's unemployment, gets a third of all taxpayers' assistance in the United Kingdom. That shows the imbalance. This was well alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) in his remarks about the English tourist board.

I recall when I made my contribution to a previous tourism review. In this debate, it has been said that tourism has moved from Department to Department. I also point out to my hon. Friend the Minister that tourism has had many reviews. The previous review was started by my right hon. Friend the party chairman when he was involved in employment. I asked him whether we would examine section 4 grants, and the answer was that they should follow unemployment. That was a much better, more scientific and more logical approach to the whole thing than simply peppering them around the countryside generally.

I think that the fact that section 4 grants were not always seen to be as wisely spent as they might have been was the reason why there was some denigration of the system. If they had followed unemployment, that would have met the point.

The party chairman and the Secretary of State for Health are two protagonists. They are leading members of our party, who take their annual holidays in the United Kingdom. Perhaps, when I greet them on the Isle of Wight in the future, I shall be wearing a kilt and eating a leek. Perhaps I shall have a piece of shamrock in my turban and a heavily nailed shillelagh in my hand to get my point across : does anybody still speak for England?

We must find niches in the holiday market. One has been well found by our tourism office on the island. I pay special tribute to Peter Holyoak and Hal Matthews for producing an excellent brochure only this week on

Column 568

conference opportunities for the island. We have already had the social services conference at which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced the ring fencing for new community care. That was a great success, which went down well in local government.

The conference of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives is coming up later this year. We have the inter-island games which her Royal Highness Princess Anne will open for us. Every year, we have the round-the-island race--the biggest yacht race in the world--and we have Cowes week, which, alternately, is Admiral's cup year. We have the opportunity of attracting more business to fill us up during the shoulder months and to get conference business on to the Isle of Wight because it is profitable.

I have had a letter, as have many other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, about the English tourist board, its finances and so on. Martin Humphrey, the chairman of the commercial members group, makes a specific point which has perhaps not come out strongly in the debate--that the tourism industry has had put on it the EC travel package directive. My hon. Friend knows that the island's Euro Member and I went to see the Department of Trade and Industry. We met the solicitors to get the most difficult parts of the package ironed out.

I believe that Brussels never intended the package to apply to domestic tourism. It certainly was not meant to apply to a hotelier or guest house proprietor on the Isle of Wight who provides a ferry fare with the bedroom charge. We were not successful in that, but I think that we got some of the knobs knocked off it. They have the fire safety furniture regulations in self-catering accommodation--I see the Minister nodding because he knows about the problem--and food hygiene, to which reference has already been made.

I think that my hon. Friend has missed a trick today. We have heard about the VAT threshold being raised in the Budget and the fact that customs officers can now have discretion in misdirected penalties. That will be widely welcomed throughout the tourist industry. Of course, the business rate has been frozen for another year. I know that my hon. Friend, having been a local government finance Minister in the Department of the Environment, will know just how popular that will be with small business which predominate in the tourist industry.

My hon. Friend has missed a trick--the extension of VAT to the bloodstock industry. The bloodstock industry in the United Kingdom is a tremendous tourist attraction. When the Home Secretary came to the House this morning to make an announcement, he was challenged about where he was yesterday. He was at Cheltenham surrounded by Irish people who had come to England to watch the most excellent horse racing in the world. I am sure that that will make a major contribution to our tourism.

As the Minister will be aware, England attracted three quarters of all United Kingdom residents' spending on hotel and residential accommodation when staying away from home. The Isle of Wight has the greatest percentage of repeat holidays of any resort in the United Kingdom. I am sure that you will agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that these days product loyalty--perhaps a little like party loyalty--is rather rarer than dodo manure, but the high level of repeat holidays shows the opportunity for increasing residential United Kingdom tourism. Some £4 billion was spent last year on going overseas. If that

Column 569

money was spent on the Isle of Wight, every pound would be a pound saved from our balance of payments and a help for our balance of trade.

The Minister, a former teacher, mentioned education. I am sure that he will want me to remind the House that, when eventually hon. Members get their lunch today, it may be served by a waiter from the Isle of Wight. As a result of project initiated by me, and of the excellence of the Isle of Wight college of training and technology, five waiters who were trained in silver service on the Isle of Wight obtained jobs in the House. My initiative was in conjunction with Sir Charles Irving, who has given such distinguished service to the House.

