This is the first time that the House has had a debate on tourism since 17 June 1988. Business of the House permitting, I believe that we should now have an annual debate on tourism, as befits an industry which is of major importance to the prosperity of our nation—an importance which is set to grow as we approach the millennium.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage very much regrets his absence this morning. He is fulfilling long-standing engagements, including the opening of the Snibston discovery park in Leicestershire.

In 1988, the debate was opened by John Lee, the former Member of Parliament for Pendle, who is still my hon. Friend. He was one of the many people who believed in the future of tourism for this country. He contributes enormously to it to this day. Since he was the Minister responsible for tourism, my noble Friends Lord Strathclyde and Lord Ullswater have been Ministers with responsibility for tourism. They, too, have played their part in a very vigorous way. I am delighted to see that for today's debate there are more Members present on both sides of the House than there were for the debate in 1988.

Tourism's importance to our country can be measured in hard facts. It represents about 4 per cent. of our gross domestic product. It contributes £25 billion annually to the economy and provides work for nearly 1·5 million people—more work than in construction or the health services. Even in a global market of ever-increasing competition for overseas visitors, the United Kingdom is sixth in the world in terms of the earnings from those visitors.

The size of the world market is simply astounding. The World Tourism Organisation calculates that international tourism arrivals rose from just 25 million in 1950 to 429 million in 1990. Overseas visits to the United Kingdom grew by 50 per cent. between 1980 and 1990, a truly remarkable decade for the industry. By the year 2000, tourism is set to be the world's biggest industry.

That emphasises the importance of inward tourism. Last year, a record 18·1 million overseas visitors came to our shores, spending £7·6 billion while here; and on the latest figures, United Kingdom carriers benefited to the tune of £1·9 billion by bringing them here and taking them back. Most visitors come on holiday, some visit kith and kin, but a significant number, around 25 per cent., visit on business.

Domestic tourism accounts for almost two thirds of our tourism earnings—£15·5 billion in 1991. That is not just long holidays of four nights duration or more, although they produce about £6 billion. An increasingly important sector is the short-break market, which is worth nearly £2 billion, and business travel, which produces nearly £1·5 billion. Day trippers spend more than £5 billion on visits to our resorts, attractions and heritage sites—and to the shops. Retailing should not be left out of the tourism equation. Increasingly, it is a leisure activity in its own right. Shopping accounts for about 30 per cent. of all expenditure on day trips, followed by outdoor activities or visits to attractions.

The creation of our Department has given new focus and stimulus to the work that the Government can do in helping the industry to meet the challenge. Tourism provides the opportunity for visitors, from home and abroad, to appreciate and enjoy the country's treasures. It breathes life into our culture and it provides a vital source of revenue to help our arts thrive, to maintain and improve our historic buildings and to help us add to the collections in our museums and galleries. About a third of the audiences for London's theatres are overseas visitors. In 1990, there were 74 million visits to museums and galleries. Last year, more than 5 million people visited English Heritage sites and more than 10 million visited National Trust properties.

In turn, tourism gains from almost everything that my Department does. The work that we undertake in support of the built heritage, museums, galleries, libraries, sport, the performing and visual arts, the royal parks and palaces, film making and the framework that we provide for broadcasting all contribute in a major way to tourism, both for our own citizens and in encouraging overseas visitors. Our heritage, in all its manifestations, is the magnet which draws visitors to these shores.

In the coming year, my Department will spend nearly £1 billion, much of which will directly enhance tourism. That very substantial support is all too often ignored when the Government's commitment to the industry is assessed. People frequently dwell on our support for the tourist boards and fail to see the big picture. Today, I want to shed light on that big picture.

In the Department of National Heritage, we are small in number—about 300 civil servants and two Ministers. We have brought under our one roof so much that interacts to create the quality of our life in these islands. We operate on an arm's-length principle, with 46 non-departmental public bodies, and in partnership with local authorities and the private sector.

My Department exists to facilitate. Let me bring this to life: in the south-west, the chairmen of the regional tourist board, sports, arts and museums bodies have come together to form the South-West Regional Heritage Agency. This is but the latest example of partnerships being formed for the benefit of all. Another is the Peak District partnership, a three-year programme of sustainable tourism. This brings together four regional tourist boards, which will work with local authorities, training and enterprise councils, the Rural Development Commission, the Countryside Commission and the Peak District national park. In addition, there is the Northern Arts initiative. Only recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State launched Chester's cultural strategy. It is a pleasure to see my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) here today.

New examples are springing to life regularly. The six major policy divisions that comprise my new Department have been brought together from different Departments of State around Whitehall, each with its own traditions and working practices. That has brought with it a challenging vitality, which is most refreshing for us all. Our national heritage is a seamless robe and, in order to ensure that the policy work in every division takes account of the importance of tourism, we have recently established a small and dedicated team to co-ordinate effort across my Department.

In the past year, Ministers and officials have visited every part of the United Kingdom to ensure a proper understanding of the responsibilities of our Department. I have criss-crossed the country from Newcastle to Torquay, from Weston-super-Mare to Brighton, from Manchester to the Isle of Wight. It is delightful to see my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) in his seat. He was here for the 1988 debate, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks), who I see behind me.

I have pursued our interests in Brussels, Paris, Seville, Madrid, Barcelona and Rhodes. Next week, I will visit Antwerp and after Easter I will visit Copenhagen and Stockholm. My noble Friend Lord Astor visited New York to open the British Tourist Authority's office, and he will be there again before Easter.

In addition to our work with the British Tourist Authority and the English tourist board, I have done business with regional tourist boards representing Northumbria, the north-west, the south, the west country, the east midlands, the west midlands, London and the south-east of England.

Since the creation of the Department, I have enjoyed meeting a large number of organisations representative of this massive industry, such as, and in no particular order, the British Hospitality Association, the Association of Larger Visitor Attractions, the Tourism Society, the British Association of Tourism Officers, the Association of British Travel Agents, the Association of Registered English Language Schools, the Association of District Councils, the British Self Catering Federation, the Rank Organisation, the Forte Group, Thomas Cook, the International Tourism and the Environment Conference, the World Travel Market, the World Tourism Organisation, the World Travel Forum, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the National Council of Hotel Associations, the Institute of Travel and Tourism, Gatwick Airport Tourist Information Centre, the London Forum, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the British Holiday and Home Parks Asssociation and the Association of Chief Leisure Officers. The list may be exhausting, but it is by no means exhaustive. There are almost as many organisations in our other areas of responsibility—the arts, sport, heritage, broadcasting, press and films.

Clearly, it is imperative that all these organisations should be aware of the importance of working together, and Ministers are developing ways of working in a co-ordinated and coherent way with our client groups. Accordingly, I can today announce that, starting in the summer, my Department will be sponsoring a series of regional conferences, chaired by Ministers, designed to bring together representatives of bodies and organisations that reflect Department of National Heritage responsibilities. We will endeavour to share best practice, listen to problems and develop joint approaches where appropriate.

It is good to know that the hon. Gentleman is having such an enjoyable time as a Minister, tripping around the country eating these lunches and dinners. I am sure that we are all extremely grateful to him. He mentioned the London Forum. Will he say something about that in his speech and, if not, may I ask him a question? I understand that the London Forum will be launched next Monday with a breakfast that will cost the taxpayer £15,000. How can that be justified? It sounds like a good breakfast—one can get a lot of bacon and eggs for £15,000.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be there. I have no idea of the cost of the launch of the London Forum, but I shall make inquiries. It is an extremely important initiative and it would be uncharacteristic of the hon. Gentleman if he were to think that anything but the best will do for London.

I should like to spend a little time outlining our general policy and how we seek to implement it. First, we fund and support the work of the British Tourist Authority and the English tourist board in helping the industry to develop the tourism product to its full potential and market it both at home and overseas.

Secondly, we work to ensure that all parts of government take full account of the implications of their policies to the tourism industry, and that unnecessary barriers to its development are removed. We should also recognise that tourism is a partner in the wider leisure and recreation industry. That is increasingly recognised in the new partnership projects that are emerging. For example, last September I launched in Exeter a sport and active recreation initiative sponsored by the Sports Council (South West) and the South-West regional tourist board. There is good reason for optimism when considering the leisure market. The Kleinwort Benson leisure analyst, Paul Slattery, is quoted in the Caterer and Hotelkeeper as saying:

"At the onset of the recession the industry had a knee jerk reaction and thought frivolous spending would be cut. But we believe that the recession has had hardly any impact on leisure demand, which is still growing."

That report pointed out that 23 per cent. of hotels have leisure facilities. With only about 20 per cent. of adults staying in hotels annually, there is a major market to be tapped. The analysts see leisure demand rising to new heights as the decade progresses.

At a time when public spending is under such pressure, our critics ask why we should provide any support to such a successful industry, demonstrably full of entrepreneurs and innovators and, if we are to invest taxpayers' money, how will it be used to best effect.

I recognise that international tourism is fiercely competitive and I have no doubt that Britain will lose out to competitors if we do not continue to promote ourselves abroad. Ideally, the costs of this marketing should be borne by the industry—by the businesses that stand to reap the rewards. But overseas promotion is difficult to organise and the returns to individual businesses may be quite small and unpredictable—not worth the investment, they would say. The industry, unaided, would not put sufficient money and effort into overseas promotion. The tourism industry is particularly fragmented; it covers many sectors and it is not in the direct interests of any one private sector company to promote Britain as a destination.

We therefore recognised the need to maintain the Exchequer grant to the BTA at planned levels for the next three years. The BTA runs an effective overseas operation. It constantly scoops awards for best tourist office, most recently in Ireland. It is held in very high esteem by its counterparts and the industry in other countries. Its campaigns are first class. The "Britain is Great" campaign recently won a silver medal in Belgium and the BTA's "Glimpses of Britain" video won three awards in New York. The BTA is very good at attracting contributions from the industry—around £18 million in the current year, not counting the value of the considerable "in kind" support it receives. The BTA has partnership schemes with British Airways, Virgin, P and O, Sealink, British Rail and Eurotunnel among many others.

Our review led us to conclude that the case for continuing to fund domestic tourism was less strong. British residents are, of course, much more aware of what their country has to offer. There is also some criticism of duplication of effort by the English tourist board, regional tourist boards, local authorities and private sector initiatives. This will be one of the issues that the English tourist board will be examining in assessing its priorities across all its programmes.

We also considered the extent to which the industry has developed since the ETB was established in 1969. The ETB itself has played a crucial role in the establishment of a network of regional tourist boards, forging partnerships between players in the industry and between public and private sector bodies. The scope and effectiveness of trade associations have increased, and new ones have come on the scene. The industry is now in a much better position to take care of itself. At the same time, the ETB, like the BTA, is attracting private sector support for its individual initiatives. For example, more than half the funding for Industrial Heritage Year comes from sponsors such as Grand Metropolitan, Marks and Spencer, British Telecom and Hanson plc.

We therefore concluded that it was now right to reduce gradually the funding we provide for the ETB. We do not underestimate the ETB's achievements, which are considerable and which have helped bring about this change in the nature of the industry. The ETB has also worked to improve standards of service in tourist information centres, which now do an excellent job throughout the land. In accommodation—through the crown classification scheme, the key scheme for self-catering and the Q scheme for caravan, chalet and camping parks—the ETB encourages quality and better consumer information. It has been in the forefront of the development of new products, taken forward initiatives on sustainable, or green, tourism and supported tourism for all, to the benefit of disabled people. Holidays and leisure activity for disabled people represent an important specialist market, as yet relatively undeveloped. Another is business incentive travel, and many more niche markets await attention by entrepreneurs.

Much has been achieved. We believe that the ETB should continue to have an important, but more strategic role. Increasingly, it should focus its resources on particular areas where tourism potential will not be realised without it as catalyst.

I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friend has said about funding for the English tourist board. I have studied the figures for 1995–96 and wonder how he can begin to justify the fact that the English tourist board will receive central Government funds of £9 million, whereas the Wales tourist board will receive £13·8 million and the Scottish tourist board £14·2 million. Why is the English tourist board to be treated as the poor relation?

I was coming to that, but I shall answer my right hon. Friend directly. A number of factors come into play. First, the ETB operates in a market which is substantially more sophisticated, developed and mature than the markets in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to the judgment of their Secretaries of State. Secondly, the Secretaries of State for those countries have the responsibility of deciding for themselves what support they should give to their tourist boards. I urge my right hon. Friend to put his question to them as well as to me.

We have concluded that the time is right gradually to reduce the funding that we provide to the ETB. We believe that it should focus its resources on areas in which it can act as a catalyst. It has meant hard decisions for the board and the staff of the ETB, but we have to be sure that taxpayers' money is needed and is being used effectively. We have agreed that the board should take time to reassess its role and its programmes—indeed, we have given it some extra money this year to help it—and I look forward to seeing its plans later in the year. I hope that it will display the vision and enthusiasm that the industry deserves, and has come to expect, from its statutory board.

We are actively involved in a very thorough search to find a new chairman for the BTA and the ETB. This is a very important post and we are determined to find the right person.

In Scotland, the Government remain committed to supporting the tourism industry. Ministers are concerned to ensure that the means by which that support is delivered are still appropriate. They have, therefore, consulted those involved in the tourism industry in Scotland on whether the existing arrangements are effective and, if not, on how they might be improved. I understand that the Secretary of State for Scotland has received some 350 responses to his invitation to the industry to comment. He is considering carefully the opinions that have been expressed, with a view to making an announcement in the summer.

In Wales, a number of policy reviews have confirmed that the relatively undeveloped nature of its tourism sector justifies continuing Government support for the Wales tourist board. The board is currently undertaking a major consultative exercise with the industry and other interested parties, with the aim of drawing up a national integrated tourism strategy, to be announced later this year.

In Northern Ireland, a major review of the tourism industry in 1989 concluded that tourism could make a greater contribution to the local economy. The Northern Ireland tourist board has now been given an enhanced role in developing tourism in Northern Ireland.

Tourism is subject to a tremendous range of policy influences from a broad cross-section of Departments of State, and from the European Community; immigration policy, fire safety, food hygiene, air traffic, road policy, health and safety, licensing laws and Sunday trading all impact to a greater or lesser degree upon tourism. A year ago, the Government published "Tourism in the UK—Realising the Potential", which set out comprehensively the range of activities underpinning tourism, some of which were incorporated into our Department when it was set up a month after publication. I am glad that the undertakings in that document have been addressed.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I constantly impress on colleagues the need for tourism interests to be recognised in the development of policy in other areas. A good example of what we can achieve through this was the recently published tourism planning policy guidance note, which aims to ensure that development plans should contain clearer, tourism-related policies and proposals, with decisions based on up-to-date advice on tourism development policy. Indeed, only the day before yesterday, in Weston-super-Mare, I heard how well the initiative had been welcomed. It is good to see the guidance on tourism development carried forward into regional development plans, which themselves provide an ideal opportunity for the tourism industry to comment.

We need to rid the industry of those unnecessary pieces of legislation which still litter the statute book. Proposals to abolish wages councils are a good example of how the Government have responded positively to industry overtures. That is why I hope that the industry and the House will join me in welcoming the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry's initiative to give a new impetus to deregulation, in which the Prime Minister has a great personal interest. Task forces—including one on tourism and retailing—are being established to review carefully and meticulously the need for the thousands of regulations that impact on business. This will supplement the work already going on right across Whitehall to re-examine regulations, to search for ways to simplify them or simply to abolish them. I have invited the industry to help us. We have had many positive responses, and I repeat that invitation today.

For the future, the requirement to publish compliance cost assessment for all new regulations that affect business will very much focus attention on those who are too keen to regulate. We also want consistent and practical enforcement of the regulations. The risk-related approach to enforcement, which my right hon. Friend and Secretary of State for Health is encouraging environmental health officers to adopt, must be right.

Yes, we can help the industry through our funding for our national heritage, and through our contribution to tourism promotion.

I very much welcome what my hon. Friend has just said about deregulation and about advice to environmental health officers, who often bring a heavy hand to these matters. My hon. Friend will be aware that there is great concern in the tourism industry about the impact of what are known as the food safety measures. Does he agree that individual members of the tourism industry, those running bed-and-breakfast accommodation and other representatives of the industry, should be specific in their complaints? It is no use making generalised complaints. They must be specific so that my hon. Friend and his colleagues can do something about the problems.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that observation. I agree with everything he said. We all receive general whinges and moans in the course of our duty as Members of Parliament, and it is just the same for Ministers. What really counts is when people complain about a specific problem, as a number of my hon. Friends have done. I have received a number of delegations on these issues in the past few weeks alone. When people are specific, we can usually help. I should be delighted to hear of individual problems. We can then take action. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) has highlighted a number of issues. It is in response to such pressures that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has formally initiated a review of the way in which health regulations are implemented. That can only be good for the tourism industry.

My Department can perform at least an equal service by ensuring that the framework is in place to enable the industry to flourish through the initiative, skills and enterprise of those working in it. A sound economy with low interest rates and low inflation is a prerequisite of a brighter future as we move out of recession. Since September, many foreign tourists have effectively had discounts of 20 per cent. on holidays in the United Kingdom. The lower value of the exchange rate is undoubtedly beneficial. It may also persuade domestic holidaymakers to look again at what Britain has to offer. The answer, they will find, is a great deal.

It is essential that, as in the United Kingdom, European Community policies take full account of the tourism industry's interests, whether those are concerned with transport, with fiscal issues, with data protection, with social affairs or with consumer protection—the list could go on.

That is why the United Kingdom has emphasised the horizontal approach which features so strongly in the Commission's tourism action plan agreed last June. It is also why provision for consultation with industry professionals is included. I wanted to ensure that the plan presented value for taxpayers' money and that it was not so ambitious that it would be impossible to deliver.

I believe that we negotiated modest, but useful, measures to stimulate tourism throughout the Community—measures which respect subsidiarity. For example, the Community is undertaking a programme of studies to inform the industry about current developments. The Community promotes the exchange of ideas and best practice in a number of areas, including visitor management, which is vital in sustainable tourism, and the promotion of tourism by people with disabilities. The main tourism plank of the United Kingdom presidency of the EC, the conference "Tourism and the Environment—Challenges and Choices for the 90s", was widely commended. It was the culmination of two years' pioneering work which has given the United Kingdom a richly deserved reputation for producing the best work available in the world in sustainable tourism. The leading expert, Professor Jost Krippendorf, has said that the United Kingdom's work in this area deserves the tourism equivalent of a Nobel prize.

I now turn to the challenges facing the industry.

Before my hon. Friend leaves the question of the European Community and subsidiarity in relation to tourism, may I ask him whether he recalls that last summer, he told some of us of a rumour, which had begun to gain ground in Brussels and elsewhere, that some of the Community authorities might be asked to bring about a unified promotion of tourism for Europe as a whole in the United States and in other markets for European tourism where we currently have British Tourist Authority offices of our own? Any such policy would be in sharp conflict with the doctrine of subsidiarity. My hon. Friend said that he intended to look into the matter. Will he be kind enough to tell us of the outcome?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel), who has a long memory. Fortunately I have as well, so I remember our conversation. The outcome is enshrined in the agreement we signed, which respects subsidiarity. I was sceptical of the idea that the European Community should promote Europe as a destination in North America and in Japan, for example. I felt that it would be more in Britain's interests if we were there promoting inward tourism to our shores, rather than tourism in southern Europe, for example. That was the outcome of those discussions. It is an argument which, yet again, we have won because we are at the heart of Europe.

Have we not reached a sorry state of affairs in Britain when a Minister who is talking about tourism tells us that in commendation he has received acknowledgements from somebody with a name like Dr. Krippendorf? Have we not reached a sorry state of affairs, as we are caught up in this Maastricht and European Community wrangle, when we have to beg to people like Dr. Krippendorf? What a sorry state of affairs.

My goodness, the walls of Bolsover castle will crumble at the voice of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). The fact is that because of our supremacy in environmental tourism, we have been widely acknowledged in that area. It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to sneer just because someone has a foreign name. That is not a very enterprising way in which to carry on. I am very proud of the fact that Britain has shown that it is rather better than the Germans, whom the hon. Gentleman is running down yet again. I hope that we can have a more serious debate now.

Will the Minister give way?

I certainly will not give way. I want to get on with a serious debate. We can have another exchange on the matter.

We have got another Maastricht debate next week.

I am delighted. The challenges facing the industry are well exemplified by the hon. Member for Bolsover.

The marketplace is increasingly competitive. Tourists are becoming more selective and more sophisticated. They know what they want and if they do not get it, they will not buy again—they will go elsewhere. Incidentally, there is an urgent need for better communication between providers and consumers in the tourism industry. The industry needs to do more to explain to British as well as to overseas customers how much the product has changed recently. What is the point of the ETB producing its excellent crown grading system if the industry does not explain it to the public?

Our broadcasters and publishers produce popular travel programmes and features which help to spread the word. We are grateful and hope that they will do more. But we must be willing to help them by, for example, facilitating the making of films and television programmes. The industry, local government and, indeed, central Government can all play their part.

What tourists want—what we all want, for we are all of us experts in the art of pleasing ourselves—is quality and value for money. We want a product and service appropriate to the cash we have laid out—and, ideally, just a little bit more. That may mean simple, straightforward cooking and clean sheets—but with a smile accompanying the toast and marmalade, and flowers in the bedroom. It may mean organised and guided tours with a well-informed and entertaining commentary. In the case of Japanese visitors, it means not allocating them room numbers that include the figure 4. It may mean thinking about taking the kids back to that attraction they enjoyed so much in the summer holidays—and finding it is open in the February half-term, at a reduced price and with more staff and shorter queues.

How much better for the visitor to be greeted with a broad smile of welcome at ports of entry, on renting a car, on checking into a hotel or on entering a shop or restaurant. How much better still if this is reinforced by being able to converse in the visitor's own language. The BTA's "Winning Words" campaign has been well received by the industry as a blueprint for adopting good practices in an area in which we have traditionally been weak.

Of course, language is a two-way process. One of our greatest advantages as a tourist destination is our language. We also play host to large numbers of people—particularly young people—who come here to learn English. That sector of the tourism market is worth up to £500 million a year. We must remember that, for young people, the appeal of the country may not be so much for its heritage but in comtemporary music and pop and jazz—and, of course, fashion. And for heaven's sake, let us all be more polite and cheerful to each other and to tourists.

How many people know that it is perfectly possible to fly the Union Jack without any need for planning consent? I have it on the authority of Sir Humphrey himself that, in general, the national flag of any country displayed on a single vertical flagstaff, without any additional inscription beyond the approved design of the national flag, is exempt from planning control—if in doubt, consult the local planning authority. The rest of the countries of Europe fly their national flags; why do we not? Look around. Count the empty flag poles. Too often, even the flagpoles are missing. It is time for us to bring out the flagpoles—and fly our flag with pride.

Tourism is all about finding out what consumers want, and providing it at a price that they can afford. At our best, we can be very good at that. I have already referred to the unique opportunity for the industry to exploit the very favourable sterling exchange rate.

Caterer & Hotelkeeper got it right when it said recently:

"The survivors of the recession…are going to be the people and businesses who have listened to what their customers say to them, and have responded to what they hear; who have thought about the way they run their businesses and revisited all their rules and working methods…who are ready to tear up the rule book and start again if that enables them to give the customers what they want."

That is the sort of commonsense advice to which I subscribe. So do others, such as the Meetings Industry Association and the English tourist board, both of which have issued codes of practice—an excellent way of setting and maintaining necessary standards.

