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Tourism

My Lords, six years ago, my noble kinsman, the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, spoke in a similar debate that was also opened by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. He said that he had been speaking on tourism in this House for 50 years. I wish that he was speaking today as he has accumulated so much experience of tourism, both in Parliament and in his own successful ventures at Beaulieu. I have no pretension to follow him, except that I also seek to promote the potential of the south-west, in which he played such an outstanding role. The 2003 debate was held at a time of great uncertainty because of the effects of 9/11 and Iraq, the foot and mouth outbreak and SARS. It was held soon after the Government had announced the creation of VisitBritain. Yet most speakers agreed, as they seem to do now, that the Government were not giving enough support to one of their most important industries at a vulnerable time. Now we are in a recession and the same is true today. The words of the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, seem highly relevant. He said: ""Tourism has always been vulnerable to major disruptions, and the cost to our industry and to jobs can be enormous. We need an early commitment from the Government to be prepared to provide a long-term investment to help Britain to improve the tourism infrastructure and win its share of demand against ever-growing competition from other nations. More than ever before, we cannot afford to neglect our tourism potential. We do so at our peril".—[Official Report, 30/4/03; col. 746.]" The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, who was here a moment ago, had no money to offer that day. His response was in kind. He pointed to the VisitBritain merger, the increased role of the regional development agencies and partnership with industry. It will be interesting to see whether our new Minister can provide anything more tangible. Meanwhile, the new flagship VisitBritain has itself had to endure an 18 per cent cut over three years and we have a diminishing share of the world market. Can we at least expect the Minister to reaffirm the Government’s support for recommendations 5, 6 and 7 of the British Tourism Framework Review, which urge the raising of the profile of tourism in national policy? This seems to me essential considering how low the Government have allowed it to fall. The DCMS response is quite positive. The new advisory council and the cross-Whitehall group are obviously a step forward but results will have to come from political will power as much as from setting up new machinery. In a recession, the tourism industry will need to show a lot of ingenuity and I am pleased to say that in the south-west this is happening. The quiet corner of the west country where I live, a few miles from the sea, has woken up to a completely new concept of tourism, namely the Jurassic Coast, now declared a world heritage site. The entire west Dorset and east Devon coastline is fast becoming another wonder of the world—a geological walk through time, spanning the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. I spend part of last Sunday in a newly discovered pub overlooking the Chesil Bank at Portland, sipping my Jurassic beer. The Olympic sailing events promised at Weymouth and Portland in 2010 will provide a huge opportunity for tourist attractions along this coastline and Dorset must make the most of it. The coast nearest to me beyond Bridport is apparently Lower Jurassic and 180 million years old. As a result, Lyme Regis and Charmouth have become great centres for old fossils, appropriately enough perhaps for my generation, and for many young people. The 630-mile-long south-west coast path from Poole to Minehead, assuming that it emerges unscathed from the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, is already more or less open to serious walkers. I remember driving foreign tourists as a student and feeling exasperated that they always wanted to go to the same places—Stratford, Broadway, Bath. Perhaps it was the hall porter who used to make those decisions for them. I notice the VisitBritain website still takes you automatically to Bath on its west country map, and then straight across to Cornwall. If you persevere, however, and click on Jurassic, you will now virtually explore the gateway towns along the Dorset coast. I would like to hear how the Minister feels about the increased role of the RDAs. I confess I am suspicious that a lot of the regional idea is about strategy and partnership and not a lot about helping people in the tourist industry. For example, I find on the Partners for England website the following statement: ""A national tourism strategy for England is a priority for Partners for England. One of the key outcomes of the British Tourism Framework Review is that VisitEngland should work with Partners for England to create and deliver a ‘bottom-up’ national strategy"." And then it says: ""This area of the site will be expanded in due course to include information about strategy development"." Why can we not read about real support for people involved in the business of tourism and not always about strategy? I sympathise with the comment of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, about the TICs. Tourism promotion support must be effective at local as well as regional and national level. We need new ideas which recognise the commitment of practitioners on the ground. I have my doubts whether the RDAs can achieve this. All the southern RDAs have suffered cuts this year and the south-west RDA is short of about £50 million. It did allocate £7.12 million to a project within the Jurassic Coast framework programme but announced in January that it will be withdrawing from some of that—from proposed visitor centres in Exmouth and Seaton. In Dorset, we have severe communications and transport problems common to many rural communities, including poor mobile telephone and broadband coverage. Local authorities are not doing enough to overcome the delays and costs created by planning and listed building regulations, and all the obstacles which have blighted excellent new tourist initiatives, such as Destination Dorset. But there is a government responsibility here too. I know that the Minister is very familiar with this subject, but does he accept that there is a digital urban-rural divide and that communications failures are a new form of social deprivation? People are even moving house to find broadband. Historic houses in remote rural settings make an important contribution to the wider economy. I declare an interest as a member of the Historic Houses Association and the Country Land and Business Association, and I am the joint owner of a tourist attraction in west Dorset. When my wife and I took on an historic house 25 years ago we received a handful of visitors and we now receive about 10,000 each year. We were proud to be named by Country Life as the nation's finest manor house. We enjoy it and mostly it works well, but we do it at some personal cost. Managing a property like this, along with all the undertakings that we have to give, is extremely hard work. The Government could help us by imposing the minimum of restrictions. Historic houses now receive some 16 million visitors per annum, and more than four in five visitors to the UK are likely to see an historic building. Yet the Government insist on tighter regulation of this sector. Licensing fees, permissions for special events and temporary structures, form-filling, questionnaires, and changing the trading regime for bed and breakfast accommodation, which is hitting a lot of people, are all of concern to members of the HHA and the CLA like us. In conclusion, my concern in entering this debate is that the Government should think harder about the people involved in tourism and remove some of the negative effects of their wider fiscal and economic policies. Tourism is the public face of our nation: it is the face we are proud to put on. Support for tourism should not be all about coastal gateways, showcases and visitor centres, but also should encourage the individuals who meet tourists every day in their own homes, the small businesses and the attractions that make up the fabric of our national life.