Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

Clearly the rise in VAT is principally a matter for the Treasury, but it affects all economic sectors and every business in the country will have to make precisely the judgment that the right hon. Gentleman describes. As a politician, I would not dream of telling individual businesses how to run their business—it must rightly be a matter for them—but I am sure that, because they have skin in the game, they will make the right decision for their business in their particular sector.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Minister aware of how important literary houses in the UK are to visitors from overseas and from this country? I chair the John Clare Trust—he was one of our greatest poets of the countryside and environment. It is very difficult these days to get a brown sign or any help to put such attractions on the map. Can the Minister help us?

[John Penrose]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that our listed houses are major tourist attractions, and that includes our great heritage houses and the smaller and more modest places that are listed. If he is interested in promoting them more effectively, and I applaud his efforts in doing so, he should speak first with his local tourist board, which will be refocused in the way I have explained. We are also evaluating whether there are other ways to improve things such as signage, and not just brown signs, but signs at major transport interchanges, such as those that direct people on how to get to a particular attraction once they have arrived at a train station. All those points are essential and should be handled by the newly refocused and, I hope, revitalised local tourist boards.