There is, of course, a need to get the industry's messages right in terms of both content and audience. I commend the ETB's work with the industry on the seaside resorts campaign—showing people in this country exactly what good-quality holidays exist at home. Local associations can also play their part. Through the "Value Rutland Group", potential visitors to the ancient county receive a "Rutland passport", which is stamped when they make purchases at different retailers and restaurants. The inducement lies in a prize draw for those with sufficient stamps on the passport. That is a splendid example of local co-operation aimed at marketing a relatively small area in a novel and innovative way.

Success can be as simple as sightseeing or farm visits. Sightseeing visits in the United Kingdom generated a record expenditure of £880 million in 1991. Revenue rose by 10 per cent. that year. Visits to farms rose by 5 per cent., and this is the second year running that farms have had the fastest visitor growth rate amongst the 10-day visit categories mentioned. Some 81 per cent. have opened since 1980—a much higher proportion than for any other type of attraction.

Of the 345 million day visits made in 1991, 76 million were to historic properties, 58 million to museums, 49 million to country parks, 34 million to leisure parks, 23 million to wildlife attractions and 19 million to art galleries. Visits to garden centres, workplaces, farms and steam railways ranged between 5 million and 15 million.

Many people believe that theme parks are not quite the thing. I think that that is misplaced snobbery. There is a balance to be struck. Neither I nor any serious player in the tourism industry would wish to see the United Kingdom turned into a large theme park. But the best theme parks have an impeccable academic provenance and respectability. Many are endorsed by leading figures in the world of archaeology and history. Just two that would fall into that category are Jorvik and the White Cliffs experience at Dover. I entirely accept that theme parks, along with visitor centres, can do much to quench the mighty thirst for education about and understanding of our historic heritage. In fact, it is increasingly difficult to draw the distinction between a traditional, museum-based approach—for example the dinosaur exhibition at the natural history museum—the entertainment-based approach of, say, Madame Tussauds, and the wider explanation that is so often demanded at world heritage sites such as Stonehenge.

I said that I hoped more Britons would decide to take their holidays at home. Apart from the relative value of the pound, the factors most likely to influence such decisions lie within the control of the industry itself. The last time a Government tried directly to stop holidaymakers going abroad, banks were required to limit foreign currency issued. I well remember my passport being stamped, and all the fiddles that went on. Did it work? Of course it did not. I have no intention of encouraging such a banana-republic mentality, which would achieve little—except, perhaps, flotillas of small boats setting off from our shores, under cover of darkness.

As a former teacher myself, I believe firmly that the future success of the industry depends on a well-trained and flexible work force, able to provide the quality and standards demanded by visitors, and increasingly familiar with the best available internationally.

The education and training system that we now have in place is responding to that need. All those hours some of us spent in the Standing Committee that considered the Education Reform Act 1988 are bearing fruit at last. The national curriculum allows students to study tourism-related topics within main subjects. Study of a foreign language, so important in welcoming the overseas visitor, is now compulsory for students up to the age of 16.

Provision of further and higher education places on tourism courses has risen considerably in recent years. In 1986, just two institutions offered tourism degree courses, with a total enrolment of just over 100 students. By 1991, 13 courses were available offering tourism, either as a single subject or as a major component of the degree, with a take-up of well over 750 students. The Council for National Academic Awards has forecast a remarkable rise to possibly 23 courses by the beginning of the 1993–94 academic year, with upwards of 1,400 students enrolled.

General national and general Scottish vocational qualifications give a broadly based vocational qualification for people working in the industry. A wide range of NVQs relevant to the industry are available from level 1 to level 4. To ensure their continued and coherent development, the Government have funded the Tourism and Leisure Consortium to bring together lead bodies and main players in the development of occupational standards. The consortium will promote those qualifications and ensure their take-up throughout the industry.

I am urging the regional tourist boards and individual businesses—where they do not do so already—to work closely with their local training and enterprise councils to ensure that tourism issues are taken up at local level. That will mean that employers are investing in their own success and employees will have a coherent career structure.

Our tourism industry is indeed big business. But it is about small enterprise. Above all, there cannot be any industry in Britain that relies more on people—people as providers and people as customers. I do not underestimate the recent difficult trading conditions that have affected the industry, not just in the United Kingdom but throughout the world. There is, however, an undoubted enthusiasm and a strong determination to succeed.

It is very much in the nature of a debate such as this that we dwell on the problems. We can never eliminate the negative—and it would be wrong to try to do so. In seeking to accentuate the positive, however, I acknowledge the numerous messages and letters that have come from those throughout the tourist industry and across the country who have expressed a welcome for the establishment of the Department of National Heritage, and great confidence in their own ability to succeed. That includes interests based in those parts of the country that have felt the chill winds of recession most severely.

In its regional strategy for the south-west, the South-West Regional Planning Conference has articulated its key strategic principle of tourism:

"Encouragement, renewal and promotion of the region's tourist industry must be focused on the achievement of quality and the regeneration of existing resorts, with recognition of the varying physical and environmental capacity of different areas to accommodate the pressures"

The Government will indeed encourage the industry and recognise the pressures. But not according to yesterday's sepia-tinted rule book. That is not in the interests of the small businesses that make up the back-bone of the industry. Nor is it in the national interest. The Government have created the first new Department of State for 30 years specifically to uprate the importance of all those features of our national life that make Britain world famous. Tourism is the golden thread which runs through all our Department's areas of responsibility. In proposing a new blueprint for the future, we offer new partnerships and new horizons.

The tourism industry has come of age. It is a huge success. Its rich diversity and maturity are envied across the globe—and our achievements are widely imitated. It is our purpose to ensure it keeps its place, with pride, as a world-class industry.

The Opposition very much welcome this debate on tourism which, as the Minister said, is the first such debate for five years. It would be churlish of Opposition Members not to recognise the part played by many Conservative Back Benchers who have helped to bring the debate about. After hearing the Minister, I am sure that many of them are wondering whether their efforts were really worth while and whether the Minister's journey was necessary.

The Minister promised us the big picture, and he gave us the small screen. Simply trotting out figures and statistics that we could have obtained from the House of Commons Library is no substitute for Government policy which should relate to the problems facing the industry.

The Minister gave us an impressive shopping list of future visits. My colleagues who are shadow National Heritage Ministers would very much like to participate in some of those visits. However, when my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) wanted to go to Dover to see some heritage sites, the Fees Office asked her to pay her own fare. We are therefore limited. It is a disgrace that the Opposition cannot pursue their proper function without having to pay the fares involved. I hope that the Minister will rally to our cause because very soon, of course, he will be in opposition himself.

People, particularly those in the tourist industry, must have been bitterly disappointed by this week's Budget which gave the industry very little. I did not hear the Minister bemoan that fact. I need hardly tell him that there is great foreboding, despite the picture he painted, within the tourist industry about the Government's lack of commitment, and in particular the lack of commitment of the National Heritage Department, for the industry.

Morale within the English tourist board and the British Tourist Authority is at an all-time low. The English tourist board in particular, with 40 redundancies recently declared, is at a low ebb. Is it any wonder that William Davis has resigned from the chairmanship of both the ETB and the BTA in utter disgust at the way in which the Government view tourism in this country? He believes that a fragmented industry like tourism, made up mostly of small business men, needs Government help if it is to prosper. The Opposition share that view.

I accept that the Minister cannot be blamed for all the ills facing the industry. In the past decade, there have been numerous acts of treachery by a host of Ministers responsible for tourism.

The hon. Gentleman said that the industry is very fragmented and comprises many small businesses. Those are the very businesses that will have welcomed the Budget, as it was a deregulating Budget, which modified VAT thresholds and increased the loan guarantee scheme. It was actually a Budget for small businesses. The tourist industry reflects the economic climate. As that economic climate improves—and the Budget will help that—so the tourist industry will benefit.

Once more, the hon. Gentleman shows that he is absolutely out of touch with reality. Those of us who have been in touch with people in the industry over the past few days since the Budget know that that is not the case. At best, many of them are saying that it is neutral. However, the Budget is certainly not welcomed.

During the decade in which the treacherous acts occurred, every sponsoring Department cut funding and reduced staffing levels at the BTA and ETB. Therefore, perhaps we should not have been surprised that the Chancellor did not do overmuch for the industry in his Budget. When the Chancellor was the Trade and Industry Minister responsible for tourism in 1983, he cut the grant to the BTA and the ETB. That resulted in 50 job losses.

In 1989, the current chairman of the Conservative party, then the Secretary of State for Employment, announced changes that resulted in 150 job losses. Now, in 1993, out of a total United Kingdom establishment in those boards of 340, 72 posts have been lost as a result of cuts in funding by the current patron of tourism—the Department of National Heritage.

The situation is bound to worsen this year and next unless the projected grants in aid to the ETB for 1994–95 and 1995–96 is restored to current levels. Any cut in funding to the ETB is bound to have a dramatic effect on the BTA. I accept the praise that the Minister heaped on the British Tourist Authority, but it is no use his playing one off against the other.

Both organisations have been inextricably linked for more than a decade through the establishment of common services departments. That relationship has had to change this year, with the BTA increasing its share of the common costs. If the funding for the ETB continues to decrease, it is obvious that the BTA will be forced to absorb the whole cost of common services—a cost which it cannot afford to bear.

Those additional costs come on top of the reduced spending potential of the BTA's grant in aid following the devaluation of the pound. That will dramatically reduce the BTA's overseas spending capacity by, some say, up to 15 per cent., as most of its expenditure, as the Minister is aware, occurs overseas and is payable in local currency.

Even a Select Committee on Employment report in 1990 recommended that an increase in funding for the BTA's overseas marketing would produce significant returns. Without adequate resources for the BTA, the United Kingdom is unable to compete effectively for the international tourist trade. In 1991, Aruba—a small South American country in the Cayman islands—spent more on destination advertising in the USA than Britain. That is a disgrace.

The way in which tourism has been shunted around from Department to Department and from Minister to Minister has not helped to stabilise the industry or helped its morale problems, However, the buck now stops with the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage. He must carry the can from now on. To show the feeling out in the real world, I want to quote from an editorial in the latest publication of Travel GBI:

"The government is supporting neither tourism in general, nor England in particular. No-one in Cabinet is fighting tourism's—or England's—corner. Ministers need to be made aware that the patience of the United Kingdom tourism industry is exhausted and that the time has come for action. Perhaps withdrawing Robert Key's invitation to British Travel Trade Fair, where he would bask in the reflected glory of a battered but still remarkably successful industry which neither he nor his colleagues have done anything to support, would be a start."

I do not know whether that invitation has been withdrawn, but an invitation to that fair is winging itself to me as I speak.

What are the major casualties of the current cuts? They include the elimination of the common services division set up by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) in 1983. I am told that its director and a number of staff have been made redundant, and were given five days to clear their desks. That is, of course, no way to behave towards staff who served tourism so loyally over the years. However, what is worse, they have taken with them a wealth of knowledge and experience, particularly in areas of information collection. Perhaps the Minister would inform the House whether the future of £2·5 million tourism database is secure.

Another casualty of the cuts has been the tourism resource library—a net revenue earner, and the only tourism reference resource if its kind in the country—which is invaluable to industry and educational bodies. The abolition of the post of resource manager threatens the continued publication of three widely used research reports. I understand that messages of concern are flooding into the boards in respect of the future of those reports. Will the Minister give the assurance that that fine service will not be eroded along with the jobs?

The tourism information centre network is one of the ETB's major achievements. It has taken 21 years to build it up, and it has been instrumental in spreading the benefits of tourism throughout the country. However, many at the ETB believe that the network cannot survive with so many of its team being made redundant. The loss of the BTA's product marketing department will affect the board's ability to stimulate the marketing campaigns which have so often generated a huge amount of free press coverage for Britain.

The list that I could recount to the House of the important areas of activity that will be affected by Government cuts is indeed long. I hope that other hon. Members will deal with areas of concern other than those that I have highlighted. However, it is clearly absurd for the Secretary of State to maintain:

"the case is now much less strong for central Government funding of the promotion of tourism in England."—[Official Report, 13 November 1992; Vol. 213, c. 997.]

I know that Conservative Members, who perhaps are being rather loyal today, nevertheless share that view.

Is it any wonder that the staff of the English tourist board, who were not given the opportunity to contribute to the review to which the Minister referred, reached that conclusion and are at a loss to understand how the Government, who purport to support the tourist industry, can allow such destructive cuts to be made?

Is it not ironic that, at the time that the Government were announcing a reduction of £6 million in their funding to the English tourist board over the next three years, they managed to find £6 million to support an arts festival in celebration of the Prime Minister's uneventful presidency of the EC? Why were not the commercial friends of the Tory party asked to stump up that cash, instead of taking it from tourism? I bet that the hon. Members for Cornwall, North (Mr. Tyler) and Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks), who is not in his place, would have loved to see a slice of that money, as would other hon. Members from both sides of the House. It is amazing how easily the Government can abandon their commercial principles in such situations.

The March edition of Holiday Which? graphically points out that the historical sights of Britain leave a lot to be desired, yet we have relied on the historical significance of those sights in the past to attract visitors. It is clear that there is an urgent need to face ever-increasing competition from abroad.

As the Minister said, it was a welcome initiative of the English tourist board to launch its £650,000 campaign to promote English seaside resorts in 1992. It is vital that our domestic tourist market be promoted, but £650,000 is a relatively small figure when set against the £100 million which tour companies and overseas Governments spent last year in persuading Britons to holiday abroad.

With the Minister commending the English tourist board's initiative, it is disgraceful that the Government turned down a request to give a mere £150,000—the same amount as that provided in 1992—for this year's initiative. I hope that the Minister will reconsider that matter and perhaps do something about matching those funds.

Britain's tourist industry needs resources to develop its considerable potential for growth. Let us face it: how many potential areas of growth are there at present? The Government must invest more if Britain is to maintain its share of tourist receipts in the face of increasing competition from abroad—especially from the United States, France, Italy and Spain. While it is right and proper that Britain needs to spend substantial sums on promotion overseas to maintain the increasing incoming tourism to this country, it is equally important that the Government increase funding for the promotion of United Kingdom holidays to the domestic market, because it helps to create and maintain jobs and naturally has a positive effect on the balance of payments.

As Baroness Young pointed out in another place, the tourist industry is the fourth highest earner of invisible exports. Indeed, if restaurant and theatre earnings were included, tourism would be the highest invisible export earner. In 1991, invisible earnings grossed £109 billion, producing a surplus of £7·5 billion, compared with a £10·3 billion deficit on visibles.

Clearly, the cuts to the English tourist board and the British Tourist Authority will not help the situation in future. Many small hoteliers do not have the clout to promote themselves in domestic or overseas marketplaces. Of course, the Government may well feel that the recent devaluation of sterling and the general recessionary pressures will camouflage the underlying problems of our tourist industry, but is it not ironic that the biggest boost to United Kingdom tourism comes from the Government's own economic failings?

The proportion of overseas visitors to the United Kingdom is not all good news, either. Recent figures show that a high proportion of overseas visitors are here, as the Minister acknowledged, on business and not pleasure. One might surmise that they are foreign salesmen engaged in activities that will increase the United Kingdom's import bill. From any close analysis, it becomes abundantly clear that the economic potential of the tourism industry is not being realised, and that the United Kingdom's competitive performance is in decline, despite what the Minister said this morning.

I hope that the Minister had an opportunity to read the fine publication from the National Economic Development Council's working party on competitiveness in tourism and leisure. That body gave an informative insight into the current state of the British tourist industry, which is perhaps why it was abolished in June 1992. Figures from the report highlighted the fact that the United Kingdom's share of world arrivals was the same in 1990 as it was in 1970. Indeed, the share in receipts generated from those arrivals declined from 6·1 per cent. in 1970 to 5·6 per cent. in 1990. [Interruption.] It is no good the Minister chuckling at those figures.

That is an entirely false way of looking at those arguments. If one is looking at the massive development in the world market, it is not surprising in the least. The hon. Gentleman should address the fact that Britain remains one of the top six destinations in the world. He should be proud of that fact, not denigrate it.

I will not give way too much to the Minister, who distorts the argument. I shall continue with my speech. I shall make a much more constructive speech than he gave.

According to the provisional figures issued by the World Tourism Organisation, the picture has worsened in 1991 with the United Kingdom's share of world arrivals falling to 3·7 per cent. while its share in receipts fell to 4·9 per cent.——

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, not again. I know that many hon. Members want to speak, including the hon. Gentleman.

Overall, investment in the tourist industry for the first half of 1992 declined by £2 billion compared with the same period in 1990. That is happening at a time when capital values for hotels have fallen dramatically throughout the country. A record number of hotels are in receivership. Soon, the banks will own more hotels than the major hotel chains.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not. One of the most significant reasons for the lack of investment and development in new tourist facilities is the withdrawal of section 4 grants to England in 1989. The Scottish and Welsh tourist boards operate with rather more help from central Government. They receive a constant level of grant in aid, as well as section 4 assistance. Also, the national boards for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have independent powers to market overseas: England does not.

I read in the current edition of Tourism Enterprise that, following a delegation to the Minister, the hon. Member for Cornwall, North said:

"When asked why it was that tourism in Scotland and Wales had maintained their funding levels whereas the ETB funding had been drastically cut",

the Minister allegedly said:

"they had a Minister batting for them".

If that is true, it is a disgracefully complacent remark. We had hoped that the Minister was batting for England when his colleagues were batting for their boards.

No.

I am glad that the Minister is denying that. I hope that the hon. Member for Cornwall, North will put his own point of view if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that the Minister will address the remarks of William Davis, who said:

"The Ministers for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland clearly take a different view of the domestic market than the Department of National Heritage. In the next financial year, for example, Scotland and Wales will each receive almost as much money from the Government the ETB and the 11 English regions combined. It is a pity that there cannot be an agreement on a common policy."

I concur with that, because many regions of England are every bit as deserving of those grants as Scotland and Wales. There seems to be a clear lack of fairness and balance in the allocation of those grants. The Minister must address that imbalance, as there has been an increasing fragmentation of the tourist industry in recent years.

If the United Kingdom is to improve its competitiveness, every organisation that is contributing an element of the total holiday experience must play its part. Mr. John Lee, who is a former Member of the House and a former tourist Minister, stressed, in an article in this month's Leisure Management, that he favoured an increasing partnership between the private sector, local authorities and the Government. If ever he was considered—rumour has it that he was—as a replacement for William Davis as chairman of the BTA and ETB, he blew it when he stated in that article:

"There is a clear need to convince government of the importance of increasing tourism funding, and that means making individual MPs more aware of the role of tourism in their own constituencies…I have always argued for government to give more funds to the industry."

He also shared a belief with the National Economic Development Council that a national body is needed to co-ordinate and bring the regional tourist boards together, ensure participation in national schemes and also lobby and advise Government on tourism in England.

In his discussions with hoteliers and the like in his constituency or other constituencies, has the hon. Gentleman ever made clear to them the implications for their businesses of his support for the social chapter, the continuation of the wages councils and other anti-competitive measures which would effectively put many hoteliers out of business?

I am amazed by that intervention. If the hon. Gentleman were to look at some of our competitor nations in Europe who have the social chapter and a minimum wage and at the graph in Holiday Which? this month, he would see that those nations are much more competitive than we are, even with those wage levels. Anyone can go to the Library and read that; it is a fact.

Some local authorities within my region of the north-west are already working with the private sector to market and develop their tourist attractions, but, without adequate funding at national level, the regions cannot co-ordinate their efforts. The potential success of implementing a policy that pulls all the tourist attractions in a region together and selling that region to tourists across a wide range of attractions is clearly the way forward.

We really do live in a beautiful country, and we do undersell it. If one looks at the north-west, for example, where my constituency lies, we can see the North-West tourist board actively working closely with local authorities and the ETB to develop new tourist site opportunities, as well as infrastructure improvements on existing areas of interest.

Let us take Blackpool. I am sure that, if the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will expand on the tourist industry in Blackpool. I understand that Blackpool is embarking on a scheme such as I have described. Blackpool council is working with Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Blackpool Leisure Co-operative—two of the area's major private leisure industries. Blackpool football club is developing a super-stadium for not only its soccer team—which is not doing quite so well as it should at the moment—but for Pavarotti or Madonna concerts. It is also developing a new built-in hotel complex.

Liverpool council is also working with the private sector and British Rail to provide visitors to the city with complete tourist packages. Those exciting developments, coupled with the natural beauty of the Pennine range and the nearby Lake district, should be expanded upon in a regional context, but we need an English tourist board with resources to bring them together within a national strategy.

While I am dealing with the north-west, and perhaps wearing the shadow Minister for Sport hat, I must ask how the Government can be committed to the Manchester 2000 bid and not develop the tourist industry to the full in that region. I can tell the Minister from my experience that the International Olympic Committee members, and particularly their wives, have to be sold a diverse and interesting package of tourist and leisure facilities alongside the sporting ones on offer.

Opposition Members and, I suspect, many Conservative Members believe that investment in Britain's tourist industry is vital. It may well be that the sun, sea and sand sightseeing tour which dominated the 1980s is in decline. The forms of tourism that are expected to grow faster in the next decade are cultural tourism, active sport-related tourism and rural tourism related to local crafts and products. Those forms of tourism can make Britain's climate less of a drawback and its historical heritage an even greater asset.

We need a tourist policy that takes advantage of the EC action plan, because it is chiefly in the context of regional development plans that EC funds can be accessed. The debate gives us all the opportunity to give the Government notice of the hon. Members who represent constituencies throughout the land want—indeed, they are determined to ensure that tourism is taken seriously and funded properly. I certainly welcome the Minister's statement that we shall now have an annual debate on tourist. The more debates we have the better. The tourism industry deserves nothing less.

I begin' by commenting on two of the points that my old friend the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) made. First, I associate myself with his welcome for the creation of the Department of National Heritage to embrace tourism. That seems a logical place to put tourism. In recent years, as the hon. Gentleman said, we have had too much of tourism being bandied from Department to Department simply because a Secretary of State felt that he did not have enough work to do or enough responsibility. That is no way to treat tourism.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team are now looking after tourism within the context of their overall responsibility. However. I did not agree with the hon. Gentleman's comments on the Budget. It is appropriate that the debate on tourism comes in the middle of the wider debates on the Budget in which the House is engaged. The Budget has been warmly welcomed by many people, especially people in the tourist industry, who largely own small businesses.

I quote as an example a letter that I received, funnily enough, only yesterday from the chairman and managing director of one of Lake district's largest hotel groups. He said:

"On a personal note, I thought the Chancellor's budget was strategically very sound for the long term interests of the country."

To demonstrate his impartiality, he followed that up by saying:

"This is the first kind thing I have said these last 3 years of either him or his predecessor."

The Budget was good for the tourist industry.

Of course, I am principally interested in the tourism industry in the Lake district, which I have supported for many years in the House and about which I have spoken on many occasions. It is by far the most important industry in the Lake district. It involves 40,000 jobs directly and indirectly, and has a turnover of £364 million.

The Budget has been warmly welcomed. That comes on top of the welcome given to the abolition of the wages councils. The various VAT concessions in the Budget are warmly welcomed. So, too, are the new arrangements for capital gains tax, which will be helpful to many of my constituents.

