Good morning, everyone. I think that it is safe to say that, of all the sectors of society and the segments of our industry, the tourism sector has been hit the hardest by the pandemic. It is impossible to overstate the problems that it has caused for people’s lives and livelihoods. The effect has been severe and catastrophic, so this morning we are dealing with an unprecedented situation.
Ministers are listening very closely to business. I spend the majority of my time engaging with businesses as groups and individuals to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to help them through the pandemic. The £2.3 billion financial support package has provided an invaluable bridge to mitigate the financial hardship that so many have suffered. However, I am conscious that that job is not yet complete. As Kate Forbes, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, said on the radio earlier today, we need to provide more support to more people to help them through the crisis.
The sector has been in dire need of positive developments. We all need to see hope and light at the end of what has been a long tunnel. Therefore, I was pleased to announce to Parliament on 10 June that, subject to the pandemic being brought under sufficient control, we plan to reopen the tourism and hospitality sector from 15 July, which I believe was broadly welcomed.
It is important to say that that approach did not deviate from the route map; it provided as much certainty as we could at that stage. There was further good news for the sector yesterday when the First Minister announced that there would be relaxations of restrictions on travel and self-catering and other self-contained accommodation from 3 July and outdoor hospitality from 6 July, subject of course to the science being with us. Those measures, which unlock major components of our tourism and hospitality sector, have also received a warm welcome from the sector.
I have announced the establishment of a tourism recovery task force that will bring together many parts of the sector. It will meet for the first time virtually this afternoon and will have just over 30 members from across an extremely diverse sector. It is important that it does its work fairly quickly; we need to bring forward a number of measures sooner rather than later, so I envisage that it will be a short-life working group.
Guidance for the sector was published on 18 June. I put on the record my appreciation to the industry in particular for helping my officials with the good work that they did to get the guidance out to the sector to help it make the necessary preparations for restarting. The guidance sets out our risk-based approach and the core public health measures that will need to be taken to allow safe reopening: establishing physical distancing, including organisational capacity; queue management, signage and markings; enhanced hand hygiene measures and cleaning practice; advice on workforce planning, including training and equality issues; and guidance for customers, to ensure that they know how to plan ahead and engage safely with the sector.
Finally, I continue to engage with the United Kingdom minister Nigel Huddleston and colleagues from Wales and Northern Ireland. Although the discussion of that forum—which I think meets next on Tuesday next week—is turning more towards reopening and recovery, we are clear with the UK Government that we cannot divorce that on-going consideration from the vital issue of the support that the sector needs in terms of direct funding and extension of the coronavirus job retention scheme—into next year in some cases—given the seasonal nature of so much of our tourism business, especially on our islands and in our remote rural locations.
I have sought to cover a lot of ground. I am sure that we will come back to each of those matters. I and my officials Bettina Sizeland and Duncan Mackay will do our best to answer the committee’s questions.