Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con) [V]]

I am delighted to take part in this debate and to highlight the importance of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport investments in Stoke-on-Trent Central, supporting local organisations as we move to the covid-19 recovery phase. As many colleagues want to speak in this debate, I will keep my comments brief.

The culture recovery fund has already provided a lifeline for many local organisations and I will mention just a few. The Sugarmill, a small grassroots music venue, benefited from a £240,000 grant to keep it afloat. Such venues are the R&D arm of the music industry, giving those at the beginning of their careers the chance to be heard. From Coldplay to Kasabian, this Stoke venue has featured future stars.

The Clay Foundation delivers the British Ceramics Biennial festival and provides supported workshops across the city in care homes and schools. During lockdown it supplied packs of clay and tools to enable the young and the elderly to engage in creative activities which helped their wellbeing.

VAST Services received funding to look after the Dudson Museum on behalf of the family trust. This gave it the opportunity to develop digital tools, including a virtual tour on its website, and look at future income generation for this valued local heritage asset.

B-arts used the funding to sustain 80 freelance artists, commissioning work to keep people’s spirits up, sharing lived experience as well as delivering kits and worksheets to families, in addition to food from its waste food café during lockdown.

The Spode Museum Trust had no income during lock-down and the £20,000 DCMS grant brought the charity time to reflect while looking after the wellbeing of staff, volunteers and trustees. It looked at its audience and user markets, and used a kickstart grant to develop its website and start digitising artefacts. Online sales have provided new income and a deal with Portmeirion saw the Spode pattern produced on bone china, in the home of bone china, for the first time in many years.

Few cities are named after what they do. The Potteries are world leaders in ceramics and ceramic manufacturing, and Stoke-on-Trent has been at the heart of research and innovation for almost 300 years. The Spode site in my constituency is significant not as an historical relic, but as the focus for many creative businesses, charities, researchers, artists and innovators. The Spode works is the physical manifestation of what Stoke-on-Trent means: celebrating where we came from, talking about now and always looking forward; a place where we can stand on the past to get a better view of the future, and where arts and science are equally valued.

The common theme of these DCMS-funded projects is future-proofing our city by encouraging innovation and supporting creativity. Future funding will help to attract private investment and encourage talent and new opportunities, hopefully backed by levelling-up funding. It will enable the rebirth of this major symbol of Stoke-on-Trent’s past as a beacon for its future.