The third particularly welcome factor is the freezing of transitional help with the uniform business rate. That has been warmly welcomed. However, in that context, I wish to make a point that is not the direct responsibility of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage. I shall take it up in the next day or two with the Treasury. However, I should like my hon. Friend to look into the problem, which I regard as serious. It is summed up in a letter that I was handed literally on my way to the Chamber this morning. It is from one of the largest firms of chartered surveyors, which is a specialist hotel rating valuer in the north of England. The firm, which is based in Leeds, expressed to me its serious anxiety about the way in which its appeals against rating assessments, in the hotel industry in particular, are being dealt with in Cumbria. First, it refers to the delays at the Cumbria valuation offices. The letter states:

"We had a period of 18 months when the valuer who had dealt with hotel business rating was taken off that work to carry out Council Tax work and in that period, no progress was made."

The revaluations have caused my constituents great difficulties and for their appeals to be delayed in that way is very serious.

I apologise for raising this subject in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks), but the same firm has brought another factor to my attention. The letter states:

"The Lake District rateable values represent a disproportionate comparison with potential trade, and as compared to other areas such as York and Harrogate where we have successfully obtained reductions of between 25 per cent. and 50 per cent. of rateable values, the Valuation Office in the Cumbrian area seems not to be prepared to listen to logical and realistic argument."

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will agree that those are serious allegations and that they are harmful to the tourist industry. I hope that, with me, he will look into them with the Treasury.

My right hon. Friend will recall that I had the honour of serving as a Minister with responsibility for local government finance and I understand the importance of those issues and the way in which they can, we hope, be sorted out. I will draw those important matters to the attention of the Minister responsible for local government and I very much hope that a solution will be found.

; The Minister is exceptionally helpful. Finally, perhaps my hon. Friend might be good enough to take up, or bear in mind, a third matter that has been drawn to my attention by the same firm, which told me that some people in the hotel industry are paying too much. The letter says:

"but what I am also concerned about are the people that do not seek professional advice and I am finding in many cases are paying far more in rates than should be necessary."

That is a serious matter, which causes me a great deal of concern.

In an admirable opening speech, the Minister said that the tourist industry is fiercely competitive, and so it is. Countries throughout the world are spending huge budgets to try to entice tourists. We know how popular foreign travel is becoming. We also know that, with the coming of the channel tunnel, more of our citizens are likely to be tempted into the delights of foreign travel, which will put pressure on our domestic tourist industry. Small fragmented businesses—many family controlled—face face the problem of massive bills for publicity, which is essential for the success of the tourist industry.

I speak for all of the north of England, and I believe that a massive publicity effort is essential to publicise the region. I am frequently amazed that so many people in London and the south of England have a negligible knowledge of the north of England. Too often, overseas tourists and many of our citizens spend time visiting London, Stratford, and perhaps Oxford and Cambridge, but then take a jump up to Edinburgh, ignoring the north of England.

I shall give two examples of what they are missing. I am astonished at how few people in this country are aware of Durham, which is one of the almost unknown glories of England. Anyone who has been there never forgets it. Also, few people know the English Lake district where, as the House knows, we have one of the world's greatest heritage sites. Apart from the beauties of the lakes and mountains, there is the rich heritage of Wordsworth, De Quincey, Coleridge, Ruskin, Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome, to meet all tastes. I do not need to explain that to the Secretary of State, whose knowledge, interest and participation in the Lake district is so well known—especially his active participation in Dove cottage, the old Wordsworth home.

How are those massive and essential publicity schemes to be financed by businesses that are generally small and family run? That question demonstrates why the role of the regional tourist boards is so vital. Cumbria is well served by the Cumbria tourist board, which does a fine job under the presidency of our old friend Willie Whitelaw and the chairmanship of Mrs. Sheila Hensman. They get only one quarter of their £1·8 million budget from the Government and the rest is raised locally, so there is no question of the Cumbria tourist board lying back and expecting the Government to do everything for it.

I welcomed the Secretary of State's statement that central Government support for the regional tourist boards will be maintained, as that is essential and it is not as though the Government are supporting everything. They are making a vital, minority contribution and most of the money is being raised locally. What concerns me is that the continuation of such support is likely to denude the English tourist board of much of the budget that it needs to do all the other things besides supporting regional tourist boards.

I have been told that as a consequence of the new arrangements, the budget of the English tourist board, after it has financed the regional tourist boards, will be reduced from about £8 million to about £2 million. I know that many of my constituents are worried—they have told me so—about the effects of such a large reduction in the activity of the English tourist board. Again, I shall quote from a letter that I received yesterday from the chairman of one of the largest hotel groups in the Lake district. Speaking of the importance of the English tourist board he says:

"Because of this fragmentation"—

of the industry—

"it is vital that there is a 'central' organisation to look at standards; education and training; product development".

I am alarmed about the reduction in available money, but, above all, my constituents are outraged about the issue on which the Minister was kind enough to give way to me during his speech—the totally dispropotionate amount of money that will be available to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the financial year 1995–96. They can see no justice in the English tourist board getting £9 million from central Government when Wales gets £13·8 million, Scotland £14·2 million and Northern Ireland £11·5 million. It has been suggested, for example by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, that the reasons for the discrepancy are that the Secretaries of State for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are more enthusiastic and vigorous in their support for tourism, and my hon. Friend the Minister did not dispel my suspicions in his reply to my intervention. That simply will not do. There is no reason to treat England in a niggardly way. I hope that the Government will look at the matter again, because my constituents see no reason whatever for such disparities.

I am about to be interrupted by the forthcoming statement, but I shall start. I welcome this opportunity to raise an issue that has caused me some concern since last summer, when one of my constituents visited my surgery. It is the issue of holiday insurance, especially as it relates to coverage for accidents and illness abroad. Ironically, by raising the matter, I may do something for the home tourist industry, which is obviously important. I shall disgress slightly.

I apologise to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) for interrupting her speech.

With permission, I should like to make a statement. I am today publishing a consultation document inviting comments on a number of proposals for possible further changes to the liquor licensing laws of England and Wales.

It is nearly five years since the Government's last substantial reform of this area of the law took effect. The Licensing Act 1988 allowed public houses and other bars to stay open on weekday afternoons and for an extra hour on Sunday lunchtimes. It also introduced certain other procedural reforms and tightened up the law on under-age drinking. That measure is generally regarded as a success.

In keeping with the Government's step-by-step approach to reform in this area, the time is now right to consider what further changes are desirable to ensure that licensing laws are kept up to date.

The first of the proposals in my consultation paper is the replacement of the absolute discretion that the licensing justices currently enjoy over the grant of most licences. I propose that the only grounds on which such applications might be refused in future should be specified in statute, as has been the case in Scotland for well over a decade. This change should, I believe, make the licensing process clearer for all those involved with it, and also more consistent in its application throughout the country.

The grounds on which an application for a licence might be refused are set out for comment in detail in the consultation paper. Briefly, they concern the suitability of the applicant to hold the licence, the suitability of the premises for the purpose for which they are intended and whether the use of the premises for the sale of drink is likely to cause public nuisance or a threat to public order and safety.

We will also consider the important issue of whether under any new arrangements the licensing justices should continue to have the power to refuse new licences because, in their view, there are already sufficient licensed premises in that particular locality, and therefore no need for a new one.

I appreciate that this is a question on which strong opinions are held on both sides. My consultation paper sets out for comment the arguments for and against the inclusion of any "need" criterion among the grounds for refusing a licence. The Government have not yet made up their mind either way on this issue, and will consider very carefully the responses to this section of the consultation paper.

The second proposal is the introduction in England and Wales of a system of children's certificates for the bars of licensed premises similar to that which came into operation in Scotland in January 1991. This would permit, after a successful application to the licensing justices by the licensee, the admission of accompanied young children under 14 years of age into suitable bar premises in certain defined circumstances—for example, for a family meal—and then only up until, say, 8 o'clock in the evening. These arrangements have worked well in Scotland, and it is time to consider their introduction south of the border.

Coupled with this is a third proposal for the introduction of a new category of licence which would authorise the sale of alcoholic drinks in café-style premises, without a bar counter, provided that food and non-alcoholic drinks were on sale at the same time. Accompanied young children ought, we think, to be allowed into such premises, but again perhaps only up to a set time in the evening.

The Government would welcome views on both the principle and the detail of these proposals, which are aimed at providing greater choice for the customers of licensed premises, particularly families with young children. They should also encourage competition and generally higher standards of provision for customers, assist the tourist industry and help to promote the further development of premises for civilised moderate consumption of alcohol, instead of heavy drinking.

I must emphasise that, although these proposals envisage greater access by accompanied children to licensed premises than is now permitted by law, the Government have absolutely no intention of relaxing the prohibition on the sale of alcohol to young people under 18, and their consumption of it in the bars of licensed premises.

The final proposal set out in the consultation paper is the abolition of the Welsh Sunday opening polls, following any which might be called in 1996. Only one Welsh district is now dry on Sunday, and the Government believe these polls have become increasingly anachronistic, as well as unjustifiably costly. This is, I am glad to say, essentially a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

I am asking that comments on all the matters set out for consultation in the paper, other than those simply concerned with the Welsh polls, be sent to the Home Office by 30 June this year. Comments on the future of the Welsh polls should be sent direct to the Welsh Office by the same date.

I thank the Home Secretary for his statement. Does he accept that, as in Scotland, there must be rigorous controls on the granting of children's certificates? Does he agree that their purpose is to allow families to enter pubs together, not to encourage children to drink? Given the enormous problem of under-age drinking in Britain and the link with crime, will he endorse and implement his Department's proposals, set out almost six years ago, to prevent under-age drinking?

How many café bars have been licensed in Scotland? Does he recognise that the success of café bars abroad is at least as much due to the habits and traditions of the countries as to their licensing laws? Potentially, the most far-reaching part of the statement is the proposal canvassed in the White Paper to remove the criterion applied by licensing justices of "public need" when deciding whether to grant a licence.

I entirely agree that there should be much greater consistency in the granting of licenses, and that the criterion of public need should not be used simply to fortify a local monopoly or to deprive local consumers of choice. However, I should like to offer the Minister a strong counsel of caution in this area.

First, does he not understand that, in abandoning an anti-competitive view of public need, he should not abandon the whole notion of public interest? There may be good reasons—to do with disturbance to local residents, the character of a town or village or the dangers of trouble and difficulties of policing—to limit the number of pubs. The interests of local people should not be cast aside simply in the commercial interests of those who want to open more public houses.

Secondly, does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the problem in many parts of the country is not the number of pubs that want to open and are prevented from doing so by the licensing laws, but the number of pubs that are closing and being boarded up? Does he accept that, whatever the motivation of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report of three years ago, when the brewers had to sell off pubs, last year was the first year since 1960 that the number of licensed premises fell? There are now 2,000 fewer pubs than there were in 1989, and there is a greater concentration of ownership.

Does the Home Secretary agree that the practical consequences of his proposals should be their test? Will he comment specifically on recent reports from Australia that deregulation has led to lower standards and a spate of liquidations? If regulations on the numbers of pubs are relaxed and families use pubs more often, as many want to do, is there not a powerful case for that to be balanced by a much stronger and better defined criterion of a fit and proper person to hold a licence? Is it not high time that some form of structured training and qualifications were demanded along with the licence?

These important proposals can dramatically affect the leisure of our people and the culture of our country. Will the Home Secretary ensure that they are subject to genuine and open consultation, going far wider than the vested interests simply of the industry concerned, so that the right decisions in the public interest are taken?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about under-age drinking. Our proposals must be accompanied by continued stringency to avoid under-age drinking. We are talking about encouraging families to have access to premises in suitable circumstances, where the licensed justices agree that the environment is a suitable one for families to gather in. It could be argued that we could help to tackle the problem of alcohol abuse by introducing children to the moderate consumption of alcohol in civilised settings and more up-to-date circumstances in the company of their families.

About 1,000 café-style licences have already been granted in Scotland, and the innovation appears to be a success. Many people in this country are accustomed, when abroad, to being able to consume alcohol in a variety of circumstances, not just British pubs. Many foreign visitors to this country are perplexed at the narrow range of premises where alcohol is available. It is worth looking to see whether we should follow the Scottish precedent.

I share the caution of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) about whether need should be taken into account when granting licences. I accept that we must canvass carefully and ensure that we protect any legitimate public interest when deciding whether to open new premises. We must be certain that the licence holder is a fit and suitable person, and I will consider the suggestion that we should define the role carefully.

We must ensure that the premises are suitable in every way—that includes considering the impact on the surrounding area of the premises to be licensed. Public order and safety are also important issues. We must consider whether, having considered all those aspects, need also constitutes a criterion.

It is true that some pubs have closed in recent years, but there are still 13,500 more licensed premises than there were 10 years ago. The recent changes are the result of the changing commercial pattern and changes in living habits. The proportion of the population who were accustomed to going to traditional pubs has fallen, and more people now consume alcohol at home within the family environment, and look to different forms of leisure and entertainment. It should help the licensed trade, the tourist industry and other sectors if we update the licensing laws, make them more flexible and allow alcohol to be consumed in a greater variety of premises.

The hon. Gentleman stressed the importance of undertaking the widest possible consultation, and I agree with him strongly about that. A weakness of public consultation in this country is that, all too often, the only responses that the Government receive are from predictable, often legitimate, vested interest lobbies. It is difficult to achieve a genuine consultation process that involves the general—the man and woman in the street. We need to receive the public response to our proposals, together with the responses of vested interest groups.

rose——

Before calling other hon. Members to speak, may I ask for brisk questions and answers, as the statement is eating into today's debate?

I congratulate my right hon and learned Friend on his statement, which will help to resolve the problems of the serious increase in drinking by the under-nines that was highlighted in a recent report—the numbers have doubled in recent years.

Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider the important issue of public houses being able to stay open longer? Only three months into the single market, 10 per cent. of the drinks brought to this country by one means or another come from the European Community. There has been no prosecution, and there are no proper guidelines on that subject. What can be done about that? If we do nothing, there will be no pubs left.

Customs and Excise should be enforcing the law against abuses of the single market provisions that have come into effect. I share my hon. Friend's concern about the impact that the changes are having, particularly on the south of England. My proposals should enable us to counter those effects to some extent if they enable the owners of English licensed premises to contemplate more attractive and up-to-date ways of offering alcohol for sale—undoubtedly, home-sold alcohol.

While welcoming in principle the move to lay down criteria in statute, I share the caution already expressed and wish to make three specific points. First, will the Home Secretary look again at the complicated and confusing rules relating to types of drink? Secondly, does he propose to look again at the extension of licensing hours as a follow-on from today's statement? Thirdly, will he comment on the need to tighten up the measures relating to the provision of alcohol to drivers? Is it not time to consider incorporating into law some undertaking to enable the licensee to take away the car keys of a driver to whom he is selling alcohol?

I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman means when he speaks of the confusion over types of alcohol. If he writes to me, I will give him a considered response.

I am not canvassing further changes in licensing hours in the consultation document, as the hours were changed only recently and I am not aware of any widespread demand to reconsider them. I anticipate that people will respond to many aspects of the licensing laws once the document goes out to consultation, and we will consider the responses.

There is far more respect now for the breathalyser and drink-driving laws, and there has been a welcome change in the public's attitude. We are always looking at ways to improve the enforcement of the law, and I shall certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestions, although they are essentially matters for the Department of Transport.

My right hon. and learned Friend's announcement today will be warmly welcomed. As he probably appreciates, the Isle of Wight licensing bench is one of the largest in the country. I believe that its clerk has, from time to time, advised my right hon. and learned Friend's Department on regulations.

One of my constituents, Mrs. Sketcher, has had her licence refused only this week. Her premises are unusual, but highly popular with visiting yachtsmen from the East Cowes marina. The island attracts many overseas visitors to events such as Cowes week, and they can never understand the peculiar licensing laws affecting who can enter pubs in this country.

Is there any possibility of today's announcement dealing with the serious restriction on the off-licence trade imposed by the Sunday licensing hours operating only between 12 noon and 2 pm, which is a cause of great irritation to visiting yachtsmen to the Isle of Wight who cannot restock their victuals in time to catch the start of a race?

I think that our licensing laws have been a source of bewilderment to most overseas visitors for many years, but they are improving and are less confusing than they were. I think that the Isle of Wight will undoubtedly benefit from the changes that we are canvassing. The proposals will make clear the grounds on which licences can be refused and, in some cases, will allow discretion to be exercised.

I would not presume to comment on the premises in the marina mentioned by my hon. Friend, about which I am sure the Isle of Wight licensing justices know more than I do. We are not canvassing further changes in the licensing hours, as the House discussed that subject only five years ago. If the response to the consultation document reveals a widespread feeling of the sort anticipated by my hon. Friend, we shall consider including that subject the next time the House considers legislation on licensing laws.

Is there any truth in the rumour that today's statement should have been made yesterday, but the Home Secretary could not get to the House of Commons as he was stuck at Cheltenham guzzling ale?

Does the Home Secretary realise that some people in the House and many outside believe that, the last time the law was changed, it marked a retrograde step, and that the present proposals will make matters even worse? The idea of taking young kids into cafés and other places when they are 13 and 14 years of age and educating them on drinking is nonsense. The Government will be putting it on the national curriculum next—but that is about as much as we can expect from a Government who are concerned not about the social fabric of society but about putting money in the pockets of brewers, who then transfer it to the Tory party. What can we expect from this place, when there are 16 pubs in the Houses of Parliament?

First of all, not a drop of ale passed my lips yesterday at Cheltenham, which seemed a suitable place in which to celebrate my right hon. Friend's Budget, which was being discussed in the House. It received a warm welcome among the crowds at Cheltenham and elsewhere, and I have returned to my duties today.

The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said that the reforms of five years ago were widely unpopular. As so often, he is completely out of touch with public opinion, and reactionary and out of date in his views, which are not in tune with modern society. His idea that we propose introducing children to traditional pubs shows a complete misunderstanding. Justices will not give children's certificates unless they are satisfied that the setting is suitable. But the hon. Gentleman must be one of the few people who defends the idea of families sitting on a sunny day in the garden of a public house in a perfectly civilised setting enjoying their day out and then, if it rains, not being allowed to take their children into the building even though there may be a perfectly suitable part of it in which children could be introduced to liquor in civilised surroundings or spend time with their families.

Consultation always gets more than one reaction, but I think that the hon. Gentleman's reaction is that of an embittered, left-wing and rather out-of-date reactionary.

I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's recognition of the needs of families with two parents and children who can be introduced with no danger to public houses and other places where liquor is available. May I draw to his attention the real problems resulting from older teenagers, perhaps from broken families, who tend to drink in pubs until late at night and then go out into communities smashing shop windows, urinating in gardens and causing a hullabaloo that disturbs the peace of law-abiding citizens? Will the consultation exercise consider such problems? If not, we shall be failing our electors.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the problem of alcohol abuse of all kinds is closely connected with a great deal of crime, with large numbers of social problems, and with quite a bit of disorder. Traditionally, the licensed house was a pub—often a pleasant and civilised place of the sort to which many of us doubtless go. But the tradition was also one of male heavy drinking, rushing towards early closing time. Nowadays, there is the additional complication of teenagers drinking strong lagers in the kind of setting that my hon. Friend describes.

The consultation document does offer the prospect of a more civilised approach. The sort of premises encouraged by what we are canvassing are those where families will be present—that is, people of all sexes, and children—and where their children, only if accompanied, will be able to enter settings which the licence justices have been satisfied are the right sort, where families can have a meal, snack or other refreshment together. In itself, the exercise will not tackle the real problems that my hon. Friend describes, but it is certainly a step in the right direction, towards introducing more civilised drinking habits to this country.

Northern Ireland is often considered here to be a restrictive society, but in many ways we have always been ahead of England and Wales in our licensing legislation. I had the honour as a Minister to introduce a major reform of licensing more than 20 years ago in Stormont. One of the provisions was to allow drinking in public houses from 11 am right through to 11 pm.

The Minister referred to café-style licences. Will alcohol be sold in these cafés to people who are not having a meal? If so, will not that be a retrograde form of unfair competition with public houses, which make a major contribution to local government finance and which have to fulfil strict criteria to be given a licence? It seems that these cafés will be able to sell alcohol and be, in effect, public houses without a bar.

I acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman's first point. In the mid-1970s, I tried to introduce a private Member's Bill on licensing—it included the idea of children's certificates and café-style licences—and it was greeted by huge opposition, on the ground that we were about to take the nation's children to alcoholic ruin. Since then, Northern Ireland has had the experience of licensing reform. Scotland led the way with licensing reform, but it took the English many years to discover that reform had led to improvements in the social climate surrounding licensed premises in Northern Ireland and in Scotland. So we are catching up slightly.

Experience in Scotland of children's certificates and of café-style licences has generally been regarded as beneficial. I was wrong to refer earlier to 1,000 café-style licences. I should have referred to about 1,000 children's certificates being issued in Scotland. Rather fewer café-style licences have been granted. We shall have to look into what difficulties there may have been.

Café-style licences will involve alcohol being sold with or without meals. For such licences, it is necessary that food and non-alcoholic drinks should be available as well, making such cafes like tearooms or continental cafes, in which some people will be having food, others drink, others non-alcoholic drinks, and so on. Children can be brought in, and there will be competition, although it will not be unfair competition. This will widen consumer choice and increase the number of outlets. Such outlets will be particularly attractive in areas frequented by tourists.

I warmly congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on updating a very outdated system. That will be welcomed especially by families. I hope that the idea of parents leaving their children at home is now a thing of the past.

I should like to ask the Home Secretary to clarify his answer to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Tyler). Will both wines and spirits be served in family areas, or will only wine be served, bearing in mind that children will be present?

No, children's areas will sell the same range of alcohols as are sold in the rest of licensed premises. The children's certificate will allow accompanied younger children to go to these areas, because the licensing justice is satisfied that they are suitable parts of pubs or restaurants for children to be taken to. There is no question of a children's certificate restricting the sort of alcohol that adults can consume in these areas.

May I take the Home Secretary back to the question directed to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway)—about the vast amount of alcohol coming into this country through cross-border shopping? He said that that could be dealt with by making premises more attractive, but the fact is that it is the price that attracts the booze, not the circumstances in which it is drunk. We have a bootlegging industry in this country; it is of concern to the licensed trade and to everyone else, because much of the drink is being sold on. What will the right hon. and learned Gentleman do about this thriving bootlegging industry which has sprung up, especially in the south of the country?

Customs and Excise will enforce the law against imports of liquor which break regulations and go beyond the single market arrangements which allow people to bring in drink for their own consumption. Operating a single market within which there is differing taxation on various goods will always promote scope for smuggling. That is what the Customs and Excise are for: to take action against such smuggling.

Because there is such a wide discrepancy in the duty on spirits, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor felt restricted when it came to raising duty on spirits. The country could have done with the revenue, but we have to be alert to the need to reduce the incentive for smuggling, which will certainly be tackled with all vigour by the Customs and Excise.

I also warmly welcome today's statement. Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that one of the lessons of the relaxation of licensing laws in Scotland has been that fewer cases of drunkenness have been reported? Will he further agree that many visitors to this country find that London and our other great cities close down at 11 o'clock, which inconveniences them? Will he elaborate on the flexibility of hours and on the possibility of extending drinking times in pubs?

Certainly the impact of Scottish licensing reform in the 1970s was wholly beneficial when it came to directly drink-related offences. In the light of that, we introduced the reforms in England five years ago. I am not sure how much further measurable improvement has resulted from café licences and children's licences, but I think that the general reaction in Scotland is that they were a further beneficial step which improved Scottish drinking habits—as I hope they will eventually improve English drinking habits as well.

