Industry leaders and public affairs specialists are likely to have to wait until the autumn to engage with government ministers following the Labour Party’s landslide election victory on July 4.
Transport secretary Louise Haigh appointed Mike Kane, MP for Wythenshawe and East Sale and the former shadow minister for aviation, as the new aviation minister on Wednesday.
The ministers for the maritime industry and tourism had yet to be confirmed at the time of writing. But Haigh’s appointment as secretary of state for transport left little doubt that rail would dominate the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) thinking.
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Haigh identified the progressive renationalisation of the railways as her number-one priority in April and is expected to outline plans soon.
A leading aviation source told Travel Weekly: “There is no question rail will be the priority. I don’t think we’ll get a lot of Louise Haigh’s time. That makes the aviation minister even more important.”
A second source agreed: “The DfT will be absolutely focused on rail.”
Industry leaders have given the impression of looking to engage straight away with the government. Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said following the election: “We’ve already put in a lot of work with parliamentary candidates, which means we can hit the ground running in engaging them on the issues that matter to our members and the wider industry.
“We’ll be contacting newly appointed ministers over the coming days to remind them of the huge value of the outbound travel industry to the UK economy and to raise our policy priorities.”
Business Travel Association chief executive Clive Wratten urged ministers “to work with the industry as they get across their new briefs” and UKinbound chief Joss Croft wrote to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer emphasising the relationship between inbound, outbound and domestic travel.
Croft has drafted letters to the incoming aviation, tourism and immigration ministers with a series of policy demands.
However, the aviation source said: “It’s very early days. The pre-Parliamentary recess period will be about internal engagement between the secretaries of state, ministers, officials and regulators. Our face-to-face meetings with ministers will be in the autumn.
“Saying we have to get in front of these people quickly is just not realistic – and we need to be realistic.”
The source insisted: “The priorities are stability and a focus on the strategic plans and workstreams already in place.
“We would like the new government to commit to the [existing] Flightpath to the Future framework and work with the industry to meet its net zero targets while keeping UK aviation globally competitive – building sustainable aviation fuel plants, modernising airspace, [addressing] runway capacity, and not doing anything crazy on tax that does nothing for the environment.”
The source added: “We know we’re not a priority. Some may say the industry doesn’t get the attention it deserves, but we don’t want to be micro-managed. We don’t need mollycoddling.
“If we carry on with what is already in place, we’ll be in a reasonably good place. We just don’t want any ill-conceived policy.”