§ Mr. Timothy Kirkhope (Leeds, North-East)I am very grateful for this opportunity to raise a matter that I consider very important — tourism, particularly in industrial cities in the north of England. However, for the benefit of other hon. Members, I do not want to narrow my remarks. The subject of tourism has not been debated very often in the House. Indeed, I was very surprised to learn how infrequently such an important matter has been debated here: only a handful of times in the past few years. In a debate on 7 December 1984, my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart), who introduced the debate, said that it had been some 27 years since tourism had been specifically debated.
I regret that the Chamber is not better attended for my remarks on such an important issue — especially by Opposition Members, many of whom represent the very industrial areas in the north with which I am particularly concerned, and to which I believe tourism has so much to give. However, that will not stop me from developing my theme, which arises largely from a question that I put yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee), the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. I wanted to find out precisely how many tourists had come from overseas to visit this country last year. The answer was no fewer than 13.8 million. That enormous figure is very creditable, and shows a definite increase over the past few years.
The increase has not come about by accident. It is clearly a result of the many initiatives that have been taken. Some have been taken by Government, some by our tourist authority and — this is especially important —some by private individuals, the entrepreneurs who wish the tourist business to be a great success. I think that we should be very grateful to them for the work they have done.
We have done well. We have created many jobs in the tourist industry. If they were present, Opposition Members would no doubt suggest that the jobs created in tourism and the service industries are not always proper jobs. I would say that they are indeed proper jobs. However, they are not only proper jobs, but jobs that allow people to show all the best characteristics of the British: initiative, enterprise and a positive attitude towards hard work. The tourist industry releases that enterprise and initiative, along with the inventiveness of the British people.
In some respects, we have fallen behind some of our European competitors. One of our problems is, of course, our weather. There is very little that hon. Members can do about the weather — very little, indeed, that the Government can do about it. Nevertheless, it is a factor, and it undoubtedly means that people who might otherwise spend their holidays here go elsewhere on the Continent to enjoy the rather better weather that tends to prevail there. That is very sad, but it is a problem with which we shall doubtless continue to live.
The lack of good weather, however, is more than made up for by our heritage—the pure history of our country. Much of that history is to be seen in our buildings, monuments and museums, which show the nature and characteristics of this country to their best advantage.
459 Sadly, we have tended to concentrate too much on those areas that traditionally have been assumed to be worth visiting—for example, London.
This year we are welcoming many visitors to London, and we hope that they will continue to come here, but from time to time hon. Members find that access to this place from the streets round about Parliament is difficult and that other conditions in London are somewhat oppressive. In no way do I want to dissuade them from coming. I am simply pointing out that, for visitors, London is a focal point. Another major tourist attraction, for obvious reasons, is Stratford-on-Avon, and Oxford and Edinburgh also attract large numbers of tourists.
This country is very small and its road and rail connections are excellent, so it is unnecessary for tourists to concentrate only on a few locations. We should advise tourists to go elsewhere for reasons other than the pure excitement that the capital offers or the beauty of the countryside in the south of England. When advising visitors to go elsewhere than London, it is tempting to suggest that they should visit only rural Britain. However, much of the history and wealth of this nation is bound up with our urban industrial communities.
Inevitably, that leads me to refer to the north of England and to parts of Scotland. I represent a northern constituency. I am proud to represent part of Leeds. It is a very great city. During the industrial revolution it made a great contribution to the wealth of this nation. It has survived successfully the post-industrial era. Inevitably and sadly, jobs have been lost in my city because unproductive industrial plant has had to be closed. However, the city is now thriving and expanding. It is a major commercial and financial centre, and unemployment is diminishing.
The people of Yorkshire are noted for taking up opportunities that allow them to succeed. They wish to share their success with others. There are already tourist successes in Yorkshire. Many people already visit the delightful spa town of Harrogate. Many foreigners on their way to Edinburgh also visit Fountains Abbey, a most delightful spot. Sadly, however, not enough tourists visit Leeds. Were Opposition Members present, I should say to them that some of their remarks about cities such as Leeds and Liverpool do nothing to encourage visitors to go there; many of them are left with the impression that they are unattractive places, full of militants of various kinds.
§ Mr. Kenneth Hind (Lancashire, West)They are.
§ Mr. KirkhopeIndeed, they are full of political militants, but I hope that visitors do not think that the streets are full of militants generally. Opposition Members give people the wrong impression. People avoid such places because they believe that they are squalid or undesirable, when the reverse is true.
