A Conservative MP who campaigned for Brexit has joined growing calls to ease the ban on travel to the UK by European school groups with ID cards.
Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings and Rye, told The Independent it is “vital” that barriers to restoring inbound tourism are removed.
Her constituency has seen a collapse in school groups from the EU who previously stayed in the town while on English-language courses. In 2021, the government banned the use of ID cards by visitors to the UK.
Faced with the almost insurmountable hurdle of ensuring every student visiting the UK has a passport, school groups have switched to Malta and Ireland for English-language courses.
Bernard Donoghue, director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva), has called the ID card ban “a disastrous act of economic self-harm.”
He told The Independent: “Our English-language schools have been missing out on both customers and money for the last three years.”
Ms Hart’s constituency has been singled out by the chief executive of VisitBritain as an example of the damage caused. In 2022, Patricia Yates told MPs: “You will find destinations like Hastings absolutely decimated by a lack of school visits.”
Ms Hart said: “Inbound tourism is one of the jewels in the crown of the British economy and it is vital the government ensures that barriers to growth are removed to allow it to achieve its full potential.
“This includes working to boost the numbers of language students coming to the UK to learn English, including in the beautiful constituency of Hastings and Rye.”
In October 2021, the then-home secretary, Priti Patel, carried out her promise to “end the use of insecure ID cards for people to enter our country”.
She said: “We are strengthening our border and delivering on the people’s priority to take back control of our immigration system.”
But UK Inbound, representing tourism businesses, says: “This has had a hugely detrimental effect on the UK’s valuable school group travel industry.”
Schools in France are now allowed to bring groups with ID cards, but the inbound tourism industry is calling for further relaxation.
UK Inbound says: “Communities across the UK, particularly in coastal areas which are traditionally home to the language schools that many of these school groups attend, are losing…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…