My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak outlined some of the Government schemes to help single-person businesses, such as Mr. Turnock's, to attract and keep apprentices. For once—unusually—funding is not the problem. There is funding around, and there are a lot of courses; what we lack are people of any age who want to take up placements or apprenticeships in craft firms such as the one Mr. Turnock runs.

There are obviously many reasons for that situation. Sometimes, it is down to young people not being able to see a clear career path. Sometimes, it is because a person does not want to be a sole trader, or part of a small business. Sometimes, it is because younger people want to experience the bright lights of the cities, and craft trades tend to be in rural areas. Sometimes, it is just because people do not know that the opportunities and jobs exist, which is one of the areas where the Government can help—locally, regionally and centrally.

Overall, not many craftspeople have the time, or even the finance, to advertise what they do and to attract apprentices. It is a Catch-22 situation. Both the Government and the sector are very aware of the problems. This month, Creative and Cultural Skills published a crafts blueprint, to accompany and amplify the cultural heritage blueprint, which is a work force development plan designed to improve participation in the traditional skills sector. The success of recent television shows such as "Victorian Farm", as well as the 20-year waiting list for allotments in some areas, indicate real popular interest in sustainable traditional practices, which could lead to an appreciation of the time and care taken to produce quality hand-made items such as Mr. Turnock's riddles.

The UK is blessed with an extraordinarily wide variety of traditions and crafts. Coupled with increasing awareness of the economic, social and environmental impact of our current life styles on the health of our planet, there has been a resurgence of interest in traditional crafts and practices. We are seeing a revival of traditional crafts such as carpentry, knitting, crocheting, quilting and tatting, as well as an increase in the number of craft magazines and programmes. New technology makes some crafts easier and opens up a new and much wider market for quality hand-made products made by people such as Mr. Turnock.

The Crafts Council supports Mr. Turnock's work, and the work of all the other people in the sector. The council organises events to showcase crafts. English Heritage helps to fund the very popular heritage open days and festivals of archaeology, which as well as opening up buildings to the public also promote traditional crafts and activities.

Crafts, as a skill, fall under several central Government Departments. The Department for Communities and Local Government is very keen on them because it believes that maintaining traditional skills in a community helps to define and shape local identity. It knows that a shortage of skilled people can hold up planning applications for historical buildings. The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment published its "Skills to grow" report in partnership with 15 national bodies, including Lantra, which is the sector skills council for the land-based sector that focuses on horticultural green-space skills.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is responsible for sector skills councils such as CABE. It provides a great deal of support for small businesses that are involved in craft areas. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and its agencies, Natural England and the Forestry Commission, are supporting traditional skills through their rural development programme. My Department, through its non-departmental public bodies and the lottery, shares those common interests and backs the projects. For example, the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded more than £446 million to 1,300 projects that have delivered heritage skills training in not only blacksmithing, textiles and paper conservation, but traditional building skills, such as using lime mortar and dry-stone walling. Its £7 million bursary programme for on-the-job training in 10 areas in which it has found evidence of a shortage of crafts has helped to train new masons, hedge layers and millwrights.

My hon. Friend will be aware that English Heritage published the second "Heritage at Risk" report yesterday. Its finding confirmed the need for such skills locally and regionally. That is why English Heritage has been working with ConstructionSkills and the national heritage training group to address some of the shortages in traditional building craft skills. It is also why it has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the all-party arts and heritage group on maintaining standards and best practice in the built heritage sector.

I am glad that Arts Council England is also involved. It will spend more than £6 million this year alone on organisations involved in contemporary or heritage crafts, including by giving funding of £2.8 million to the Crafts Council to lead on contemporary crafts.

My hon. Friend talked about an international convention on crafts. I believe that he was referring to the 2003 convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. The Government have no plans to ratify the convention, but we are supportive of its aims and spirit. We are keen that the rich intangible cultural heritage of the United Kingdom is properly valued and, when necessary, preserved. However, we are wary of legislating on such a sensitive matter as culture, especially in an area such as intangible heritage which, by its very nature, is difficult to define. Ratifying the convention and setting out strict definitions of what our intangible cultural heritage is, and might be, could be constricting and controversial. For example, there are issues surrounding languages and dialects in the devolved Administrations and in Cornwall.

Whether tangible or intangible, however, our heritage is a marvellous asset that we want to protect and nurture. As a Regional Minister, I see a role for the regional development agencies and local authorities. They need to play their part, along with central Government and non-departmental bodies, in ensuring that our traditional skills are upheld and preserved.

We do not want to preserve things for their own sake; we want to preserve them because of what they add to our country and to what it has to offer. As Minister with responsibility for tourism, I know how much that offer is worth to our economy every year. I also know how important it is to get people involved. My hon. Friend may or may not have heard of the recent phenomenon of yarn bombing: think Banksy meets the women's institute. It is guerrilla knitting in the public realm. Its legality is still uncertain, but its creativity is not. It is a wonderful example of a centuries-old tradition being made relevant for today. I hope that we can offer an opportunity to uphold the heritage that men such as Mr. Turnock have preserved for us, and can make that heritage relevant and accessible to everybody.

Question put and agreed to.

House adjourned.