Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)

My Lords, I know time is tight. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap, and I will do so briefly. I ask my noble friend the Minister to bear two things in particular in mind, both of which have arisen in the course of this debate. One is the complex interdependency of the entirety of the arts and cultural ecosystem, as referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, within which any bit, small or large, is important, as if it comes under threat it is a threat to the whole system. The second point I want to make is narrower, about the particular challenges facing small performing arts organisations. I remind noble Lords of my many, often rehearsed interests in the performing arts sector. Those organisations operate on tiny margins; very small sensitivities can have a huge impact on them. It is very important—in particular to those organisations that expend an enormous amount of effort on fundraising—that they can feel confident, even in difficult times, that this Government understand and appreciate the value of public funding of the arts and will do their very best to sustain it to the best of their ability, locally and nationally.