When I first set out in politics to become a Member of Parliament, people on the Isle of Wight were displaying in the back of their motor cars a most miserable and nasty sticker which said, "Don't blame me, I'm not a tourist- -I live here". I thought that it was awful. We spend a great deal of money attracting people to the island. The Isle of Wight has a great reputation for friendliness in England, Scotland and Wales and internationally. Everyone knows how friendly the Isle of Wight is.

I set out to alter the perception of tourism which that miserable sticker represented. In those days, my campaign was not perceived as a vote winner. My political opponents, the Liberal Democrats, did not see a natural parish for the ballot box, so my campaign was denigrated.

I started an initiative called the "island smile competition". The first prize was lunch at the House of Commons. The second prize was two lunches at the House of Commons. I gave a prize out of my own pocket so that we could find the person who had the most welcoming smile on the Isle of Wight and contributed most to the tourist industry. The competition has been revamped as the "courtesy awards". The tourism industry sponsors it, and it is a great opportunity to find the individual on the Isle of Wight who contributes most to people's enjoyment of their holiday.

One of the leading protagonists in tourism on the Isle of Wight and in changing perceptions is the Conservative-controlled Medina borough council. It has gone out of its way to show that things can be done on the island. It has ignored its detractors and the criticism of the Liberal Democrats to such an extent that the other authorities on the island are trying to follow suit. They are not nearly so successful as the Conservative- controlled Medina borough council. It has tarted up the sea front at Ryde and throughout the borough and built a new complex with a bowling alley and ice rink. Now South Wight council is following suit to some extent.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) made his usual carping criticism. He made a point about water charges in the south-west. The other day, when the matter was raised with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the Chamber, he should have replied that the hon. Gentleman's colleagues took part in demonstrations with "Surfers Against Sewage", the very organisation which has been the protagonist in the campaign throughout Cornwall to improve the water quality of the beaches. Now that the water industry is spending money to improve the quality of bathing water, it is typical of the Liberal Democrats to criticise it. They always want to have their cake and eat it.

Mr. Tyler : Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Prime Minister should not review water charges in the

Column 570

south-west? If so, many members of the Conservative party who currently represent seats there will be interested to hear it because they know that they are vulnerable to the Liberal Democrat advance.

Mr. Field : The hon. Gentleman heard precisely what I said, but, as he did not get the point, I shall repeat it. His colleagues have taken part in demonstrations with Surfers Against Sewage about the quality of bathing waters in Cornwall and have made a lot of publicity and noise about it. Now that the water industry is improving bathing water quality and recouping the capital costs, as always, the hon. Gentleman is the first on his feet to complain about it.

Finally, I must tell the House about a marvellous new Liberal Democrat policy for tourism on the Isle of Wight. They are so in love with cracked pavements that the Isle of Wight county council has spent £160,000 to buy a swimming pool with a crack so large that it is just like a Liberal Democrat policy--it will not hold water. We now have a dry and irreparable swimming pool, at a cost of £160,000. I hope that that will be my hon. Friend's answer to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Tyler) when he says, "We want more funds". If that is what Liberal Democrats would do with it, God help us. Several hon. Members rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. There are 50 minutes left and six hon. Members wish to catch my eye, so I appeal for some brevity.

1.40 pm

Mr. Tom Cox (Tooting) : I note your suggestion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall try to follow it, but, with respect, it is a bit much when hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have spent the whole morning here, but others, who have taken part in the debate, have already departed. I think that that should be noted.

The debate has been interesting and we have heard from many hon. Members about the great advantages, in both revenue and employment, brought to this country by the tourist industry. I accept that argument and I am pleased that we have got away from the traditional tourist spots. Although I accept that London, Stratford and Edinburgh are still popular, other parts of the country equally offer a great deal to tourists from overseas or from this country.

I am the first Member representing a London constituency to take part in the debate ; I hope that other colleagues will be able to participate. London is possibly the most popular tourist centre in the United Kingdom, so some aspects of London should be mentioned, because, with great respect to the Minister, he did not refer to them.

I have been an MP for some time, and I question the amount of planning and co-operation on tourism between the London boroughs. How does one borough interrelate with another? How do they decide to spend the money that the London boroughs contribute to tourism? I understand that the Minister will not reply to the debate, but perhaps he will find time to rise to answer some of my queries, as--to his credit--he has done when leading from the Front Bench in the past.

