Baroness Bray of Coln
Main Page: Baroness Bray of Coln (Conservative - Life peer)(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Richard Harrington
My hon. Friend makes a good point.
I should also mention lottery funding, although I am referring not to charitable or community-based assistance, but to a serious vehicle for serious investors. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is besieged by people wanting handouts. I have spoken to the Treasury about this issue, and I am talking about not a handout, but something that would be hugely beneficial to the country economically—all the evidence is there.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
I am lucky enough to represent Ealing Studios, a very long-standing and famous set of film studios, and I agree with what has been said this morning. In America and Hollywood, there is so much money that people can afford to plan 10 years ahead. They know that a couple of the films that they take on will be duds, but they can afford to carry the duds because they know that somewhere in the mix there will be at least two or three films that make them a sensational fortune. What is it that they get so right over there that we need to look at so that we get it right here? We need a big enough investment and a big enough group of people who can plan ahead and take a couple of duds on the chin, but who can get the good films going as well.
Richard Harrington
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point that goes to the nub of my argument.
For once in this country, we have all the infrastructure. We have studios such as Ealing, Pinewood, Shepperton and Elstree. Of course, no one would dispute that the Hollywood of the UK is Watford and Leavesden, which makes some of the lusher, more tree-lined roads in Watford very much akin to Beverly Hills.