Creative Industries: Creating Jobs and Productivity Growth

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

To move that this House takes note of the contribution of the creative industries to the Government’s growth mission and to creating jobs and productivity growth.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to open this debate. I very much look forward to the three maiden speeches by my noble friends Lady Griffin, Lord Lemos and Lord Brennan, and, of course, to the speech of my noble friend Lady Twycross. I thank the Library and the many organisations that have sent briefings to us all—many briefings, because, of course, the creative industries cover such a huge area of our national life and our economy.

Some of us will probably recall a teacher or a person who first opened our eyes to the pleasure of music, art, design, or some form of creative endeavour. In my case this was Miss Bickerstaff, who was the music teacher at Frizinghall Middle School in Bradford, which I attended between the ages of 11 and 13. She took us to St George’s Hall in Bradford to hear the Hallé orchestra. Before we went, she played some of the music to us and explained what we were about to hear. I still need only to hear the opening chords of “Night on the Bare Mountain” or “Fingal’s Cave” and I know exactly what it is I am listening to, for which I am very grateful.

Thankfully, the English teachers at the comprehensive I went on to attend bothered to take us to the local theatres. I admire teachers so much, because we must have been such an unruly bunch. We went to see not only the Shakespeare we were studying but, being Bradford, plays such as JB Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls”—I have to say, it took years for me to work out exactly what was going on in that.

While I am recalling my home city, I must, of course, rejoice that Bradford’s year as City of Culture is taking place now. The Bradford district was selected by the Government in May 2022. Bradford 2025 is taking place throughout the Bradford district, which covers 141 square miles across West Yorkshire, including Haworth, Ilkley and Saltaire, as well as Bradford itself. Bradford was also the first UNESCO City of Film, and the filming location for “Peaky Blinders”, “Happy Valley” and “The Crown”. We are one of the UK’s youngest cities; a quarter of our population is under 20 years old. Bradford 2025 is created for, with, and by the people of Bradford, and it has young people at its heart. Not surprisingly, the programme reflects youth, from education, skills and training projects to new artistic commissions centred on the lives, concerns and ambitions of young people today.

This year will see Bradford’s dynamic contemporary arts and culture, from dance and theatre to film, music and even food, because, of course, it is the curry capital of Britain. New cultural investment will have an impact long after the end of 2025. We have already seen significant investment in the region, and Bradford 2025 is set to serve as a catalyst for development, regeneration and change.

I encourage noble Lords to go to the Bradford 2025 website and to take part in some of the great activities on offer. For instance, each month a different artist will invite us to create a drawing inspired by a particular theme. I am afraid noble Lords have missed David Hockney inviting people to paint something beautiful and send it to him, but I am sure noble Lords’ artistic work would be much appreciated.

In many ways, Bradford is ahead of the curve in bringing to reality the contribution that our creative industries can bring to our localities and regions, to economic revival and to job creation. We are part of the recently announced funding for six mayoral strategic authorities—of which one is, of course, the mayoralty of our own mayor, Tracy Brabin, who has led trade delegations and cultural collaborations all over the world and is, of course, key to the success of Bradford 2025—which bodes very well for our region.

It was a pleasure, having been in the DCMS team twice in opposition—from 2013 to 2015, and most recently with the team led by the soon to be ennobled Thangam Debbonaire as shadow Secretary of State—to be a small part of Labour policy on the creative arts, and to witness the speeches and commitment of Thangam and the now Prime Minister, my right honourable friend Sir Keir Starmer MP, to the creative community at a wonderful event at the fantastic Guildhall School of Music and Drama last year. I regard this debate, partly, as looking to see what has happened in the last year and in the very early days of our Labour Government. I learned something new about our Prime Minister at that event. He spoke with passion about how coming to the Guildhall on a Saturday morning to learn to play the flute was an important awakening for him of the importance of music and of making music accessible to all children, even one like him. He caught the train into London on his own for lessons that his parents would have found difficult to afford. So, among his many talents as our Prime Minister, he is also a flautist.

So how could the creative industries not be integral to my Labour Government’s plan for economic growth? They bring £124 billion to our economy annually. We can see those commitments taking shape, even though we inherited a chaotic economy, and that the country needs to invest in the British success story that is the creative industries. We all know that there are very real challenges. Indeed, the industry has not held back in telling us the challenges it faces in the many briefings we have been sent, but many also acknowledge what a good start we have made.

We should start by treasuring the institutions and bodies this country has created over many decades, and in some cases hundreds of years, that are the envy of the world and provide a foundation on which to build and invest. The BBC contributed almost £5 billion to the UK economy last year, supporting over 50,000 jobs. It is the largest single investor in UK-made programming, and 50% of the BBC’s economic output is outside London. The National Trust is a great British success story, caring for almost a quarter of a million hectares of land, 780 miles of coastline, and more than 300 historic houses, gardens and archaeological landscapes. It has almost 5.5 million members, and, of course, the best scones you might wish for—although I am not sure the dining room here would agree with me about that.

