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TOURISM

18th June 1999

Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): It is a great pleasure to participate in this wide-ranging debate and it is apt that we are debating tourism because, looking at the Gallery and the people walking in and out of it, I see that the House of Commons is a tourist attraction in itself. Tourism is relevant not only to the coastal regions, to which a number of hon. Members have referred, but to inland parts of the United Kingdom. We have heard from the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), and, before I get on to the main part of my speech, I want to say a little about Lichfield, which is about as far from the sea as it is possible to be in this country, although there is a lot of water in the city because of its many lakes.

People do not realise that Lichfield district has more than 4.5 million visitors each year, despite the fact that we do not have a good rail connection, and they spend about £73 million in the excellent restaurants and facilities in the area. Even though I was once accused by an ignorant journalist of being Member of Parliament for the M6, I can assure that House that neither the M6 nor the M1 nor the M40 come too close to Lichfield. I know that because driving back there on a Friday afternoon or evening takes about four hours.

If I may digress for a moment, I was delighted with the contribution of the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), who talked about licensing laws. There are a number of pedestrianised areas in the centre of Lichfield and, on a lovely sunny Sunday, I went to Colley's Yard restaurant to sit outside reading The Sunday Times with a glass of red wine. I was shocked to be told that I would be breaking the licensing laws if I sat outside drinking. I will not tell the House whether I sat outside and drank the red wine despite that, because that might be admission of guilt, but, as an Englishman, such laws seem absolutely crazy to me. As the hon. Member for Selby said, would they not seem even more crazy to foreign visitors? We have archaic rules which, as the hon. Gentleman said, were introduced in 1916 to prevent munitions workers from blowing themselves up.

I have spoken about those laws with the chairman of the Lichfield licensing Bench, Mr. Bob White, who is a justice of the peace. He would like the legal position to be changed so that it would be acceptable for pubs and restaurants to serve liquor, as the Americans would say, any time at all. The presumption would be that establishments could open 24 hours a day if they wanted--that should be up to the licensee--but local people could appeal to the licensing magistrates to define a closing time for a particular place that is, for example, next door to an old people's home or a hospital or in a residential area, where the slamming of doors would be a nuisance.

That would be reasonable and modern; after all, we are debating tourism in the new millennium. Good God, as we are entering the new millennium, it is time to wash away the laws that were introduced in 1916. I must pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who was seen pulling a pint in a pub several years ago, when he was Home Secretary. Shame upon shame, horror upon horror--would England fall as a consequence?--he was introducing all-day drinking. Have we seen drunks rolling in the streets as a consequence? Of course not. Indeed, there has been far less drunkenness at lunch time because people do not hurry to finish their drinks. As the hon. Member for Selby said, there are lessons to be learned from Scotland, where people do not have to finish their drinks by 11 o'clock because it is throwing-out time. That seems far more sensible. It is not just in Lichfield where crowds of people appear on the streets. I see that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Lepper) is in his place. For a few years in the last decade, I was chairman of the Conservative party in Brighton, Pavilion. I went to Brighton, Hove and Sussex grammar school and took my masters degree at Sussex university. Those are my Brighton credentials. If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am sure that we shall hear that Brighton, too, would benefit from a more flexible licensing regime.

May I say a few more words about Lichfield? Lichfield enjoys a number of attractions, not only many restaurants. We attract some 5 per cent. of visitors from overseas. Those who come into the Lichfield tourist office are from Australia, the United States, Canada, South Africa and Germany. A significant number come to Lichfield district.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) was telling the House about her brother's aim to link--

Mrs. Lait: It was my uncle.

Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend's uncle is trying to set up a telecom link between Greenwich in the UK and Greenwich in Connecticut. I am trying to do the same, because Lichfield is twinned, rather oddly in my opinion, with a town in France and one in Germany. I shall be politically incorrect and tell the House how that happened.

The original plan was to twin Lichfield with a cathedral city in Germany, Limburg. That made good sense. However, Limburg is twinned with a French town in the suburbs of Lyon. Residents of Lichfield had not visited that town, so they agreed to twin with the French town as well as with Limburg. They then visited the French town and discovered that it had little similarity with Lichfield because it was an industrial suburb. When they asked Limburg why it was twinned with that French town, they were told that in 1940 a Luftwaffe squadron from the Limburg region had bombed that French town because it was an industrial area. That is why the two towns twinned after the war--and it shows the danger of twinning.

I should like to see Lichfield in the United Kingdom twinned with Litchfield in Connecticut, which is not a million miles away from Greenwich in Connecticut. As I said earlier, the irony is that when representatives from Lichfield fly to Lyon, it costs them more than flying to Boston, which is the nearest international airport to Litchfield, Connecticut. That is because the previous Thatcher Government introduced freedom of the air and real competition between airlines, which is why so many American tourists visit the UK. However, there is no freedom of the air between France and the UK, which is why flights to France are so expensive.

