Business of the House

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this matter. He will have heard me say earlier that where longer journeys times were involved, we had a full public consultation on the decision. I ask him to bear in mind what I also said to the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), which is that I would like him to focus as much as possible on the outputs of the process, which will lead to more work coaches assisting his constituents.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

The Scottish Government have now twice written to the outgoing Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, asking her to intervene in order to save jobs in the culture and sports sectors following the severe decline in lottery revenues seeing huge cuts to the money going to devolved sports and culture bodies. May we have a debate on the importance of sport and culture, and on how we plug the huge gap in resources causing these sectors to suffer?

[Paul Maynard]

I will certainly mention that point to the Leader of the House, who will want to ensure that the hon. Gentleman gets the response he expects. At the same time, I urge him to consider the various avenues for debates in this place to find an appropriate forum to air his concerns.