The Arts Council invests money from the Government and the National Lottery to support creativity and culture. However, since 2017, arts funding from national bodies has been cut by 16% in real terms, so I very much welcome the review established by my right honourable friend Lisa Nandy MP, the Secretary of State, to be led by my noble friend Lady Hodge, a former Culture Minister, to explore how to improve access to the arts and culture in all areas of the country, to drive access to opportunity.

The Edinburgh Festival in Scotland is known all over the world, is innovative, brings forth amusement, and is a huge asset to the UK, and one we need to treasure. I will also mention the University of the Arts London’s College of Fashion, which is based in east London; the National Theatre and many of our leading theatres, drama schools and performing arts venues, from the Picturedrome in Holmfirth—I declare an interest because it is run by my brother-in-law—to the Salisbury Playhouse, the Exeter Northcott Theatre, the “end of the pier” in Cromer, of which I am very fond, the Royal Hall, Harrogate, the Playhouse Whitley Bay, and my local Hampstead Theatre; the Baltic; the Glasshouse; the British Museum; the Science Museum Group and its partner museums in Bradford, Manchester, York, Shildon and Wiltshire, which have over 5 million visitors a year between them; the Tate galleries in Liverpool and St Ives, Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Tate Digital; the National Gallery; and the hundreds of small galleries, such as Cartwright Hall in Bradford, which all enrich our communities everywhere.

I need to mention Manchester, because it is already recognised as one of Europe’s largest creative digital technology clusters and, of course, has Salford. It is home to a fast-growing £5 billion digital ecosystem, and the ENO is moving to Manchester, so it is heading towards being an international powerhouse for the arts.

Wales Arts International is the international agency of the Arts Council in Wales and is a gateway between the arts of Wales and the world.

The video games industry is the fastest-growing sector in the nation’s creative industries. It is driven by creativity and innovation and generates £6 billion in gross value added. I hope my noble friend has noted the smart report from UKIE—UK Interactive Entertainment—about the upskilling and qualifications we need to create digital technologies by combining STEAM disciplines—science, technology, engineering, arts, and maths—to provide the skill set critical for a 21st century economy.

I have to end my by-no-means-exhaustive list by mentioning dance, opera, ballet and music. The Royal Opera House—under one of our Members, the noble Lord, Lord Hall—took opera and ballet out of its wonderful building in Covent Garden and broadcast it on screens all over the country and is now partnering with 150 organisations and reaching thousands of schools through teacher training. We are blessed with the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Northern Ballet, English National Ballet, Ballet Rambert and, announced most recently, Sadler’s Wells East—many ballet and dance schools.

I know I will be in trouble for not mentioning something or other or a genre, but I think we can say with confidence that we are blessed. Our creative industries are integral to our regeneration, and the Government recognise this and have picked up the commitments made and are running with them. As Lisa Nandy said in her groundbreaking speech at the Creative Industries Growth Summit on 17 January at the Baltic and the Glasshouse:

“Arts and culture must be for everyone, everywhere. No matter your background or the place you live, we should all be able to experience the joys that dance, theatre, music, museums, even borrowing a book from a library brings”.


From film to fashion to music and advertising, our creative industries are truly world-class and play a critical role in helping us deliver on this Government’s mission to drive economic growth in all parts of the UK, but they face challenges and that is why we need a 10-year plan.

The first challenge is skills and education, which was mentioned in almost every brief we received about this issue. From digital games to the people in the BPI music industry, via the heritage industry and our need for specialist building skills to retrofit our special buildings for our net-zero future, there is a huge challenge, which I know that my noble friend will acknowledge—and her department is of course working very closely with the Department for Education.

Secondly, there is the huge issue of intellectual property and our music industry and the importance of the gold standard IP rights framework which is enshrined in UK law. We must maintain, protect and champion this, and I hope my noble friend can confirm this is a priority.

Thirdly, there is AI. I will quote our Secretary of State:

“we hear creators’ concerns and we recognise the worry that AI is an existential threat to livelihoods. There is no value without content. I want to assure you in the clearest possible terms: creatives are at the core of our AI strategy”.

We have to remove barriers to innovation and creativity. This is a pledge we have heard from across government, and I know my noble friend the Minister will be able to put some flesh on the bones of this pledge today. It must tackle things such as space to rehearse, funding to match needs, the time it takes to create and how the apprenticeship scheme fits in with the investment that is needed to make a business thrive and work in its early years.

I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Vadera has agreed to lead us through this new chapter as the next chair of our revamped Creative Industries Council. She and the titan that is Sir Peter Bazalgette have wasted no time in setting to work on the sector plan, which is our dedicated plan in the industrial strategy that will guide us forwards.

I look forward to having this debate again in a year or so’s time when we can see what our first steps have led to and how we are taking this drive for the creative industries forward. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Motion agreed.