I hope that the Minister will encourage the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to introduce more deregulation so that there is competition in travel to Europe. There are cheap flights to Spain and Italy, but not to France, which still has a subsidised airline.

I shall mention the interesting sites worth seeing in Lichfield. I claim credit for the fact that I moved to Lichfield. Usually, great men are born in Lichfield and move away. Dr. Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, but left. David Garrick, the first knight of the theatre--some hon. Members may be members of the Garrick club and some will have gone to the Garrick theatre in London--was born in Lichfield, but left. Elias Ashmole, who founded the Ashmolean museum at Oxford, was born in Lichfield, but left. I want the House to note that Michael Fabricant was born in Rottingdean near Brighton, but moved to Lichfield by choice.

Mr. Grieve: It is all the more commendable that my hon. Friend moved to what was once one of the prettiest towns in the midlands in view of the destruction wrought on it by the planners between the 1960s and the 1980s. His intervention may be required in the future to preserve the little that is left.

Mr. Fabricant: I am not sure that that intervention will help tourism in Lichfield, so I shall not thank my hon. Friend for it. Huge areas of historic significance are left in Lichfield, and I invite him to visit the city, as I suspect that he has gone to Wolverhampton and thought that that was Lichfield. I live in a 500-year-old house by a cathedral that is more than 800 years old, although some of the outskirts of Lichfield may have been destroyed not by German bombers but by planners in the '50s and '60s. I can assure my hon. Friend and any tourists thinking of visiting Lichfield that there is still much of historic significance and interest to see there.

The Secretary of State's opening speech was filled with self satisfaction and smugness, as is his nature. It is a shame that he had to leave early--he gave his apologies--to scuttle off to Scotland, no doubt paying a fortune because it is so expensive to travel internally in the United Kingdom. As the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport report pointed out, the problem with the Secretary of State is that, like the Government as a whole to some degree, he is full of good intentions but is highly and wholly ineffective. He introduced the idea of cool Britannia. There is nothing new about the phrase "cool Britannia". For those who are interested in rock music, it was a song in the '60s by a punk rock band, whose name escapes me at the moment--just as the phrase "new deal" was first introduced by Roosevelt in the '30s.

Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test): It was the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band. Mr. Fabricant: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. It was far more helpful than that of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve).

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. This is a debate on the general topic of tourism. The hon. Gentleman is testing it to its furthest boundaries. It would be helpful if we talked about tourism policy. Mr. Fabricant: Cool Britannia has everything to do with tourism policy. The Secretary of State used the phrase "cool Britannia" to attract visitors to the United Kingdom, but failed. I listened with great interest to his opening speech with great interest. He said--and it will be recorded in Hansard--that people come to the United Kingdom not because of modern buildings, modern art or modern music, which is what cool Britannia was all about, but because of our heritage, our tradition, our theatre and our other attractions that could in no way be described as cool Britannia. That is why cool Britannia is not being promoted by the British Tourist Authority. The Department's marketing has been wholly ineffective in that regard, and has now had to be reversed. This has been one of the Department's weaknesses. When the Secretary of State visited China to discuss relations with that country and tourism there, he did not once raise the subject of the human rights problem that deters many people from visiting it. That reflects his own weakness.

Much has been said about the millennium dome. I congratulate the Government on achieving its sponsorship targets. I, along with many others, thought that they would not be able to do that, but I was wrong. I am not sure whether the year of the millennium experience will be a success; only time will tell. I certainly will not make any predictions now in regard to whether the 12 million visitors target will be achieved.

What I find very exciting and interesting is the fact that the dome is built to last for at least 80 years. The Government are asking companies to suggest what they could do with it after the millennium experience has closed. There could be a major impact on tourism in London. I used to work for the broadcast electronic industry. Every year the industry holds a big exhibition somewhere in Europe: it is known as the international broadcasting convention. It cannot be held in London, because there is not enough space, at least not in a nice, prestigious area. I mean space for the exhibition itself, not hotel accommodation. The convention has therefore gone to Amsterdam, and it is not the only one not to be held in London. A possible use for the dome after 2000 is as a major convention centre. Alternatively, as was suggested earlier, it could serve as a venue for the world cup if Wembley stadium cannot be used. It is certainly large enough. Tourism is an important element of Britain's economy, and we should not be ashamed of it. It is the largest foreign currency earner in the United States, and also in the United Kingdom. There is nothing wrong with that--and it reflects badly on the Department that the most important area for which it is responsible is not included in its title. Culture, the media and sport are included but tourism is not, which suggests that promoting tourism in the United Kingdom may be a low priority in the Department. As I said earlier, England--for which the Department is responsible--loses out badly in terms of grant aid for tourism. Whereas £8.25 per person is spent on tourism in Northern Ireland and £3.76 is spent on it in Scotland, a mere 20p is spent in England on promoting tourism abroad. That has to be wrong. We cannot take it for granted that people will come here simply because of our heritage. Other countries, particularly Australia and Germany, are promoting themselves heavily abroad, and the United Kingdom must do the same.

