Minister tells travel ‘to work a little harder’ to fill skills gap
Sophie GriffithsThe travel industry should collectively present a case about a skills shortage to government if they want ministers to seriously consider making it easier to recruit foreign workers.
That was the advice from government parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Transport Baroness Vere.
Addressing delegates at Abta’s annual Travel Matters conference in London she said: “I cannot tell you how many industries say ‘can we have more foreign workers?’,” she told delegates at Abta’s annual Travel Matters conference in London.
“Maybe HR departments need to work a little harder to think about how they can recruit differently."
On sustainability, Vere said she believed decarbonisation was an “existential issue” and it was imperative the maritime and aviation sectors worked together towards decarbonisation, or the industry would risk losing customers in future.
She stressed however, that the UK was working “at great pace” compared with other countries and “is considered to be one of the world leaders in this” due to its Jet Zero strategy and the aim of using 10% sustainable aviation fuel by 2030.
Asked why the US had committed significantly more funds to reducing fossil fuels ($2 trillion compared with £32.5 million committed by the UK government). Vere responded: “Our view is that it’s about building the foundations for long-term sustainability. There’s no mandate in the US to buy this sustainable aviation fuel,” she added, “so who’s going to buy it? I don’t see that they have the long-term thinking that we have.”
Meanwhile, Vere defended Abta’s relationship with government, in what may have been a pointed barb at recent criticism from others in the industry that the travel industry needs to “upweight its political engagement”.
“Working with Abta is always a pleasure,” she insisted. “There’s no point in just shouting at government – it doesn’t make government want to help them. We want to work with you to make travel better. We sometimes disagree but we recognise the importance of honest conversation.”
It came after Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer used the conference to defend Abta’s lobbying efforts, arguing: “Some people think every relationship with the government has to be adversarial but it’s about ‘how do we work together to solve problems?’”
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