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DCMS Annual Report

The Minister is doing his best to set traps for me, but I will not wander down that road. As many times as he asks me, I will not say here today that we will spend x amount more funding. Obviously, I will say, ““Let's take advantage of the opportunities.”” That makes sense. Visit Britain makes it clear that for every £1 that it spends on advertising abroad, it brings £40 back into this country. We have seen the benefits of advertising not only to the UK market—the domestic market—but beyond. I do not think that I made this point strongly enough. The fact that the euro and the dollar are so strong means that those areas are looking for opportunities. They need to be harnessed. I am pleased that Visit London announced just this last week an extra £200,000 to market London to the continent. That illustrates another problem. London is the powerhouse behind British tourism. Two thirds of all visitors coming to the UK for tourism go to Heathrow. Of course, the Heathrow experience is a whole other debate. Half of all tourists coming into the UK go to London. That is great. It obviously reflects the importance of the culture and heritage, the fantastic attractions and the retail opportunities. However, we need to ensure that people are aware that there are places other than London—other than Buckingham palace, Madame Tussauds and Oxford street. We need to make them aware that there is Stonehenge, the Lake district and the Bournemouth seaside—that they can go to other places in the UK. That is not being done at the moment. We are not sharing the huge tourism benefits that London produces with the rest of the country. Again, that reflects the system. London is very good, but there is not that communication with the nine RDAs. I know that Visit England has been given a new voice, finally, because of the review, to say, ““Let's forget the nine RDAs. Of course there are some things we can do on a regional level, but let's have a voice for England so it can compete on a national basis with Scotland and Wales.”” That will ensure that there is more cohesion between the many voices that make up our tourism industry, which is important. Tourism is a £90 billion industry. It is the fifth biggest industry in the UK—bigger than fishing and bigger than the IT services industry. However, it is given scant regard in the House. I asked the Leader of the House whether we could have an annual debate so that hon. Members representing all corners of Great Britain could talk about tourism, but that request was denied, even though tourism is such an important industry. The 200,000 small and medium-sized businesses that make up our tourism industry need Government support. I know that the Minister has responsibility only for about one fifth of the tourism industry. I mentioned Heathrow. That is the responsibility of the Department for Transport. The fire regulations, which are the real burden on any farmhouse that is trying to run a bed and breakfast or hotel, were suddenly changed, which affected every bed and breakfast in the country. Was the Department for Culture, Media and Sport even questioned about that or consulted? No. The price of visas jumped by 130 per cent. According to the Tourism Alliance, that means that we have lost out on tens of thousands of visitors, mostly from the Orient, to the UK. The UK has about 100,000 Chinese visitors every year. Compare that with France or Germany, which have 500,000. Why is that the case? Visas and all the other extra costs were imposed without any consultation with the Department that was supposed to be looking after tourism. I could go on and on. All sorts of legislation created in other Departments was put through with no consideration of the impact that it would have on the tourism industry. That is why greater cohesion is needed. I tabled a parliamentary question on the issue. I asked how often the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport meets his colleagues from the Department for Transport, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the other Departments to which there is a tourism aspect, but still there has been no reply. I am happy to be corrected, but I suspect that the answer is that there is no regular meeting whatever; they may touch base occasionally. Stonehenge came up in parliamentary questions on Monday. The Government have spent £30 million on a paper exercise to work out what to do. That is our premier outdoor tourist attraction, yet we ignore its requirements. It is a timeless monument, and it seems that the Government have no time to look after it. Responsibility for whether there should be a road closure has been pushed around. The Minister knows that the spur road could be shut straight away, but the responsibility is being pushed around. Is it a regional responsibility? Is it the responsibility of Salisbury? Is it the responsibility of Visit England? Is it the responsibility of the DCMS? Is it the responsibility of Visit Britain? We need leadership in that regard, and that is exactly why a higher-profile role needs to be taken by the Minister responsible for tourism. That is one major change that a Conservative Government would make. We would have a Minister for Tourism with sole responsibility for communicating the messages from the industry and communicating with other parts of the Department. We would examine structural issues. We need a more efficient process for marketing the UK. That is what I wanted to see in the annual report, but it pays scant regard to tourism. It talks about various other issues. As glossy as the document is—it is very colourful—it misses some of the most important aspects of that. I know that I have been talking for a long time and that other hon. Members want to speak, and I see that I am testing your patience, Mrs. Anderson, but I would like to touch on two other areas. The Minister mentioned bingo, and I know that he will be upset if I do not bring that up, particularly after our debate. The issue of gambling is a difficult subject, and requires the right level of legislation, whether someone is in a penny arcade at the seaside or in Crockfords casino. We must ensure that we protect those who get sucked into the world of gambling and find that they cannot get out. That is important. The prevalence survey, which is run by the Gambling Commission, looks at how many people get caught on the wrong side of gambling. It shows that bingo halls and arcades are not as great a concern as some other aspects of gambling—such as internet gambling and fixed-odds betting terminals—which are growing in popularity. Fixed-odds betting terminals are found in bookmakers and are here to stay. They will not change. We need to view the bigger picture by stepping back and looking at what is happening to all aspects of gambling, rather than taking things in individual slices. This week, we debated a statutory instrument on category B3 machines in bingo halls. It was as if we could somehow tweak that issue on its own without really looking at its impact or at any other aspects. The measure was bizarre in its own right because it moved the number of category B3 machines that bingo halls are allowed to own from four to eight. If a bingo hall has only eight machines, every one of them can now be a B3 machine, which is a heavy-duty, big-stake, big-prize machine. However, if it is a massive bingo hall with 50 machines—and there are some—it too can have only eight big, high-paying B3 machines. That statutory instrument takes an illogical approach. I would have suggested that a percentage—one fifth—of all machines in bingo halls should be allowed to be B3s. There are myriad consultations on various aspects of gambling and they are all reporting at different times rather than taking stock of gambling in its entirety. The changes that are taking place with the advent of technology are not really covered in the report, yet the advent and growth of internet gambling, and the concerns linked to that, are some of the biggest issues that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will be dealing with over the next five to 10 years. Finally, I would like to look at the annual report and ask the Minister to comment on some of the targets mentioned in it. I begin with the sports target on page 34:"““Increasing the number of people from priority groups who participate in active sports at least 12 times a year by 3 % and increasing the number who engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity level sport, at least three times a week, by 3 %.””" In its own words, the report describes the progress made as ““slippage.”” I will not read out all the targets, but the same applies to the arts target on page 35—progress is reported as ““slippage””. Progress on the museums and galleries target on page 36 is reported as ““slippage.”” The historic environment target—