TRAVEL AGENCIES (REGISTRATION) (Hansard, 22 January 1964)

§ Mr. Edward Milne (Blyth)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the registration of travel agencies; and for purposes connected therewith. I am certain that my Motion will be received with earnest consideration by the House, which, in recent weeks, has focused its attention very closely on the need for further measures to protect the interests of the consumer and purchasing public. My proposed Bill seeks to deal not only with its effect on the travel trade and holidaymakers of Britain, but also with the benefits which will accrue to the nation's economy.

The expenditure of overseas visitors to Britain is about £220 million per annum. This is a considerable invisible export. The British Travel and Holidays Association estimates that in 1962 over 4 million British people took holiday trips abroad and that the figure for 1963–64 will be considerably higher. In 1962, the then President of the Board of Trade, greatly daring, said that licensing was not for the travel trade of this country. This was a rather strange comment to come from the Minister responsible for a Department which provides considerable finance for the British Travel and Holidays Association and which appoints the chairman of the board of that body in addition to eight of its 19 members.

As hon. Members are well aware, tremendous developments have taken place in the travel trade in the short time since that statement was made. Everybody is cashing in on the holiday bandwagon, despite the assertion by the secretary of the Association of British Travel Agents that In many cases the net profit of a travel agency is less than 1 per cent. of its annual turnover. Supposedly cheap and, in some cases, free holidays can be purchased now with John Bloom washing machines, with refrigerators, with tea and with detergents. Six hundred winners of a competition organised by a canned food firm would have set out on a holiday cruise on 10th June on the ill-fated Greek liner "Lakonia" had she not met her untimely end. Agreement between Hotel 1087 Plan and the Provident Clothing Company means that their door-to-door tally salesmen—11,000 of them, according to the Sunday Times of 15th December—were handing out travel brochures to their customers in that week. This is the range and the extent to which this trade is spreading.

The Newcastle Journal reported recently that five men intended to set up a travel agency in the basement of a house in the city, with £100 capital, with the intention of bringing holidaymakers from Pakistan to Britain. A local councillor apparently talked them out of the idea, but in the law of the land and even in the code of conduct of the Association of British Travel Agents there was nothing to prevent their carrying out the project. Only the common sense of the councillor who gave them that advice prevented them.

Recently, in a television programme, the chairman of the A.B.T.A. stated that in the 12 years' existence of the Association not one member had had to be expelled for failing in his duties to the public, and at the Association's annual convention he claimed that 99 per cent. of holidaymakers were satisfied. These are claims which need examining, but, in fact, they do not stand up to examination.

It is accepted that unscrupulous travel agents are in the minority, but it is only 12 months since the Association of National Tourist Office Representatives in Great Britain requested that a council of ethics for the travel trade should be set up, and urged that the A.B.T.A. should re-examine its schemes so that tour operators and travel agents in Britain—I quote from the text of the resolution— would offer unshakable guarantees to the travelling public and to such parties with whom they contract. That was rather a strange request to make to an organisation which claims that it has had no complaints in 12 years against its members and that 99.9 per cent. of holidaymakers are satisfied with what they received.

There is still no real evidence that the matter has been treated with the urgency it deserves. It cannot be reassuring to the travelling and holidaying public that one firm, Four ways, involved in the 1088 liquidation which sparked off the A.N.T.O.R. request, should have another firm, Millbank, in its premises offering luxury 17-day cruises to Greece at 49 guineas.

The British Travel and Holidays Association has included in a statement of policy on travel agency registration the comment that, unless the Association of British Travel Agents strengthens its position in maintaining and improving standards of service, it will recommend that the Government introduce legislation to control agencies. As I have already reminded the House, the B.T.H.A. is a Board of Trade-sponsored body.

It would be very easy, in seeking permission to introduce the Bill, to give numerous instances of how holiday makers have been let down by defaulting agencies, without redress. The travel trade has very often turned a "Nelson eye" on complaints and treated them as Press sensationalism, but the same Press which it decries in this way is the main medium through which the trade brings its wares to the notice of the public. All of us are acquainted with the nature and extent of the publicity.

In no other trade is so much money handed over before what is paid for is received. Most, if not all, holidays are taken on trust. All cash is paid before departure, and the agreements signed with most agents take away many of the rights which the intending holidaymaker would have had if he had signed no agreement at all or if no such form of agreement had been in existence. Many agents claim the right to make alterations in the tours arranged, to change hotels, the times and the mode of travel, and certain other arrangements, with no right in the customer to have the return of moneys paid if he is dissatisfied with the proposed alterations.

The Bill which I seek leave to introduce will deal with the means by which the public could be protected in what I have already shown, I believe, is a rapidly growing and rapidly changing trade. It is in the tradition of the House to protect people when they are faced with this type of situation, which, as we have seen, can and does arise. In the short time at my disposal, I have endeavoured to demonstrate the need for legislation, and I trust that the House 1089 will accept the Motion and allow the Bill to go forward to a Second Reading.