We will consider representations about the 11 o'clock factor, if we receive any, although we are not canvassing further views on hours. There are plenty of licensed clubs available after 11 o'clock, and I am sure that my hon. Friend would like us to consider whether there may be undesirable effects arising out of the fact that only certain types of premises stay open after 11 pm, attracting large numbers of young people, whereas ordinary premises close then.

We are moving step by step. At the moment, changes in the hours are not a further step that we are contemplating.

When pub landlords decide what facilities to provide, they do not have to consider just the state of the law and the market. They also have to consider the considerable pressure that the brewers place upon them. Will the consultations take into account the link between brewers and landlords and the considerable pressures that landlords are under?

There will be nothing in my consultation document about that. The complex relationship between brewers and landlords is affected more by the changes to the landlord and tenant law, the effect of the untying of premises and so on. That is changing considerably the world of the licensed premises. However, it is not for me to intervene in the relationship between brewers and their tenants. I hope that the changes that we are canvassing will benefit customers by producing an ever-wider range of choice and type of premises available.

My right hon. and learned Friend's statement will be welcomed by the tourist industry. In the context of this morning's debate, we have been talking about product development. Café bars and children's certificates will be particularly relevant. Can my right hon. and learned Friend reassure me that the tourist industry will be involved in the consultation process, and that its input will be very much taken into consideration?

I hope that the tourist industry will respond strongly. I share my hon. Friend's views. The growth of the tourist industry is extremely important to this country. As a result of the devaluation of the exchange rate, we need to see a very considerable surge in tourism, which is potentially one of the major sources of new employment that we can hope to see.

I shall be amazed if the tourist industry does not welcome my proposals. I hope that it will respond with vigour to counter any doubting voices. If we implement these proposals, I see great potential for expanding employment and for improving the attractiveness of those places that bring in foreign visitors.

Like many of those hon. Members who have spoken during the last half hour, I agree that the Home Secretary's proposals will help our tourist industry. Furthermore, as the mother of two young sons, I welcome them. During the 10 years that I have been a parent, it has become obvious to me that families with children are made much more welcome abroad when they visit cafés and restaurants than they are in this country. Anything that encourages families to spend more of their leisure time together is an excellent idea.

There can be no greater pleasure than seeing a parent playing snooker or darts with his or her 10, 11 or 12-year-old child. That is far better than children being left on their own on the streets, and being bored, while the parent goes off to drink with other adults. We in this country seem not to like children very much. Adults appear to think that, to get the most enjoyment out of life, their leisure time should be spent away from, rather than with, their children. Therefore, I welcome these proposals, which I hope will encourage families to spend more time together.

We all agree that tourism is important to our economy. Although that is not the main burden of my speech this morning, even a city such as Birmingham is conscious of the need to attract visitors.

My hon. Friends and I are, however, concerned about the low rates of pay that many workers in the service industries have to put up with. We do not agree that the introduction of a minimum wage would be harmful. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) said, countries such as France that have a minimum wage are the most popular tourist destinations. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, France attracts the largest amount of foreign investment. Growth in foreign investment there in recent years has outstripped growth in this country.

Therefore, we do not accept the pronouncements of those who sit on the Treasury Bench. The Department of Employment published information that linked minimum wages and employment and provided 26 references, of which only 10 established a link between minimum wages and unemployment. Most of the information showed that the opposite was the case. It suggested that, provided that minimum wages were not out of step with other wage rates in the economy, they could promote employment.

It is about time we knocked on the head the idea that our policies on the social chapter and a minimum wage are detrimental to the economy and employment. If some of the low-paid workers in my constituency were paid a little more, they might be able to buy some of the goods and services that their fellow citizens are producing and thus help to ensure that they keep their jobs.

I want to take this opportunity—something which has delayed my return to my children this morning—to refer to holiday insurance, particularly the insurance cover provided when British tourists fall ill or sustain injuries while abroad. Hon. Members may, like me, have been on package holidays abroad, for which they have taken out insurance. We often do so without thinking. We accept the insurance policy that is offered by the travel agent, or which comes as part of the holiday package, without thinking too much of the consequences. The experiences of some of my constituents and others who have contacted me suggest that we should take more care.

Last year, 12 million people took out holiday insurance cover, and 800,000 of them made a claim—a quarter of them for medical bills. According to a survey carried out by the magazine Which?, of over 56,000 of their readers, 18 per cent. suffered illness or accident while abroad.

Many of us, when we go abroad, also heed the advice in the Department of Health booklet "Health Advice for Travellers". It explains the reciprocal arrangements, under form E111, for mainly European Community countries and also Gibraltar. The booklet refers to a range of medical care that is available under the reciprocal arrangements and says that, outside EC countries, the health services that are likely to be provided will be less than those we can expect under the national health service and that only urgent treatment is likely to be provided.

Quite rightly, that booklet encourages tourists to take out insurance. It says:

"No matter where you are travelling, the cost of medical treatment may not be fully covered by any existing reciprocal health care agreements—make sure you have adequate private medical insurance."

Furthermore, it advises people to check the small print. The booklet gives the impression that to take out medical insurance is all one has to do for peace of mind.

Unfortunately, as my constituent, Dorothy Savage, found to her cost, that was not the case. This lady went to Malta for a Christmas holiday. While she was there, she unfortunately contracted gastro-enteritis. Apparently, there was an epidemic in the island at the time, about which she had not been warned. She was taken to St. Luke's hospital in Malta. In hospitals such as St. Luke's the standard of care that is available even to people who have taken out insurance is, unfortunately, far less that that which we might expect here.

I have seen photographs taken by Mrs. Savage's daughter of the conditions in that hospital. They were far from hygienic. The linen was torn and not in a very good state. Most important of all, the majority of nursing care in such hospitals has to be carried out by friends and relatives of the patient.

One evening, after Mrs. Savage's daughter had had an exhausting day looking after her mother and had decided that her mother was well settled and that she could go back to her hotel to get some rest, some problems unfortunately arose. Mrs. Savage was left without any attention. After she had called for a bed pan, she waited for six hours; she hoped for some assistance, but none came. Eventually, she tried to get out of bed on her own. Unfortunately, she slipped and broke her leg. When her daughter returned early next morning, she found that her mother was not in the usual place, and that she had undergone emergency treatment.

Miss Savage immediately contacted the tourist representative, who put her in touch with the medical insurance representative. Seven or eight days later, that representative contacted her, during which time her mother had been kept in quite appalling conditions without adequate care. She was left without a catheter in urine-soaked sheets, which would not have been changed if her daughter had not changed them. When Mrs. Savage was provided with a catheter, it was not changed throughout her three-week stay.

Insurance policies often claim that air ambulance repatriation is available, which Miss Savage tried to arrange for her mother. It was not available, but Mrs. Savage was taken home on a scheduled flight on a stretcher across three seats that had been booked for the purpose. Unfortunately, when she arrived at the airport, Mrs. Savage started haemorrhaging and the pilot would not allow the necessary drip on to the plane. The medical adviser, Dr. Angel—unfortunately, he did not administer angelic treatment for Mrs. Savage—advised that she should not travel without a drip, which, I am sure hon. Members will agree, is fairly basic medical epuipment.

Mrs. Savage was flown home two weeks after the incident. Despite her broken leg, she was forced to sit upright, the medical adviser having instructed that her plaster be removed above the knee. Sadly, when she returned to the United Kingdom, her condition deteriorated rapidly and she died.

Mrs. Savage's family had expected their family holiday insurance to cover them for treatment in a better hospital and better transport home. Mrs. Savage is not alive—directly, in my view, as a result of the unfortunate events that took place during her holiday.

A couple from Perry Barr in Birmingham were on holiday in Malta. The lady was knocked down by a Maltese driver and admitted to the same hospital as Mrs. Savage. Nursing care, again, was non-existent. She suffered multiple fractures to her leg, which was operated on and put in plaster. She experienced severe pain following the operation due to excessive swelling. The stitches burst as a result and her leg became ulcerated.

Unfortunately, the insurance agent was not helpful. He tried to return the lady home more quickly than he should have, because he was worried that the couple might sue the driver who knocked them down, for which his company would have had to pay. That couple had to return on a scheduled flight, with the lady's leg in plaster. She still suffers problems as a result of the medical treatment that she received in Malta.

Vera Willey was admitted to Clinica Benidorm with a chest infection. Her companion was not allowed to stay with her and had to return to Britain. She was left alone for 13 days as her daughter, who was in the United Kingdom, was unable to arrange a flight home. She was finally flown home in a Swiss air ambulance 13 days later and admitted to Dudley road hospital. Her treatment was delayed because the only documentation that she had with her was in Spanish. Having seen a translation, the medical adviser recommended that Mrs. Willey should be transported by air ambulance, which took 13 days to arrange.

Again, sadly, that lady died a day after she returned to the United Kingdom. her bed sores were down to her bones, and her chest area and arms were bruised from flooded intravenous drips and injections. She had been very frightened during her stay, and had received no bilingual assistance.

Molly and Frank Hudman were on holiday in Sorrento when a wall collapsed on them. Mrs. Hudman was badly injured and had several broken ribs. Fortunately, her husband received only superficial injuries. When they were in hospital in Sorrento, they had to rely on the relatives of other patients for basic medical care—to watch them during the night and to provide bed pans and drinks. They were able to communicate only because one of the patients in the ward spoke good English.

I have discovered that, in countries such as Malta, Italy and Greece, it is normal for nursing care to be provided by relatives and friends rather than by the hospital.

In other countries, it seems that people who are taken ill are almost forced to have unnecessary treatment. "Watchdog" recently broadcast cases in which people who had been on holiday in Tenerife and Spain were forced to undergo unnecessary medical treatment.

Ann Caldwell, a nurse, was admitted to Clinic San Eugenio in Tenerife suffering from a stomach infection. She was given an electrocardiograph and an abdominal X-ray without checking to see whether she was pregnant. She was an infectious patient, yet she was put in a ward next to a girl recovering from surgery.

George Deeley from Leamington Spa was admitted to the same clinic with a cut nose. He was put on a drip, confined to hospital for several days and given surgery against his will. Unfortunately, he had handed over his flight tickets and pasport to hospital officials, as requested, who refused to return them until he had complied with the treatment. He and his wife were frightened by the experience.

Another hospital in Spain sought permission from the medical assistance company to carry out a complicated operation for which the surgeon had received no training and had seen only a video tape. Spain has two types of hospital—the public hospitals, which generally offer high standards of medical care but perhaps less comfortable surroundings, and private clinics. It seems that British tourists who have medical insurance are encouraged to undergo private treatment, whereas they would probably receive better treatment under the normal reciprocal health care arrangements.

I have taken up those cases with the insurance industry, and would like to comment on some of the information that it has provided. The Association of British Insurers says that it is well known that medical facilities in some parts of the world may not always be of a standard that we have come to expect in this country. That is accepted, but, according to the advice issued by the Department of Health, it is the very reason why people take out medical insurance.

The association says that, although insurers will do all they can to ensure that the medical treatment arranged is of the highest standards available in the locality, it is not in a position to guarantee or influence the standard of health care available. It would be useful if it included that advice in the information that it gives its customers. The same applies to other aspects of the policies.

In responding to my questions about the use of air ambulances, Commercial Union said that there was a great deal of misunderstanding among the general public—including general practitioners—about exactly what an air ambulance is. The perceived impression of the policy holder is of an aircraft fitted with emergency medical equipment and constantly on standby, similar to road ambulances. In fact, that is not the case.

Air ambulances tend to be executive jets with the seats removed. The medical equipment taken on board the plane is exactly the same as if repatriation were to occur by scheduled or even chartered air liners. Commercial Union also said that air ambulances should perhaps more correctly be termed "air taxis".

The hon. Lady makes an important point about repatriation from overseas. I have an interest in this issue, as declared in the Register of Members' Interests. She might be interested to know that the Foreign Office recommends only two companies for the repatriation of remains from overseas, which gives rise to a considerable increase in the costs to insurance companies. That is one reason why holiday insurance is becoming so expensive.

Despite the endeavours of myself and others to try to expand the information issued by consulates and embassies across the world, the Foreign Office has been quite difficult about allowing the information to be expanded to include other companies within the United Kingdom.

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. However, the Department of Health makes no recommendations about insurance companies. There are a number of policies available, and I shall refer later to the practice of companies when selling those policies.

A company called Home and Overseas Insurance also responded to my questions. It said that air ambulances are usually used only in life or death cases, and that patients can be transported on life support machines with the plane equipped as a mini-intensive care unit. I contacted one of the companies that provides such a service and was finally convinced that air ambulances really exist. The company in question runs three, which are executive turbo-props. About 150 cases a year are flown home using that service. That is rather different from the impression given about the availability of such a service.

The company states that air ambulance planes are usually very small and cramped and, for European journeys, often do not have even toilet facilities. It believes that some members of the public may have a "glamour vision" of what an air ambulance is, but such planes are less comfortable than scheduled flights and often have to make a couple of stops for refuelling, which can be unhelpful and perhaps even a matter of life and death in itself when transporting urgent cases. Other insurance companies to which we wrote responded in similar terms.

Why has that information, which the industry has made available to me, not been made more widely available? Why is it not contained in the brochures? Other services offered in many insurance policies and in many brochures include multi-language assistance and co-ordination. The cases that have been drawn to my attention suggest that such a service is not widely available, or, if it is, is used only in very rare cases or is available to a limited extent.

Under the package tour regulations, brochures are required to contain information about health formalities, including optional travel insurance, but those requirements need to be strengthened if the reality of the services available in the countries to which I have referred is to be brought home to people who, in the words of the insurance policies, believe that they have peace of mind when they pay their premium. It would also be welcome if the Government would consider providing local authorities with additional resources to enforce the regulations.

Only the day before yesterday, the Office of Fair Trading highlighted the malpractice occurring in the sale of insurance policies. As I have done in the past, people often buy the insurance policy that comes with their package, not knowing that the tour organisation is getting up to 40 per cent. commission for arranging the policy. The travel agent may seem disinclined to point out that cheaper, and perhaps even more comprehensive, policies are available which really offer an air ambulance service.

There are also exclusions in many policies, which are not drawn to people's attention or which are in very small print. Under the Jetset comprehensive travel insurance, the definition of an injury is one which occurs fortuitously but does not include an injury caused by, or which results from, sickness, disease or a gradually degenerating illness. People with medical problems should have such exclusion clauses drawn to their attention, but, judging from the cases pointed out to me, that does not happen.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) said that cheaper policies were available. A reader of The Times wrote from London to say that, if she had booked her holiday insurance with her package, she would have been charged £29, plus £12 for an over-65 surcharge, but that, by shopping around, she was able to get insurance cover for £15·50. That individual was shopping around for a better price, not to find out exactly what cover would be provided if she were unfortunately to fall ill or have an accident.

Another letter that I received from a lady in Cheshire states that an insurance company refused to pay back a deposit of more than £300. She had unfortunately had to cancel her holiday because her husband was unwell after heart surgery. She had tried to complain to the insurance ombudsman, but the company was not a member of the insurance ombudsman's bureau, so she was unable to get help from that source. Perhaps the Government should reconsider their decision not to make an arbitration scheme similar to that run by the insurance ombudsman compulsory, so that citizens such as that lady receive a proper service.

I have attempted to draw attention to the problems that can occur when people go abroad. I have drawn attention to the fact that many hospitals abroad rely heavily on patients, family and friends for basic care such as washing or even feeding patients, for providing and changing bedpans and even for the provision of basic items such as toilet paper. I have mentioned the misleading and—to use the industry's words—"glamour" image created by the brochures of the availability of air ambulances. I hope that, as a result, the public at large will be more aware of the problems and that the industry itself will take note and provide better information.

I should like to encourage the Government to review the booklet containing information about travelling abroad and to ensure that it gives more information about the health services available abroad. The Government should also correct the impression given by the booklet that, by taking out medical insurance, a holidaymaker is not dependent on the medical care available for the rest of the population at their holiday destination.

Some of the issues that I have raised, especially about the way in which descriptions give misleading impressions and about the way in which insurance is sold—sometimes by agents who do not even have copies of the policy available—suggest that the Government should consider the operation of the holiday insurance industry. I hope that the Government will take note of those points and that they will take whatever action is needed to ensure that, when British citizens go abroad, they get the treatment they would expect in this country, or, if that is not available, that they are flown back to the United Kingdom in suitable aircraft and in a way that is not detrimental to their health.

As the representative of Britain's, if not Europe's, leading tourist resort, I feel today rather like the king of the jungle. I am surrounded by hon. Friends and hon. Members who represent lesser tourist resorts. I feel like a lion surrounded by alley cats—[Interruption.]

That went down well.

I thought that it would. My comment went down well with the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) who made kind remarks about the great resort of Blackpool. I know that he has often visited the town and I was especially grateful for what he said about the partnership between the local authority and the private sector. He mentioned a number of examples, especially the development of the new football super stadium. I know that the hon. Gentleman has visited Blackpool football club when the team have played somewhat better than has been the case recently.

As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said, this is the first tourism debate in the House for five years. I and some of my hon. Friends are a little disappointed that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) should have spoken for almost half an hour on overseas tourism. That may be of great concern to many of her constituents, but her speech frustrated the opportunity for many of my hon. Friends to raise subjects relating to the far more important issue of the state of the British tourism industry.

Is not the answer that the hon. Member for Selly Oak should tell her constituents to take their holidays in Britain? They could, thereby, if they fell ill, take advantage of our excellent national health service and boost the tourism industry in Britain, which is what we are supposed to be doing today.

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It would have been more appropriate for the hon. Member for Selly Oak to raise the topic in an Adjournment debate.

By raising the issue, I may encourage more people to stay in this country, which would be welcome. However, many people choose to take their holidays abroad and it is important that when they do so, potential problems should be drawn to their attention. The information provided in booklets, such as that produced by the Government, should be adequate. The Government have a responsibility in the matter.

I am sure that the hon. Lady has a point, but I believe that there are more appropriate occasions for making it than a debate on British tourism and the problems faced by the industry.

Order. I draw to the hon. Gentleman's attention the fact that the debate is not purely on British tourism.

I understand that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that the hon. Member for Selly Oak raised her concerns absolutely legitimately. None the less, the British tourist industry faces severe problems. It is a highly important industry and it is appropriate today that we should discuss those problems with the Minister, in the first debate on the subject in the House for five years.

I greatly welcome the Minister's statement that there will be a tourism debate once a year from now on. That will be greatly welcomed throughout the tourism industry and will do a great deal to dispel some of the increasingly widely felt disillusion in the industry, as will the Minister's undoubted enthusiasm for the subject. He gave us today a highly enthusiastic performance. So great was his enthusiasm that it seemed almost to conjure the Home Secretary out of the ether like some latter-day Ariel to give us a bit more good news. What the Home Secretary said about licensing regulations is good news for the tourism industry. What could be better than that people should be able to drink with greater freedom in an attractive tourist resort such as Blackpool, Eastbourne or even the Isle of Wight?

I mentioned that there were problems of which we were all aware in the tourism industry. Many of my hon. Friends have sought, and continue to seek, to raise them with the Minister, so I shall not delay the House unnecessarily. I shall refer to some of the problems, but I shall not be over-critical, because I do not want to dent the Minister's enthusiasm and because I know that he is aware of many of the problems. We must focus on those problems and on the opportunities that tourism provides for curing some of our greater economic ills.

People feel that there is a lack of leadership and that we do not quite know where the tourism industry is going. That feeling is reinforced by many people's concern about the fact that we do not now have a Minister for tourism. We have had such a Minister in the past and I hope that we shall have a dedicated Minister for tourism in the future.

There are two.

My hon. Friend says that there are two. It is true that tourism has a voice in the Cabinet through the Secretary of State for National Heritage. However, I believe that the Department of National Heritage should have a Minister for tourism. I know that my hon. Friend has a great work load. He is clearly able to cope with that, because he is a man who displays great enthusiasm and I have no doubt that his enthusiasm carries him through his work load on a great tide. None the less, people are concerned that tourism does not have its own dedicated Minister.

There is also concern about the way in which tourism has been shuffled from Department to Department over the years. It has moved from the Department of Employment to the Department of Trade and Industry. It has ended up in the Department of National Heritage. Who knows, next year it may be in the Department of the Environment or even in the Department for Education. I feel that the most appropriate place, in which we could really get to grips with the problems of the tourism industry, would be the Treasury. The Treasury could then see the problems that the tourism industry faces and the opportunities that it provides for increasing the Treasury's share of national economic receipts.

The other main reason for disillusion in the industry is the reduction in the grant to the English tourist board, to which the Minister and others have referred, and the fact that we have still not appointed a chairman for the British Tourist Authority and the ETB. I know that the Minister referred to the need not to look at the question of the ETB reductions in isolation, but to see it as part of a bigger picture. People do not see the matter like that. People who run small businesses are extremely worried about the cuts in the ETB and they are even more worried about the possibility of those cuts being passed on to the regional tourist boards. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's reassurance that the cuts will not be passed on to the regional tourist boards. That will go some way towards reassuring many of my constituents who are deeply upset about the ETB's grant being cut.

I shall quote from a letter about the cuts in the ETB's budget, written by a constituent, Mrs. Lawrence, who runs a hotel on the Queen's promenade in Blackpool. She says:

"Recently we hear that the Government intends to cut funds to the English Tourist Board which in turn will affect the regional north-west offices. Many businesses, large and small, benefit from their membership of such tourist boards by way of advice, co-operative buying and advertising as well as many other services they provide. All this supports our survival and we cannot afford to lose any of it."

That lady has a point, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take note of her remarks. The cuts in the English tourist board budget will cause problems for businesses like Mrs. Lawrence's and constituencies like mine, not least because it may affect the seaside resorts campaign, to which the Minister referred. The other week, we were told by the chief executive of the English tourist board that that campaign may well be a victim of the cuts in the English tourist board budget. I certainly hope that it will not, because the campaign has done an enormous amount of good for coastal resorts, which have seen a growth in business and significant job creation as a result.

Is my hon. Friend aware of the considerable success in my constituency of the partnership between the ETB, the public sector and the private sector, which is mainly led by the excellent work of the Eastbourne marketing group?

I was not aware of that, but I am sure that the campaign is especially valuable to Eastbourne. My hon. Friend further illustrates my point.

Conservative Members are concerned about high unemployment in many tourist resorts—particularly coastal resorts—and their apparent continuing ability to act as magnets for unemployment and other social problems. That is a significant problem in my constituency. At least four wards in the borough of Blackpool now have over 20 per cent. unemployment and over 30 per cent. male unemployment. The problem is worse in some other areas. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, wanted me to draw the Minister's attention to the problem in his constituency, where many guest houses and hotels act as a magnet for the unemployed from all over the north-west. That has a highly deleterious effect on the quality of the town.

The solution lies not merely in financial investment but in the way in which we structure our response to the problem in those areas. Much could be done, not necessarily by the Department of National Heritage but by the Department of the Environment, particularly in respect of the change of use order. It should not be nearly so easy for a hotel or guest house to change its use to a Department of Social Security hostel, for example. Action on that matter would go some way to ensure that towns such as Blackpool, Morecambe and Eastbourne—our coastal resorts—maintained their high quality rather than simply turning into a dumping ground for social problems from all over the country.

Other problems continue to perplex tourist resorts—the strains on businesses caused by the attitude of unsympathetic banks and the over-regulation which threatens them at a local level, to name but two. I know that my hon. Friends will be delighted by many of the measures announced in the Budget—especially the Government's crusade to reduce bureaucracy. I am delighted by what the Minister said earlier about the establishment of the special task force to look at reducing bureaucracy in the tourism sector. That will be popular with small businesses, which are continually hampered by over-zealous local authority officials who make what comes out of Brussels look quite insignificant.

