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The Minister of State, Department of National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat): And Scotland.
Lady Olga Maitland: Of course. Scotland is one of the loveliest places in the United Kingdom, and I speak of it with pride because, like my hon. Friend the Minister, I have a heritage there.
Mr. Robert Banks: Can my hon. Friend advise people travelling up to Scotland to stop off in Yorkshire, which has the most superb countryside that can be imagined, and offers the best entertainment and enjoyment facilities for tourists?
Lady Olga Maitland: It is with the greatest pleasure that I would encourage tourists to visit the lovely Yorkshire dales, to try the Yorkshire pudding, to sample the culture, to visit the pubs and, indeed, to try to understand the language.
We should focus more on the regions. I appreciate that the English tourist board gets much support in its effort to spread the good news across the country, but we need to build new images. We need to get away from the "Hi-de-Hi" television image that suggests that visiting the provinces is second rate. We are making good progress and we should endorse many new initiatives.
We could do more to encourage the development of country cottages and self-catering holidays; the quality of those lets is enormously high, and they provide a useful income, especially if the owners are going on holiday themselves. I have seen what a powerful role holiday lets have played in the East Anglian economy; they give enormous pleasure to the visitors and bring a great deal of income to the area.
Mr. Tom Pendry (Stalybridge and Hyde):
First, I apologise for the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). I thought that he was at the same meeting as the Secretary of State, but she has returned. I hope that he will come back in due course.
This has been a good debate. We have good debates on Fridays, though they are not the best attended. I am for ever telling the Minister that we generally finish by speaking to a few hon. Members who have drawn the short straw. It would be good to have a debate in Government time during the week. I hope that that message gets through. Many northern, Welsh and Scottish Members would love to be here but cannot re-arrange their diaries.
I can vouch for the attractions of the constituency of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) because my sister lives there and I often visit it. The hon. Lady asked why the industry is not taken more seriously. That is a problem but it is not helped by the fact that tourism Ministers come and go, as the Select Committee report noted. Many tourism Ministers sit in the other place. That downgrades tourism in the eyes of many in the industry. I hope that that message, too, gets across.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam goes much further than we do--the Secretary of State did not hear this part of her speech--on standards of accommodation. She wants a statutory grading scheme. We and the National Heritage Select Committee want to give free enterprise a whirl first. She is more strident.
We have had an excellent debate in which many hon. Members have raised matters relating to this most important sector of the economy. Hearing hon. Members talk about the economic, employment and social benefits that tourism brings to their constituencies, it strikes me that the Government have still not got to grips with the industry's potential or produced a meaningful strategy to assist its development. The Budget only confirms that. The Secretary of State's cheek is amazing. She claims to be the champion of the tourist industry. She really must calling stop herself the champion of everything. She is the champion of sport, the champion of tourism and last Wednesday she even said that she was the champion of bingo.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
indicated dissent.
Mr. Pendry:
I was at the Business for Sport and Leisure meeting when she said it.
Mrs. Bottomley:
The hon. Gentleman presses me too hard. It is only fair to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Sproat) is definitely the captain of Sproats.
Mr. Pendry:
The hon. Lady is trying to divert me from the bingo argument. I was speaking to bingo
29 Nov 1996 : Column 634
As a former boxing champion, I think that I could give the Secretary of State a few tips. She has got to start winning some rounds with her Cabinet colleagues. I understand that at the Conservative party conference tourism breakfast for which guests were asked to pay £500 to meet her, she spoke of being
On top of that, the doubling of air passenger duty has been described by Robert Ayling, the chief executive of British Airways, as an imposition that will
Last week the Secretary of State asked me how I had the gall to mention the Labour party's document on tourism and hospitality strategy, "Breaking New Ground". She said that it had sunk without trace. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins), soon to be somewhere in Sussex or wherever, agreed with her. The thing is that she does not read, and nor does he, the national press or the tourism press, where the document received considerable coverage. Perhaps the Secretary of State did not have a chance to read the endorsements, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland listed.
Far from sinking without trace, the document has been in such demand that we have had requests for more than 2,000 copies, including bulk orders from the Confederation of British Industry, the English tourist board, the Association of District Councils, the British Resorts Association, the British Hospitality Association and the British Incoming Tour Operators Association. The chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, Jeremy Logie, wrote a letter saying:
The Secretary of State made great mention of Blackpool pleasure beach, which has invited us to hold a regional launch of "Breaking New Ground" in the north-west next week. We have had a similar invitation from the east midlands and there is more to follow. Such a response shows that the industry now recognises that we are the party with a positive agenda for tourism, in contrast to the Government's lacklustre approach.
Let us take accommodation standards. We know that there is a serious problem with the quality and standard of service offered. The Government's own report "Competing with the best"--[Interruption.] If Front-Bench Members care to listen, they may learn something. I am quoting their own document. Surely they are proud of it. It says:
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If the Government listened to the industry, they would be aware that the Tourism Society recently published the results of a detailed study that it had undertaken with accommodation providers of the standards of hotel provision, called "Tourist Accommodation: Classification and Grading Schemes". The report revealed wide industry support for statutory registration of all accommodation premises and the introduction of an industry-led grading scheme.
During our consultations with the industry, we were persuaded of the merits of such an approach and, because we are a listening party, we reviewed our previous position of outright support for a statutory grading scheme, which is what the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam wants. That reviewed position is now outlined in "Breaking New Ground". In her heart of hearts, the Secretary of State knows that that is the best approach, but the ideology of her party prevents her, I am sure, from responding to the industry's needs. Now she has perhaps one good last chance to do something positive.
