Hospitality Sector

Fred Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Bournemouth relies heavily on hospitality and tourism. In my constituency alone, hospitality generates £162.8 million in revenue and employs 3,700 people across more than 30 venues. The sector creates vibrant communities, accessible jobs and attracts investment. Take Kris Gumbrell, the CEO of Brewhouse and Kitchen. He chairs an industry apprenticeship programme and has invested over £3 million to revive a derelict pub in Southbourne, creating a community hub and over 40 new jobs. Take Emma Sclanders of Wild & Ginger or Ricky Knowlton of Syds Slaps, who the new the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), was so happy to visit just a few short months ago. Take James Fowler of the Larder House, Jon Roberts of Little Perth or Rich Slater of Sobo Beach. The list really does go on.

In Bournemouth East, we are blessed with fantastic hospitality owners. That is because, as entrepreneurs, they are investing time, money and personal risk to create jobs and community hubs. They shoulder costs and were often overlooked in policy discussions over the past 14 years. They want, as do we on the Labour Benches, balanced and targeted support for businesses to ensure that their efforts are being supported.

Hospitality matters so much because it is woven into everyday life. Whether it is coffee with friends, football at the stadium, a drink down the pub, date nights or quick bites before events, the hospitality sector provides so many of the events that we find so meaningful in our personal lives. They are a critical community space and social infrastructure that bring us together, and create belonging to each other and to the places we live in. And by God, over the last 14 years have we not seen our social infrastructure attacked and decimated?

We need to support our hospitality sector, and that is especially important for Government Members who represent coastal communities. Labour now represents more coastal communities than at any time since 1997, after nearly half the coastal seats in England and Wales were won from the Conservatives in 2024—that is no wonder when I hear my constituents talk about how Bournemouth has been left behind and how coastal communities have been forgotten. Labour is committed to putting that right, which means supporting our hospitality and tourism sectors.

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate argument for the hospitality sector in our coastal communities. Plymouth has some of the best pubs in England, and I am convinced that beer tastes better in pubs in Plymouth than in any other place in the UK. I have a question for my hon. Friend: does he not think it is important to acknowledge that the previous Conservative Government’s catastrophic mismanagement of the hospitality sector during covid is still wreaking havoc?

[Tom Hayes]

I am astonished that nobody raised a point of order there. Of course Plymouth does not have the best beer in the country; Bournemouth East does. If not Bournemouth East, I am sure that many other constituencies would claim to, too. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that the hospitality sector has endured difficulty time and again, whether during the pandemic, the cost of living crisis or the previous Government’s reckless disregard for the sector’s needs, and so Labour needs to fix the foundations of the hospitality sector. We need to support our economy by stabilising it and, in so doing, supporting our hospitality businesses.

Coastal communities like Plymouth and Bournemouth have faced significant challenges, whether it be worse health outcomes, lower life expectancy, poorer education, lower pay or higher deprivation. We need to support our coastal communities, particularly given that they are so heavily reliant on tourism and industries that have struggled over recent years, such as hospitality. According to the Office for National Statistics, coastal communities have a higher proportion of hospitality businesses than inland areas. The hospitality sector in our coastal communities can therefore be a powerful economic driver at a time when we are desperate to raise productivity from its sluggish levels and grow our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fred Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is going through a quasi-judicial exercise, and I am therefore limited in what I can say. Let me do the best I can within those constraints. The project is going through its examination, where interested parties can and should put forward their views on the application. More broadly, as we drive forward renewable projects, the planning process is designed to ensure that impacts are carefully considered.

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

Q9.   The United Kingdom has rightly helped to arm Ukraine with modern, effective capability, and we are sending it some £4.5 billion this year. However, after decades of relying on the peace dividend, our own forces are ill-equipped for modern warfare. With colleagues interested in defence technology, I am developing a proposal for a joint UK-Ukraine production hub on British soil, which would support Ukraine while modernising our own forces at warfighting scale and creating the jobs and know-how needed to rearm and stay secure. Will the Prime Minister use his good offices to support this proposal?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and gallant Friend is right that our iron-clad support for Ukraine should go hand in hand with firing up our own defence industries, which means well-paid, secure jobs right across the country, including in Plymouth, and strengthening our national security. We reiterated our support for Ukraine in Kyiv last weekend, and I am proud that British industries are playing their part in supporting Ukraine against Russia’s illegal invasion. I will make sure that he meets the relevant Minister to discuss his proposal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fred Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady is right to say that I value the work of care providers and carers across the whole of the United Kingdom. That is why we have put in additional funding through the Budget. We have been ensuring that for care providers and charities, including hospices, the tax regime is among the most generous in the world. That includes tax relief for charities and their donors worth more than £6 billion for the tax year ending April 2024. We have put record funding into our NHS, we have increased funding into adult and children’s social care and we will continue to support our public services, which were left on their knees by the last Government.

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

Q13.   Two weeks ago, the Chancellor announced a historic £22.6 billion investment into the NHS, because it is our duty to rescue this country’s health service after 14 years of mismanagement, under-investment and, unfortunately, misleading announcements from the Conservative party. In Plymouth, Derriford hospital, which I represent, serves not just my constituency but 19 constituencies across the south-west—it is the only major trauma centre for adults in the south-west—but we have suffered from the decisions made by the Conservatives. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline how that historic investment will make its way to Plymouth?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for being such a champion for Plymouth. As he knows, we are providing £25 billion extra over the next two years for the Department of Health and Social Care, including the largest real-terms capital budget since 2010. We will ensure that every corner of the UK will see the generosity, and that services will improve for them. I will make sure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss in detail how Plymouth can capitalise on that.