Arts, Culture and Heritage: Support Package Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Tommy Sheppard
Main Page: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)Department Debates - View all Tommy Sheppard's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. One of the key criteria for allocating the money will be about supporting small cultural organisations that may be the only theatre or museum in their town, that are vital to the arts and culture ecosystem in their area and to other businesses in the supply chain and that are the key focal point of culture and arts in their area. That will be one of the key aspects we look at when allocating this cash.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
The £97 million for Scotland, while welcome, is not a proportionate share of £1.57 billion, so I presume that a fair chunk of the package is either not new, or capital spending. Given that, will the Government either revise the consequentials to allow a proportionate share of capital spending in Scotland, or relax the capital controls on the Scottish Government to allow them to provide the same support for the arts in Scotland as exists elsewhere in the UK?
Caroline Dinenage
All this is new money, and £100 million of it is targeted at support for national cultural institutions in England and organisations such as the English Heritage Trust, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Library. Some £120 million of it is capital investment to restart construction on cultural infrastructure projects in England, and £188 million, through the Barnett formula, will go to enable the devolved Administrations to support their cultural sectors.