Merlin Entertainments is a UK company which is second only to Disney in theme parks and visitor attractions, with attractions including Alton Towers, Legoland, Madame Tussauds and the London Eye.

The Today programme Friday boss, chief executive of the company Nick Varney, told Simon Jack that while he "broadly endorses what the government is doing" in terms of recovery, there is too much of a "fixation on manufacturing".

He went on to say that tourism is the sector which can create jobs "most quickly" but that "the UK is only one of two countries that chooses not to put a preferential rate [of tax] on tourism".

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