My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. The contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, made me think of an incident when an old man collapsed outside Sheffield Town Hall, obviously extremely
ill. I happened to be the first one to reach him and the first to call an ambulance, but I was very relieved when another passer-by announced that he had first-aid training. I acted as a liaison for the ambulance while he took practical action. It was obvious that most of the bystanders wanted to help but had no idea what to do. I note some figures from 2018 from the British Heart Foundation, which I doubt have improved, sadly: nearly one-third of UK adults were not likely to perform CPR if they saw someone suffer a cardiac arrest.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, mentioned social solidarity. I think that phrase is highly apt. These are necessary skills to glue societies together. I also welcome his comments on arts and culture subjects, reflecting the financial value of the creative industries. I also reflect on the value of these to the quality of life for all of us, to well-being and to mental health. We should value creativity as providing challenging, critical ideas. That perhaps give us an idea of why the Government might not be so keen on these subjects. I also note that we have a huge lack of public art in the UK. We could be doing a lot more to fund that in Covid recovery.
I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, acknowledged the way in which skills and training in these kinds of subjects can lead to further study and employment, if not in a direct way. I very much agree with her that decisions about what is needed need to be made at a local level, working with the wider community. This provokes reflections on other debates we have had in this Committee about the role local government and regional and city mayors should have in these local skills improvement plans.
I will go away and read all the contributions carefully, particularly those from the Minister, and will think about where we might go with this on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.