§ Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater) (Con)I believe that we may be interrupted by a Division, so we must get on as best we can.
First, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory). They have given me an enormous amount of background information and their own thoughts on the debate. I am delighted to have secured it, because Somerset's biggest industry is tourism.
§ Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
4.45 pm§ On resuming—
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerI am told that the people of Devon call tourists "grockles". I believe that, in Cornwall, tourists are known as "emmets". Neither of those expressions sounds polite to me, so I am proud to be introducing a debate on behalf of the good people of Somerset, who regard all tourists as extremely welcome, whoever they are and wherever they come from. Tourism is not just a simple seasonal trade in my part of the world; tourism is the major employer. We are very good at it and we cannot do without it. Tourism is vital. It fires the local economy and it marries with our other big industry—farming. In fact, the two industries together provide the bulk of the jobs in the rural areas. Tourism in Somerset does not just mean buckets and spades and cream teas. It is about pay packets and prosperity throughout the community.
Let me say a few nice things about Somerset. I could easily burst into song and go on all night. Mine is the most glorious county in all England. There are views to die for, landscapes to marvel at, hills—
§ Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.
5.24 pm§ On resuming—
§ Mr. Ian Liddell-GraingerI shall start where I left off: moors, castles and history; masses to do, see and enjoy. Above all, we have the kindest and most hospitable people in the world.
Other places put up big metal signs saying, "Welcome to wherever". In Somerset, we do not need sign language. It is written all over our faces. We are always pleased to see visitors. We know how to treat them well and they come back time and again My county is home from home and tourism makes it tick—well, it does when everything works, but in Somerset we simply cannot rely on the year-round tourist attractions that some places can. We do not have a Blackpool tower or a Golden mile. We have no huge hotels; we cannot host big conferences and our industry is not on the scale of that of many counties.
432WH We are into family tourism: Butlins in Minehead; B&Bs on Exmoor, as my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton knows too well: little places with big hearts. Competing with fatter fish in other parts of Britain and beyond is the challenge and where a helping hand would not come amiss. I will not dwell on past disasters, but the foot and mouth crisis came close to killing our tourist trade. Last summer, visitors started to return, the trade was healthy and the "No vacancies" signs were once again going up. Good weather smiled on a good season. However, the word "good" is relative. Tourism still needs all the help it can get, which leads me to the critical part of my speech.
§ Mr. Adrian Flook (Taunton) (Con)Before my hon. Friend gets to the salient point of his speech, I am sure that he will agree with me that good transport links are vital to attracting tourists to any rural county. He will know that the M5 was eventually opened in the mid-1970s, which helped a great deal in opening up Somerset to tourists from the north. I am sure that he will also agree that it will be vital to dual the A358 to improve links from the south coast. I am sure that the Minister will also take note that, if that were to happen in time for the Olympic games, of which I know he is a keen supporter, those people visiting Weymouth for the Olympic sailing will also be able to visit Somerset.
§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerI thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Our views on the main roads across the county of Somerset are well known. The MPs for Somerset have fought a tenacious battle to try to obtain the right road with the right permission. My hon. Friend is right.
The Government have a role in promoting the tourist industry. I have to pose the question whether that role is being properly fulfilled. Thanks to the direct intervention of the Minister's Department, there is now a unified tourist authority—an amalgamation of some of the former regional tourist boards. I have no doubt that the Minister will extol the virtues of that fresh-faced body and seek to allow time for it to show its worth.
I am all for patience, but this afternoon I am representing the concerns of many of my constituents, who rely on tourism and who are not yet convinced that the British Tourist Authority is the bee's knees when it comes to selling Somerset. Perhaps I have a slightly suspicious mind. Perhaps I do not care for the patronisingly simple way in which the Government try to solve the problem. They have an annoying habit of trying to convince us that the appointment of a single individual will suddenly cure everything, which has led to a rash of tsars: for instance, with drugs—"Let's hire a drugs tsar"; cancer—a cancer tsar; a transport tsar; and now a tourism tsar. There are enough tsars to start a new round of the Russian revolution. Rasputin would be rubbing his grubby little mitts with glee.
Let us have a look at the man the Government have picked to oversee the trade: tsar Sir Michael Lickiss, a man with a slightly sardonic slogan coined by some of his less fervent fans. I am afraid that it goes like this: "There's nothing as slick as a Sir Michael Lickiss". Unfortunately, he slides seamlessly from quango to quango, pumping up his salary in every port of call. As the Minister knows, he was a big cheese in the South West of England Regional Development Agency when 433WH it started—more of a lump of mousetrap than a ripe Camembert. What did he contribute to the RDA? No one can remember. In fact, no one seems to remember the man at all.
