Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Double Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We will be hearing quite a lot from the Chancellor in a minute or two. What I would say is that we have a fundamentally strong economy that is facing a very difficult set of world circumstances. Here in Britain, with unemployment at 5%, inflation at virtually 0%, unemployment figures showing a fall again today and wages growing at 2%, that is a better record than most other countries in the developed world can boast. A lot of that is down to the very clear plan set out by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and followed these past six years.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

Q14. Last week was English tourism week, and I was delighted to welcome an international delegation to the Eden Project to promote Cornwall as a destination for international tourists. Visitor numbers are up in Cornwall, but there is still more we can do to attract overseas visitors out of London and into the regions of our country. What more can the Government do to support the tourist industry and particularly to get more overseas visitors to come to Cornwall?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend knows that, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing finer than getting out of London and down to Cornwall. There is no better place than Polzeath beach when the sun is setting, the waves are big and my phone is working—and the Daily Mail photographer has gone home. That helps. We need to get people who come to our country to visit the wonders of London also to spend some time outside London. That is what some of the new schemes that we have announced—the £40 million Discover England fund, for instance—are all about. I urge the authorities in Cornwall to make the most of it.