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1.47 pm
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): It is a pleasure to participate in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber), whose speech I listened to with great interest. I was struck particularly forcefully by one of the points that she made, because I know the area that she represents a little. Notwithstanding the fact that we live on a crowded island with a great deal of industry, it is easy to find attractive places closely juxtaposed to areas that most people would never imagine were worth visiting.
Before I came into the House, I had the unpleasant duty of prosecuting a company for serious pollution offences in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). When I visited one of the dirtiest plants that I had ever seen in the United Kingdom, I was struck by the fields, the patchwork of lanes and the attraction of the local villages. It was a hidden jewel.
Tourism is about people going to places that they would not normally visit for pleasure. I hope that I will be forgiven if I was a little iconoclastic in my interventions earlier, but one cannot produce in this country whited sepulchres. Unless somewhere is attractive for people to visit, the economic benefits--and, indeed, the cultural benefits--that will flow from it simply will not occur. One or two of the speeches that have been made have expressed regret that certain places that may at one time have been attractive and popular no longer are. The first question that one must ask oneself before requesting state intervention is why that has come about.
Further to my somewhat rude intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant)--for which I apologise--I happen to think that Lichfield is one of the loveliest places in the country. The remarkable cultural ensemble of the cathedral, the close and the high street, which I know well, should be very attractive, but I cannot escape the fact that, if Lichfield had been better
treated by the planners in the 1960s and 1970s, it would now be regarded as one of the jewels of the midlands and would have the potential to be as attractive as York is today. We would do well to look in our own back gardens when we consider tourism, because, if we do not, we will not produce anything worthy of attracting people to this country.
The Minister is aware of my membership of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, which may shortly come to an end as I have been given other duties. How tourism fits with sustainable development is a material consideration, especially for the next millennium. As my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) tellingly said, we could kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. There is no doubt in my mind that, in areas such as the Lake district, which are saturated by tourism, the balance of retaining the environmental attractions that draw people there in the first place is proving increasingly difficult to sustain.
In the past, because of the inevitable compartmentalisation within government, those put in charge of promoting tourism have seen themselves as an interest lobby on a single issue and have expected other areas of government to check them by saying, "You can't do that. You can't put this development here, because the environmental impact would be wholly negative." This is a non-partisan point, because that has been going on under successive Governments. Although things have improved slightly, there have still been problems. As a consequence, developments for tourism are extremely contentious.
I have serious doubts about the Cairngorm railway north of the border, even though the Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to assure me that the environmental impact assessment has been carefully taken into account. I have previously referred the Minister to the development in a forest outside Penrith, which was undertaken deliberately to promote tourism and attract tourists away from the Lake district. It has not been particularly successful commercially, but has implanted what is, in effect, an urban development in the middle of a deeply rural area with much biodiversity. I hope that the Minister will explain how tourism can be properly focused, so that, when carrying out their duties, those responsible for tourism will make environmental assessments to ensure sustainable development.
I am conscious of the time, so I shall not take up more than another minute or two. I want to leave time for the Minister's reply. However, I want to stress that, when we promote tourism and encourage development, deregulation and "small is beautiful" are the two key issues that we should emphasise. Tourist projects in my constituency close to London have been low key, but because the area is environmentally attractive, even though it is developed, they have been successful. People can visit farms and Beaconskot in Beaconsfield, which has been there for years; successive generations come back year after year to see the miniature village. The amenity of the Thames is an example of the difficulty of reconciling environmental considerations with leisure and recreation interests. Nevertheless, the Environment Agency is succeeding in striking a compelling balance.
Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test):
I apologise to those on both Front Benches for not being present at the beginning of the debate. I have listened carefully to nearly all of it, and I consider it to have been very worth while.
We are now discussing far more dimensions of tourism than we used to. It is traditional to think simply in terms of more being good: we need more tourists, more money coming in, more attractions and so forth. Today, however--and, increasingly, in general--we are also considering quality. Additional factors now need to be taken into account.
The obvious requirement is for people to return to this country, enabling us to establish a sustainable tourism industry, which means maintaining the number of visitors and attractions over a period. There is, however, a new dimension of sustainability, about which we did not hear a great deal today until the speech of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). We do not tend to take it into account very much: we hear more about troops of tourists going off in safari wagons and killing the very last Mexican staring frog as they unload their hampers. I commend the consultative document "Tourism--Towards Sustainability", produced last year, and the more recent document "Tomorrow's Tourism", which features an appendix containing an interesting set of responses.
Nowadays, it seems to be fashionable to take ever-longer holidays abroad. As has been said today, our seaside resorts have suffered a decline. There are problems of accessibility. We must think carefully about what we want from sustainable tourism. If we are not careful, we will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in such places as the New Forest and the Peak district. We must have a clear policy for the management of resources, to ensure that tourists still visit those places.
There have been encouraging developments. North Yorkshire national park, for instance, has made it possible for people to visit without having to drive their cars into the middle of the park. Moreover, natural attractions are being allied with the attractions of nearby towns and cities to remove some of the pressure.
My city of Southampton, which is not regarded as a natural tourist destination, has gone a long way towards becoming one by hosting the round-the-world yacht race, a film festival and a balloon and flower festival. A number of other activities bring people back into cities and, indeed, bring cities back into people's purview as "short break" destinations where they can use public transport without basing themselves in areas where there is too much pressure on facilities. Such combination holidays, enabling the use of both natural and urban facilities, are important to sustainability.
As has been said, the accessibility of tourist destinations is important. I am referring not just to dual carriageways, but to public transport. Can people go on holiday simply by using public transport? Increasingly, that is not possible in this country.
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