Leeds has many fine buildings and museums, some delightful parks and excellent entertainment facilities. It also has a river and a canal, and it was the canal which brought the city much of its prosperity and carried many of the goods produced, contributing greatly to the woollen industry. Features such as that canal could be greatly enhanced to improve the environment for the benefit of visitors. Leeds has a good railway station, an airport nearby and excellent roads.
How can we best exploit those facilities? When I asked my hon. Friend the Minister a question yesterday, he was 460 most helpful and talked about developments in Leeds. However, I hope for much more. I would not wish too much reliance to be placed on the local authority, although I acknowledge that local authorities with a positive attitude can do much to improve tourism and attract people to places such as Leeds.
I would like to see far more initiative being taken by those enterprising Yorkshiremen — by individuals, companies and entrepreneurs. They are there and waiting and perhaps they just need a little more encouragement to get going. I ask my hon. Friend whether the planning machinery is adequate in that regard. Perhaps it is time to consider some short-circuiting of the processes to encourage such enterprises.
I am sure that the Government are doing much. As I said, one has only to refer to the statistics for the past eight years for tourism, and the increased revenue from tourism, to prove that the Government have been most successful. But are they doing enough? Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will tell us. I am not criticising him in any way, but I wonder whether more could be done.
To assist tourism, we must examine areas outside the narrow band that I mentioned earlier. As I said, progress has been made. Bradford, a city near Leeds, has a most excellent museum of photography to which people come from far away. Indeed, it was featured in a Radio 4 programme yesterday. Bradford even encourages visitors to come and look at its cemetery, where many of the leading exponents of the industrial revolution are now at rest. There is also the question of the British museum's Asian collection. I urge that that collection should be encouraged to move to Leeds or Bradford where it would be most welcome and where visitors would come to view it with great interest.
For some time I was a county councillor on Northumberland county council. During that time we saw the development of the Beamish open-air museum, which was an interesting development in County Durham, drawing together much of our industrial history. That is an example of what can be clone. I am not sure whether it is a good idea to draw these activities together on one site or whether it is better to retain them on their existing sites and encourage people to see them there, but I should very much like such developments to be encouraged.
It is a matter of the map for tourists. I should like to encourage the tourist authority not just to consider displaying on the front page of brochures pictures of Beefeaters, however attractive they may be, but to give priority, for a change, to the pictures of some of the old Yorkshire mills and industrial architecture in which people are so interested. That is one way in which we might bring about a movement of tourists to the north of England and other areas outside London. Even many of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies which are not in the north feel that London and the north are polarised and that tourists should be advised to look to places other than London.
Britain is not just the Palace of Westminster, the red buses, the London taxi cabs and the quaint soldiers and policemen who smile. It is more—it is an industrial heritage, a part of this country which perhaps has been ignored for too long by tourists and others who care about exploring and finding the country's character. I urge the Government to do whatever else they can to achieve, through co-operation, a greater initiative for tourism in the north.
§ Mr. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke)The circumstances in which a Back Bencher finds himself are infinitely varied and unpredictable. I welcome this opportunity to contribute to this important debate. Clearly, tourism is a subject of interest to many hon. Members, but, alas, not Opposition Members. It is a growth factor in our national economy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope) on finding this opportunity to bring such an important subject to our attention.
My hon. Friend was good enough in his opening comments to suggest that we could widen our debate and not concentrate exclusively on inner cities. It has been my privilege for just over four years to represent the constituency of Basingstoke, and Basingstoke cannot be described as an inner city. But there is an affinity between the position that leads me to seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the factors that motivated my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East — how to extend the tourism net. Tourism is a growth industry and it is important that all parts of the country should benefit from it.
In one limited respect, Basingstoke has an affinity with the premise on which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East began his comments. Much of Basingstoke's growth in recent years has been due to overspill from London and the development which depended on and resulted from it. There is idyllic countryside around us in north Hampshire. Surely, in the last resort, the greatest tourist attraction we have to offer is our English countryside. The area has a number of historic monuments and houses, including the ruins of Basing house, which are graphically depicted within these buildings, and The Vyne.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East asked what can be done. There is pump-priming by central and local government, but is it not essentially a question of attitude? We must be proud of the part of the country in which we live. We must sell that area as a community. We cannot look to central Government for finance or to local government for a rearrangement of priorities. We must be proud of what we stand for and the areas in which we live. We, as individuals and a community, rather than the Government, are the vehicle for tourism.
§ Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham)I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope) for the opportunity of taking part in the debate without too much competition from the Opposition Benches. It is a sadness to many of us that 12 Conservative Members are here on their own to consider how northern towns can be revived and the important role that tourism and leisure industries can play in that revival.
