Oral Answers to Questions

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the importance of local events, and I urge all hon. Members to examine the connection between their area and the first world war. It is by bringing it to life in this very local and personal way that we can give this commemoration the importance it needs. The Government are investing more than £50 million in projects such as the refurbishment of the Imperial War museum, but we will also be doing an awful lot more at a community level.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

4. What assessment she has made of access to the arts in each region.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

My Department’s Taking Part survey shows high levels of access to the arts in all regions of England; the figures are 78.9% in England overall and 74.5% in the west midlands.

[Tristram Hunt]

First, may I pay tribute to the great work the Minister is doing on the Wedgwood museum? However, as a result of the extraordinary and disproportionate cuts to local authority budgets, great museums such as the Potteries museum and art gallery in Stoke-on-Trent face a funding and scholarship crisis. In a recent letter to The Guardian, the chair of Arts Council England, Liz Forgan, said that bodies such as hers cannot fill the vacuum. What talks is the Minister having with that great aesthete and lover of the arts the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to make sure that our great cities and regions continue to have access to great art?

[Mr Vaizey]

I met the great lover of the arts’ junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), only yesterday, and my Department has regular communications with the Department for Communities and Local Government. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we managed to keep the cuts to national portfolio organisations down to 15% or less, and we have massively increased the national lottery share for the arts. However, we do, of course, take concerns about local authority funding seriously.