It seems that Sir Michael's greatest disadvantage is that he is unmemorable. But someone in the Government loves him: for two days' work a week, the tourism tsar earns £44,000 a year. I have been racking my brains for some logical explanation. It will come as no surprise that Sir Michael Lickiss is an accountant. No doubt he can crunch numbers till the cows come home, but the ability to balance the books at Grant Thornton would not appear to qualify him as the vibrant new public face of British tourism.
John Cleese had some cruel things to say about accountants; he was trained to be one in Weston-super-Mare. He thinks that accountants are the dullest people in the world, and I would hesitate to disagree with the proprietor of Fawlty Towers. On the other hand, I do not wish to be unfair to Sir Michael; for all I know, he might be an absolutely hilarious after-dinner speaker, and play the violin like Yehudi Menuhin. The trouble is that he is now as invisible in his new job as he was in his previous one. I believe that he is leaving to move on, and I wait with bated breath to see which quango he pops up in next.
However, there are important structural problems too, particularly with the regional development agency. I do not particularly like RDAs, one of which Sir Michael used to chair. I think that they contribute too little and have turned into costly talking shops. However, where they exist, we have to live with them. A good RDA should be able to recognise the needs of the tourist industry and, as a lead organisation, do something positive. I have scoured the archives to discover anything positive that SWERDA—the south-west's regional development agency—has done, or has promised to do for tourists. It has not been a fruitful search.
In February, the agency hosted a conference in Bristol on skills and training in the hospitality industry, which was presumably designed to help Manuel to improve his English. Perhaps it was a worthwhile event, but I do not know a single individual in the hotel trade in my constituency who went to it, or who had the time and money to enrol—and it was expensive. Surely the whole point of setting up the RDAs was to get to grips with major industries. As the Minister is well aware, the major industry in Somerset in tourism. Is it not time that we saw the RDAs putting their expertise up front?
I said that there was a structural problem, and I meant it. The RDAs cover a huge geographical area, but are not good at dealing with small problems on the ground. If I were running a Somerset guesthouse and asked for the RDA's help, I suspect that it would not know where to start. The RDAs are not geared up for the small fry, but small fry is what the tourism industry in Somerset is all about.
There is also the issue of promoting tourism. Somerset has a big battle: we have not got the muscle to get Sir Michael Lickiss's British Tourist Authority seriously interested, because we are too small. However, one of Sir Michael's senior lickspittles sent me a letter 434WH this morning. He had just heard about this debate, because he had just returned from a four-week holiday. My, what a lovely life they have in the British Tourist Authority! Dare I say it, this gentleman wanted to let me know that they are doing a fine job in Somerset. They are producing a special printed module about the county. Whoopee! The module refers to such Somerset rarities as—believe it or not—cider-making. Who would have guessed it? The Lickiss lad will also be happy to tell us that Somerset contains churches, cathedrals, market towns and gardens. Where on earth would we be without these people?
Bridgwater must blow its own trumpet, and I do talk about my constituency. The West Somerset railway does brilliantly, as do the National Trust and Exmoor national park. Exmoor holds its own food festival, but the councils do not have the cash to lavish on advertising, and the little tourism business can certainly not afford to do so. We cannot compete with the likes of Cornwall and its costly splurges in the Sunday supplements. We certainly do not have the equivalent of an English riviera. We are living by word of mouth, local leafleting, imaginative websites and old-fashioned hard graft.
I say to the Minister that that is not working well enough. Andrew Dixon, the chef and proprietor of Andrews on the Weir, an excellent establishment on Porlock weir in west Somerset, rightly feels that Somerset is the "poor relation" in south-west tourism. Andrew's plight is typical; he points to the lack of big business, which means that the burden of promoting tourism falls on those least able to afford it. I am not asking the Minister for special help—I just want Somerset to be treated fairly. I am stating the facts as I see them, and reminding the Minister yet again of how vital tourism is.
Tourism in west Somerset and Bridgwater is tucked away. To get to our pretty little coves and beaches, people have to head off the main artery of the M5. It is a slow journey because, unfortunately, our roads are narrow, winding and, above all, crowded. The main roads—the A39 and the A359—are falling to pieces. They desperately need Department for Transport investment, because the state of the roads directly affects tourism.
