Hospitality Businesses

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stockwood (Lab)]

I share the noble Lord’s optimism for the positive steps taken today and generally, in the last five months of being in government, for the way that the economy is shaping up after the last couple of decades. The announcements made today were on the back of the £4.3 billion for rate revaluation and really focused on live music venues and pubs as well. Perhaps I could refer everyone to the Statement made an hour ago. If there are specific follow-ups, I can come back to that, but I do not have any further detail on those venues at the moment.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, the wider visitor economy, of which the hospitality industry is such a valuable part, is worth some £127 billion a year to the economy and 3.9% of all jobs. It is therefore a valuable export industry. Last year, for the first time for several years, the number of international visitors was down, and the ForwardKeys data for VisitBritain show an 11% drop in long-haul flights. This, as the Minister will know, follows on from several years of cuts to the VisitBritain grant in aid and the Great programme. What are the Government going to do to reverse that?

[Lord Stockwood (Lab)]

There are a number of difficult choices that we are trying to make. The visitor economy is clearly a huge part of who we are and what we should be proud of in this country. The industrial strategy we have set out is around eight key sectors that have comparative advantage to us, but, again, all those are about how we can make the economy stronger overall so that we can have an attractive proposition for all our industries, including our hospitality and the tourism sectors.