Charlie Elphicke
Main Page: Charlie Elphicke (Independent - Dover)Department Debates - View all Charlie Elphicke's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and I am sorry that I could not attend the event—I wanted to but I had a clash. I believe a Conservative won the event, and that is always welcome. As she well knows, sports governing bodies, including that for basketball, have received large amounts of public money—taxpayers’ money. It is certainly no gravy train and if sports cannot deliver increasing participation, it is absolutely right that the money should be diverted to those that can do so. I do not believe that doors are ever closed for ever and I would be happy to have a chat with her about the proposal she makes.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
T6. Many private sector companies are big supporters of the arts in Britain. Will the Secretary of State tell the House how important he believes that support to be?
Sajid Javid
As usual, my hon. Friend raises an important point. Support from the corporate sector for the cultural sector is very important. It amounted to around £110 million last year, almost a fifth of total investment. In the past couple of weeks, I have been to the Globe, which is supported by Deutsche Bank, and the Matisse exhibition at Tate Modern, which is supported and sponsored by Bank of America. Just yesterday I went to the Vikings exhibition at the British Museum, which is supported by BP. It was held in a new exhibition hall, which received the majority of its funding from the Sainsbury family.