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National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Increase of Endowment) Order 2006

My Lords, we too have no problem with this order. NESTA has been a great success. The Minister talked about it being an exciting development. It is not only exciting; it is very creative. He also said that not everything had been a success, but in the world of venture capital, you are lucky if one in 20 projects is a success. NESTA has hit rather more than one in 20, so it has a very good record. As the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, mentioned, for every £1 that has been invested in NESTA, a further £5 has been leveraged for further financing. One of the current enterprises in which NESTA is involved is what they call their future lab, which is developing new learning software. The DfES has put in £3 million, and Microsoft and Disney are also putting in similar sums of money. A spin-out company is emerging from NESTA this coming April. All of the creativity, the dynamism and the innovation are to be welcomed and, as I said, on these Benches we have no problem in endorsing this order.