Photography by Louise Haywood-Schiefer

11 min read33 min

Tourism, sport and civil society minister Stephanie Peacock has purposefully chosen pieces from the government art collection that reflect both her brief and her constituency’s roots.

Football and rugby references are scattered across her generous departmental office, but perhaps most striking is a black-and-white painting of men digging grimly.

At The Coal Face by Nicholas Evans, Peacock reveals, became the subject of a conservation visit after the glass fogged up. It turned out the oil painting was ‘off-gassing’ – releasing chemical vapours, which is not uncommon for 1970s artworks. The special treatment it received is a clear example, she jokes, of Labour delivering for miners.

As MP for Barnsley South, Peacock represents a classic red wall seat with a deep mining heritage. Labour’s challenge in these areas is, of course, widely known: the story of constituencies held by the party for generations until voter loyalties eroded, lost first to the Conservatives and now to Reform UK. It is a tale with an almost tragic arc that lends itself easily to political reporting.

The diversity of Labour’s 2024 intake of MPs reveals its electoral coalition to be more complicated, however, than that narrative would suggest. There are at least as many newly elected representatives from the so-called ‘sea wall’ – coastal constituencies, reliant on seasonal economies, with often high levels of deprivation – as from the red one.

For Peacock, as tourism minister, revitalising seaside towns is a critical part of the government’s growth agenda – and it comes at a time when British tourism and hospitality is struggling with a downturn. “We’re very, very aware of the challenges that the sector is facing,” she says, “and we really want to do everything we can to promote British tourism.”

In her interview with The House, she announces the launch of the first national domestic tourism campaign since the Covid pandemic. From June, the government will spend £1.2m – which it hopes will reach £2m with private investment – on a fresh promotional campaign.

“Whether that be Whitby down the road from me, Yorkshire or Blackpool, Devon or Cornwall, the idea is to promote the brilliant coastal towns that we’ve got.”

At first, it will sell the general idea of Brits visiting the coast; then, in the autumn – the ‘shoulder’ season between peak and off-peak months – it will become place-specific, highlighting what each area can offer, from theme parks to food scenes. Online influencers will be harnessed as well as local print media.

“Our seaside towns have got lots to offer. Some have struggled over recent decades,” Peacock admits. “That’s something we want to address.”

This may be the first such campaign in five years, but critics could point out that the public spend of £1.2m does not compare well to London’s post-Covid tourism recovery effort in 2021, which benefited from over £4m of funding in its first year.

And while coastal MPs will no doubt welcome the PR drive, their chief concern is usually around turning these seasonal economies into year-round, ‘365’ ones. Peacock suggests “connectivity” is key to this – not only in terms of literal transport but the government hopes to showcase regions in a “joined-up way” by working with mayors to emphasise packages of activities in that area. The aim is to persuade tourists to explore further and stay longer.

Labour MPs and mayors don’t always see eye-to-eye on such matters, though. Until November, the government was resisting the idea of a tourist tax. “I don’t think we were opposed to it,” claims Peacock, although her predecessor Chris Bryant had told the Commons two months prior to the U-turn that they had “no plans” to introduce a tax because “many people in the sector have made the point to me that they feel taxed enough”.

To the dismay of some (though not all) Members on the green benches, in November the government gave in to mayors’ demands for the new tax-raising powers. While businesses and industry bodies such as UK Hospitality are firmly opposed, legislation to implement the levy on overnight visitors was confirmed in the King’s Speech.

“There’s no doubt there’s been a mixed reaction to the levy,” Peacock says. While mayors are “very positive” about it, she adds, “the sector will understandably have concerns”.

Asked where the revenue should go, she hints that she would prefer to see it ring-fenced though acknowledges this is out of her hands: “I think there’s a really strong argument for ring-fencing money for tourism, but the whole point of giving it to mayors is for them to make that decision.”

Peacock also recognises concerns from large hotel chains about having to navigate varying systems across regions: “If one mayoralty does it in a slightly different way to another, that will potentially present a challenge for a big national company. That’s something we’re considering. We haven’t made the decisions on that.”

Nor does she strongly rebut the argument that the levy would level down, by acting as a tax on non-Londoners who visit London, such is the capital’s draw. “Obviously, London is going to do well out of it because it has the most visitors – that’s inescapable. That is just a fact. But we have an intention, and we have an ambition, to get people to travel across the country.”

Short-term holiday lets are the other hot-button issue in tourism. Despite the considerable controversy around them, Peacock confirms the new campaign will not nudge visitors to choose hotels over Airbnbs.

“We’re not expressing an opinion or a direction. It’s for people to choose where they want to stay,” she says. “I think the issue around short-term lets is they have often a particularly detrimental effect on certain local areas, and that’s what the policy around the registration scheme will aim to address.”

The government’s delayed registration scheme, originally set to go live in April but now expected later this year before becoming mandatory in April 2027, will force short-term lets to declare their existence to local authorities. Owners will thus be identified and councils should get a better idea of how housing stock is being used in their areas. Lizzi Collinge, Markus Campbell-Savours and Neil Duncan-Jordan are among the Labour MPs who have complained to The House in the past that the scheme does not go far enough.