I understand that soon the London Forum and London First are to be established, to promote the affairs of London. One gets the feeling, however, that they will follow their own plans and policies. The London Forum and the London tourist board are certainly not flavour of

Column 571

the month to many London boroughs. The London boroughs grants committee provides a large sum of money--something in the region of £300,000 a year--to the London tourist board to help to meet its running costs, yet I understand that neither that committee nor the local authorities were consulted about the establishment of the London Forum. It would be interesting to know what its exact role will be and whom it will consult as it starts to develop the function that we understand that it is to perform for London on tourism. Many of our 32 London boroughs have a great deal to offer and could interrelate, but I wonder how much co- operation there has been within inner and outer London areas.

Hon. Members have spoken about Government Departments. The press handouts for the London Forum came from the Department of the Environment, and the Secretary of State for the Environment has loudly proclaimed the benefits that the forum will bring. The Department of Transport and the Department of National Heritage also have obvious roles. Does each of those Departments know what other Departments are doing?

Mr. Key : As always, there is no rancour between us on these issues. I am delighted to tell the hon. Gentleman that Departments know what other Departments are doing. One good reason for that is the establishment of the Cabinet Committee on London in which these issues, including relationships between the London boroughs, are co-ordinated and discussed in depth. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of relationships and I am glad to give him that assurance.

Mr. Cox : I am pleased to hear that reassurance. We shall watch to see what takes place.

Mr. Tony Banks : I thought that I had demonstrated during the Minister's speech that what he has just said in his intervention is not true. I asked why it was costing £15,000 of taxpayers' money to pay for the London Forum's breakfast launch. The Minister did not know anything about that. I do not know what his Department is talking about, but it is not talking about bacon and eggs.

Mr. Cox : The Minister will need to send a letter not only to me but to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) on the matter that my hon. Friend has again raised.

In view of the request for brevity, I shall just touch on some issues. If there were more time, I should go into them in more detail. Coach parking presents inner London with enormous problems. One has only to walk along Millbank any day of the week to see enormous congestion. Extra parking facilities have been provided, but are they sufficient? Not only British but ever-increasing numbers of European coaches come to London. They need to be able to park without hassle to the tourists on the coaches or the drivers. They should be able to park for an hour or two so that passengers can get off and see the parts of London that they want to see.

Hon. Members spoke about transport deregulation. It is interesting to read the comments of Saga, a world-famous travel organisation catering not only for British people but for people in all parts of the world. It has expressed enormous concern about the proposed

Column 572

legislation on the privatisation of British Rail. Saga currently knows who it is trading with and can get good deals, but it is deeply concerned about the number of private operators it will be forced to deal with compared with the number that it deals with now. That issue must be considered.

Some Conservative Members have expressed concern about Government funding. I and other hon. Members have served on the Council of Europe. Places in Europe have twinning arrangements with places in this country and many others. Other European countries put a real effort into that and it brings life to twinned areas. However, British local authorities have a poor record on financing twinning arrangements. That also needs to be examined.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) and other hon. Members spoke about hotel costs. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) asked how my hon. Friend could relate those issues to the Labour party's commitment to the social chapter. When a comparison was made between a hotel in Birmingham and a hotel in Rouen, France--a comparison of like with like--it was found that the hotel room in Rouen was £24 a night cheaper than the hotel room in Birmingham.

We hear much talk about our commitment to the social chapter and the enormous disadvantages that it would bring to this country were we to subscribe to it and accept the conditions to which the other 11 members of the European Community adhere. The article in Which ? clearly outlines the difference between the costs of hotel rooms and shows the myth of that argument. We should face up to reality, not to the myths that some Conservative Members try to create.

The report of the National Economic Development Council published in July last year was highly critical of many aspects of the tourist industry. It stated :

"1. Quality The industry must achieve world-class standards, and concentrate on the management of quality.

"2. Government and Industry. The industry must accept that it has much to do to make itself modern, efficient, competitive and attractive as a career."

The report says of tourist information centres :

"These make a vital contribution to the industry. Arrangements have to ensure : that there are enough of them in the places where they are needed ; that they provide high quality and consistent service". Sadly, we know that that is not the case.

