Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I will.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

T2. I hesitate to make a party political point, but I must pick up the Secretary of State on what she has just said. There are real problems with arts funding outside London, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). It is not the case that the previous Government did nothing. My own city, Liverpool, saw a renaissance in the cultural sector. Will the Government now play their part and commit to a report on proper cultural funding for cities that do not happen to be our capital?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

We are certainly encouraging that, and a number of counties are working together, including Devon and Somerset, and Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. We will continue to encourage that where it is appropriate.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

11. What assessment she has made of the cultural sector in Merseyside.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Our most recent survey data show that last year, nearly 80% of adults in the north-west engaged with the arts and 4.9 million people visited DCMS-sponsored museums. Between 2010 and 2015, the Arts Council will invest £44 million in Merseyside organisations and £140 million across the north-west. National Museums Liverpool will receive £109 million in grant in aid.

[Alison McGovern]

I never get tired of hearing how successful the cultural sector is in Merseyside, so I thank the Minister for his answer. However, he knows as well as I do that National Museums is not the same as the support that local authorities formerly gave, and that before the disastrous cuts that they now face, leaders in Merseyside had been able to support the arts, so why will he not answer the question from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)? Why will he not say to us today that he will undertake a survey of local authority cuts and place that information about the arts in the House of Commons Library?

[Mr Vaizey]

The reason the hon. Lady does not get tired of hearing about the success of Merseyside’s arts organisations is that they are astonishingly successful. Liverpool had an incredible year as the European city of culture, its central library is being refurbished, it opened the first national museum for a century, the Liverpool Everyman is benefiting from a £28 million refurbishment, and only recently the Royal Court received a grant of £867,000 for its refurbishment.

Library Services

Debate between Alison McGovern and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Vaizey]

I will just finish my review, if the right hon. Lady does not mind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) reminded us that local authority library services are often debated and that the debate about the future of local libraries did not begin on 6 May 2010. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who has introduced a ten-minute rule Bill, reminded us again of her passion for libraries. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) mentioned e-books, which are very important indeed. There are complicated issues surrounding e-books, not least to do with the future of this country’s publishing, which is our most important and successful creative industry. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) ended the Back-Bench contributions by making an impassioned plea for me to intervene in the library service in his area.

The Labour party spokesman, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) made a wonderfully engaging speech, which ended with a series of questions for me, but let me also ask her a few questions. I would hate to think that her speech shared the same motivation as that by the hon. Member for Wigan, who revealed what was behind her speech in replying to an intervention when she said that “this is all politics”. The hon. Member for Ashfield asked whether I would guarantee the future of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. Yes, unlike the previous Labour Government, who showed rank hypocrisy in publishing a document on the modernisation of the library service just as they were running out of time. Their Minister with responsibility for libraries published a document asking whether we still need a statutory library service. If Labour had been re-elected, it would have got rid of the statutory library service, but Opposition Members now shed tears for the library service. When I campaigned against the closures proposed by the Labour council in the Wirral, where were Opposition Members? Again, rank hypocrisy.

[Alison McGovern]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

I will finish my opening remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I will certainly give my hon. Friend that commitment. I will explain exactly what the Government are doing in a minute. First, however, given that this is all politics, let me perhaps correct some of the impressions given by Opposition Members. The hon. Member for Wigan opened by saying that libraries in her local authority had no future.

[Alison McGovern]

I feel driven to intervene because the Minister mentioned Wirral, which is where my constituency is situated. Will he tell us why, if Labour is not committed to the 1964 Act, a Labour Secretary of State used it to inquire into what was happening in Wirral?

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady will have to ask him—first, because this is all politics and, secondly, because I asked him to do it; indeed, I had to push him, kicking and screaming, to do it.

Every local library is different, but there is a lot of good news on local libraries. For example, Wigan will potentially be part of the Greater Manchester future libraries pilot project, which has already identified 15% savings if the authorities involved work together. Despite the fact that the hon. Member for Wigan said that her libraries have no future, £1.5 million has been invested—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

My Department invests more than £1.6 billion into our sponsored bodies and much of it is fundamentally connected to improving children’s and young people’s access to the fantastic culture that we enjoy in this country. We are working closely with the Department for Education on a review of music education, and will shortly announce details of a review of cultural education, to ensure that we are taking the best approach to investment in, and the delivery of, culture for young people.

[Alison McGovern]

Now that young people have lost their education maintenance allowance and their free theatre ticket scheme, “A night less ordinary”, and that we know that there is no replacement in a good education for access to live music and theatre and other arts, what action will the Minister take in these very difficult circumstances for the cultural sector to ensure that young people, and especially those from poorer backgrounds, are not the ones who lose out?

[Mr Vaizey]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiments. I know that she used to work for Creative Partnerships and was a trustee of the South London gallery. She will know full well that almost all our cultural organisations work extremely hard to ensure access for young people to their work. We will continue to work with them and the Department for Education to ensure that that is maintained.