Examination of Witness(Questions 280-290)
MR MIKE
WATSON
TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2002
John Thurso
280. I think Eastern Airlines have just opened
a direct flight from Inverness to Manchester which will enable
me to go and visit the Chairman. On airports, could I also suggest
that Wick should not be forgotten and the second runway resurfacing
should remain at the forefront of the Executive thought. Can I
come on to what you said about the assurances that you have had
from DCMS and the point that these are in writing. Will they be
published?
(Mr Watson) The honest answer is I do not know. There
has been an exchange of letters between the First Minister and
Tessa Jowell and that has been followed up in an exchange of letters
between Mr Broadley of the DCMS and Tom Wright, who is the new
Chief Executive of the BTA and that is basically setting out the
requirements and it is putting in those terms subsequent to the
agreement between Tessa Jowell and Jack McConnell. I cannot give
you an answer as to whether that will be made public, it is not
my correspondence, but certainly it meets what both myself and
the First Minister were looking for.
281. Presumably the First Minister's correspondence
would be publicly available under the Freedom of Information Act
and so on?
(Mr Watson) I am not sure of that.
282. Would you like to see it published?
(Mr Watson) Yes, in a sense because everything that
is in it has been mentioned in advancing our case for the new
BTA. I am not uncomfortable with any of that. We asked for assurances
and basically after some discussion they were agreed.
283. Can I come back to the point that Mr Doran
was mentioning because it does seem to me slightly curious. As
I understand it approximately a week before the announcement was
made by the Secretary of State here VisitScotland were unaware
of what was happening and therefore the conclusion is that, as
they gave in evidence this morning, they were not consulted about
what was happening. Can I ask why it would be that you as the
Minister responsible for that had no dialogue with them about
what their thoughts might be or took advice from the body that
was due to market Scotland?
(Mr Watson) My recollection is that my officials certainly
had discussions with VisitScotland after I spoke to Kim Howells
in the conversation to which I referred earlier. I cannot be absolutely
precise as to when that was, but certainly all the discussions
took place. One of my officials has a weekly meeting with the
Director of VisitScotland and that is a weekly standing meeting
and my understanding is that that should be discussed then.
284. But not at a time when anything could have
been input or changed. It was a briefing, a case of this is what
is happening, was it not?
(Mr Watson) Yes, that would be fair to say. I think
it is fair to say that the decision was pretty far down the road
by the time I had my discussions with Kim Howells. Let us be clear,
at the end of the day responsibility for the BTA and the ETC rests
with the DCMS. From my point of view, I look after the Scottish
end of that and that is why myself and the First Minister sought
the assurances to which I have referred on several occasions.
285. Under section 86 or 88, the cross-border
authorities paragraph in the Scotland Act, you have a statutory
right not only to be consulted but to advise on and the whole
point about cross-border authorities in a wholly reserved area
is that you have the right to express yourself. My concern here
is that the implications of full scale devolution which we all
enjoy north of the border and understand are not necessarily understood
south of the border and that there is a fait accompli
that arrives north of the border, has been signed up to by the
Executive and I do not either criticise or applaud that, but the
fact is that the Scottish industry and the Scottish body which
is supposed to be linking up with the BTA are unaware of what
is going on, have no chance to consult and yet the whole point
about cross-border authorities in a wholly devolved area is precisely
that they should have.
(Mr Watson) If you are saying to me could there have
been more discussion on this matter then clearly that is right.
If you then asked me would that have brought about a different
outcome I would have to say I am not sure. I understand what you
are saying, but by and large I think the fact that the position
of VisitScotland now and that which will exist, say, a year from
now is still subject to the way in which the new arrangements
for BTA develop. We have got to make sure that we have input into
that to make it as positive as possible. That is basically what
I and the First Minister are confident that we can do on the basis
of discussions with ministers. Rather than looking backwards,
I would look forwards and say I do not think this is a situation
in which we have no influence because the new arrangements have
still to be rolled out, put into operation and seen to be operating
effectively for all parts of the UK.
Chairman
286. Your title is Minister for Tourism, but
you are in fact responsible for a good many other areas of activity
and a lot of those areas of activity in the UK would come under
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Is the fact that
your title is Minister for Tourism a token of the greater importance
that is attached in Scotland to the tourism industry than might
be regarded in the UK Government that we have here and we saw
last week?
(Mr Watson) I can only really talk for Scotland. My
full title is Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport.
287. It starts from tourism.
(Mr Watson) As I said earlier, I think it is quite
clear that the First Minister had in mind when he decided to create
this post that tourism was to be the major focus of that. The
fact that tourism does not appear in the title of the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport may say something about England,
I would not like to comment on that. I think almost all of my
portfolio would relate to what happens within culture, media and
sport and I am sure heritage must be within that Department as
well. Even Gaelic comes under that heading because Gaelic broadcasting,
broadcasting being a reserved power, is financed to the Scottish
Executive from DCMS. I think it is only fair to say you would
have to ask the ministers from the Department of Culture, Media
and Sport where they place tourism. Certainly, we had a very full
agenda today on tourism and hospitality issues. That is a six-monthly
meeting and it involves ministers from the devolved assemblies
in the Scottish Parliament. Ivan Lewis from the DfES was there
as well, so I think that shows it is getting quite a high level
of importance.
