Weekly E-mail
Posted by Edward Vaizey, MP for Wantage, at 20:26, Mon 3 August 2009:
You all probably think I have forgotten to do my weekly e-mail, and were perhaps breathing a sigh of relief. No such luck. We have now completed the full first week of our "holidays", and in between topping up my tan, I have had lots of meetings in Westminster, to do with my front bench responsibilites (culture and the creative industries, in case you had forgotten). I saw the Art Fund, one of Britain's largest arts charities, which gives £6 million a year to galleries to buy paintings. I also had a meeting with NESTA (The National Endowment for Science Technology and The Arts). Labour gave them £250 million as an endowment, and they use it to fund small creative start ups and do research. I wanted to know more about what they did, as part of our review of quangos. I met a broadband provider, as we are keen to roll out superfast broadband, as well as the mobile phone company Three (mobile can play a crucial role in broadband), and a lawyer who specialises in this area. I spent the day in Birmingham, seeing what the Arts Council does outside London, met the chief executive of Harper Collins (publishing is actually our largest creative industry), met a constituent who specialises in on-line television, a group that represents literacy charities, the chairman of the V&A and the Historic Houses Association.
In the constituency, I went to the North Moreton cricket festival, visited the Bullpen, an arts centre in Stanford-in-the-Vale, and celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Marcham's parish magazine. I also went to a BBQ in Baulking held to raise money for their parish church.
One other constituency matter - I recorded an edition of You and Yours with John Waite (Terry's brother) on the issue of mobile homes. For some years now, along with the residents of Blewbury, I have been fighting for the residents of Ladycroft Park, who have suffered at the hands of a series of rogue landlords, and the porgramme was an up-date on Government (in)action in this area.
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