Laura Sandys
Main Page: Laura Sandys (Conservative - South Thanet)Department Debates - View all Laura Sandys's debates with the Home Office
(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
10. What steps she is taking to support tourism.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
The Government place great importance on tourism. It is an excellent part of our growth strategy, which is why we are investing over £130 million, matched between the public and private sectors, in the GREAT and other marketing campaigns, both at home and abroad.
Laura Sandys
Following a very successful summer in South Thanet, profiling some of my beautiful beaches, I was very much hoping that the Government might reopen the issue of daylight saving, which would deliver £3 billion extra to the economy and 700,000 jobs in the tourism sector.
Mrs Grant
I know that my hon. Friend is a passionate advocate of tourism in her area, and I have been fortunate in being able to visit her constituency. However, as the Prime Minister made clear quite recently, in the absence of consensus on this matter throughout the UK—including in Scotland and Northern Ireland—it would be inappropriate to consider making changes.
Maria Miller
I will resist saying, “With friends like the hon. Gentleman, who needs enemies.” I thank him for his kind words and, I am sure, the sentiment in which they were meant. Obviously, he is right to say that we have made very good progress, and I hope he will join me in now resisting all calls for any form of statutory regulation of the press, which some others have been trying to impose. He asks me about the timing, and I can tell him that the panel will be set up in the next six to 12 months.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
T4. A small business in my constituency has had its telephone “slammed”: taken out of its hands and given to a local resident. We have been trying to get redress from Tesco, which has been reallocating these telephones lines. It is affecting the advertising and business costs of this small business; it is losing business and the resident is regularly receiving inquiries about tattoos.