It is no coincidence that if we look at some of the northern towns that are prosperous, such as Beverley, Harrogate and Chester, we discover a conjunction of attractive town centres, the development of tourist sites, lower unemployment and greater prosperity. The tourist industry can act as a magnet for people and spending power. In turn, that prosperity can fructify and improve the built environment and the general surroundings of the towns and local villages.
That model should therefore be applied elsewhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East has made 462 a good plea for more Government attention and assistance to ensure that that magnetic power fructifies in the hard-hit northern cities. At the heart of many of those important cities lie historic sites of which we could make more, because those attractions could be enlarged.
Those policies will work only if they are seen as part of a wider package of measures to regenerate the inner city cores. At the heart of the matter lies the importance of land use and the policies to bring in urban development corporations to ensure that public sector land is better used and returned to wider uses. Those policies will lead to a better built environment, which in turn will make those cities more attractive focuses for tourists and leisure industries.
We must ensure that, as that land use and recycling is occurring, we succeed in making enough green space and leisure use available in the inner cities. At the same time, we must rebuild housing and bring in industry and commerce to produce the prosperity that those inner-city areas need.
§ Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher)Does my hon. Friend agree that the garden festivals in Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent have been an eminently good example of the way that derelict land can be made use of for commercial benefit and the benefit of vistors?
§ Mr. RedwoodThat is one example, of many, of the sort of development that can begin to turn the tide in hard-pressed inner-city areas.
An interesting study arrived on some of our desks this week from an independent Commission that was set up by housebuilders in this country which considered the problem of inner-city rehabilitation. I give it two cheers because it shows that house builders have progressed from their position of two or three years ago when they said that there was little that could he done to recycle urban land or develop new housing in inner-city areas. They now confess that there is quite a bit of land available and that things are beginning to happen. They are still too pessimistic, and they lack ambition to foresee the chance to revitalise inner-city areas and build more in them to improve the environment.
That is the burden of my message. Tourism and leisure have a vital role to play in inner-city revitalisation. Land use lies at the core of the problem, and we must mobilise the private sector — house builders, the tourist and leisure industry and others—to rebuild those cities, and rebuild them fast.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Lee)I arose early this morning and travelled to Margate to visit Hornby Hobbies, an excellent firm there. I hosted a seminar under our "Action for Jobs" banner and this afternoon opened a new swimming pool at the Lonsdale Court hotel, also in Margate. I then travelled back to London to participate in the "Come to Britain" trophy award ceremony at the Institute of Directors early this evening and now find myself answering my second Adjournment debate. After all that, I look back with a clear conscience to the vote in which I participated in the early hours of this morning on the increase in Members' salaries.
Having said that, I am delighted that we have an opportunity for another shortish debate on tourism. I 463 congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope) on his seizure of the opportunity to discuss this vibrant issue. It is an exciting industry and it is marvellous to have the support of so many of my parliamentary colleagues from the Conservative party who are committed to the growth and development of tourism.
§ Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley)Does my hon. Friend agree that it should be put on record that there is not one Opposition Member present and that those people who tell us that they care so deeply about northern areas have not seen fit to listen to this debate or participate in it? It is important that everybody who reads tomorrow's Hansard should be made fully aware of the fact that there has not been one representative from any of the Opposition parties present.
§ Mr. LeeHansard will record what my hon. Friend has said. I know of my hon. Friend's commitment to tourism and the development of it in his constituency of Colne Valley, which I visited recently.
I shall set the scene in national terms. The Government are spending about £67.5 million on overall support for the tourist industry, excluding help by way of the community programme and urban development grants. The industry's total turnover at present is probably about £15 billion and it is growing steadily. In the three months February to April, overseas visitors were up by 10 per cent. this year. Last year, as has been said, 13.8 million visitors came to this country. This year, we are heading for a record. About 1.4 million jobs are sustained by tourism and that is growing at a rate of 40,000 to 50,000 a year. Yesterday, the English tourist board estimated that by the early 1990s another 250,000 jobs may be created in this dynamic growth industry.
In my region, the north-west, employment in tourism grew by 12 per cent. in the two years to December 1986. The industry is led by the private sector with a degree of pump priming by the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) said. The cost for new construction in the industry is running at about £1 billion a year. As I endeavoured to say yesterday at Question Time, there is a complementary relationship between service jobs in tourism and manufacturing jobs. For example, many manufactured products go into the construction of a new theme park or hotel and many building materials are used in the construction of a new conference centre. There is also a need for catering equipment, heating equipment and uniforms worn by the staff.
