Interesting Facts

Bees contribute more to the British economy than the Royal family. (According to research carried out at the University of Reading, the overall value of the contribution of our busy bees is £651 million a year, which is £150 million more than the Royal Family brings in through tourism. In fact 85 per cent of the UK’s apple crop and 45 per cent of our strawberry crop relies on bees to grow. These two crops alone brought in £200 million to Britain in 2012. Unfortunately honeybee colonies have slumped in the UK from 250,000 in the 1950s to fewer than 100,000 today. In Germany everyone seems to have their own beehive.)

According to a Freedom of Information request from the Evening Standard newspaper a committee of British MPs has spent around £250,000 since 1995 commissioning portraits and statues of other MPs. (Now no one would really begrudge Sir Winston a statue or two, and even a prime minister like Mrs T should have her photo taken for the wall of infamy, but pictures and statues have also been commissioned for junior ministers and backbenchers. Frank Doran, Labour MP and chairman of the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art said, "We've been collecting art in the House of Commons, and Parliament generally, since the 14th century.  We're preserving the history of Parliament through art. We're also doing a number of other things as part of that process: one is supporting young artists.")