Creative Industries — Debate

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:08 pm on 3 November 2011.

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Photo of The Earl of Glasgow The Earl of Glasgow Liberal Democrat 1:08, 3 November 2011

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter on not only setting up the debate but also her important speech, which I hope will be followed up or taken very seriously by the Government. I also congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, who is not in his seat at the moment, on his maiden speech. It looks as if he is going to be a great credit to we rather sad number of beleaguered hereditary peers-there are not many of us.

I want to say a few words about the British film industry, particularly because I bring tidings of good news at a time when there seems to be a diet of bad news. The British film industry is bucking the trend. In fact, 2011 could be the British film industry's most successful year of all time. Already this year, $3.3 million of foreign sales have been achieved, and £311 million in domestic sales. This has been caused by a certain number of films that have come out this year. Practically everybody has seen "The King's Speech", which was very successful: it won 65 awards, including four Oscars and seven BAFTAs. It was only beaten by another British film three years ago, "Slumdog Millionaire", which got eight Oscars and 104 awards. Rather surprisingly to some of us, "Tinker Tailor Solider Spy" is becoming a very successful film. It is surprising to me because I thought that people under 40 would not understand or be interested in the Cold War, but apparently it is appealing to them.

The most successful British film in Britain this year is something that I doubt any of us here will have seen, called "The Inbetweeners Movie". It is about a whole lot of young people behaving very badly. It is what is sometimes called-oh dear, I have forgotten the name now, but there is a certain type of word for that particular type of film. It tends to be all about people behaving badly. What is the word for it? I cannot remember now.