11. What support his Department provides for the tourism industry in Wells. (26743)

As I said earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the Government are investing through VisitBritain both by trying to attract more foreign visitors to the UK and by attempting to refocus VisitEngland to make sure that it is promoting English destinations of all kinds, such as those in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt), to we Brits.

In common with many of the tourism and leisure businesses along the Somerset coastline, including the thousands of small bed-and-breakfast businesses, many of which have diversified from farming, I support the suggested trial of double summertime, about which the House will hear more in Friday’s debate on the Daylight Saving Bill. Given the importance of this matter to hon. Members on both sides of the House and to leisure and tourism businesses in Somerset, including north Somerset, will the Minister give assurances that he will work with his colleagues in BIS, that the Bill will not be talked out and that the matter will proceed to a vote?

I am afraid that the hon. Lady will have to wait for Friday to see who wants to speak for how long during the debate, but I can assure her that I have already engaged in substantial discussions with my colleagues in BIS on this. My earlier answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, stands: this proposal could be tremendously valuable to the tourism industry as a whole, but that is not the only factor to be considered. There are issues for people who live north of border that need to be taken into account as well.

Has the Minister made any impact assessment on increasing VAT to 20% on the tourism industry in Wells and elsewhere in Britain?

As I am sure everybody here knows, taxation matters are for the Treasury not for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. However, I am sure that the hon. Lady realises that any attempt to try to reduce VAT in any one sector will need to come with a fully costed proposal about the impact on this country’s large deficit, which we are trying to bring down. Given the impact of deficits in other countries in Europe, it will be very difficult for anybody, in the short to medium term at least, to advance plans of that kind—without a fully costed proposal—without seeming to be extremely fiscally dangerous to this country’s economy.