The first report of the National Heritage Select Committee, published this week, comes down very much on our side. I was pleased to hear the Chairman of that Committee, who spoke so eloquently, make that point as well as others. I was pleased to note that that far-reaching report comes much closer to understanding the needs of the industry than anything that the Government have produced. It also recommended an identical approach to our own on certain issues.
Today hon. Members cited certain statistics that are always heard in debates on tourism, for example, whether 1.6 million, 1.7 million or 1.8 million people are employed in the industry. It may sound a bit tedious, but it is worth repeating those statistics, because, as was said earlier, the more we do that, the more people will understand the importance of the tourism industry.
Several hon. Members have referred to legislation that will affect the industry. The Labour party makes no apology whatever for wanting to improve the pay, training and recognition of Britain's tourism and hospitality workers. That is essential if we are to compete with the world's other skilled countries.
We make it clear in our document that we will work with the private sector to create a university of the industry to utilise the potential of information technology in education. We will end the poverty pay, low-status, high turnover jobs by introducing a statutory national minimum wage. No one should be worried about that, including the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, because the Leader of the Opposition has said clearly that the low pay commission to be established after the election will include representatives from tourism and the hospitality industries. They will help to determine the right level of pay that should be set, and that has satisfied most people in the industry.
I do not expect that the Government's strategy will match Labour's plans to introduce a development of tourism Act. The need for restructuring is clear, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland has already outlined how Labour will make that new Act work for the industry.
Integral to our aims is the need to encourage the British travel agent to sell more domestic holidays, including short breaks. [Interruption.] I hope that I can get some attention from those on the Government Front Bench. Currently domestic tourism represents about 15 per cent. of travel agents' turnover. We must work to ensure that the skills they possess in information technology and marketing and in offering a good-value product are more aligned to the domestic industry. I hope that the Secretary of State agrees with that.
Colin Trigger, president of ABTA, has praised Labour's initiative and he wonders why he has not heard anything from the Department of National Heritage. I would welcome the Minister's comment on that.
Some hon. Members have spoken of the importance of sustainable tourism. I hope that the Secretary of State will not say that I am straying into a debate on transport when I say that she knows something of Sustrans, the charity-based project to develop a national cycle network. I accompanied my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland when he officially opened in his beautiful constituency the impressive C2C cycle network, which links Whitehaven to Newcastle.
I hope that cycling, which has the potential to be big business in terms of tourism, attracts the Secretary of State's attention. Already, it is estimated that 500,000 holidays are primarily for cycling. Cycling has many appeals--it promotes a healthy life style, boosts local tourism and is sustainable and environmentally friendly. Cycling and the cycling network should be at the forefront
29 Nov 1996 : Column 637
When he replies, will the Minister tell us what talks his Department has had with the Department of Transport? As the right hon. Member for South Thanet (Mr. Aitken) said, it appears that few interdepartmental talks go on these days. Will he tell us what the Government's cycling strategy is? Will he tell us what measures the tourist boards are taking to promote Britain as a cycling destination? What efforts have he or the Secretary of State made to assist that process?
As they should, the Government will propose a tourism strategy for the new year. They are always following our lead and we are pleased that they have done so in this instance. We take the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton that it is best to avoid political punch-ups in this respect. I give due credit to thehon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs), who spoke for33 minutes today. When not straying into the realm of political punch-ups, he is generally supportive of the industry and is well-respected within it.
"stunned at the professionalism of the British Tourist Authority having visited their offices in Japan and the United States".
She has some way of showing it by cutting its budget.
"penalise one of our most successful export industries by adding further to the cost of incoming tourism to Britain at a time when competition in the international market place is becoming ever more intense."
Again, some champion.
"As you may know, we have distributed Breaking New Ground to many of our members and we are discussing the contents all round the country at our autumn series of regional meetings.
Sunk without trace? The Secretary of State really must look again.
On the whole, my members are delighted to learn of your very positive attitude to our industry and to learn of your pledge of real commitment and involvement."
"There is clear evidence that too many visitors are disappointed with the value for money they get from some hotels. In a recent survey, 30 per cent. of overseas visitors to London said that their hotel did not meet expectations."
That is more than 3 million a year, and clearly that is not good enough. How many of them will return? How many will report poor opinions to their friends when they go home? Yet what is the Government's answer? A benchmark scheme is certainly better than nothing, but it is not good enough. Visitors to accommodation premises want a comprehensive grading structure which they trust to describe approximately the standard of the accommodation that is on offer, not a confusing array of stars, crowns, stripes and various descriptions. They need a clearly identifiable scheme which demonstrates certain basic standards of service and provision.
That is an endorsement of our policy. The right hon. Lady did not say, however, that the progressive firms to which she referred also pay good wages and invest in their staff. Peter Moore of Center Parcs, who the Secretary of State rightly praised at a Business in Sport and Leisure conference on Wednesday, was quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland to say:
The Secretary of State is out of touch because Mr. Moore is quite right. Labour will ensure that we invest in those who work in tourism and hospitality. We will provide them with positive training opportunities by producing individual learning accounts that will encourage people to train. The British Incoming Tour Operators Association, the Hospitality Foundation and many others, according to the tourism papers, have expressed support for our policy.
"You can't pay low wages".
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