The fundamental problem that tourist resorts face, particularly in a recession—this applies both to small hotels and guest houses and to organisations and local authorities—is that they simply do not have the capital to reinvest in upgrading facilities. That has happened at a time when Britain's tourist industry faces more competition than ever before.

Take an organisation such as Blackpool Pleasure Beach, for example. That competitive, well-run private company now faces significant opposition from companies such as EuroDisney in northern France, which are not competing on a level playing field and which do not have to compete with the same sort of VAT burdens. EuroDisney is being charged a reduced rate of VAT by the French Government and that makes the competition all the stronger. I should be grateful if the Minister would consider that and take the matter up with the Treasury. At least if we can offer our domestic industry the possibility of competing on a level playing field with other businesses elsewhere in Europe, we may go some way towards alleviating the problem.

Despite all its problems, tourism presents significant opportunities. We have heard this morning of the scale of the British industry and its importance in the economy as a whole. It now accounts for some 4 per cent. of gross domestic product and creates £25 billion-worth of revenue each year. It is not a smokestack industry that has been gradually run down. It is one of the most important growth sectors in the economy of western Europe as a whole.

Within the European Community, expenditure and revenue from international tourism increased more than sixfold between 1970 and 1984 and continue to grow. The internal European Community market now has an estimated 180 million tourists—they are sitting on our doorstep. As we heard, after the financial services industry, tourism is the second biggest industry in the United Kingdom.

Much more significant, however, is the fact that tourism is a highly labour-intensive industry. If we support and develop tourism, we shall inevitably create jobs. It is entirely wrong that we should support industries that are being run down—which are essentially loss-making, no-hope industries. I do not believe in pumping public money into industries that will lose it, simply as a means of saving jobs. I accept that the Government have a role to play and that it is entirely right to co-ordinate investment and develop a strategy of support for an industry that is capable of justifying such investment and support. I believe that tourism is such an industry. Indeed, we have seen that that is so, because the support that still exists in Wales and Scotland, but which, shamefully, England does not have, has been thoroughly justified. The gearing ratio of investment on the Welsh tourist industry is something like 1:5, which means that for every £1 invested, £5 is returned. That is pretty good, and we could do just the same with English tourism, precisely because it is a successful industry.

The argument that has traditionally been advanced for the removal of section 4 grant simply does not apply. The argument was that section 4 grant should no longer apply in England because the English industry was mature. It may well be approaching maturity, although what should concern us is not whether it is mature but whether it is successful and whether it continues to grow and to create jobs.

Faced with those problems and with the opportunities that tourism clearly presents for economic growth and job creation, what should we do? The Department of National Heritage should focus on a number of matters. The Minister should consider providing the leadership and clear strategic thinking that tourism requires to enable us to take advantage of the opportunities that tourism presents. He should develop the role of tourism and of his Department across the rest of the Government. We want to see a tourism Minister with wide-ranging powers across other Departments to co-ordinate a proper tourism strategy.

More importantly, tourism requires investment if we are to make the most of the opportunities. Some form of section 4 development grant must be reintroduced, particularly in view of the cuts in the ETB's budget and the severe discrimination against England. The only equitable way to balance the situation and to seize the opportunity for job creation and economic growth presented by tourism is for a return to section 4 development grants, but not in the comprehensive way in which they previously applied. Clearly, mistakes were made. Development grant money was snapped up by large organisations and it was not targeted effectively.

We need clear and effective targeting of development grants so that they provide development finance for projects specifically in areas of high unemployment or specifically to develop projects such as tourism for the disabled or tourism in areas where it is not self-evidently a mature part of the industry.

If we can provide a clear, targeted reintroduction of even a limited form of finance, even a paltry sum of £10 million, there would be a significant job creation and economic growth. My resort of Blackpool does not have assisted area status and it receives no outside assistance from the Government or from the EC because tourism has not yet been granted objective 2 status. If we can provide some form of limited assistance, and clearly money can now be found as a result of the savings being made in respect of the ETB budget, we shall go a long way towards solving some of the problems that we face.

Finance might also be found from the national lottery. I hope that the Minister will ensure that receipts from the national lottery will be used substantially to invest in our tourism infrastructure. I hope that the receipts will not simply be eaten up by the arts and sport, although they certainly have an important role to play in attracting tourists.

The Minister should carefully consider tourist-related projects such as the Blackpool illuminations, the Blackpool tram system and, even more importantly, the centenary of Blackpool tower which will be celebrated next year. That will be a very important event in the calendar of the north of England. Two or three years ago, when the far less significant Eiffel tower celebrated its centenary, the French Government managed to come up with something like £7 million or £8 million for a great jamboree to celebrate the event. We are not asking for anything like that sum. The mere presence of my hon. Friend the Minister at one of our humble celebrations would suffice.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, unlike the constructor of the Eiffel tower, the constructor of the Blackpool tower did not throw himself off it when he completed it?

It does not surprise me that the constructor of the Eiffel tower threw himself off it. The constructor of the Blackpool tower, as he looked out across the swathes of beautiful Lancashire countryside up to the Pennines, to the Welsh hills and to the Lake district and to Scotland, would have descended from the tower reinvigorated by all that he had seen. He would have understood that Blackpool was a magnificent tourist resort.

Those are some of the projects that I would like the Minister to consider when he decides where to spend the receipts from the national lottery. Those projects concern me and my constituentcy, which is an important tourist resort. People in other tourist resorts clearly have other priorities. However, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to remember and then to fight for tourism infrastructure projects, because that will pay enormous dividends for him.

We have seen great successes in our tourism industry. The Government have done much to encourage the development of tourism, most recently through the Budget. However, much more can be done for very little extra investment, at very little extra cost. I urge the Minister to give that some thought.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Do you agree that it is a very long-standing courtesy of this House that when one has made a speech, one sits and listens to the speech made by the hon. Member who follows? The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) who, to be fair, is a new Member of the House, walked out very soon after my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) began his speech. That is a growing and very unattractive habit which is creeping into the House. Would you be kind enough to point out gently to the hon. Lady, or any other hon. Member who may act in that way, that it is against a long-standing courtesy of the House as we have all understood it?

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I confirm what he has said. I imagine that all hon. Members will read Hansard.

We have had a most interesting debate, which has taken us through the tourist delights of the whole of the United Kingdom. I congratulate the Minister on the enthusiasm that he displayed when he opened our debate. As he said, it is regrettable that we have not had a debate on tourism since 1988, almost five years ago. Many hon. Members have referred to the Northern Ireland tourist board and I wish to restrict my remarks to the tourism industry in Northern Ireland.

The news from Northern Ireland is very good with regard to tourism. I have heard some hon. Members complain about their tourism industry today and I listened to them with interest. However, I can be very upbeat about the progress of tourism in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is well known for its many attractive places such as the Giant's Causeway, for fishing and for the lakes of Fermanagh, the Mourne mountains and, I am glad to say, for Strangford lough, which is one of the most attractive areas in the whole island of Ireland. However, those places are not all that Northern Ireland provides. I want to give the House some facts and figures about how the tourist industry has progressed in the Province.

In Great Britain and across the world, one only hears of Northern Ireland from the occasional incidents of terrorism which are shown on television screens. One does not hear of the great progress that has been made in education, agriculture, industry—and tourism. Many people may find it suprising that tourism is advancing so well in Northern Ireland with the backcloth of terrorism. Of course, one must remember that terrorism is restricted to specific areas in Northern Ireland and is not widespread.

We have the figures for tourism in Northern Ireland up to March 1992. For the third consecutive year, our tourist industry has increased. Visits were made to the Province by 1·2 million people in 1992. When one considers that our population is only 1·6 million people, one can see that that is a fantastic number coming to visit Northern Ireland in a year. Many of those visits would have been family and business trips from Great Britain, but the number of purely holiday visitors was up by 18 per cent. to 263,000.

The Northern Ireland tourist board is well on target to achieve its 1994 figure of 1·6 million visitors, including 425,000 purely holiday visitors. It is interesting to see the source of those visitors. Recently, we have commenced, in co-operation between the Northern Ireland tourist board and the southern Irish tourist board, Bord Failte, to promote Ireland as a whole in Europe and North America as well as in London and Great Britain.

It is good to see that, in 1992, Northern Ireland got 380,000 visitors from the Republic of Ireland, which is an increase of 11 per cent. I welcome that increase because one of the problems in the whole island of Ireland is the lack of knowledge that many southern Irish people have of Northern Ireland. Only a small percentage of southern Irish people have ever visited northern Ireland; many others judge it by what they read in the newspapers. During the debate, hon. Members from the north of England complained that many people from the south of England had never visited the north and, likewise, are ignorant of the tremendous tourist delights in northern England.

Despite those 380,000 visitors from the Republic of Ireland in 1992, Britain remains our main market. We had 650,000 visitors from Scotland, England and Wales, of which 75,000 came for holidays. That was an increase of 7 per cent. On the continent of Europe, we are advancing strongly, with people from Germany, France, Holland and Italy—in that order—being the main holidaymakers in Northern Ireland. Germany sent 23,000 holiday visitors to Northern Ireland in 1992, which was an increase of 10 per cent. Holland sent 7,600 holiday visitors and Italy, 6,700.

The North American market is important to Northern Ireland. There are 44 million people in the United States who claim Irish background. More than 50 per cent. of them claim Scots-Irish background which, of course, is Northern Ireland. A minority of the Irish claim Gaelic-Irish background—a fact which is sometimes overlooked. Traffic between Belfast and Canada is greater than that between Dublin and Canada. That shows the strength of the Ulster-Scot connection in Canada. In 1991, we had 51,000 visitors from North America, which was an increase of 9 per cent. on the previous year.

One can see that the news on tourism is good for Northern Ireland. We are attracting more tourists from the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain, Europe and North America. Much of that is the result of something to which the Minister referred—the reorganisation of the Northern Ireland tourist board. That reorganisation has taken effect and is in place. Much of the credit must go to the former Minister, the hon. Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham), for his enthusiasm in developing the tourist industry and reorganising the tourist board.

Today, the tourist board is chaired by the hon. Hugh O'Neill, who comes from a well-known Ulster family which has served the Province for hundreds of years. He carries on that tradition of service to the community with enthusiasm to develop our tourist industry. The recently appointed chief executive of the tourist board is Mr. Ian Henderson. He was employed by the board in other positions and, therefore, has been an important contributor to the development of the work of the tourist board and the growth of the tourist industry in the Province.

The tourist board is important in advertising tourism and giving grants to tourist projects in Northern Ireland. However, there is more to tourism than simply media coverage and grants. Transport and access to the area are important. Support and interest from the European Community, which is involved in the subject of our debate, is important, as is a special fund for Northern Ireland called the International Fund for Ireland. We benefit from that fund which does not exist elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Major projects are being developed across the Province at present. I think of the European Community scheme for the visitors' park at Millisle in my constituency which was aided under the cross-border tourist project. Unfortunately, I understand that the Community has ended that scheme. The scheme resulted in a £1 million project in the small village of Millisle. That was welcome investment.

European Community support has been given to the new St. Patrick's trian project in the ancient city of Armagh. It is right in the centre of that city below the old St. Patrick's Church of Ireland cathedral. Armagh is the Canterbury and Durham combined of Northern Ireland. It is the ecclesiastical capital of all Ireland and a beautiful old city. The project will be a tremendous source of tourism for the city when it is completed at the end of this year.

The old Navan fort just outside the city of Armagh is being restored. [Interruption.] The Minister has been there. That is fairly impressive. The fort was the seat of the ancient kings and queens of Ireland, based once again at the city of Armagh. The project is being funded to a considerable extent by the International Fund for Ireland. The IFI and the EC are important sources of finance and have contributed to an impressive growth of tourism in the Province in recent years.

I wish to put it on the record that I was saying that I am assured by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage that I must not fail to visit the Navan fort because of its importance and excellence.

I hope that the Minister will visit it. I look forward to meeting him there, because I live not far from the location.

The growth of tourism contributed £217 million in 1991—the last year for which figures are available to me—to the economy of Northern Ireland; hon. Members can see how important it is to a small Province of 1·5 million people that our tourist industry provides more than £200 million.

As I said, transport is important. It is no good advertising a place and obtaining IFI and EC grants if people cannot travel to the Province. The Government have a role to play in the various transport systems. I accept that the Government may not have a role to play in the ferry services by private operators, but they have a role in the development of the road and rail systems that lead to ferry ports.

The Larne-Stranraer ferry is the busiest ferry between the island of Ireland and Great Britain. We also now have an excellent Sea Cat and hovercraft service between Belfast and Stranraer. We hope that there will be a service between Belfast and Liverpool later this year. It is also important that we have road systems to service those ports. That is where the Government could help us more, by, for example, improving the road to Larne. The road to that major port—the largest in the island of Ireland—is still not dualled all the way to Larne. We need the Government to submit a programme to the European Community to upgrade that road so that we can benefit from European regional development fund finance.

Equally, it is no use having a good road to Lame and the best ferry service between Ireland and Great Britain, if there are not good roads to and from Stranraer in the west of Scotland. The main road is the A75. We hope that the Scottish Office will do its utmost to improve the roads in western Scotland because we find them a disappointment.

Many Northern Ireland people go to Scotland for their holidays. Probably more people go to Scotland than anywhere else. The roads and ferries in the west of Scotland are chock-a-block with Ulster motor cars and caravans. But the roads are not good and we need an improvement.

We also need an improvement of the road from Dublin to Belfast. That is not mainly the responsibility of the British Government. It is the responsibility of the Dublin Government. But the United Kingdom Government should make every effort to encourage Dublin to upgrade the road system from Dublin to the border and to apply for grants from the European Community to do so. Under the provisions of the Maastricht treaty, the Dublin Government will be able to benefit from EC funds as no one else can—through the cohesion fund. The Dublin Government should use that to improve the road system to Northern Ireland.

Railways are also important. I am glad to say that the Belfast-Dublin railway is being upgraded and will be a first-class communication system between the two cities. Likewise, the Northern Ireland Office is investing £75 million in a project, already under construction, for an impressive cross-city rail link in Belfast city to link the two railway systems of the north and south of the Province. Thereby, one will be able to travel by rail direct from Larne harbour to the centre of Belfast, which is to be commended and is a great step forward.

One worry is the Government's proposal for upgrading the railways in Great Britain and I again appeal for further consideration to be given to upgrading the railway system in the west of Britain up to Glasgow. Only when that is upgraded can we in the western part of Scotland and in Northern Ireland advance our tourist industry.

Aldergrove airport in Belfast is the sixth busiest airport in the United Kingdom and is advancing every year, reflecting the growth in the tourist industry. We now have international flights to France and the Netherlands and for about five years we have had direct flights to Amsterdam. I went there last weekend with the Round Table from my constituency and I was interested to see that the plane was packed—there was not an empty seat on the flight to Amsterdam and I could see only two empty seats on the way back, although I do not think that we lost any members of our party.

It is good to see a new service of that nature—operated by KLM through City Hopper—doing so well. I should like more European connections to be developed between Belfast and the continental mainland.

There has also been further growth in flights from Belfast to North America. Globespan has moved into the city and operates direct charter flights between Belfast and Toronto. Interestingly, one can fly from Belfast to Toronto for £160 return, but the return flight from Belfast to London costs up to £206. It is therefore cheaper to go on holiday to Toronto than to London, which is not good news for the British tourist industry.

Flights from the United States to the Republic of Ireland are important to North American tourism in Ireland. In these days of a single market, what happens in the Republic of Ireland is a legitimate concern of this House and of Europe. In Northern Ireland, we co-operate with the Republic to promote tourism. As I said, 44 million people in the United States of America have connections with Ireland, mostly with Northern Ireland.

Flights from America to Dublin are an important gateway for tourists coming to Northern Ireland, but the Dublin Government have rigidly refused permission for direct flights from the United States to Dublin and still make it a condition that no flight can come from America to Dublin unless it first stops at Shannon airport, which is not what people want. People want to get to Dublin, and if they get there they will come to Northern Ireland, and assist our tourist industry.

A fortnight ago, I was in Washington and I met many prominent Irish Americans, including some senators and congressmen. Everywhere I went in the capital I promoted the idea of direct flights. In that respect, I am helping the Americans, as they want access to Dublin airport without having to stop elsewhere. Since we have an interest, and we have the Anglo-Irish Agreement, that is a matter on which the British Government could make representations to Dublin to ease restrictions on flights from North America to the Republic and especially to Dublin airport.

I have one somewhat critical comment on the International Fund for Ireland. I praised it earlier and its money has been most useful to Northern Ireland. I know many of the projects that it has assisted and have read in detail its annual reports for the six years that it has been in operation. I have also discussed those reports with members of the IFI board, who represent the Canadian and United States Governments. As the House knows the European Community also helps to finance the International Fund for Ireland.

Having placed on record the fact that the IFI does good work, I should like to mention a problem that is special to Northern Ireland. I must be careful about how I phrase this. Northern Ireland has a divided society. Some villages are predominantly Protestant while others are predominantly Catholic. It is always important for the Government and their agencies and for public authorities financed by the United States, Canada and the EC to ensure that the agencies and those who distribute the funds act in an even-handed manner.

The International Fund for Ireland recently proceeded with a scheme to regenerate 20 villages in Northern Ireland. That involves the provision of heritage centres or small museums or the improvement of buildings that have fallen into decay. One of the problems is that, although the majority community in Northern Ireland is Protestant, the IFI selected 20 villages that were all Catholic. That decision may have been made in all innocence, but it creates the wrong perception in Northern Ireland. It creates resentment, and that breeds other things that are bad for the Province.

I am using this occasion to appeal to the board of the International Fund for Ireland to look more carefully at how it selects villages in Northern Ireland and to ascertain how it ended up financing only villages that are lived in by one section of the overall community. The Governments of the United States and Canada and the European Community would be greatly embarrassed if an independent inquiry into the allocation of funds by the International Fund for Ireland concluded that they had been allocated on a sectarian basis.

I welcome the first debate in the House on tourism for five years. I join the right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor) in recognising the fine work of the Northern Ireland tourist board.

We are debating an industry which is worth £25 billion to the British economy. It is a successful industry, which employs 1·4 million people and competes fiercely with other countries. It is massively fragmented, with hotels, heritage and leisure attractions, historic towns and houses, retail outlets and country and seaside resorts—to name but some of its constituent parts. The tourist industry is good for Britain and, with a little more help from its friends it could be even better. It is to be admired and should be discussed regularly in the House. In that context, I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister's willingness to try to persuade the authorities to arrange for an annual debate on tourism.

The report on tourism produced by the Select Committee on Employment in July 1990 contained 25 recommendations to the Government and to bodies in the industry about how to improve the quality of tourism. It would be instructive for the House to dwell for a few moments on what has happened to those recommendations. I shall not refer to all of them, but I urge the Minister, if he has not already done so, to look at them and to weigh up the progress made in implementing some of those suggestions.

The first recommendation was that there should be no change in the structure of the tourist industry. There has been no change in that structure, but what will be the effect of cutting by one third the grant to the English tourist board? What will be left of the board?

Hon. Members have already mentioned the reduction in grant to the English tourist board. It is hard to see how a fragmented industry such as tourism can do as well when it needs co-ordination, organisation and a English tourist board that is strong and proactive, not emasculated, as I fear it will be if the grant is reduced by a third or more in years to come.

The Select Committee's second recommendation was that there should be no change in departmental responsibility. That was the consensus in 1990, and in 1992 the Department of Tourism was set up—sorry, the Department of National Heritage. It was interesting that the Minister referred to the golden thread of tourism running through the work of his Department. Some of us felt that it could have easily been called the Department of Tourism, but that was not to be. The Committee's recommendation in 1990 was borne out of the belief that inertia was inevitable. We were wrong, and the new Department is to be welcomed if it believes in the value of tourism to this country.

The Committee warned of the dangers of competitive subsidies for tourism. We were thinking of the need to keep up with the support given to tourist industries in other European countries and elsewhere in the world. In the past three years, support for our industry has declined in cash and real terms, while in other countries the support given to their industries has substantially increased.

Does my hon. Friend realise that what he is saying is not universally true? I think that I am right in saying that Canada and Australia, which also have mature tourist markets, concentrate on overseas promotion. When internal promotion is being considered, the need changes.

If my hon. Friend will allow me to develop my argument, he will see that I am referring not only to the ETB, but to the BTA. I have an important point to make in that context, which will, I think, deal with my hon. Friend's observation.

We have seen a decline in cash and real terms. The grant to the ETB has been substantially reduced, while the BTA has suffered a reduction in its grant in real terms, brought about by the decline in the value of the pound over the past six months. That means that the BTA's ability to spend in overseas markets to tell people in other countries about the glories of Britain has been reduced.

That issue should be directly addressed by the Department of National Heritage. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider that matter to see whether he can find a means of restoring the value of the contribution made to the BTA by public funds to enable it to continue its vital work.

The Committee mentioned the tourism information centres, which have already been referred to in the debate. They make a tremendous contribution to the tourism infrastructure of this country. They need resources if they are to be an effective shop window for tourism in localities throughout the United Kingdom.

There is a danger that, as a result of the recession, those tourism information centres are having to bear financial pressures. It is important that all of us who admire the work of the industry recognise the tremendous contribution made by the tourist information centres and urge all those involved—whether the private sector, local authorities or the Government—to ensure that TICs survive and continue to do the excellent work made possible by their many dedicated staff.

The Committee tackled the thorny subject of section 4 grants. In this instance only, it may be helpful if I read to the House the recommendation we made, as nothing has changed since 1990:

"Circumstances in some areas of England are so similar to those in Wales and Scotland that no case could be mounted that would prove that section 4 offered a proper use of public funds in job creation and raising of standards for tourist facilities in Wales and Scotland, but nowhere in England. Therefore, we recommend that section 4 equity partnerships and revolving loan funds be offered on a trial basis to the tourist boards in disadvantaged parts of England. If funds could be made available for this purpose, and boards were required to make no loss on their use, profitability of projects entered into would make the funds grow without more Government input. It is our firm view that public support of tourism targeted to areas of high unemployment and tourist attraction, through judicious expenditure as outlined in these proposals, brings real jobs and lasting prosperity to areas of Britain where other industries find difficulty in flourishing".

Nothing has changed since we made that recommendation to the Government.

We are told today that assisted area status could be conferred on some parts of England particularly associated with tourism—seaside resorts, for instance. It could be helpful if grants were provided for improving boarding houses and small hotels—installing ensuite bathrooms, better facilities and so on—but why cannot the Department of National Heritage take the initiative on this, since it is responsible for tourism? After all, it has a £1 billion budget, as the Minister said in his excellent speech, so surely a few million pounds could be found to assist in these areas.

The Committee report also dealt with the need to streamline the planning processes in rural areas. There has been no sign of that happening, although many local authorities have been more responsive.

I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to welcome the project at Longleat in Wiltshire, where Center Pares will be shortly embarking on the construction of its third holiday village in the United Kingdom. Thanks to the excellent work of my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) and the positive approach to planning adopted by the district council, this exciting project is to go ahead.

The Committee went on to discuss the BTA and ETB campaign to lengthen the holiday season. It is crucial to do everything we can to tell the outside world that the British holiday season does not run just from the first gleam of sun in May to the last gleam in September. It is now an all-weather, all-season holiday package, and it is being promoted with vigour. I welcome the progress that has been made with the provision of wet weather activities and attractions—for example, Rock Circus at Piccadilly and the Center Pares holiday villages which I have already mentioned. Such places do a spendid job and are well known here, but they need to be more widely known overseas.