If the Government want to cut us off from the outside world, they are going about it the right way. Mr. Dixon, who has written to me at length, says that some of the big tour operators have removed Minehead from their list of holiday destinations simply because the journey is so difficult. I am afraid that we cannot afford to lose any visitors, as the Minister knows.
We will survive this summer, if the weather holds up—I am looking outside! We will hang on in there. We will say hello to old friends who love what we have to offer, and with a bit of luck we will make some new friends, too. We are worth the journey—we are worth travelling to for a holiday—and we are certainly worth the attentions of the South West of England Development Agency and the new British Tourist Authority. We will even roll out the carpet to welcome Sir Michael Lickiss home.
I hope that the message of this short debate is clear: "Give us a break, and give us a plug, and, for heaven's sake, treat us fairly.'
§ The Minister for Sport and Tourism (Mr. Richard Caborn)I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) on securing the debate. It has been somewhat disjointed because of all the Divisions. I agree with quite a lot of the first part of his speech but, unfortunately, I cannot agree with the second part of it, which was a personal attack on Sir Michael Lickiss, who has been an extremely good chair of the South West of England Regional Development Agency and a very helpful chair of VisitBritain.
It is true that when foot and mouth disease hit the country, the tourism industry took a great knock, particularly in the west, which is the hon. Gentleman's part of the world. I am sure he would acknowledge that; indeed, he mentioned it. Sir Michael Lickiss was the chair of the South West of England Regional Development Agency at that time. He and the chairs of the other RDAs were among the first people to come to the Government about the problem. They quickly organised support for the tourism industry and, indeed, for the farming industry. Everybody commended them on the speed with which they dispensed that duty. In very difficult circumstances they were very helpful to tourism, small businesses and the farming fraternity.
Sir Michael Lickiss has also addressed some of the clear structural weaknesses in the tourism industry. It is worth £76 billion to the country, accounts for about 4.5 per cent. of gross domestic product and is the fourth largest employer, yet it is running the biggest trade deficit of any sector of industry at sortie £16 billion. That was broadly neutral 10 to 12 years ago, which highlights how much it has declined. That is due in part to people being able to travel more cost effectively, and there is nothing wrong with that. The budget airlines have also had a major effect.
We need to consider how we start addressing the problems. In the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the previous Tourism Minister—now the Minister of State, Department for Transport—and I discussed how we could address the structural weaknesses of tourism in England. What came out of that was the need to acknowledge that tourism is a major economic driver. That is why the Department decided to give responsibility for it to the RDAs. That happened only about 12 months ago. In doing so, we acknowledged through the RDAs, which have the sole objective in the English regions of driving up wealth creation as measured by GDP per capita, that tourism should go along with that responsibility. I have taken over from my hon. Friend as the Tourism Minister and I am still keeping to that policy.
The structural weaknesses that we are addressing include promotion abroad. Sir Michael has played an extremely good role in VisitBritain. We need to develop the electronic age. Englandnet is coming on stream. We have invested public moneys—£7 million—into that. We also need to consider the skills base, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We launched a sector skills council a few weeks ago. One of the things for which the industry has been asking is up-to-date data, and we are working on that. So we are addressing the structural weaknesses.
Tourism Alliance brings the parts of the tourism industry together for the first time to speak with one voice. I place on record my thanks to Digby Jones of the 436WH CBI for bringing the industry together and working with the Government. We can now work in a much stronger partnership on the structural weaknesses that we have identified collectively. We also have institutions—the RDAs—that can drive the change forward. That is very important if we are to deal with the deficit.
I was at a Commonwealth tourism conference a few weeks ago. The developing Commonwealth is trying to use tourism as a tool for economic regeneration and wealth creation. It became clear that the growth in this industry is about 4.1 per cent. per annum globally. For us to stand still, we will have to grow it by 2010 to in excess of £100 billion of business. It is one of our growth industries.
Refocusing much more strategically on the assets of a particular region allows regions to be exploited much more effectively than if they were considered piecemeal. The south-west tourist board, linking with the RDA as the economic driver, is very important, and obviously Somerset is a major part of that. The south-west accounts for one sixth of the entire tourism spend in England, and tourism is one of the most important sectors in the south-west. It attracts just over £7 billion of visitor spend per annum. There are about 225,000 tourism-dependent jobs, and 10 per cent. of total employment in the south-west is attributed to tourism. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the industry is very important. It contributes nearly £2.5 billion to the regional output—10 per cent. of the total—and sustains many more jobs in the retail, catering and transport sectors.
