The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the aviation, travel and tourism industries.
The aviation, travel and tourism sectors are an essential part of the UK’s identity and economy. More than that, they are a driver in creating a global Britain and in levelling up our country. That is reflected in the history and the facts. Before covid-19, the UK had the largest aviation market in Europe and the third largest globally, contributing £22 billion to GDP and directly providing around 230,000 jobs.
Tourism is similarly hugely important to our economy, as people travel from home and abroad to share in our culture, our landscape, our history and traditions, and the warm welcome from all corners of our United Kingdom. In 2019, 4 million people were working in the tourism industry, with the sector directly contributing £75 billion each year to the nation’s economy. The Government understand the severe impact of covid-19 and the effect that the necessary restrictions that have been introduced to control it have had on the UK’s aviation, travel and tourism sectors.
The House is united in wanting to see international travel reopened as soon as it is safe to do so, enabling those living here to see the family and friends they have been separated from for so long; for business to be done; for holidays to be enjoyed; enabling far countries to be explored; and for our friends from all corners of the wide world to be welcomed once again to the United Kingdom’s shining shores.
I spoke to the Minister beforehand. The holiday and travel sector, in particular, has great uncertainty. What help can be given to businesses such as Laser Travel in my constituency that offer a tailored, top-to-bottom service? Existing furlough, self-employed support for international travel businesses for a further six months, retained business rates relief and a further tailored recovery grants regime for travel agents, tour operators—
Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot make a speech at this point. Not everyone will get to speak in this debate who wants to do so, and interventions simply cannot be that long.
Robert Courts
I would be delighted to discuss this matter further with the hon. Gentleman. Later in my speech I will come to some of the factors that have been available to some of the wonderful travel and tourism businesses that we have all over the United Kingdom. That may give him the answer that he wants. If it does not, I am happy to discuss it further with him and I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston)—the tourism Minister—would be happy to do so as well.
As I was saying, everybody can be reassured that the Government recognise the critical national importance of international travel. It connects families that have been kept apart, boosts businesses, brings in investment and underpins the UK economy. It is essential to the way that we see ourselves as a country: open, international and cosmopolitan. That is why it is essential that any steps that we take now lay the groundwork for a sustainable, safe and robust return to international travel.
In February 2021, the Prime Minister asked the Secretary of State for Transport to convene a successor to the Global Travel Taskforce, building on the recommendations set out in November 2020. The taskforce published that report in April 2021. I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the travel and tourism industry for its enormous contribution and close co-operation with Government in the development of the report and for its continued support in the ongoing efforts to successfully implement the report’s recommendations. The report set out a framework for a safe, sustainable, robust return to international travel, seeking input from across the transport industry.
The Secretary of State confirmed on 7 May that non-essential international travel would resume on 17 May, lifting the “stay in the UK” regulation and allowing international travel to recommence under the new traffic light system. The system cautiously balances the reopening of international travel with managing the risk posed by imported variants. It categorises countries based on risk, allowing us to protect public health, and particularly the roll-out of our world-beating vaccination programme, from variants of covid-19.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre produces risk assessments of countries and territories. Decisions on which list a country is assigned to and any associated border measures are then taken by Ministers, who take into account that JBC risk assessment alongside wider public health factors. The Government have had to make difficult decisions in the early stages of the return to international travel; however, they are necessary to ensure that we do not risk throwing away our hard-won achievements, which have been possible only through the hard work of the British people, and people coming forward for their vaccinations when called. However difficult these times are, and I am under no illusion that they are challenging, we must not risk having to go backwards.
My hon. Friend says that several countries accept evidence of UK vaccinations in order to facilitate travel. Why does the United Kingdom not recognise the validity of those vaccinations for international travel?
Robert Courts
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that matter. We are considering what role vaccination may be able to play in facilitating international travel. I will refer to that again in due course.
The measures set out in the traffic-light system are not set in stone. That is also an answer to my right hon. Friend’s question. We are working towards a future travel system that can coexist with an endemic covid-19, and indeed recognising, as he has pointed out, the strong strategic rationale of the success of the vaccine programme. We are working to consider the role of vaccinations in shaping a different set of health and testing measures for inbound travel into our country. We will set out our position on that in due course.
The Minister has talked about the way the traffic-light system might work. We were promised that there would be a green watch list that would give travellers more time, but that simply was not used in the case of Portugal. Could he expand on that a little further?
Robert Courts
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that point and appreciate that it is one on which many hon. Members will want an answer. We have always been clear that we could use the green watch list where we were able to do so. We have equally always been clear that when the evidence requires us to take swift action, we will do that, because the public would expect us to take action to protect public health, which is what we did in that instance.