Many people come to London during the summer; more would come in the winter if they knew about attractions such as Rock Circus, Madame Tussaud's and other places that provide against the wet weather with which we are occasionally blessed in this part of the world.

The Committee also called for a more even distribution of bank holidays. I am delighted that the Department of Employment, which was responsible for tourism until only a short while ago, is consulting on the possibility of moving the May day bank holiday to October. There are differing views in the industry about that proposal. I recognise the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) and of Blackpool pleasure beach operators, who think that it would be advantageous to keep the holiday where it is, but many others in the industry believe that the chance to extend the season with a late October bank holiday would be beneficial. I hope that that will be the outcome of the consultations.

We called on the English tourist board to promote the dispersal of tourists outside London. That is not to say that we did not recognise the excellent work done by the London tourist board, now to be taken over by London Forum. In the past few years, the LTB has been enormously successful in boosting London's attractions, but the Committee wanted tourists to visit other parts of the United Kingdom, and I hope that the Government will continue to help with the infrastructure. Like the right hon. Member for Strangford, I believe that it is crucial to the well-being of the tourism industry.

I hope that my hon. Friend will also think carefully about the report "Tourism and the Environment" which was published a couple of years ago. If we are successful in dispersing tourists out of London, we shall inevitably send them to some of the historic towns of England—York, Canterbury, Oxford, Cambridge and so on—which already attract large numbers of tourists and which undoubtedly, if faced with more, will experience difficulties in managing them. When we talk about dispersal, therefore, it is important to look at the whole package.

As for accessibility for the disabled, I welcome very much the tourism for all campaign, which is bringing real benefits to the disabled, who represent one of the most important growth markets—both disabled people coming to this country and those who live here.

As for the Committee's recommendation about the need to encourage multilingualism among tourist industry employees, I pay tribute to the British Tourist Authority for its "Winning Words" campaign, which has been enormously successful in the last two or three years.

I turn now to the need for resources for the British Tourist Authority and the English tourist board. The ETB's case has already been made in the debate by a number of hon. Members. However, I wish to expand on what I said in answer to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth).

The BTA needs to spend substantial sums, raised from both the private sector—which, of course, we welcome—and public funds, if we are to compete in an increasingly ferocious and competitive international market for tourists. In the last six to nine months, the BTA has effectively been shorn of 15p in every pound of the money that it has available to it for below-the-line promotion of the English and United Kingdom tourist industry. That has created a very serious problem for the BTA.

My hon. Friend the Minister really must address this issue. If it was right and proper for the BTA to have a full pound last September to spend on overseas promotion, how can it now be right for it to have only 85p? I do not see the logic of not tackling that problem, if we believe that the BTA's overseas promotion work is good and worth while. I know that my hon. Friend believes that to be the case, so he must now address the question of where to find the missing 15p in every pound. The Committee was at pains to stress the importance of the BTA'S work overseas. Its importance has not diminished as the competition from other countries has grown fiercer and fiercer.

Implicit in many of the suggestions that I have made and in those to which I have referred in the Select Committee's report is the need for a strong and active ETB and BTA. We spend £2·5 billion a year on training. According to the Budget, a welcome £230 million is to be spent on the long-term unemployed. Nevertheless, the relatively small sums needed to make the ETB and the BTA effective in promoting the tourist industry have not been made available.

If we look back to the Committee's recommendations, I have in mind an additional £5 million for the BTA to spend overseas on tourist promotion. I have also in mind a sum of £5 million to restore the cut in grant that the ETB suffered recently, and also a small contribution to a revolving fund to replace the old section 4 scheme. That would be much more effective than the money that has been allocated in the last few days to training and the long-term unemployed.

Tourism is an industry which is highly geared to employment and to the use of small sums of money to generate large returns. If the Department of National Heritage is not prepared to take action to help the tourist industry in areas of high unemployment where the industry could, with marginal support and encouragement, do extremely well, we shall miss a great opportunity.

I conclude with one salient point about the tourist industry, which is facing tough times. This morning, I received a copy of this month's Holiday Which? Its contents page is revealing. On page 74, we are invited to read about Paris—

"A city that's ideal for a Spring weekend. Use our guide to plan your time and make your money go further—plus plenty of good hotels".

Page 82 asks:

"How much for a room? Find out how much you'll pay for a hotel room this summer, and read why British hotels are so expensive."

Page 90 is on

"Washington and Virginia. Visit the home of American presidents and tour through Civil War battlefields and countryside where European colonists settled."

Page 96:

"Britain's top sites. Our inspections reveal that you could be getting a raw deal."

I recognise that the Consumers Association and Holiday Which? have the interests of consumers at heart, but who speaks for the British tourist industry? Who is prepared to say that we are one of the best in the world, and that we are in the top six? The industry has done marvellously in the past and has gone through hard times in the past two or three years, but it will return to greatness with a little help from its friends. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister speaks up for the industry, but words are not always enough; it needs wholehearted encouragement and selective financial assistance.

I invite the Minister to consider some of the points that have been made, to see whether we can find a way of ensuring that British tourism not only keeps pace with that in other countries but moves ahead, of reducing the imbalance between inward and outward tourism potential, and of establishing the British industry at the top of the tree.

It is apparent from the debate that a number of Conservative Members do not share the Minister's hollow complacency. The hon. Members for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) and for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) and the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) showed that they share the concern of many Opposition Members.

The Minister has been invited to Cornwall, but has not yet been able to come. Fortunately, the Prime Minister visited Cornwall in recent weeks, recognising that the Cornish spring comes earlier than the Paris spring. He said:

"The West Country in a sense is its own best advertisement for tourism; we do not need to tell people about the West Country as a tourist centre, it is instinctively there. When people think about holidays, they will instinctively think of the West Country among other places as somewhere to go."

That was the rationale of the Prime Minister, who was seeking to explain to one of Britain's premier holiday destinations why he and his Government had decided to cut the promotional budget of the English tourist board and the British Tourist Authority. I believe that that cut is a grave mistake.

I agreed with much of what the hon. Member for Blackpool, North said, but he was wrong in one regard. He said that the current contribution of the tourism industry to our GDP was about 4 per cent. It is not. It was almost 4 per cent. in 1989, but it has now slipped to 3·4 per cent. It is precisely because it appears that we shall lose our position in the top five or six international tourist economies that we should be so concerned.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forecasts that, by the turn of the century, tourism will be the biggest single industry in the world. Britain, which founded or invented tourism, looks as if it will slip. It is an extremely important industry at the moment and makes a contribution to the United Kingdom economy three times the size of that of the motor industry. It is bigger than the food, drink and tobacco industries put together, but, let us be clear, we could slip.

Three major structural factors are causing that slip. First, as many hon. Members have said, we suffer from an uneven playing field in comparison with our competitors in the European Community. The holidaymaker reading Holiday Which? is faced with a simple fact. If he chooses an ordinary hotel in Greece, he will be charged 8 per cent. value added tax, in Spain 6 per cent., in France—our most immediate competitor—only 5·5 per cent., while in England our hotels are struggling with a rate of 17·5 per cent.

With the imminent opening of the channel tunnel and the nascent single market, the VAT rate differentials distort the picture. They will encourage the traditional short-break tourist to travel to France and the continent rather than to stay at home. The differentials are a distortion of the single market, which is unacceptable. If the industry had half the political muscle of the motor industry, it would be knocking on the door of No. 10 to make a change. It is a subject for derogation—it is open to Ministers to decide whether to assist the industry by changing VAT.

A second major structural problem facing the industry is the huge discrepancy in the application of fire, health, food and hygiene regulations in some other European Community countries and in Britain. Our competitors find it much easier to circumvent or modify those regulations. An example is the recently introduced regulation on kitchen utensils. To make a traditional club sandwich in a pub, hotel, restaurant or cafe in this country, one must have at least three knives and at least three chopping blocks. Such precautions are not only impractical but extremely costly. The Minister asked to hear about specific problems, and I am sure that the industry will supply him with many.

It is not enough for the Government to set up their own internal task forces to deal with the problem of regulation. Employing poachers to rewrite the game laws has never been a satisfactory basis for changing legislation. Why should there not be an independent commission to take evidence from the industry and others to ensure that there is practical scrutiny?

The third factor is the uniform business rate, to which a number of hon. Members have already referred. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale is no longer here. I raised the issue with the Treasury months ago when it become apparent that the Inland Revenue valuation regulations are paying little regard to the peculiar and special nature of the industry, and the changing and cyclical nature of its business. A business that is effectively open for only four months of the year—perhaps even only six weeks—pays the UBR on a valuation that takes account of a full 12 months' operation. That is inequitable and unfair. The Government need to consider urgently not only the specific questions asked by the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale but the general basis for valuation.

There are one or two other incredibly important factors for the industry which, although within the Government's purview, are perhaps not so much structural as tactical. For example, a number of the areas that have traditionally relied on the holiday industry are affected by disproportionately high water charges. The north-west and the south-west come first to mind. Since privatisation, in the south-west 2 per cent. of the population are now paying for 10 per cent. of the coastline to be cleaned up. The effect has been a huge rise in water charges—16 per cent. in the current year—which are likely to double by the end of the century. The absence since privatisation of any effective national equalisation element and the reduced eligibility for European Community help have compounded the inequality. To some extent, such high charges are also charged for electricity, as many areas in the south-west are far away from the main sources of power generation.

Another issue that has been very much in the mind of the industry in recent months—I had a call from Bath last night which highlighted the matter—is that holiday businesses face the problem of bank costs. I am talking not just about bank charges and interest rates, but about bank costs generally. Since the late 1980s, when many businesses were encouraged by the Government and by the tourist industry's own boards to invest heavily both in property and in improvements, the industry has found itself heavily burdened by bank costs. Many businesses are now in severe financial trouble. It is estimated that the biggest single operator of hotel beds at present is a liquidator. Bank managers and business advisers fell over themselves to encourage wanton increases in indebtedness in the 1980s, yet those who were so ready to provide money then have been only too ready to pull the rug out since.

The industry now faces the threat of rail privatisation. As other hon. Members have said, the railways are extremely important, especially to the far-flung resorts that many of us here represent. British Rail has told me that in 1991–92, 100,000 British Rail passes were sold internationally. After privatisation, who will undertake such a function? The sales of passes doubled in Germany in 1991–92 and British Rail international sales grossed £89 million in that year. Bringing people to this country is precisely the sort of objective that one would think that the Government would have in mind. InterCity services have improved in a number of directions, although sadly, with the threat of privatisation, British Rail has already had to look at some of the through services to major resorts such as Newquay, the most famous, important and beautiful seaside holiday resort in the United Kingdom, and to other resorts that might try to vie with it, such as Blackpool.

There are other ways in which British Rail's activities to encourage the use of trains by holidaymakers have been extremely effective in taking pressure off the roads. A particular example are the park-and-ride schemes in operation for St. Ives, for Looe, in the Yorkshire Dales national park, and on the Settle to Carlisle line.

The tourist industry will be one of the first victims of the disintegration of the national railway system. Hon. Members of all parties, especially in the south-west, know that that is the case.

In that context, I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the representations of hon. Members from all parties about the cuts in the English tourist board. It is not only the centralised board that is being massacred; the regional boards are also affected.

As other hon. Members have said, more than 70 jobs will go as a result of the cuts. Who will be left in the ETB to undertake the important examination to which the Minister referred? What skills will be left for that examination? The seaside resorts initiative, which is extremely important and valuable in a number of areas, is likely to be downgraded. We already have a £4 billion trade deficit in tourism, which is damaging to the national economy as well as to the industry itself, yet the Department of National Heritage appears to be so obsessed with the national lottery that it is ignoring the developments that the industry so desperately needs.

It is in that context, too, that, without in any way criticising the support that the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Northern Ireland and for Wales give to their tourist industries, we must view the extraordinary discrepancy between their enthusiasm for intervention and investment and the attitude that prevails in England. The right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale gave some figures. I am sorry that he is not now in his place, because I should like to give him some additional figures, which the Minister was kind enough to pass to me earlier in the year. Expenditure on tourism per head of population is £6·26 in Northern Ireland; £5·06 in Wales and £3·20 in Scotland.

I do not criticise those figures because tourism is a proper priority. But for England—and in this context, I include the Duchy of Cornwall, even though Cornwall is a separate celtic country—we are talking about the princely sum of 42p.

That is bad enough, but matters are to get worse. By 1995–96, the figures will have increased to £8·60 in Northern Ireland and to £5·39 in Wales. In Scotland, there will be a modest reduction of 6p to £3·14. England and Cornwall, the biggest destinations for holidaymakers, will have the princely sum of 21p per head of population—precisely half the present figure. That is what the Prime Minister meant when he came to Cornwall and told the The Western Morning News that we did not need any promotion because everyone knew instinctively that we were there. How can we compete nationally, let alone internationally, on that basis?

Some 85 per cent. of tourism to the United Kingdom is to England. Nearly half the nights spent away from home by United Kingdom residents are spent in England. That is as high a figure as those for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together, yet we do not have a Department, a Minister or a Cabinet who are committed to the promotion of this vital industry.

The hon. Member for Swindon talked about the Select Committee report. I do not believe that we paid enough attention to its recommendations—in particular to the passage that the hon. Gentleman quoted concerning ways of adapting section 4 grants and making them into effective roll-over grants that did not cost a great deal of money. Rural economies such as Cumbria, Devon, Cornwall, Northumberland and North Yorkshire would benefit enormously from that targeted investment. I hope that the Minister will take that on board and give a firm assurance to all hon. Members that he will look at the matter again.

Tourism is still very vulnerable to the general state of the economy. The Minister himself said that survivors of the recession would be in a better state to take advantage of the new situation. Many people have not survived the recession, however, and we are vulnerable to any squeeze on disposable incomes. Expenditure on tourism is peculiarly subject to such pressures. If we have a national economic revival and if employment improves, it is in tourism that we can gain the most.

It is a sad fact that 11 of the top 20 unemployment black spots identified by the Department of Employment are in areas that predominantly rely on the holiday industry. It is extraordinary that more work is not done to invest in those areas. I have a list, which includes Clacton, Newquay in my constituency, Skegness, Penzance, Torbay, Bideford, Hastings and the Isle of Wight. Those are areas where limited, targeted investment of Government funds would make the most tremendous difference to the local economy and the employment situation.

A number of matters need to be addressed urgently. In addition to the harmonisation of tax, regulations and controls in the European Community, which, sad to say, were totally neglected while the British Government were in the driving seat, we must do something about the inadequacy and inflexibility of the uniform business rate.

We must do something about the inequity of water charges and the way in which they cast especially great burdens on areas of low income and those affected by the tourism industry. In a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), the Prime Minister seemed to give that assurance. However, we have yet to see what the Prime Minister will do about that problem.

We need an emergency package, similar to that negotiated with the lending institutions by the Government on behalf of home owners, to help businesses in a similar position that face repossession at the worst possible moment in the cycle of the property value slump. Most importantly, in order to give new confidence to the industry, the question of funding the boards and the section 4 grants, or their modernised equivalents, is critical if we are to extend the season, to modernise facilities and to ensure that promotional budgets can stand up to international competition.

Even on a Friday, when most hon. Members who represent the more far flung holiday resorts find it difficult to cancel engagements in order to be present in the Chamber, it is clear that there is a groundswell of concern on both sides of the House about what is happening to one of our premier industries. It is vital that we have an annual debate and a Minister prepared to take on board the recommendations of the Select Committee. In addition, we must find another vehicle or mechanism to consider these extremely important issues.

During business questions last week, I suggested to the Leader of the House that tourism was an ideal and important subject in respect of which he could reconstitute for England the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs. A rather long-forgotten Standing Order, No. 100, on which dust seems to have settled, has prevented us from having that Standing Committee.

If we are to harness the all-party enthusiasm and concern for the industry, that Standing Committee would be a very important mechanism for achieving that. I invite the Minister to endorse that request so that we can have more discussion and more effective action on behalf of the industry.

I also welcome the Minister's recommendation that we should have an annual debate on tourism. I believe that the Department of National Heritage was born from my political loins. John Lee, who gave such distinguished service to the House and to tourism, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) and I went to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister before the last general election. We asked him to combine the arts, tourism and our national heritage into one Department, so that we would have a great package for selling Great Britain. I am delighted that that suggestion fell on fertile ground and that the Minister is with us today.

I am very pleased that the Minister mentioned his visit to the Isle of Wight. I am certain that he will not have forgotten the great problem we have with the international sign for a zoo, which is an elephant. He will recall the difficulties that that has caused us when we have tried to use it to advertise a flamingo park.

However, it was of considerable comfort to me to see in today's Times that English Heritage is dealing with a very serious case of tooth decay in a unicorn. I am pleased to see that it is repairing the unicorn using funds from the Department of National Heritage. However, if English Heritage can get the unicorn to open wide to repair its tooth decay, I wonder why I have not been successful in getting English Heritage to open Osbourne house all year round so that our winter tourism can benefit from that wonderful attraction on the Isle of Wight.

As has already been said, tourism employs more than 1·4 million people in the United Kingdom. Of those, 1,115,000 are to be found in England, 185,000 in Scotland and 95,000 in Wales. Tourism accounts for more employment than construction and transport put together. I must also refer—as others have done today—to the fact that Scotland and Wales continue to receive section 4 grants. Scotland, which has only 9 per cent. of the nation's unemployment, gets a third of all taxpayers' assistance in the United Kingdom. That shows the imbalance. This was well alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) in his remarks about the English tourist board.

I recall when I made my contribution to a previous tourism review. In this debate, it has been said that tourism has moved from Department to Department. I also point out to my hon. Friend the Minister that tourism has had many reviews. The previous review was started by my right hon. Friend the party chairman when he was involved in employment. I asked him whether we would examine section 4 grants, and the answer was that they should follow unemployment. That was a much better, more scientific and more logical approach to the whole thing than simply peppering them around the countryside generally.

I think that the fact that section 4 grants were not always seen to be as wisely spent as they might have been was the reason why there was some denigration of the system. If they had followed unemployment, that would have met the point.

The party chairman and the Secretary of State for Health are two protagonists. They are leading members of our party, who take their annual holidays in the United Kingdom. Perhaps, when I greet them on the Isle of Wight in the future, I shall be wearing a kilt and eating a leek. Perhaps I shall have a piece of shamrock in my turban and a heavily nailed shillelagh in my hand to get my point across: does anybody still speak for England?

We must find niches in the holiday market. One has been well found by our tourism office on the island. I pay special tribute to Peter Holyoak and Hal Matthews for producing an excellent brochure only this week on conference opportunities for the island. We have already had the social services conference at which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced the ring fencing for new community care. That was a great success, which went down well in local government.

The conference of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives is coming up later this year. We have the inter-island games which her Royal Highness Princess Anne will open for us. Every year, we have the round-the-island race—the biggest yacht race in the world—and we have Cowes week, which, alternately, is Admiral's cup year. We have the opportunity of attracting more business to fill us up during the shoulder months and to get conference business on to the Isle of Wight because it is profitable.

I have had a letter, as have many other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, about the English tourist board, its finances and so on. Martin Humphrey, the chairman of the commercial members group, makes a specific point which has perhaps not come out strongly in the debate—that the tourism industry has had put on it the EC travel package directive. My hon. Friend knows that the island's Euro Member and I went to see the Department of Trade and Industry. We met the solicitors to get the most difficult parts of the package ironed out.

I believe that Brussels never intended the package to apply to domestic tourism. It certainly was not meant to apply to a hotelier or guest house proprietor on the Isle of Wight who provides a ferry fare with the bedroom charge. We were not successful in that, but I think that we got some of the knobs knocked off it. They have the fire safety furniture regulations in self-catering accommodation—I see the Minister nodding because he knows about the problem—and food hygiene, to which reference has already been made.

I think that my hon. Friend has missed a trick today. We have heard about the VAT threshold being raised in the Budget and the fact that customs officers can now have discretion in misdirected penalties. That will be widely welcomed throughout the tourist industry. Of course, the business rate has been frozen for another year. I know that my hon. Friend, having been a local government finance Minister in the Department of the Environment, will know just how popular that will be with small business which predominate in the tourist industry.

My hon. Friend has missed a trick—the extension of VAT to the bloodstock industry. The bloodstock industry in the United Kingdom is a tremendous tourist attraction. When the Home Secretary came to the House this morning to make an announcement, he was challenged about where he was yesterday. He was at Cheltenham surrounded by Irish people who had come to England to watch the most excellent horse racing in the world. I am sure that that will make a major contribution to our tourism.

As the Minister will be aware, England attracted three quarters of all United Kingdom residents' spending on hotel and residential accommodation when staying away from home. The Isle of Wight has the greatest percentage of repeat holidays of any resort in the United Kingdom. I am sure that you will agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that these days product loyalty—perhaps a little like party loyalty—is rather rarer than dodo manure, but the high level of repeat holidays shows the opportunity for increasing residential United Kingdom tourism. Some £4 billion was spent last year on going overseas. If that money was spent on the Isle of Wight, every pound would be a pound saved from our balance of payments and a help for our balance of trade.

The Minister, a former teacher, mentioned education. I am sure that he will want me to remind the House that, when eventually hon. Members get their lunch today, it may be served by a waiter from the Isle of Wight. As a result of project initiated by me, and of the excellence of the Isle of Wight college of training and technology, five waiters who were trained in silver service on the Isle of Wight obtained jobs in the House. My initiative was in conjunction with Sir Charles Irving, who has given such distinguished service to the House.

When I first set out in politics to become a Member of Parliament, people on the Isle of Wight were displaying in the back of their motor cars a most miserable and nasty sticker which said, "Don't blame me, I'm not a tourist—I live here". I thought that it was awful. We spend a great deal of money attracting people to the island. The Isle of Wight has a great reputation for friendliness in England, Scotland and Wales and internationally. Everyone knows how friendly the Isle of Wight is.

I set out to alter the perception of tourism which that miserable sticker represented. In those days, my campaign was not perceived as a vote winner. My political opponents, the Liberal Democrats, did not see a natural parish for the ballot box, so my campaign was denigrated.

I started an initiative called the "island smile competition". The first prize was lunch at the House of Commons. The second prize was two lunches at the House of Commons. I gave a prize out of my own pocket so that we could find the person who had the most welcoming smile on the Isle of Wight and contributed most to the tourist industry. The competition has been revamped as the "courtesy awards". The tourism industry sponsors it, and it is a great opportunity to find the individual on the Isle of Wight who contributes most to people's enjoyment of their holiday.

One of the leading protagonists in tourism on the Isle of Wight and in changing perceptions is the Conservative-controlled Medina borough council. It has gone out of its way to show that things can be done on the island. It has ignored its detractors and the criticism of the Liberal Democrats to such an extent that the other authorities on the island are trying to follow suit. They are not nearly so successful as the Conservative-controlled Medina borough council. It has tarted up the sea front at Ryde and throughout the borough and built a new complex with a bowling alley and ice rink. Now South Wight council is following suit to some extent.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) made his usual carping criticism. He made a point about water charges in the south-west. The other day, when the matter was raised with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the Chamber, he should have replied that the hon. Gentleman's colleagues took part in demonstrations with "Surfers Against Sewage", the very organisation which has been the protagonist in the campaign throughout Cornwall to improve the water quality of the beaches. Now that the water industry is spending money to improve the quality of bathing water, it is typical of the Liberal Democrats to criticise it. They always want to have their cake and eat it.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Prime Minister should not review water charges in the south-west? If so, many members of the Conservative party who currently represent seats there will be interested to hear it because they know that they are vulnerable to the Liberal Democrat advance.