Historically, tourism in the United Kingdom was centred mainly around our seaside towns, museums, art galleries and sporting events and our national tourist attractions such as Buckingham Palace, the Palace of Westminster, Madame Tussaud's, the tower of London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Edinburgh castle and the idyllic countryside referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke.
In recent years, we have seen a wholesale expansion in the range of tourist attractions throughout the regions. Increasingly, we see evidence of how tourism and leisure can make a significant contribution to the regeneration of many inner cities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) quite rightly said, it can play only a part, but nevertheless it is a significant part.
464 Tourism development and environmental improvement can unquestionably bring about an improvement in the quality of life for local residents. In turn, such developments can generate encouragement for the industrial and retailing sectors to expand in adjacent areas. Increasingly, particularly in the regions, we see successful tourism-related developments in which there has been a true partnership between central Government, local government and, of course, the private sector. We look nationally at the panoply of schemes throughout our country, particularly in our industrial regions.
I refer to the docklands in London and Albert docks in Liverpool—about 16 million tourists go to Liverpool each year. The garden festivals were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor). Salford Quays is developing adjacent to Manchester and the G-Mex centre is in Manchester itself. I am proud to say that Manchester is my home city. It won the "Come to Britain" award. It has had 1 million visitors this year. The new Grenada studio tours project is coming on stream. It has been helped by a grant from the tourist boards. In London, there is the Royal Agricultural Hall, now the business and design centre, in Islington. In the midlands there is the Birmingham conference centre, which is developing. In Bradford there is the national photographic museum.
In Southwark—back to London— there is the Globe theatre. I was privileged last week to be at the ground-breaking ceremony. There are major theme attractions at Alton Towers, which has over 2 million visitors each year. Tourism developments have been taking place in many smaller north-western communities.
§ Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire, West)My hon. Friend mentioned the midlands and Alton Towers. On Monday, he will visit two excellent tourist attractions in my constituency—Gulliver's Kingdom and the Heights of Abraham. Those developments have been done by the private sector and have brought great employment benefits. My hon. Friend is doing a lot of work in his new appointment. We will welcome him to west Derbyshire on Monday to see the new developments.
§ Mr. LeeI look forward to being in west Derbyshire on Monday. In fact, I am going there after opening a picnic site in Buxton. I shall take my family with me. We will be a genuine tourist family on that occasion.
I was referring to some of the smaller sensitive developments that are taking place in our industrial regions. I refer specifically to developments such as Quarry Bank mills at Styal, the enterprising, successful Wigan pier development. In my constituency, which is famous for its Pendle witches, an excellent heritage centre draws about 15,000 visitors a year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East talked about Leeds. Yesterday, I paid generous praise to the contribution that the Leeds city council is making in the development of tourism in and around Leeds. He talked about the number of visitors. Already, Leeds is getting many visitors to existing attractions. I refer to the Abbey house museum at Kirkstall abbey which has about 200,000 visitors. The city art gallery had about 120,000 visitors in 1985, and Harewood house had about 180,000 visitors and Temple Newsom house had about 50,000 visitors in 1985.
465 Increasingly, tourists are going to Leeds and new developments are under way. Unquestionably, more visitors will go there.
I conclude by repeating the areas on which I personally intend to concentrate in the years that, I hope, lie ahead of me as Minister with responsibility for tourism. I intend to implement a campaign to achieve a spotless Britain. As a number of hon. Members mentioned at Question Time yesterday, there is too much litter on our streets and shores. Signposting also requires improvement. The tradition of service does not come easily to this nation and we could do much more to make visitors feel welcome and appreciated. Unquestionably, too, we can do much more to train people coming into the industry and to improve the quality of our tourist attractions. Finally, I wish to encourage the employment of more disabled people to pursue careers in the industry. From the point of view of 466 the visitor and consumer, I wish to ensure too, that more hotels, conference centres and tourist attractions have acceptable and satisfactory means of access for those who, sadly, suffer from disabilities.
I hope that in this short speech I have been able to cover a wide range of aspects of tourism, from the traditional to more recent developments and some of the themes that I personally intend to pursue. I conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East once again on raising this subject. As one who was born in Manchester and represents a north-western constituency in north-east Lancashire, I am totally committed to the role of tourism. I have seen for myself what tourism can do in part to regenerate our regions and industrial cities and I am committed to ensuring that in those areas, in Yorkshire and in my hon. Friend's constituency of Leeds, the development of tourism in future comes on apace.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at four minutes 1to Ten o'clock.