Written evidence submitted by the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport
Thank you for your letter of 29 October 2008
addressed to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport,
the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP about the United Kingdom Government's
decision not to renew its membership of the United Nation's World
Tourism Organisation. I am replying as the Minister for Tourism
and I hope that you will accept my sincere apologies for this
very delayed response which was caused by an administrative error.
On 29 July last year, my predecessor, the Rt Hon
Margaret Hodge MP, wrote to the Secretary General of the UNWTO,
Mr Francesco Frangialli, to give him 12 months notice of our intention
to, regretfully, withdraw from the organisation on 1 August 2009.
The reason for this withdrawal is, quite simply,
the need to prioritise scarce resources. Following a tight spending
review settlement in 2007, difficult decisions have had to be
made about the allocation of financial resources in this Department
and its Non Departmental Bodies and, after much thought, we regretfully
concluded that, under the circumstances, we could not justify
the €314,000 cost of the UNWTO membership fee.
Please be assured that this decision was made
after careful consultation with all the relevant Government Departments,
including the Department for International Development and the
Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
The British Government continues to be as supportive
as it can of the UNWTO. For example, on 11 November last year
I was the keynote speaker at a World Tourism Ministers' Summit
organised by the UNWTO. I also met separately with their Secretary
General on the same day.
I hope that this letter answers your concerns
and would like to apologise, once again, for the delay to your
reply.
Barbara Follett
Parliamentary Under Secretary
4 February 2009
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