Devolution: Arts and Culture

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the funding for the lottery is on a capita basis but deprivation is part of its consideration.

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

Does my noble friend accept that an individual new development in the regions, such as the Lowry in Salford, can have a much wider regenerative effect when it is coupled with, say, the Imperial War Museum of the North and the BBC? The wider regenerative effect of a cluster can be much greater in the regions than in, say, our capital city.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, again, there are very good examples of where regeneration and the arts run hand in hand. In Northern Ireland, for instance, the creative industries are worth half a billion pounds a year, and there are areas around Belfast cathedral where creative industries are centred, which is very much part of the regeneration of that great city.