The hon. Gentleman heard precisely what I said, but, as he did not get the point, I shall repeat it. His colleagues have taken part in demonstrations with Surfers Against Sewage about the quality of bathing waters in Cornwall and have made a lot of publicity and noise about it. Now that the water industry is improving bathing water quality and recouping the capital costs, as always, the hon. Gentleman is the first on his feet to complain about it.

Finally, I must tell the House about a marvellous new Liberal Democrat policy for tourism on the Isle of Wight. They are so in love with cracked pavements that the Isle of Wight county council has spent £160,000 to buy a swimming pool with a crack so large that it is just like a Liberal Democrat policy—it will not hold water. We now have a dry and irreparable swimming pool, at a cost of £160,000. I hope that that will be my hon. Friend's answer to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Tyler) when he says, "We want more funds". If that is what Liberal Democrats would do with it, God help us.

rose——

Order. There are 50 minutes left and six hon. Members wish to catch my eye, so I appeal for some brevity.

I note your suggestion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall try to follow it, but, with respect, it is a bit much when hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have spent the whole morning here, but others, who have taken part in the debate, have already departed. I think that that should be noted.

The debate has been interesting and we have heard from many hon. Members about the great advantages, in both revenue and employment, brought to this country by the tourist industry. I accept that argument and I am pleased that we have got away from the traditional tourist spots. Although I accept that London, Stratford and Edinburgh are still popular, other parts of the country equally offer a great deal to tourists from overseas or from this country.

I am the first Member representing a London constituency to take part in the debate; I hope that other colleagues will be able to participate. London is possibly the most popular tourist centre in the United Kingdom, so some aspects of London should be mentioned, because, with great respect to the Minister, he did not refer to them.

I have been an MP for some time, and I question the amount of planning and co-operation on tourism between the London boroughs. How does one borough interrelate with another? How do they decide to spend the money that the London boroughs contribute to tourism? I understand that the Minister will not reply to the debate, but perhaps he will find time to rise to answer some of my queries, as—to his credit—he has done when leading from the Front Bench in the past.

I understand that soon the London Forum and London First are to be established, to promote the affairs of London. One gets the feeling, however, that they will follow their own plans and policies. The London Forum and the London tourist board are certainly not flavour of the month to many London boroughs. The London boroughs grants committee provides a large sum of money—something in the region of £300,000 a year—to the London tourist board to help to meet its running costs, yet I understand that neither that committee nor the local authorities were consulted about the establishment of the London Forum. It would be interesting to know what its exact role will be and whom it will consult as it starts to develop the function that we understand that it is to perform for London on tourism.

Many of our 32 London boroughs have a great deal to offer and could interrelate, but I wonder how much co-operation there has been within inner and outer London areas.

Hon. Members have spoken about Government Departments. The press handouts for the London Forum came from the Department of the Environment, and the Secretary of State for the Environment has loudly proclaimed the benefits that the forum will bring. The Department of Transport and the Department of National Heritage also have obvious roles. Does each of those Departments know what other Departments are doing?

As always, there is no rancour between us on these issues. I am delighted to tell the hon. Gentleman that Departments know what other Departments are doing. One good reason for that is the establishment of the Cabinet Committee on London in which these issues, including relationships between the London boroughs, are co-ordinated and discussed in depth. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of relationships and I am glad to give him that assurance.

I am pleased to hear that reassurance. We shall watch to see what takes place.

I thought that I had demonstrated during the Minister's speech that what he has just said in his intervention is not true. I asked why it was costing £15,000 of taxpayers' money to pay for the London Forum's breakfast launch. The Minister did not know anything about that. I do not know what his Department is talking about, but it is not talking about bacon and eggs.

The Minister will need to send a letter not only to me but to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) on the matter that my hon. Friend has again raised.

In view of the request for brevity, I shall just touch on some issues. If there were more time, I should go into them in more detail. Coach parking presents inner London with enormous problems. One has only to walk along Millbank any day of the week to see enormous congestion. Extra parking facilities have been provided, but are they sufficient? Not only British but ever-increasing numbers of European coaches come to London. They need to be able to park without hassle to the tourists on the coaches or the drivers. They should be able to park for an hour or two so that passengers can get off and see the parts of London that they want to see.

Hon. Members spoke about transport deregulation. It is interesting to read the comments of Saga, a world-famous travel organisation catering not only for British people but for people in all parts of the world. It has expressed enormous concern about the proposed legislation on the privatisation of British Rail. Saga currently knows who it is trading with and can get good deals, but it is deeply concerned about the number of private operators it will be forced to deal with compared with the number that it deals with now. That issue must be considered.

Some Conservative Members have expressed concern about Government funding. I and other hon. Members have served on the Council of Europe. Places in Europe have twinning arrangements with places in this country and many others. Other European countries put a real effort into that and it brings life to twinned areas. However, British local authorities have a poor record on financing twinning arrangements. That also needs to be examined.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) and other hon. Members spoke about hotel costs. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) asked how my hon. Friend could relate those issues to the Labour party's commitment to the social chapter. When a comparison was made between a hotel in Birmingham and a hotel in Rouen, France—a comparison of like with like—it was found that the hotel room in Rouen was £24 a night cheaper than the hotel room in Birmingham.

We hear much talk about our commitment to the social chapter and the enormous disadvantages that it would bring to this country were we to subscribe to it and accept the conditions to which the other 11 members of the European Community adhere. The article in Which? clearly outlines the difference between the costs of hotel rooms and shows the myth of that argument. We should face up to reality, not to the myths that some Conservative Members try to create.

The report of the National Economic Development Council published in July last year was highly critical of many aspects of the tourist industry. It stated:

"1. Quality…The industry must achieve world-class standards, and concentrate on the management of quality.

2. Government and Industry. The industry must accept that it has much to do to make itself modern, efficient, competitive and attractive as a career."

The report says of tourist information centres:

"These make a vital contribution to the industry. Arrangements have to ensure: that there are enough of them in the places where they are needed; that they provide high quality and consistent service".

Sadly, we know that that is not the case.

The report continues:

"The uneven level of support by local authorities for tourism and its needs should be ended; they should be given a statutory duty to provide adequate, consistent tourism centres for their localities."

I could give more and more examples from the report, which was published nine months ago, and much of which is still extremely relevant to our debate.

I shall bear in mind your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you have always been fair to me when I have sought to catch your eye, and I accept that other hon. Members want to participate in the debate. Therefore, I shall bring my speech to an end.

We have much to offer that could benefit us all. We must realise that we cannot just say, "The United Kingdom—what a great country." We face more and more competition from those countries that now call themselves central European—part of the old Russian empire of yesteryear. People are going to those countries in ever-increasing numbers, as there is much to be seen there.

Until last November when my term of office expired, I was treasurer of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Delegations came to this country and I spent many hours inquiring about the costs of hotel rooms. Many of the medium grade—not top-quality—hotel rooms in London are an absolute rip-off. They used to offer bed and breakfast, but now they offer only the room, at a heavy cost. If people want breakfast, as many of them do, they are required to pay a substantial additional charge over and above the cost of the room. Will the Minister use his influence with hotel organisers in London to persuade them to consider how they manage their costs? I speak from the experience of having been the treasurer of one of the major all-party organisations in this country.

This debate has been superb. There has not been much Government bashing, as the subject is of interest to us all. I look to the Minister to reply to my points and, so that I may keep in the good books of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West, to my hon. Friend's comments as well.

Not only the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) but some of us Conservative Members should express gratitude to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) for being so brief. We know that he would have liked to say a great deal more.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage on the tremendous record of the tourism industry that he set out the work, the enterprise and the activity which, together, amount to an annual turnover of £25 billion in terms of firms' incomes, of employment and of expenditure by the public. I also congratulate him on the 50 per cent. increase in tourism in Britain in the past 10 years, reaching a record in 1992 despite the recession; and on the fact that 1·5 million people work in tourism.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) disparaged the Budget in the context of tourism, but he did not mention the low tax announced by the Chancellor on the forthcoming national lottery. That relates to tourism, because the national lottery is designed to produce funds for sport, the arts, heritage, the millennium fund and charities. All those, with the possible exception of charities, help to generate tourism. By keeping the tax rate on the lottery low, the prospects for prizewinners will be increased and more money will be available for these good causes. There were fears a few months ago of a tax rate of 20 per cent. or even more, and it is a tremendous tribute to the Secretary of State for National Heritage and to the Under-Secretary, who have been making strong representations to the Treasury, that they have persuaded the Chancellor to keep the tax rate low, thereby making certain that the national lottery gets off to a good start. That will help the arts and other causes, and it will help to boost tourism.

It is remarkable that we are sixth in the world in terms of our income from tourism. Four of the first five have a lot more sunshine than we have; the fifth has a lot of alpine mountains—Austria—and a great deal of sunshine, too. People cannot count on fine weather in this country, but they do not come to Britain for our weather. They come for our heritage, arts, royal castles and palaces, museums, galleries, villages and towns. They come to see our opera, ballet and orchestral concerts. In all these, we have a great deal to offer—far more than most other countries.

The hon. Member for Tooting referred to London. I am glad to see the English tourist board preparing for a London festival next year to boost London as one of the arts capitals of the world.

We must protect our heritage. English Heritage does a first-class job. If we do not protect it, future generations will curse us, and they will be right to do so.

One aspect of all this has been largely left out of the debate: the monarchy. I believe that the monarchy and the Queen are tremendous tourist attractions—a great draw. We have the best Queen in the world; she is hugely respected and admired, and she is a great draw for tourists. It is important for tourism that we keep our monarchy as it is. Tourists, as well as the British people, would rather we had a grand and splendid monarchy than a bicycle-riding monarchy of the sort favoured by Opposition Members and such as one might find in Scandinavian or Benelux countries.

The British people do not want us to become a banana republic. We should keep our royal yacht, our royal train and the Royal Mail. We should keep our military bands, which are trained at the Royal Military school of music at Kneller Hall in Twickenham. It produces the finest Army bands, whose standards of excellence are the envy of the world. They lift the spirits of, the nation. Who does not thrill to the sound of a British Army band?

My hon. Friend will agree, perhaps, that this House is a tourist attraction in itself. The messages that are taken back to many countries after people have listened to the speeches today will be a reflection of that fact. Does my hon. Friend agree that this House is itself a tourist attraction?

Yes it is, and that should be fostered. Furthermore, this House should not hand any of its powers to any foreign body.

I should have loved to follow up many of the interesting strands in the speech of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel). However, I do not have time to do so. All I would say is that if that speech does not get him a knighthood, I do not know what will.

I should also have liked to speak at some length about the attractions of the London borough of Newham to tourists. I remember people mocking me when I suggested that a long Sunday walk down the north London sewer outfall is a very pleasant occupation, but it is a very pleasant occupation for those who know it. Newham is an interesting part of London. It has a rich historic legacy. The area is steeped in Labour traditions. There are many things that are worth coming to Newham to see.

I jotted down some of our advantages. We have our own port on the Thames. We also have our own airport, football team—West Ham—a good motorway and railway links. Furthermore, the Greenwich meridian runs right through the constituency. When I come out of my constituency office I cross from the west to the eastern hemisphere. We are superbly poised to go for independence, to stake our claim in the United Nations and to arbitrate in the world between east and west. There are so many advantages going for us in Newham.

With Government assistance, through the money that they provide for the city challenge programme, we are developing our tourist attractions. Other Ministers have been to Newham. If the Minister with responsibility for tourism has not already stepped into Newham, I hope that he will come and have a look at the things that we have got which could extend the tourist industry of London away from the centre, with which we here are associated, and move it to the east.

Many things need to be done for London generally. Tourism is an enormous industry for this capital city. It earned an estimated £4·4 billion for London in 1991—£3·6 billion being spent by overseas visitors and £720 million by British visitors. I only wish that we could offer them more facilities—more reliable transport, for example—and much higher quality souvenirs. I despair of some of the trash, brought here from Hong Kong and Taiwan, that is being sold not a few yards from the Palace of Westminster. I should like tourists to go away with souvenirs of a far higher quality than some of the trash that is hawked on the streets of London at the moment.

The London tourist board has done an excellent job of promoting tourism in the capital city. It has listed a number of problems. Unfortunately, I shall be unable to do them justice. However, the London tourist board refers to the fact that one of the problems in London is the growth of touting for theatre tickets and other events and also for hotel rooms and, most recently, hackney carriages. The LTB says that touting is undesirable and that it damages London's reputation for fairness, honesty and value for money.

We do not want visitors to our capital city to be ripped off by predators. It does nothing for the reputation of London. All it does is to lower it. We want people to leave our capital city having enjoyed their time here and wanting to come back, knowing that there are things here that they can see and enjoy and that they will not be ripped off while they are here.

The London tourist board suggests that ticket agencies should be licensed by the local authority and that it should be a legal requirement to inform the customer at the moment of purchase of the face value of a ticket so that an informed choice can be made. It suggests also that the touting of tickets outside major events should be banned. I know that the Minister will not reply to these points, but the London tourist board has made them and I assume that the Minister will be sympathetic towards them.

I am more than sympathetic; I am acting on all the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. We are currently addressing these very important issues.

Splendid. I am glad to hear that in between dodging, ducking and diving around all these lunches, dinners and trips abroad, the Minister still has time to nail his feet for a little while in London and speak to the London tourist board.

I hope that the Minister is also doing something about another concern of the LTB: the need for fairly speedy decisions on the big transport infrastructure investments that will also mean a great deal to tourism. The channel tunnel fast link is not part of the Minister's brief, but it touches very much on it as he is the Minister with responsibility for tourism. Decisions are also needed speedily on crossrail, the Thames link and the London underground system.

The London tourist board—keep nodding, Minister—said that deregulation is not a good thing. I do not see the Minister nodding in agreement with that. Those who know realise that deregulation will make it more difficult for tourists, never mind those who live here, to understand how the bus system operates. He should listen carefully to the advice that is being proffered.

The Minister would describe my last point as somewhat more carping. My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) mentioned the London Forum, about which I am becoming very worried. Under the current financial arrangements, the London tourist board receives more than £300,000 from the London boroughs. Representatives of the major local authority associations—Conservative and Labour—sit on the London tourist board. The London Forum has been set up by the Government and consists, essentially, of unelected business men and one business woman. I find that disturbing.

Why are the Government always so suspicious of local authority representation? Why do they not like elected people? It is strange that elected people in this place are so mistrustful of other elected people, including members of their own party, on local authorities.

London Forum has been charged with the promotion of London tourism. It is effectively taking to itself the functions of the London tourist board, but without the accountability that we require. I tabled a series of questions to an environment Minister about the functions, responsibilities and remit of the London Forum, what expenses its members will be paid, how they were selected, whether he would give details of its budget, what it will be doing, why the Government found it necessary to set it up and why there are no local authority representatives on it when a substantial amount of its finance will come indirectly from local authorities. The reply stated that London Forum

"will be a private sector company which will look to the private sector for its funding",

except that it will receive money indirectly from local authorities.

The Minister informed me today that the breakfast to launch the London Forum will cost £15,000—not private sector money but public money. I still want to know how £15,000 can be spent on a breakfast. That can buy an awful lot of eggs and bacon, and many people in London would like to go to a breakfast that cost £15,000. It will be champagne all the way and I shall see the Minister there. But if we are to have a body responsible for tourism in London, it should be accountable to the people of London.

If there is one thing that should emerge from this debate it is that the tourism industry is a front-line industry and is recognised as such. Let there be no doubt again about the role of tourism in our economy. It employs 1·5 million people and has grown by about 27 per cent. in the past 10 years, compared with growth of only 2 per cent. in other industries. It is the most important industry we have. It employs legions of people whose livelihoods depend on it.

I pay tribute to the British Tourist Authority—the overseas marketing arm that has made tourism so successful in this country. For three years running, it has won the National Tourist Office award in New York, which is a great credit to it. My hon. Friend the Minister, who spoke so well and with such ebullience and enthusiasm, referred to its award in Dublin. It receives about 1·5 million inquiries each year, operates in 65 countries and runs 400 joint schemes. That combination has yielded the enormous benefits of growth in our tourism.

I should like to pay a brief tribute to William Davis, who is retiring as chairman of the BTA and the English tourist board. He has always been wholly committed to his work for the BTA and the ETB and has undertaken it with enthusiasm and efficiency. He has always worked extremely hard for tourism in this country.

Last night I received a report from Mr. John Trickett, a senior director of one of the largest United States tour operators, which was flown over especially from California. He drew my attention to a number of complaints about the way tours of this country are put together for American tourists. However, he also said:

"The UK continues to be the largest European destination for American tourism, there is however a great untapped potential. Were Britain able to more effectively present itself in the American market… I feel there is opportunity for a much greater number of American visitors each year".

That brings me to the shortfall in the BTA's budget because of the lower value of the pound, an issue which has already been mentioned. It affects our marketing offensive in the United States. With the £11 million highlighted for overseas marketing, coupled with £27 million raised in the private sector, the BTA has done a remarkable job, especially when one considers the £25 billion that the industry generates for this country. However, we need to put money into the marketing effort to take quick advantage of the lower exchange rate in order to get more visitors from America and elsewhere. We could achieve an immediate response if we went about it in the right way.

The Yorkshire and Humberside tourist board has an allocation of £500,000 a year. In addition, it raises £1 million a year, which is a great tribute to its director, Mr. Handley. It does a great job, but let us compare the money available to the English tourist board and, ultimately, to the regions, with that available to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for 1994–95. On a per capita basis, Wales will receive £5·39, Scotland will receive £3·14, Northern Ireland £8·60 and England 21p It is ridiculous that the Treasury allows such sums of money to go to Wales and Scotland, whereas the promotion funds for England, which has by far the largest tourist industry, are severely pruned. Let us remember that the Yorkshire and Humberside region itself is larger in population than Scotland.

Another issue that I believe should be reviewed is the number of tourist boards. On the map of the United Kingdom, there is a line through the centre, with boards to the left and to the right. There is a case for discussion to see whether we should amalgamate some of them, especially to draw the east and the west more closely together. I suggest that that issue should be considered in the consultations, which I was so delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary announce.

Industrial Heritage Year is of major importance to this country. It will, of course, highlight our historic manufacturing base, but, more important, it will also allow and encourage more firms to cater for tourists to this country to show how modern Britain operates. The modern element of Britain is as great a tourist attraction as our museums and heritage. I welcome the fact that Tetleys of Leeds is spending £6 million to upgrade its tourist arrangements so that people visiting the brewery will have a much better demonstration of its functions.

Our catering industry has done us proud. I pay tribute to the Restaurateurs Association of Great Britain and the Académie Culinaire de France. Those two organisations have worked miracles for food standards in restaurants the length and breadth of this country. The RAGB award schemes that they have introduced to encourage young chefs and waiters have been exceptionally well received. They have enhanced the standing of the catering industry and of the food that we enjoy. Let no one say that British food is not the best in the world.

I express my gratitude to hon. Members who have made it possible for some of us to find a slot in this very good debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and the business managers on finding time in which to have this debate, and I heartily endorse my hon. Friend's comment about making it a regular annual event. From the interest shown and the quality of speeches today, it is clear that tourism is of considerable interest to many hon. Members and to their constituents, so the more regularly we can have such debates the better.

There is great interest in tourism in all parties. The all-party group is ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) and there is also the Conservative Back-Bench tourism committee, of which I have the honour to be joint secretary. I am sure that there are equivalent bodies in other parties.

Tourism matters to our constituencies and to the country as a whole. In Eastbourne, which is a quality resort above all, tourism means £90 million a year and almost 6,000 jobs. Much has been and is being done by the Government and by others to help tourism. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) said that there was nothing in the Budget for tourism. He is wrong; there is much in the Budget for businesses, and especially for small businesses. About £1 billion-worth of burdens have been removed from businesses across the board, and many of the businesses affected are in the tourism sector.

I heartily endorse the abolition of the wages councils, which was mentioned earlier. For the first time—I mention this because a churlish note has crept into the debate at times—we have a Cabinet Minister with direct responsibility to speak for tourism.

I welcome the Minister's announcement about regional conferences. The change in the exchange rate has been advantageous and will continue to be so. Several of my hon. Friends have mentioned the exciting benefits of the English tourist board's seaside resorts campaign which, in its second year, involves 41 resorts, including Eastbourne. I draw attention to the partnership between the ETB and the public and private sectors in my constituency, and to the important and pivotal role of the Eastbourne Marketing Group. Local initiatives are often the best.

What more can be done? Like most hon. Members, I have a few suggestions. We need another Minister in the Department of National Heritage to build on the success of the new Department. We need to work at cutting bureaucracy and over-regulation, whether on working hours, on the social chapter, on the package holidays directive or whatever. My hon. Friend the Minister should talk to our right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to ensure that standard spending assessments for holiday resorts reflect more closely than they do now expenditure on promoting tourism and on providing facilities for tourists. The SSAs should also take proper account, as I believe they may do in the coming year, of day visitor statistics.

Other hon. Members have mentioned assisted area status, which is also important. The ETB's review of assisted areas in Britain in September 1992 says:

"Coastal Resort TTWAs tend to suffer from higher than average unemployment rates but below average long-term unemployment".

It points out that such areas have a high reliance on seasonal employment. The redefining of the travel-to-work areas map for coastal resorts is long overdue; I hope that there will be some movement on that.

I do not intend to discuss the vexed question of section 4 grants at length. We have heard that 85 per cent. of United Kingdom tourism is in England. There is a need for something, perhaps a development beyond section 4 grants, to assist in upgrading hotels and the like. Perhaps we need a better funded alternative along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs). From talking to local hoteliers and others, I find that they regard section 4 grants as a litmus test of the Government's concern for and interest in tourism. A more highly targeted and more selective means of aiding tourism, especially in England, would be helpful.

I very much endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) who spoke with great authority about the need to create more jobs in this important area. The tourism industry does not need handouts or long-term subsidy. It is not an industry with no future: it has a great past and an even greater future.

The tourism industry is labour-intensive. The ETBBTA report on tourism and employment training pointed out that, between September 1985 and September 1991, the number of jobs in tourism-related industries increased on average by 17·8 per cent., with job opportunities in hotel and catering sectors rising by more than 40 and 25 per cent. respectively—and that at a time when the number of jobs in all other industries had increased by only 3·3 per cent. Tourism has the capacity to create jobs very fast as we start the economic recovery. Any investment now will be repaid many times over. It is a matter of pump priming. We also heard how, on the balance of payments, we still have a £4 billion tourism deficit.

I have no doubt whatever about the Minister's personal commitment to this vital sector of our economy and our national life. I have tried to suggest a few ways of developing that commitment and putting it to even better practical effect. I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) who once memorably described tourism as the mortar that binds the bricks of the Department of National Heritage together; and the expression "the golden thread" has been used today.

I firmly believe that tourism encompasses all that is best in Britain. Despite the occasional attempt by Opposition Members to talk down tourism and other sectors of our national life and industry and commerce, I believe that that is still very much the case. Tourism is still vibrant and competitive. It has been coming through the recession better than many other sectors, even though it has had its problems. I believe very strongly that, with a Cabinet Minister, with a new Department, and given the personal commitment of my hon. Friend the Minister, we have nothing but good to look forward to in British tourism, both locally and nationally.

I thank the occupants of the Front Benches for sacrificing their time to allow Back-Bench speeches to continue.