There has been some talk about the minimum wage. One of the great advantages of being in opposition--there are few advantages, but here is one--and of being a Back Bencher is that I can speak for myself. I am not opposed in principle to a minimum wage, but when the Prime Minister announced that a minimum wage would be introduced, he said, "What is wrong with it? They have it in the United States of America." He is right, but there is a crucial difference: in the United States, tourism and other industries--which I will not bother to list, although, for some strange reason, broadcasters employed in radio are included--are exempt from the national minimum wage. I am not suggesting that people should work in sweat shops, but we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West and, indeed, from Labour Members about how the minimum wage has impacted on people's lives. In some ways, it is very good, but we hear of some people going abroad, for example, to Marbella or Greece, because it is cheaper. One of the reasons is that pressures on small businesses in the UK are driving costs up; they are certainly not driving them down or keeping them stable. Miss Geraldine Smith: I am aware of a case of someone working in an amusement arcade and being paid £1.50 per hour. Do you think that that is right and proper?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Miss Smith: Do you think that the minimum wage should be--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Once I am on my feet, the hon. Member must sit down. She is referring to someone in the second person. That means that she is addressing the Chair. I think that she meant to refer to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant).

Mr. Fabricant: Obviously, I do not know the circumstances, but supposing it was a student working in the arcade and doing it as a holiday job. Supposing the £3.60--

Miss Smith rose--

Mr. Fabricant: Let me finish. Supposing the £3.60 an hour rate means that that person will not be employed. When I was a student, I would rather have worked in an amusement arcade--in fact, for a short while, I worked on Brighton palace pier doing the turnstiles--for less than the minimum wage and earn some money than have no job at all because I had been priced out of the market. That is the only point that I make.

Not having made a prediction about the future of the dome, I will make one about the minimum wage. The £3.60 an hour rate will be kept for a number of years. I do not think that it will go up with inflation. The Government will allow it to wither and to die.

There is a problem. In the United States, the minimum wage, which is about $5.50, varies from region to region. The £3.60 an hour rate may not be much in London, but it is a hell of a lot in Northern Ireland. That, too, is a big mistake.

Mr. Swayne: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that the British Activity Holiday Association submission to the Low Pay Commission was not a request to pay less than £3.60 an hour? It asked merely for a more realistic recognition of the value of full board and lodging. It asked that it should be accounted for at £35 a week, rather than less than £20 a week. Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend makes his point well now, as he did in his speech. It is interesting to know that in the United States, too, similar provisions exist for that very purpose. The Government have not thought things through. They are good at coming up with marketing ideas but not at thinking the consequences through. By marketing ideas, I do not mean the marketing of Britain abroad--as I have said, "Cool Britannia" has not succeeded--but the Government marketing themselves to the British population. Their marketing was certainly effective in 1997, but it has not been so recently. We have all heard about the European elections, so I shall not bore the House with them now. It is, however, interesting to see how the tourist initiative in Lichfield is changing because both the city and the district are now Conservative controlled again, since the recent local elections.

The Labour Government have a lot to answer for. They have doubled air passenger duty--Members on both sides of the House have mentioned that--and increased fuel prices so that they are now the highest in Europe. Many people come to the United Kingdom for fly-drive holidays. In the United States petrol costs about $1.10 a gallon. The American gallon is only seven eighths of the imperial gallon, but even so, petrol there--or should I say gas?--costs only a third or a quarter as much as British petrol. In this country it is expensive both to hire a car and to put petrol in it, and that will begin to deter tourists.

A dangerous trend is shown in the number of people who come here for the first time but do not visit again for a long time, simply because the costs in the United Kingdom are so high.

Dr. Whitehead: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that air passenger duty, so far as I recall, was implemented by the previous Government and set to come into force after the general election? The fuel price escalator, too, was a policy of the previous Government, so the hon. Gentleman is being a little careless when he tries to blame all that on the present Government. Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Conservative Government introduced those things, but it is his memory that is a little careless. The Labour Government increased the fuel price escalator by 20 per cent. and doubled air passenger duty, so although I agree that it would be nice if those measures did not exist in the first place, the present Government have made a situation that was not good, far worse. Treasuries are always greedy, and our present Treasury is especially greedy. Despite what was said by one of my hon. Friends, Lichfield is a pleasant place to visit. Despite the steps being taken by the Government to drive prices up, the United Kingdom as a whole, too is worth visiting--but the Department, and the Secretary of State, must do better.