King’s Speech

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey. He said a lot of thank-yous—well done.

My Lords, it is a great honour and not a small challenge to be the winding speaker from these Benches on today’s debate on the gracious Speech. I might add that I am missing a concert in the Cholmondeley Room by the Yehudi Menuhin School. I think several other noble Lords are, too—but they will probably manage without us and it will be wonderful.

We have heard three maiden speeches from noble Lords. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, in a rather lovely speech, served to make this feminist humanist give yet another cheer for the addition of another woman to her sister bishops. I welcome her to the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, should be congratulated on her very gracious speech. It was what you might call a Young Conservative speech. None the less, the first part of it, in which she talked about young people, will be a very valuable addition to our debates in the House. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, on his moving speech and also thank him for the Oyster card. That was a revelation; you always learn something in maiden speeches and that was something that I did not know, so I thank him very much indeed.

This is my first time in several years speaking from the Front Bench as DCMS spokesperson, which I did before 2015. It is an honour to do so again. I am greatly looking forward to working with a huge range of brilliant organisations and talented people, and, indeed, with the Minister. I will continue to carry the women and equalities brief, because equalities cuts across the whole of government—something I draw to the attention of my colleagues from time to time—including DCMS. Here I am thinking about girls and football, and the equality challenges for disabled, women and BAME performers on stage, in music and in the media. So there is plenty to celebrate but also plenty to challenge.

I turn to the gracious Speech. I will mostly address culture, the media and the creative industries in this speech, but I must say how proud I am of the range of speakers on these Benches. My noble friend Lord Stansgate is a science champion of many years. My noble friend Lord Griffiths treated us to an enormously thoughtful speech. He always gets to the nub of things—the ethics of AI, which I hope the Minister will take on board. My noble friend Lord Knight questioned whether the gracious Speech offered anything to prepare our next generation for the science, technology and creative future that they face. My noble friend Lady Morgan gave us a brilliant and well-informed speech about global science. My noble friend Lord Watson talked about physics and education. I have a nephew who was a physics teacher and stopped being one, which was a huge shame because he is a great scientist and loved his subject. He just could not stand the bureaucracy; he felt he spent too much time not teaching physics.

I agree with my noble friend Lady Jones’s opening remarks, and indeed with the remarks of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon when she moved the Motion to adjourn the debate on the gracious Speech last Tuesday. This is not a serious programme for government. It fails to meet the criteria that my noble friend Lady Smith sought: good governance, competence, optimism and vision. It is a missed opportunity to champion our creative industries. Mind you, I am significantly less critical than the steaming letter I have been reading on these Benches from the previous Home Secretary to the Prime Minister, which is a bit of a scorcher.

I need to declare an interest: my brother-in-law, Peter Carr, is owner of the Picturedrome in Holmfirth, the town famous for being in “Last of the Summer Wine”. The Picturedrome was built in 1912 and was one of the first purpose-built cinemas. It remains a cinema, but it is also one of the best music venues in the north and an important community resource that has played a huge role in the revitalisation of the town.

Like many noble Lords, I have some favourite places and venues, including Salts Mill in Saltaire, a world heritage industry village; I was there on Sunday with my granddaughter. There is also the Rich Mix in Bethnal Green, Belsize Community Library, the gallery in Cartwright Hall in Manningham Park, where I saw my first paintings as a child, Piece Hall in Halifax, and the Roundhouse in Camden. We need to celebrate local creative arts venues. At the same time, we should rejoice at our wonderful national creative places, of which we are so rightly proud. Labour will work to create and protect creative spaces across the country, in rural areas and towns, as well as cities, in both the north and the south.

A week or so ago, I was privileged to attend the opening of the London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London at East Bank. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has found time to visit there. If he has not, I suggest that, as he is a Hackney resident, he would appreciate it. East Bank is the UK’s newest cultural quarter, at the heart of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The Mayor of London has set out his £1.1 billion vision, which represents the most significant single investment in London’s culture since the legacy of the 1851 Great Exhibition. I am pleased to say that it will shape the cultural life of the city for the 21st century and beyond. The opening was a life-enhancing event, with wonderfully talented and creative young people. Next door to it is the V&A building and Sadler’s Wells.

A new creative quarter is very exciting indeed. However, on leaving the event to go to Stratford station, I was met by a stream of humanity heading in the opposite direction to the Olympic stadium for a West Ham v Arsenal football match. I thought: what a great use of our Olympic stadium—which helpfully brings me to mention the football regulation Bill, which I expect we will see some time in the new year. I anticipate that my noble friend Lord Bassam will engage in forensic and informed scrutiny of the Bill, which I, of course, will support. We will look closely at the details of the financial regulatory measures and the scope of the regulatory field to see whether it goes far enough down the football leagues and ask why it does not cover the women’s game, which is growing so fast.

As several noble Lords have mentioned, football clubs are at the heart of our communities. I would not say that our social life at home revolves around the fixtures of Leeds United, but it does sometimes feel like that. Labour supports the full implementation of the fan-led review and an independent regulator. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for their comments on this.

I turn to the wider concerns of the creative sector, which is now worth £111 billion in gross value added to the UK—more than £35 billion more than the automotive, life sciences, aerospace, and oil and gas industries combined. One gets the feeling that the UK’s creative industries are thriving despite the Government, not because of them. Under the Conservatives, the creative industries have been short-changed. We have seen vandalistic attacks on some of our most important orchestras and musical establishments. Creative freelancers were excluded from Covid support. The post-Brexit cost and complexity for artists—and, indeed, for some of our young scientists, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said—makes getting visas and working in Europe difficult, and it jeopardises those orchestras and companies. That is without doubt the Government’s responsibility. They face many other challenges: financial sustainability, intellectual property protection, which the noble Earl, Lord Devon, mentioned, the changing technology landscape and the freelance and gig economy.

My honourable friend Thangam Debbonaire MP, who is shadow Secretary of State at the DCMS, has announced that the next Labour Government will bring forward “space to create”—the first national cultural infrastructure plan. We intend to put the creative industries at the heart of our plan for economic growth.

Finally, I turn to the Media Bill. As noble Lords know, the draft media Bill was published by the Government in March 2023. It is urgently needed. We strongly welcome this all-important Bill, which is long overdue. The Government wasted a year—as noble Lords have said—pursuing their disastrous plan to sell off Channel 4. My noble friend Lord Hanworth rightly told us about the strategic importance Channel 4 has had to our creative industries in the UK. Can the Minister tell the House what is the timetable for the Bill and its implementation? We need to get on with this.

This Bill rightly seeks to address the prominence of public service broadcasting. As many of us know, on a lot of smart TVs it is now equally hard to find the EPG itself. Will the Bill properly address this issue to make sure that EPGs are included and that they will be prominent, whatever system people use? Remote controls are a key navigation tool for people and often the subject of disputes in households, mine included. They provide clear and well-understood routes to watch TV content. Will remotes be included in the prominence regime to guarantee a familiar route for users to access regulated user interfaces? Finally, will PSBs be given “significant”, not “appropriate”, prominence, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said?

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today. I look forward to working with the Minister as we pick up the legislation and other issues relevant to our precious creative industries.