The report continues :

"The uneven level of support by local authorities for tourism and its needs should be ended ; they should be given a statutory duty to provide adequate, consistent tourism centres for their localities." I could give more and more examples from the report, which was published nine months ago, and much of which is still extremely relevant to our debate.

I shall bear in mind your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you have always been fair to me when I have sought to catch your eye, and I accept that other hon. Members want to participate in the debate. Therefore, I shall bring my speech to an end.

We have much to offer that could benefit us all. We must realise that we cannot just say, "The United Kingdom--what a great country." We face more and more competition from those countries that now call themselves central European--part of the old Russian empire of yesteryear. People are going to those countries in ever-increasing numbers, as there is much to be seen there.

Column 573

Until last November when my term of office expired, I was treasurer of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Delegations came to this country and I spent many hours inquiring about the costs of hotel rooms. Many of the medium grade--not top-quality--hotel rooms in London are an absolute rip-off. They used to offer bed and breakfast, but now they offer only the room, at a heavy cost. If people want breakfast, as many of them do, they are required to pay a substantial additional charge over and above the cost of the room. Will the Minister use his influence with hotel organisers in London to persuade them to consider how they manage their costs? I speak from the experience of having been the treasurer of one of the major all-party organisations in this country.

This debate has been superb. There has not been much Government bashing, as the subject is of interest to us all. I look to the Minister to reply to my points and, so that I may keep in the good books of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West, to my hon. Friend's comments as well.

1.53 pm

Mr. Toby Jessel (Twickenham) : Not only the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) but some of us Conservative Members should express gratitude to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) for being so brief. We know that he would have liked to say a great deal more. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage on the tremendous record of the tourism industry that he set out-- the work, the enterprise and the activity which, together, amount to an annual turnover of £25 billion in terms of firms' incomes, of employment and of expenditure by the public. I also congratulate him on the 50 per cent. increase in tourism in Britain in the past 10 years, reaching a record in 1992 despite the recession ; and on the fact that 1.5 million people work in tourism. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) disparaged the Budget in the context of tourism, but he did not mention the low tax announced by the Chancellor on the forthcoming national lottery. That relates to tourism, because the national lottery is designed to produce funds for sport, the arts, heritage, the millennium fund and charities. All those, with the possible exception of charities, help to generate tourism. By keeping the tax rate on the lottery low, the prospects for prizewinners will be increased and more money will be available for these good causes. There were fears a few months ago of a tax rate of 20 per cent. or even more, and it is a tremendous tribute to the Secretary of State for National Heritage and to the Under-Secretary, who have been making strong representations to the Treasury, that they have persuaded the Chancellor to keep the tax rate low, thereby making certain that the national lottery gets off to a good start. That will help the arts and other causes, and it will help to boost tourism.

It is remarkable that we are sixth in the world in terms of our income from tourism. Four of the first five have a lot more sunshine than we have ; the fifth has a lot of alpine mountains--Austria--and a great deal of sunshine, too. People cannot count on fine weather in this country, but they do not come to Britain for our weather. They come for our heritage, arts, royal castles and palaces, museums,

Column 574

galleries, villages and towns. They come to see our opera, ballet and orchestral concerts. In all these, we have a great deal to offer--far more than most other countries.

The hon. Member for Tooting referred to London. I am glad to see the English tourist board preparing for a London festival next year to boost London as one of the arts capitals of the world. We must protect our heritage. English Heritage does a first-class job. If we do not protect it, future generations will curse us, and they will be right to do so.

One aspect of all this has been largely left out of the debate : the monarchy. I believe that the monarchy and the Queen are tremendous tourist attractions--a great draw. We have the best Queen in the world ; she is hugely respected and admired, and she is a great draw for tourists. It is important for tourism that we keep our monarchy as it is. Tourists, as well as the British people, would rather we had a grand and splendid monarchy than a bicycle-riding monarchy of the sort favoured by Opposition Members and such as one might find in Scandinavian or Benelux countries.

The British people do not want us to become a banana republic. We should keep our royal yacht, our royal train and the Royal Mail. We should keep our military bands, which are trained at the Royal Military school of music at Kneller Hall in Twickenham. It produces the finest Army bands, whose standards of excellence are the envy of the world. They lift the spirits of the nation. Who does not thrill to the sound of a British Army band?

Next Section

Home Page