Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Cartlidge and Michael Ellis

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to support tourism throughout the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Michael Ellis)]

This week is English Tourism Week, and more than 50 Members of Parliament are doing constituency days tomorrow. The Government’s tourism action plan outlines the ways in which we support tourism, both domestic and international, throughout the UK, and VisitBritain works hard to promote Britain as both an international tourist destination and, of course, one for domestic visitors.

[James Cartlidge]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. As this is English Tourism Week, may I draw his attention to the wool towns project in Suffolk, where five of our beautiful medieval wool towns—Sudbury, Hadleigh, Long Melford, Lavenham and Clare—are joining together to draw more tourists to the area? I send him a warm invitation to visit the wool towns and to meet the stakeholders who are working so hard to make this happen.

[Michael Ellis]

Yes indeed. I thank my colleague for his interest in this area, and I will always support my colleagues in their efforts to improve the visitor economy in their constituencies. I hope that we can indeed organise a visit to the wool towns. In the meantime, I advise him in the first instance to look into the Discover England fund, which is a great fund. Also, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has the Coastal Communities fund, and sources of funding for initiatives that support the local visitor economy.