I am a great lover of the south-west. This year, my family and I will go down to Cornwall in the summer for what I think is the 23rd or 24th year on the trot. We very much like the south-west and Cornwall in particular, like many other people in the UK.
Through VisitEngland and its "enjoyEngland" campaign, we have been able to exploit more effectively the markets that are available. Let us consider, for example, Cornwall. We should remember that Cornwall is one of the poorest counties, if not the poorest county, in the UK, with a GDP per capita, relative to the average of the European regions, of under 74 per cent. That is why it has objective 1 status, which relates to European regional selective assistance. However, it has been able to take advantage of tourism via the Eden project and to develop its cuisine via people such as Rick Stein in Padstow, which has some of the best restaurants—I frequent them from time to time. There are also the areas around the River Teign. As I said, tourism is an economic driver, and it encompasses Somerset and the rest of the south-west.
On structural weaknesses, transport in the south-west is undoubtedly a problem. However, the RDAs are being given more and more powers to enable them to start addressing structural weaknesses in their local economies while also developing tourism. They must consider the wider picture and see how they can exploit much more effectively important drivers such as tourism—a driver that exists in the south-west. Transport is undoubtedly a very important issue in Cornwall, and I hope that the RDA will take that on board. I know that it has not done so before, but it has a special responsibility for tourism, so it will probably look at the issue in a slightly different light.
437WH As I said, I also believe that skills are important. The South West of England Regional Development Agency recognised how important tourism was for the economy even before it was given responsibility for it. A training college was set up in a hotel in Bournemouth under the lead of Sir Michael Lickiss in order to address the need to upskill that industry from a regional perspective so that it could meet demand. Again, Sir Michael has been extremely proactive in the industry. Again, I acknowledge the role that he has played at regional and national levels in the south-west in bringing tourism to the centre of the agenda.
Somerset and the south-west have various assets and attractions: VisitBritain's "enjoyEngland" campaign, to which I referred; Bath abbey; the Roman baths and thermal spas; Exmoor, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is designated as a national park and celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year; Somerset art week, which is also being promoted very heavily and is a huge success; Cheddar gorge; the south-west coastal path; Bridgwater's Guy Fawkes carnival; and the Taunton festival. All those attractions have been organised individually, but make tourism in Somerset and beyond more attractive.
The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) mentioned the bid for the 2012 Olympic games. It is true that Weymouth will form the major part of the sailing complex, and we will have to consider transport in that context. I refer again to the role of Sir Michael Lickiss. If it had not been for him, there would have been no inward investment to that part of the south-west in the form of the luxury market of boating and the development that has taken place there.
The RDA showed great farsightedness in acquiring part of that site from the military and in forcefully supporting the development of that sailing centre. I am not a sailor, but I understand that it is one of the best waters in northern Europe for sailing. Hopefully, it will 438WH host the 2012 Olympic games. It was the farsightedness of the RDA, led by Sir Michael Lickiss, which brought about that sailing facility and the wider development, and it has created employment for marine engineers. That has now spilt over. Had it not been for Sir Michael, the frigate, or some other naval vessel, would not have been sunk at Plymouth to create the reef for diving. An attempt is also being made to create an artificial reef at the development in the Bournemouth area, which again builds on the tourism perspective. Work is being done at Fistral beach and beyond to try to develop 24-hour surfing with floodlighting. That, too, will bring economic advantages to that part of Cornwall.
It would be wrong not to put on record the work that the South West of England Regional Development Agency has done in partnership with the tourism industry, led by a very competent man, Sir Michael Lickiss. The work that he has done and the contribution that he has made to the economy of the south-west, particularly to tourism, will stand examination by anyone.
It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Bridgwater was critical of Sir Michael. As I said, I can defend his record with some force. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the development agency have a better working relationship in the months and years to come and aid the development of tourism in the south-west. That is in the interests of everybody and I am sure that tourism will go from strength to strength.
One swallow does not make a summer. However, the last quarter's tourism figures show that we are back to where we were in 2000, before foot and mouth disease, 11 September and severe acute respiratory syndrome. In that sense, we are moving in the right direction. The south-west is getting its just rewards. That is thanks to the hard work that the tourism industry in the south-west has put in, in conjunction and partnership with the development agency.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes to Six o'clock.