288. There was a concern shown right across
the Committee last week when we had Tessa Jowell and Kim Howells
here in that Kim Howells is the person with specific responsibility
in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for tourism. There
was concern that with all his other responsibilities, tourism
was in danger of getting lost. One would take it from the priority
in your title and in your work that there is no danger of tourism
getting lost as far as the Scottish administration is concerned?
(Mr Watson) No, indeed. That was why the ministerial
portfolios were reconfigured this time last year, to give recognition
to the fact that, as you have already heard, tourism makes such
a contribution to the Scottish economy, and partly because that
factor is not widely appreciated in Scotland, I should say, and
creating a minister with main responsibility for tourism was one
way of ensuring that that did get greater attention.
Rosemary McKenna
289. There is an area here that is worth looking
at given the nature of devolved government and given how the Scottish
Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have looked at issues in—the
jargon is—a more joined-up way, and I think that is absolutely
right, that there does seem to be a better working across the
sectors. Would you agree with that? I suggest to you that the
current development of the cultural portal in Scotland where access
will be available to point people to all sorts of areas would
be a very good example of how that works within your department.
(Mr Watson) Yes, it would. We certainly do work very
hard within my portfolio to operate in a cross-cutting manner
between the various parts of it because the linkages are so clear
and so obvious. We also do it outwith the department as well because
particularly the cultural aspects of my portfolio are linked very
clearly with education, sporting aspects are linked very clearly
with health. In our spending review that was announced in September
there were funds made available to my portfolio from those other
ones. We do practice cross-cutting quite vigorously and I think
quite effectively. We do it internally as well. The cultural portal
that you mentioned will very shortly have a tourism equivalent
in the e-tourism initiative, visitscotland.com, which will be
a gateway into everything that tourism in Scotland has to offer
in the same way as the cultural portal when it comes on stream
will do for all sorts of cultural aspects. We do try and work
in that joined-up way, both within the disciplines of the portfolio
and outwith as well, where there are benefits clearly to be made
in that kind of joint working.
290. Can I put my little plug in for the bid
with Ireland on football because I am just as interested in football
as well. I was at the English-Irish inter-parliamentary body meeting
yesterday at Manchester where the issue was raised and was certainly
very strongly supported on all sides by all the members there
and the minister as well, so we are delighted about that. Not
only that but I think one of the little stadiums in my constituency,
Clyde, is going to be used as a training area, not for major events
but certainly for training. I would like to congratulate the way
that the department seems to work very much across the board recognising
that all of Scottish life can be brought together under that area
which is about health, about education, about tourism, about just
the general development and promotion of Scotland.
(Mr Watson) Very much the promotion of Scotland. This
comes back to the point that Alan Keen made at the start about
what would be some of the benefits of getting Euro 2008. One benefit
would be just generally promoting tourism but promoting the status
of tourism as well with our young people because I am concerned
that not enough of our young people see tourism as a career. We
have 13 universities in Scotland and I understand that eight of
them offer tourism or hospitality and leisure degrees. There are
too many coming out at that end and not enough of those for whom
a university education is not appropriate but who can do meaningful
training through a modern apprenticeship or vocational training
and can make a great contribution to the tourism sector but are
not doing that for a number of reasons: it is seen as being unattractive,
unsocial hours, low pay, seasonal, employers are characterised
sometimes as not really caring and therefore staff are not well
motivated. If the people who come to Scotland are met with a surly
or unhappy individual, for whatever reason, then that is not a
good first impression of Scotland and could affect whether they
come back. One of the ways I think you get round that—that
is why I am here today because we were talking about skills training
and vocational training and I wanted to hear what was happening
in England—is to get a more positive approach with Careers
Scotland, the careers agency in Scotland, to young people within
schools selling tourism or hospitality and the leisure sector
as a career. There are many, many fulfilling jobs there which
can build into a career but young people have to be convinced.
There is this thing somehow about university is the thing to do,
they must go to university now, and it is very good that more
and more youngsters are going to university except that some of
them may not be best directed to university, vocational training
may be far more appropriate for them and also for the contribution
they could make to the economy and the jobs they can get as well.
I think tourism is clearly an example of that. If one of the spin-offs
of getting Euro 2008 is that the tourism sector is highlighted
and made more attractive to more people then that is the first
turn of the wheel that will ultimately bring more people in here
before, during and after Euro 2008.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
As I say, a great pleasure to see you again. Thank you.
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