As recommended in the Global Travel Taskforce report, the Government’s approach will be assessed on 28 June, 31 July and 1 October. This is to ensure that the measures and the approach in place are still adequate, that they are relevant, and that they are efficient. Of course, the first of those review points comes up at the end of this month.
The GTT report included a commitment for the Government to produce a tourism recovery plan, as was reiterated in the 22 February road map. That tourism recovery plan will set out the transformation and growth of the sector over the next five years as part of our economic recovery. The plan will address both the short-term and medium-term issues affecting the sector, such as bringing back consumer demand and supporting businesses as they reopen. We also wanted to set the sector on a long-term path to support delivery of the Government’s wider objectives, such as levelling up, strengthening our Union, and enhancing growth and productivity. We want to future-proof the tourism sector. We are determined to see the development of a more sustainable, innovative and data-driven tourism industry.
As we return to travelling, building consumer confidence is key. On 17 May, we published a passenger covid-19 charter that sets out consumer rights and responsibilities while restrictions are still in place, alongside the Government’s expectations of the businesses in the sector. In the meantime, we will be regularly reviewing travel measures, taking into account the latest domestic and international data. The system we have designed will be adaptable to the evolving epidemiological picture, and the Government must of course be prepared to take action at any time to protect public health.
My hon. Friend mentioned that the Government plan two or three further checkpoints during the summer. Is he actually saying, as he talks about consumers and recovery, that if a destination is not placed on the green list or the amber list by 31 July, it cannot be reopened to travel before 31 October?
Robert Courts
If I have understood my right hon. Friend’s question correctly, the position is that we continue to assess all the measures that apply in terms of policy at the checkpoint reviews. Similarly, we look approximately every three weeks at which countries fall into which list. When I talked about consumer confidence in the charter, I was referring to the rights that consumers have and the responsibilities of those in the industry. I hope that I understood his question correctly; if not, I will come back to it later.
In the last couple of minutes, I would like to say a little bit about our priorities for the future of aviation. The UK has a proud history at the forefront of global aviation. It provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds to the UK’s GDP and tax revenues—money that is invested back into our vital national services. We are working on a strategic framework that will focus on building back better and ensure a successful UK aviation sector for the future. That framework will set out a plan for a return to growth of the aviation sector, and it will include consideration of workforce and skills, Union connectivity, noise, innovation, regulation and consumer issues. The strategy will complement the Government’s net zero aviation strategy. It will consider the critical role that aviation plays in growing the UK’s global reach and we will publish it by the end of the year.
The measures I have outlined demonstrate how determined the Government are to support this vital industry as we start to rebuild the economy. I am a Minister in the Department for Transport. By definition, I want to see people travelling, and I want to see people flying. I want a thriving aviation industry. I want to welcome people back to our shores to enjoy the delights our country has to offer, and I want our people to be able to explore the wonders of the world. But we cannot and will not rush this, and we cannot and will not undermine our hard-won progress. If we move too quickly—recklessly, even—we could throw away our progress and take us all, including the travel, tourism and aviation industries, back to square one. The best way to support our aviation, travel and tourism industries is to resolutely follow the vaccine roll-out, return life to normality and allow these industries once again to soar.
It might be helpful for colleagues to know that I intend to run the debate until around 4 o’clock, because there is another debate after this, and therefore there has to be a very low time limit of three minutes, I am afraid, even at the beginning. I apologise to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May); I normally try to give her more than three minutes, but we are really under pressure this afternoon. I should point out that Members who are further down the list simply will not have a chance to speak today. They will be able to work out by the arithmetic whether or not they will have a chance to speak, so they do not have to come and ask me. It is a pleasure to call the shadow Minister, Alex Sobel.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will try to be as brief as possible, to give Members the maximum time. My role as shadow tourism Minister means that I am lucky enough to visit many of the wonderful and various tourist attractions that Britain has to offer. Just a few weeks ago, I celebrated the reopening of museums and galleries by attending the launch of Grayson Perry’s “Art Club” exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. More recently, I visited the beautifully kept gardens and buildings at Chiltern Open Air Museum and enjoyed the gardens at Batsford arboretum. School holidays for my children have been made more enjoyable for the whole family thanks in no small part to Legoland Windsor, the Wave in Bristol, Whipsnade zoo, the Wild Place Project and Roger Tuby and Stewart Robinson’s fairgrounds. I also visited Stratford-upon-Avon, one of our biggest tourist magnets, and was delighted to see it so busy, and I visited Scarborough to welcome back domestic coach tourism.
