Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

Let me reassure the hon. Lady that we are interested in this issue because we want local television to be more local and better than it is. One of the problems with regional television at the moment is that the footprint is so large that it is difficult to put out programming and news that have the impact that real local television has. I have every confidence that what we announced yesterday will make a huge difference to her constituents in the Wirral.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Minister might consider the failure of north-east tourism to be able to promote itself—a failure caused by the cuts that this Government have imposed—to be an isolated problem, but it is a real problem in the north-east. If he takes the trouble to visit the north-east, I am sure that an array of critics in the north-east tourism industry, including the National Trust, will make their feelings well known to him.

[John Penrose]

As I hope I have made clear, I am aware of the issues. I would be delighted to come to visit some of the north-east’s impressive tourism attractions, including such places as Holy island and many others. I would love to do that in due course, but if the hon. Gentleman has specific examples of problems in his area, I would repeat what I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) earlier, which is that there is a team specifically set up at VisitEngland to cope with precisely those issues.

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[Sir George Young]

I agree with my hon. Friend: there are opportunities to drive down the costs, and not just for IPSA, but for Members and their staff who have to operate the system. The existing regime was set up to a challenging timetable, and IPSA is the first to recognise that improvements can be made. I hope that my hon. Friend will respond to the review that is under way and put forward suggestions for reducing the costs on both sides of the equation.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does the Leader of the House agree that the comments made over Christmas by a member of the IPSA board—comments that were ill-informed and insulting to many Members of Parliament—were not helpful in building a positive relationship between this House and IPSA? Could he put those comments on the agenda for the liaison group’s first meeting?

[Sir George Young]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that those comments were not helpful. I hope that one of the benefits of setting up the liaison group will be that we will now have a proper forum for consultation between IPSA and the House, and that there will be no need to resort to public acrimony in the newspapers. I hope that we will be able to have a sensible discussion and iron out some of the real difficulties that exist, without experiencing the kind of incidents to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred.