Baroness Thornton (Lab)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today. I also thank the three stars who made their maiden speeches. We had emotional intelligence and the promise of a new band, huge experience in public services—and yes, I assure my noble friend that we will catch her if we need to—and multitasking. I think my noble friend Lord Lemos needs to know that, in this House, multitasking means that you are expected to be active on at least three Bills at once. I anticipated that we would have a wide-ranging and erudite debate today, given the enthusiasm for and breadth of experience in the creative industries in your Lordships’ House. My noble friend the Minister had her work cut out—that was a gallop. Those of us who have been there before know that those 20 minutes seem a long time but actually, given that there were something like 25 speakers all asking questions, getting through most of them is a huge job. However, we need to remember that, at the end of the day, we are talking about something really joyful, positive and worthwhile. My noble friend illustrated in her response, for which I thank her, that the Government are mindful of the need to support the creative industries in a whole range of ways, some of which will require legislation, rules to be changed or some activity to just make things happen. I put in to have this as a Labour debate in the summer, but other debates took place instead. The decision was taken not to have it then, but I am glad it happened now, because at least we have had some progress and announcements and we know where the pinch points are that we need to focus on in the next year or so. The challenge is making real the promises and ambition of the Government, and making them real everywhere. We are all ambitious here and the Government have to focus and take action. I will finish by saying that some of our institutions are hugely innovative. I have, in the past, spoken about the National Theatre as an example of a national institution that runs apprenticeships for electricians, carpenters and all the people you need to make a large theatre and institution work. That is to its credit and is the kind of thing we want to see happening more often. Camden, where I live, runs a music trust whose aim is that every child leaves primary school, as my granddaughter has just done, playing an instrument and reading music—and it succeeds. An investment was made years ago to set up the Camden Music Trust, and those are the initiatives we need to capture at local level, where we know that the decisions taken by local councillors will have a huge impact on those children. There is a lot to do, but I think we have made a good start and I thank all noble Lords who have participated.