While all these attractions are still doing what they do best—educating, entertaining and enchanting their many visitors—they have one thing in common: they have all been let down in one way or another by the Government’s lacklustre and patchy support over the course of the covid-19 pandemic. Last September, I stood here and impressed the need to protect the hospitality industry. We know that hospitality is one of the major forces powering the UK tourism economy. Establishments providing food, drink and accommodation rely heavily on the tourism trade and must be protected for their sake and the sake of tourism—an industry worth £155 billion and responsible for more than 3 million jobs. That is why my party—the party that supports frontline businesses—is calling for a flexible repayment scheme to tackle the £6 billion debt burden facing the hospitality industry without harming the recovery of businesses that are still unable to turn a profit. It is the fair thing to do.
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
This is a disappointing debate, because one year and one week ago this very issue was raised in this House. A different Minister was at the Dispatch Box at the time, but she promised me that the Government were working hard across the sector to
“get internationally agreed standard health measures”—[Official Report, 3 June 2020; Vol. 676, c. 850.]
in place. One year on, we are no further forward. Indeed, we have a devastated industry, jobs lost and global Britain shut for business.
More than not being any further forward, we have gone backwards. We now have more than 50% of the adult population vaccinated—it is a wonderful programme—yet we are more restricted on travel than we were last year. In 2020, I went to Switzerland in August and South Korea in September. There was no vaccine but travel was possible. This year, there is a vaccine but travel is not possible. I really do not understand the Government’s stance.
Of course, it is permissible for a person to travel to countries on the amber list, provided that it is practicable for them to quarantine when they come back, but Government Ministers tell people that they must not travel and cannot go on holiday to places on the amber list. The messaging is mixed and the system is chaotic. Portugal was put on the green list, people went to the football, then Portugal was put on the amber list, leaving holidaymakers scrabbling for flights and devastated families having to cancel their plans. That is not to mention the impact on the airlines, on travel agents here and on the travel and tourist industry in our longest-standing trading partner in Europe.
I think it is clear to all of us just how important international travel is to the economy, and to the tourism and hospitality sector in particular. With European and world connectivity now more important than ever, it is the Scottish Government’s ambition to see airports and airlines restored to 2019 levels of connectivity as quickly as possible.
It is clear to all Members just how crucial tourism is to the Scottish economy. Luckily, the Scottish Government are perfectly aware of that. UK Hospitality is clear that, although the Scottish Government are providing funds through breathing space for business rates, the UK Government are just kicking the can down the road. Moreover, the fact that they have remained committed to imposing a September cliff edge on the sector by ending furlough and the 5% VAT rate is unforgivable.
20 of 86 shown
To address the immediate impact of travel restrictions we have introduced an unprecedented package of financial support across the economy, totalling approximately £350 billion. By September 2021, the air transport sector alone will have benefited from around £7 billion of Government support, including accessing more than £2 billion through the Bank of England’s covid corporate financing facility and around £1 billion to £1.5 billion of support through the furlough scheme. That is the same job retention scheme that some Labour Front Benchers have criticised and called “money wasting”. I could not disagree more, and I am sure that the people whose jobs it has saved would disagree as well.
The extension of the furlough scheme to the end of September this year allows us to continue supporting businesses and protecting as many jobs as possible. As part of our economy-wide support we have provided over £25 billion to the tourism, leisure and hospitality sectors in the form of grants, loans and tax breaks. We have extended business rates relief and introduced new restart grants of up to £18,000 for many in the sector. We have also extended the cut in VAT for tourism and hospitality activities to 5% until the end of September.
The levelling-up fund, the city and growth deals in Scotland and Wales, and the towns fund all show that the Government are investing in tourism infrastructure across our Union. This week, we announced town deals for a further 33 towns as part of the towns fund programme. Those places, which range from seaside towns such as Hastings and Hartlepool to the historic market towns of Bedford and Bishop Auckland, will share over £790 million to boost their local economies, create jobs and help them to build back better from the pandemic.
To date, we have announced town deals for 86 places across England worth over £2 billion in total. A new £56 million welcome back fund is helping councils to boost tourism, improve green spaces and provide more outdoor seating areas. Part of that funding will be specifically allocated to support coastal areas, with funding going to all coastal resorts across England to welcome back holidaymakers safely in the coming months.
On health certification and testing, the border requirements that international visitors will need to follow depend upon the risk rating of the locations that they have been in prior to arrival, as I referred to. As variants of concern still pose a significant risk, testing from a UK Government approved provider remains in place. We recognise that the cost of those tests is still too high. Although we have seen the price of post-arrival tests decrease from around £210 to around £170, we continue to explore options for lowering the cost of testing further, including cheaper tests being used when holidaymakers return home.