I must begin by revealing to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have two interests to declare. One is that I come from the city of Chester. Chester is to tourism what Maria Callas was to opera, what William Shakespeare was to language and what the Duke of Westminster is to the expression "comfortably well off". Chester is the ultimate, the acme, the jewel in the crown. This is not hyperbole; it is plain, unvarnished truth.

We have the lot—a splendid castle, a magnificent cathedral, just 900 years old, a matchless river. We have the Egon Ronay hotel of the year. This is for your information, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I know that you will be looking forward to your visit. We have a racecourse that is a gem, a theatre that plays to capacity houses, a town crier who never loses his voice. We really have the lot. I imagine that is why the Secretary of State for National Heritage chose to come to Chester a fortnight ago: he felt that he was not properly briefed for his duties in his new Department until he had visited that great historic city—a city which is truly as modern as tomorrow, yet has a lot of time for yesterday.

I have a further interest to declare. I have the honour to be the recipient of a British Tourist Authority "come to Britain" award. I have worked in the tourism industry and I know the challenges it faces, not just in the abstract but hands on. That is why I may be bringing a slightly different perspective to our proceedings. It is also one reason why I applaud the changing balance that the Government are introducing between what they give the BTA and the English tourist board respectively. I know that the balance is very important, and I shall return to that if I get the opportunity.

I received the award from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), who was then Secretary of State for Employment. As we have made clear this morning, the tourist industry is one of the country's key employers. We have talked about how it employs 7 per cent. of those in employment in Great Britain. What was not mentioned today was the fact that the number of employees working in tourism has grown by 27 per cent. between 1982 and 1992.

That is the period during which the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) told us that the ETB was constantly attacked and the amount of money made available to it reduced. If that was the case, one would have thought that the number of people working in tourism would have fallen, but in fact the numbers have grown by 27 per cent.

I want to pay tribute to all the people who work in the industry at every level. They have, of course, been working recently in a very challenging environment. Although I have been singing the praises of my constituency, we too have our difficulties, particularly in relation to employment.

What does the tourism industry want from the Government? Above all, I believe that it wants the right economic climate. Low inflation, to which reference has not been made today, is critical. We now have low inflation. January's retail prices index was 1·7 per cent., which is the lowest since 1967.

When I began work in the tourism industry presenting son et lumiere, which I came to know as a history lesson in the rain—I had hoped to do one indoors, in Westminster Hall, but Mr. Speaker at the time did not think that that was a good idea for security reasons, although it may be a possibility during the summer months—when there was a Labour Government, inflation topped 26 per cent. That is quite a contrast with the present.

What year was that?

I am talking about 1976.

We have also achieved low interest rates. Interest rates have declined from 15 to 6 per cent., saving the industry about £11 billion. We also have a competitive pound. Reference was made earlier to the disadvantage to the BTA of a competitive pound, but what about the advantage to the British tourist industry? Let us salute everyone in the tourist industry in general, and hoteliers in Chester in particular, for taking full advantage of a competitive pound to bring good business to Britain—and, of course, the best business to Chester.

We had a good Budget for tourism. We must welcome the fact that there will be no real increases in business rates for properties next year. We must also welcome the improvements to the loan guarantee scheme and the modification in the VAT regime. The Budget was a deregulating Budget, and that is welcome.

Of course we want the highest standards of safety and hygiene in our industry. However, we want as few pettifogging rules as possible. I am particularly delighted that the Minister responsible for deregulation, my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) lives so close to Chester, because I am going to ring him about specifics. My hon. Friend the Minister was right. People should not just groan about the generalities: they should be specific. We must say, "This regulation is holding us up. Will you please do something about it?" It is very easy to maunder on about generalities. We want specific help for the industry.

There is, however, one specific area where I believe there should be more help from the Government. The Government acknowledge that the tourism element of the standard spending assessment should ideally take account of day visitors. I believe that I am right in saying that the Departments of National Heritage and of the Environmment have commissioned a team at Newcastle university to develop a model to generate estimates of day visitors at district level. If that model proves to be sufficiently accurate, we will make progress on that front.

indicated assent.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for nodding so enthusiastically. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities for agreeing to see a delegation from Chester on that very issue.

What about money? We have millions of pounds of taxpayers' money——

Give it back, then.

We are giving it back. We are investing it in tourism: in the Royal Opera house, the national theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company—I am so relieved that the latest research has shown that it was Shakespeare who wrote those plays; there was talk that the author might have been Bacon. I feel that it would be very difficult to get people to work for the Royal Bacon Company. We have invested it in Windsor castle, English Heritage and the parks and galleries. I believe that the sum tops £1 billion.

What about the tricky question of the grants to the BTA and the ETB? I am clearly going to shock some of my friends inside and outside the House when I say that I am not so sure that the Government are not right to look afresh at such matters occasionally and to manage the change successfully. Despite what hon. Members have said, the funding of the BTA and the ETB has been constant in real terms over the past decade.

I think that I am right in saying that, in terms of funding spent in the European Community, the United Kingdom's spending is on a par as a proportion of tourist spend with any other country in the European Community. The marketing of tourism, in my experience—this is not theory; this is a practitioner speaking—must be led by those at the sharp end.

Recently, I had an interesting experience at the World Travel Market. I saw two counters. One was staffed by enthusiastic, well-meaning people from a local authority who sold professionally. The people staffing the next counter ran a hotel and a tourist attraction.

I know that it is customary for the Minister to say nice things about how it has been good that an hon. Member has won the ballot. I shall reciprocate in advance by saying that I have every sympathy with any Minister who must defend the education policies of Brent council and that no one will hold it against him.

Brent council, which has a track record for absolutely abysmal mismanagement and incompetence, used to be under Labour control. I condemned the Labour council when it was incompetent. Therefore, I feel that the complaints that I now make about the Conservative-controlled council are not simply partisan. I was prepared to attack a Labour council when it was failing in the area. I should be failing in my duty to represent the views of parents and teachers in the area when we see devastating proposals for reductions in the education service if I did not speak out now.

I originally put my name forward in the ballot for Adjournment debates when the issue was narrower—simply a proposal to close Chamberlayne Wood primary school. That underlines what the matter is about. The Conservative-controlled council has only one objective—to get re-elected at the municipal elections next year. Therefore, it wishes to reduce spending in order to be able to go into the election saying that it has reduced council tax. Since the Conservative party gained control of Brent council, there has been a consistent pattern of reducing education provision to achieve this.

Undoubtedly, hon. Members will recall my Adjournment debate more than a year ago on the closure of one of the most popular secondary schools in Brent, William Gladstone school. Parents were happy to send their children to that school. Its academic standards were improving and more children were going to it every year. However, the local Conservative council decided that the site could be sold off. The site was pleasant and faced a park, and its sale would bring in a good return of money. Therefore, the opposition of parents was overridden and the school was closed.

In the correspondence that I had with the Secretary of State for Education, it eventually transpired that the advice given to the Secretary of State by Brent education authority was inaccurate. If we had had accurate figures, the Government would probably have rejected the closure proposals. But, as we discovered in the previous Adjournment debate, there is no way in which we can reverse the closure.

Brent council had barely got agreement for the closure of William Gladstone school when it proposed to close four primary schools. The council overlooked the fact that a general election was coming in a few weeks and, in the uproar from literally thousands of parents who saw popular local primary schools being closed all over the borough, it backed off. Once the election was out of the way, and having dropped the proposals before the election, the council came back with the proposal to close one of the schools, Chamberlayne Wood, in my constituency.

I strongly suspect that we have a rolling programme. The council decided that the proposal to close four schools at once would magnify the opposition four times. Rather than close four schools at once, the council has decided to close the schools one at a time in an annual rolling programme. It will flog off the sites and help to keep the council tax down. At any one time, the council can cope with an uproar in just one of the many wards in my constituency.

I wish to spend a few moments talking about Chamberlayne Wood school because I know that the decision is with the Minister. I hope that he will not rush to reach a decision before he has had chance to visit the school. Chamberlayne ward has the fastest increasing birth rate in the south of the borough. It has increased more than 25 per cent. in the past 10 years. The source of that information is the London Research Centre.

All the local primary schools show a bulge in rolls, with lower numbers at the upper end, reflecting a time when schools in Brent were less popular. The infant and nursery schools have full or almost full rolls. The alleged reason for closure was the number of access places in the borough. However, once the local parents and teachers began to campaign, the borough council was forced to admit that the figure was grossly inflated. It had to reduce the alleged number of access places by 32 per cent., after calculating them more accurately. Brent's figures always seem to be inadequate.

Most of the access places tend to be in the top years of the schools. As the birth rate bulge works through, we shall not have surplus places. Local parents like Chamberlayne Wood school. They continue to send their children there. There is a waiting list of children for September 1993. The nearest school in the catchment area is a Church of England voluntary-aided school. Yet the majority of the children at Chamberlayne Wood school are non-Christian. They would face a long walk across two main routes of traffic into central London. That is clearly not suitable or acceptable for primary school children.

Many of the families in the area do not have cars. They are not particularly well off. Therefore, it would be a particular problem for parents to send their children to more distant schools. My fear is that, like so many other parents such as those of children at the soon to be closed William Gladstone school, parents will end up sending their children outside the borough.

Chamberlayne Wood school is on Brent Conservative council's hit list because it intends to move another school to the site. But Manor day school is for special needs children. As everyone would agree, such children need a small, quiet and safe environment. Yet Chamberlayne Wood is surrounded by busy roads. It is large and noisy and has numerous stairs and passageways—a typical, old Victorian school. There is no safe vehicular access. No one in their right mind would wish to send special needs children to that school.

However, if Brent council can clear the Manor day school site, it could be one of the most desirable sites for private housing development in the borough. It would turn in a nice little profit which would once again undoubtedly help to keep the council tax down in the run-up to the election. That is the underlying reason for this rolling programme of school closures.

The farce of this year's council budget is even worse. There has been a major series of reductions in educational provision and many educational psychologists have been dismissed. Only half the establishment is now available in Brent. The thing really began to take off when head teachers and chairs of governing bodies came together because it transpired that Brent council spent £12 million less on education than the Government recommended.

I am happy to abuse the Government, but here is a Conservative council spending less than the Government would prefer it to spend on education in the borough That fact caused considerable uproar in the borough. It was magnified when it became apparent that the Conservative council proposed further education cuts in the coming year's budget. That led my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) to ask the Government to step in to prevent what was happening. In reply to my hon. Friend on 27 January, the Government declined to take the opportunity to investigate how education was provided in Brent.

Lest anyone thinks that those dreadful old lefties the hon. Members for Brent, South and for Brent, East are complaining again, I should add that the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson), a well-respected Member of Parliament and in no sense a closet leftie, is responding to tremendous pressure and complaints from parents of children at schools in the north of the borough.

I shall read a letter from Kingsbury High School Guild—the parent-teachers association—to the leader of the council. The school is in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Brent, North and the letter reads:

"I write on behalf of the Committee of the Kingsbury High School Guild which met last evening to hear a report from the Headmaster, Mr. P. Snell concerning the prospect of an unbelievable cut of £320,000 from the Kingsbury High School budget from 1st April 1993 which is additional to the effects of the cuts in central services you announced last October. We are shocked that your Council seeks to withdraw funding from the Local Management of Schools formula which your administration championed as the salvation of Brent schools.

We are totally convinced that the cut of £160,000 from the 'split-site' factor after a majority of Kingsbury High School parents voted in favour of an application for Grant Maintained Status was a vindictive act—we call on you to reinstate this element. We remind councillors that, although Kingsbury High School may be given Grant Maintained Status, parents are aware that Brent Council largely decides the funding it will get and those same parents vote in local elections.

We entirely support the Kingsbury High School Governors in their refusal to consider redundancy of staff believing, as they do, that the school requires its full complement of staff to ensure the delivery of the curriculum. We are in sympathy with the Governors for the task they now face to curtail the planned and much needed maintenance and development programme of the school to cover the cut in revenue.

We are especially concerned that your administration has decided not to allocate the full amount of the Standard Spending Assessment share for Education and call on all Councillors to ensure that this is done for the benefit of all schools in Brent".

A campaign built up, because the decision was affecting all schools in the borough. A major and successful demonstration took place in Brent, with speeches from myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South and a message of support from the Conservative right hon. Member for Brent, North, who said that he was totally opposed to those policies and was on the side of the parents.

I must reiterate that Brent is spending £12 million a year less on education than it should do to comply with the standard spending assessment. In the run-tip to the budget, Brent was proposing to slash another £5·5 million, which led to all governors in the borough meeting and discussing a mass resignation, on the ground that they no longer believed that they could carry out their lawful duties to provide a proper education service to conform to the national curriculum if the cuts went ahead.

I have endless letters here, which I do not have time to read, and which spell out how the cuts would affect different schools in my constituency, such as Anson and Salusbury road. The pattern is repeated across the borough. The letters are not merely from Labour-voting parents, because parents and teachers of all political persuasions have united against the council. The council's Labour opposition demanded a special meeting of Brent council to discuss the situation. It was remarkable that when the council should have met to discuss the issue, one particularly erratic Conservative councillor tabled a proposal for the reintroduction of female circumcision in Britain which managed to consume the entire evening with name-calling and some of the most vile accusations of a personal nature between members. The education cuts were agreed without debate after the guillotine had come down. Labour then demanded a special council meeting to discuss the cuts in detail, as there had been no discussion, and parents and teachers who had attended were disgusted with the way in which the matter had been handled.

The mayor told them that there would be a special council meeting, which would be held some time in the small hours after the council's annual budget meeting, at which it would set the council tax. That was a clever device which meant that people were not allowed to go along to see a proper debate. Effectively, no real debate took place because the financial decisions had been taken.

As I said, I have endless letters from school governors complaining about the proposals. At the last minute, the Conservative leader of the council, Councillor Bob Blackman reduced the scale of the cuts by £1 million, so the education cut was £3 million on top of the underspending that already takes place in Brent.

As the local paper reported, "Extra cash for schools still not enough". The Willesden and Brent Chronicle states:

"Parents and teachers fighting for the future of education in Brent describe the Tories' budget as a 'poorly contrived attempt to make less look like more'. They say nothing has changed and that schools are still facing a future with insufficient funds to maintain good standards. In announcing an extra £1m for schools, council leader Bob Blackman admitted that a delegation of headteachers…had persuaded him of the need for extra cash.

He says there is now no need for any of the threatened 140 teacher redundancies and promised that any teachers who are laid off will be found new jobs by the council.

But while the cash boost was the surprise element in Cllr Blackman's budget, it failed to put the smile back on the faces of school governors.

They say schools still face a budget cut of 7 per cent. per child".

As I have said, those are not just Labour governors but the totality of governors in Brent acting together. They are of all parties and many belong to no party. Alan Carter, the spokesman for the school governors, is quoted as saying:

"The council has failed to reinstate the £3m of cuts it has made. No allowance has been made for the 4·5 per cent. increase in school rolls or for inflation. Teachers will still lose their jobs."

To make matters worse, local day nurseries are being closed and some have the threat of closure hanging over them. That means increasing pressure on schools. There is an almost vindictive quality because not only are there cuts but disabled workers are being picked out by the council. Four out of five disabled workers have been sacked and some have been verbally abused by management. One of the four, Mr. Omar Osman, was told by senior management that he could not have a cup of tea in the morning because he had only one arm and therefore had to stop work every time he took a drink. Others were similarly abused. Brent has now been criticised for having less than 1 per cent. of disabled people on its work force when it is required by law to meet a 3 per cent. quota. Such cuts mean that the most vulnerable people often suffer first.

Nothing has changed in terms of the education cuts. School governors were meeting last night because they are still dissatisfied and want change. They want the Government to act. Although it may seem amazing, I am prepared for the Government to step in and administer education in Brent between now and the elections next year, because they could not do worse. A team of inspectors put in to administer the education department would be beneficial and would have massive support because the borough has completely lost confidence in the councillors' ability to manage education.

In case the Minister tells me that his belief in local democracy is such that local councillors must be left to manage these things, I can tell him that the council has no legitimacy. The Conservatives did not win control at the last election, which resulted in a hung council. The then Conservative leader, Councillor Bob Blackman, zeroed in on four of the more feeble-minded Labour members of the council and offered them deals that got them to cross the floor. That created an administration.

I shall spell out the deals. To Councillors Amalu Johnson and Poline Nyaga he gave a £1 million community centre as well as large personal allowances and their own office and support staff. That persuaded those two to cross the floor. To Harshad Barot, who was being investigated by the council about the disappearance of a council grant for a voluntary organisation for which he was responsible, Councillor Blackman offered that the investigation by the council would be dropped. Harshad Barot crossed the floor.

In the case of Judith Harper, a Labour member who had become homeless and had refused the traditional offer of a flat on an estate, Councillor Blackman intervened and said that she could have a nice house on a leafy road in Barnet. Lo and behold, she changed her political persuasion.

I have not the slightest doubt that a Labour party which selected idiots like those in the first place deserves to be taken to the cleaners. I have said that to many of my colleagues who are responsible for selecting such characters, but a Tory council that bribes people like that in order to win power and then devastates the education service that it has a duty to provide has lost all respect and support.

In Brent it is commonly known that Councillor Blackman is the municipal Robert Maxwell. There is nothing so venal that it will not be done. Last year they raided the pension fund. Those people are not fit to run education in Brent and I repeat that, as a Labour Member, I should prefer to see the Government take control of education in Brent and remove it from the hands of these idiots, some of whom should be inside for fraud. The Government could administer it via the inspectorate until the elections next year.

It is traditional on such occasions to congratulate the hon. Member on obtaining the debate, but I am in two minds whether to do so today as I have been brought to the House at such a time on a Friday afternoon. I am sure that the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) will understand why I say that.

The hon. Gentleman has raised important issues. I am not sure whether it is for me, as a junior Education Minister, to respond to the hon. Gentleman's allegations about the murky dealings of the past and present in Brent council. I shall stick more closely to the education matters that he rightly mentioned.

I am forced to say that many of the provisions for which the hon. Gentleman asked in his last remarks can be found in the Education Bill that has just completed its stages in the House and has now gone to another place. That Bill provides a mechanism whereby schools that are failing, or have been allowed to fail, by a local education authority, can be taken over by a new, independent body—an education association—and improved. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look again at the Bill to see whether he may be able to support it when it returns to the House later this year.

I will not attempt to condemn previous administrations in Brent, although it would be easy for me to do so. The hon. Gentleman charitably and generously acknowledged that there were serious difficulties in the administration of Brent before the change of control. Much as I should like to do so, it is not my job today to seek to defend the present administration in Brent. However, it is making serious efforts to deal with the accumulated problems of the past and restore an element of responsibility and viability to local government in that part of London.

It is important that we all bear in mind the fact that the responsibility for the delivery of education remains very much that of the elected local education authority. That authority will have to account to the electorate for the discharge of its responsibilities in relation to education and other matters at future elections. That will be the case in Brent, as everywhere else.

The local education authority decides on the number of school places that will be provided, and where they will be provided. It is in that context that the proposal relating to Chamberlayne Wood school, mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, is being considered by my Department at present. We will carefully examine the representations and objections, as well as the points raised by the hon. Gentleman today, before deciding what to do.

It must be for a locally accountable local education authority to make its judgments on what provisions should be made in its area, and in different parts of its area. It must decide whether schools should be enlarged or closed—as they occasionally must be—and whether new schools should be opened. Those are rightly decisions for the local authority, which must account to the electorate for those decisions.

The hon. Gentleman graphically described how he moves in a world of protests, angry meetings and representations—as he and I know, they are all part of the democratic warp and weft of local and central Government. In the knowledge of all the circumstances, the local education authority—in Brent and elsewhere—must take responsible decisions on the right and best way to deliver education locally.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned standard spending assessments—the formula whereby local authorities are funded, largely by central Government. Brent's SSA for all services has increased by more than 28 per cent. over the past three financial years. The education SSA—that element which is designed to indicate the amount that might be spent on education—has increased by more than 24 per cent. in that period.

The hon. Gentleman made great play of his claim that the authority was underspending on its education SSA. I have looked at the figures for Brent for the past few years. In 1990–91, the spend was 2 per cent. below the education SSA; in 1991–92, the spend was 1 per cent. above the SSA; in 1992–93—the year just finishing—the figure was 6 per cent. below it. However, the planned or budgeted expenditure for 1993–94 brings Brent's expenditure on education back in line with the education SSA.

Therefore, although there have been ups and downs in the past, the current figures show that Brent intends to spend on education the amount that it is estimated it should spend. It does the authority less than justice to claim that its plans for next year show a shortfall of the kind that the hon. Gentleman suggested. It must be given credit for what it is doing.

We can look at a number of comparisons. For instance, Brent will be getting 30 per cent. more per pupil in 1993–94 than the national average. Its "per-pupil allowances" are about 17 per cent. higher than the average for outer London boroughs. The overall picture suggests, contrary to what the hon. Gentleman said, that Brent's difficult problems and its needs, which many would say are greater than those in other parts of the country, are recognised in its funding arrangements, generally and for education. Brent is responding by making proper allowance for its education spend.

I hasten to add that this is a global picture. What the authority chooses to do within these global arrangements—for particular schools, for primary and secondary education, or for post-16 provision—is for it to decide. That is what happens in the rest of the country, and the same goes for Brent.

The hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that there was something sinful about a local authority trying to make sure that the council tax it would levy on its electorate was as low as possible. He is wrong. An education authority must strike a balance between the taxes it will levy on its populace and the money it will spend.

Given past activities in Brent—to do with expenditure, tax levels and so on—and given the incubus of the past that the administration of Brent has to deal with, it is fair to say that Brent is doing remarkably well. It is bringing the finances back to something approaching a balance, and it is exercising its judgment in respect of educational need in Brent.

Brent is examining the local management of schools formula, determining whether it is useful and how it will affect different sorts of schools, and how far provision can be made within it. Given the exigencies of the present, the problems of the past, the countervailing pressures of the level of the council tax and of justified educational expenditure, I am sure that Brent council would say that it was getting the balance about right.

It was wrong of the hon. Gentleman to suggest that central Government should step in when local people express dissatisfaction and take over the administration of local government generally or of education. That would fly in the face of all that I—and, I am sure, the hon. Gentleman—believe in. We should not try to get around local accountability by deciding that, if an authority fails to discharge its responsibilities to the electorate, central Government should step in and take over.

There is no proper mechanism for that, and the Education Bill provides for a more specific approach—a much more fruitful approach. The inspectorate judges whether schools are failing their pupils and their parents. If they are, the LEA or the school governors will be given an opportunity to correct the problems. If that does not work, the Bill, if agreed to by Parliament, would provide that an education association be appointed to sort out the problems in a school or group of schools.

One should not condemn an entire authority and then argue that central Government should step in to run the service better. We hope to provide the mechanism to deal with schools and groups of schools. The independent inspectorate would judge whether they were being properly run or were failing; if the latter, the mechanism for which the Bill provides would be used.

Although I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said, and although we shall continue to look carefully at the individual school cases that he raised, I cannot agree with what he said today—that we should condemn wholesale what this local education authority is doing, that we should ignore its valiant efforts to deal with the accumulated problems of the past and that we should give no credit to it for what is being done.

The one thing about which I think the hon. Gentleman and I will agree is that it will be the electors of Brent who decide at the next election whether the council has properly discharged its responsibilities. I just hope for his sake that, when that election comes, the candidates of his party who are put up to fight it are a sight more impressive than the ones he so graphically described today.