“There’s no doubt there’s been a mixed reaction to the levy”

So, what about a licensing scheme that could allow councils to take action such as capping the number of lets?

“I’ve heard colleagues express the point around a cap,” Peacock says, but insists that registration will be helpful to councils. “It’s important to take that step and see where we get to.”

In London, whole-property short-term lets are limited to 90 nights per year without planning permission. Yet the rule is unenforceable as authorities have no reliable data on lengths of stay. The minister promises to tackle these landlords: “We are very aware that, in the implementation of the scheme, we do need to also look at a parliamentary vehicle to deal with this issue around platform-hopping… We’re going to take action on it.”

Birmingham-born Peacock was just 30 when first elected to succeed Michael Dugher as a Barnsley MP in 2017. She had cut her teeth in politics as a particularly young youth rep on Labour’s ruling body, the national executive committee (NEC), joining aged 20. “I came from a Young Labour background, instead of a student background, and there’s no doubt it was a very interesting time to be on the NEC.”

Learning the ropes on the NEC, from the basics of the party’s governance structure to its constant factional wrangling over the rulebook, she did so alongside big characters like Ken Livingstone and Dennis Skinner. She began at the tail end of Labour’s time in government under Tony Blair, then saw Gordon Brown take over, and finally opposition under Ed Miliband.

Sitting alongside ministers and trade union reps from 2007 to 2011, she had a front-row seat for the demise of New Labour.

Despite this early start in politics, Peacock did not come from a Labour family: “I got involved in politics a little bit by accident through school.” It was a mock election that sparked her interest, which she relayed to her care worker father whose political activity did not extend beyond voting. “Oh, well, if you’re interested, we should go and meet your MP,” he replied, promptly booking an appointment at their local MP Sylvia Heal’s surgery. “It was very proactive of him,” she says now.

While on the NEC, she worked for Heal and studied part-time, before doing Teach First and qualifying as a teacher at north London’s Parliament Hill comprehensive. “Any teacher working at a secondary school, hats off to them,” she says. “I learned a lot from it, and it was great, but it’s just a challenging job.” From there, she taught for shop workers’ union Usdaw and later became a political officer at one of Labour’s biggest affiliates, the GMB union.

Having been linked to Tom Watson in the past, Peacock has hints of the ‘old Labour right’ about her politics – calling herself Labour’s biggest fan of the royals, for example – but she is now most closely allied with her boss, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who hails from the ‘soft left’. Like her, Peacock is pleased that Andy Burnham has been allowed to run as a Labour candidate for Parliament.

“It was the right decision,” she says, using the now well-worn line, “We want the best players on the pitch”. “I’ve known Andy a long time,” she adds.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, is in the strange situation of having to govern while a slow-motion leadership challenge is carried out. If Burnham wins in Makerfield, some would like a coronation, while others think a proper leadership contest should follow and others still believe the PM can continue in post for several months longer. What should Keir Starmer do on June 19?

“I mean, I’m not here to be advising the Prime Minister. He’s clearly focused on getting on with the job, and I think that’s absolutely right… As a government, we do want to deliver.”

Peacock is a serving minister and collective responsibility still, more or less, applies. But the polls would suggest that she might have a better chance of keeping her Reform-facing seat under a Burnham leadership.

“There’s no doubt, if you look at the election results in Barnsley a few weeks ago, that it was a very difficult night for my party,” she says, before reeling off a list of good things the local Labour council had done. “But people didn’t vote for them, and that’s really difficult, and that is reflective of people not feeling like their lives are getting better.”

She is particularly proud of changes to miners’ pensions, which she campaigned for – and yet in her ex-mining area, where Labour has lost power for the first time after Reform smashed its majority to bits, it wasn’t enough.

“It’s not working, no. It’s not,” Peacock replies bluntly. “I would argue all the things I’ve just said make a tangible difference. Clearly, they’re not going far enough, and I don’t think we communicate them as well as we could… Sometimes we have a habit of talking about something once and then moving on to the next thing, and that is a real problem.”

“It’s not working, no. It’s not”

Already, rejoining the EU has become a feature of the Schrödinger’s leadership battle taking place. The policy has been embraced enthusiastically by Wes Streeting, who is well aware of where his politics map well onto those of the party membership. The House suggests this may be rather irritating to Peacock.

“Yes,” she agrees. “It’s not my thing. I’ve got a very clear view on that. My area voted very clearly to leave. We could relitigate the whole Brexit debate, but I think people did that for a number of different reasons, and a lot of it was to do with feeling left behind, feeling like anything is better than what we’ve got. They voted leave for lots of reasons, and we left, and that was the right decision.

“I always respected the result, and my voting record shows it in the previous parliament. So, I’ve got no time for conversations about rejoining the EU, and I don’t think my constituents do either.”

While Labour’s most pro-EU wing argues that the emotional cost of relitigating Brexit would be worth the economic upside, tourist levy critics would similarly say the government should have resisted the demand for a measure they see as anti-growth. Instead, the soft left and metro mayors overcame Treasury caution and business opposition – perhaps a sign of things to come in a potentially Burnham-led future.