Passengers can now use the NHS app to demonstrate their covid-19 vaccination status or alternatively can request a letter that outlines proof of vaccination five days after they have received their second dose of a covid-19 vaccine. The ability to prove one’s vaccination status for outbound travel using the NHS app and an inclusive letter service means that several countries now accept vaccinated visitors from the UK with reduced or removed testing and health measures.
We also need to consider the other huge threat to hospitality recovering: the staff crisis. Venues have been hit by the triple whammy of changes to the immigration rules post Brexit, many workers deciding to return to their country of origin in Europe, and the pandemic and previously furloughed workers retraining and moving on. I have heard this time and again from Bristol to Scarborough. The Government must address the shortage of workers.
To protect the tourism industry itself, we were promised a plan, to which the Minister referred. In April, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston)—who is present and can advise the Minister—assured me that the tourism recovery plan was on the way and would be announced by the end of spring. But the sector is starting the season late and there is still no plan. Neither our domestic nor our international travel and tourism industries know what support they can count on as the summer season starts. Instead, we wait. Will the Minister tell me whether we are having the longest spring on record? When can we expect the plan? I am sure his DCMS colleague will help him with that.
The coach industry waits for a package of support that aligns it with other areas of the leisure and hospitality sector. Tour guides, events staff and other excluded workers wait to see whether they are eligible for Government support in the plan. Fairground operators wait to see whether there will finally be a Government support package that does not exclude them because of their lack of static business or shop front. Travel agents wait for sector-specific funding, while the lack of inbound and outbound travel and the uncertainty over testing regimes and quarantine continue to hit bookings. Zoos and aquariums do not wait; they continue with the inadequate zoo animals fund—which many in the sector call the “zoo closure fund”—and ask what the tourism recovery package will do to help them, their staff and their animals.
I should mention that the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire, has chosen this period to undertake a review of destination management organisations. It is important that DCMS aligns the review of DMOs with the tourism recovery plan to best support the promotion of local and regional tourism. Any funding must be used to encourage co-operation and streamline processes, ensuring that DMOs are best placed to be at the centre of the English tourism ecosystem, while ending the need for them to compete for limited funding. I hope the Minister will give us clarity on both the tourism recovery plan and the review of DMOs when he responds to the debate.
Nowhere is uncertainty felt so keenly as by the outbound travel industry, with so many yearning for a holiday abroad. We have been told that we absolutely should not travel to amber-list countries, but essential travel is okay. Then we were told that perhaps holidays could be essential—then that, actually, it is dangerous to travel abroad this year and we should not do it, but to just be careful if we do. “Go to Portugal.” “Come back from Portugal.” “Why did you even go to Portugal?” Why were there so many mixed messages on outbound travel? It is key to the UK economy and, right now, clarity on holidays is critical to the UK’s collective psyche. The Government must step in to bring reassurance.
It is worth remembering that planes are not the only way to get abroad. The pandemic has hit Eurostar and other train operators hard, yet the Government have not supported them at all. We need a comprehensive strategy for our regional, national and international railways that goes beyond the current franchise-support programme to address the impact of covid-19 on operations such as Eurostar.
We all want to go back to normal. As a country, we have endured so much. We are tough. We do not need to be infantilised by the Government; we just want clear, truthful messaging. We know that uncertainty hurts our economy and that financial support promotes recovery and levels the playing field with the competitors in Europe—many of which have received the sort of support that we should provide to our tourism industry—that are taking advantage of the lack of support for our sector. Now is the time for the Government to step up and deliver a package that will give businesses certainty, the ability to plan for the future and a chance to rebuild.
Business travel is practically impossible: global Britain has shut its doors to business and investors. In a normal pre-pandemic year, passengers travelling through Heathrow spent £16 billion throughout the country, including at places such as Legoland Windsor, which is partly in my constituency. That has been lost.
There are some facts on which the Government need to be upfront with the British people and about which Ministers need to think a bit more when they make decisions. First, we will not eradicate covid-19 from the UK. There will not be a time when we can say that there will never be another case of covid-19 in this country. Secondly, variants will keep on coming. There will be new variants every year. If the Government’s position is that we cannot open up travel until there are no new variants elsewhere in the world, we will never be able to travel abroad ever again. The third fact that the Government need to state much more clearly is that sadly people will die from covid here in the UK in the future, as 10,000 to 20,000 people do every year from flu.
We are falling behind the rest of Europe in our decisions to open up, as my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) has indicated. The Government may say all they have, as the Minister has, about the importance of the aviation industry, but they need to decide whether they want an airline industry and aviation sector in the UK or not, because at the rate they are going, they will not have one, certainly not as a key sector in the economy, as it was before the pandemic. It is incomprehensible, I think, that one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world is the one that is most reluctant to give its citizens the freedoms those vaccinations should support.