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Baroness Keeley
That this House takes note of the role of the current level 3 qualifications for the creative industries, and of the potential impact of their replacement with T Levels and V Levels on the creative industries.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to open this debate on the important role of current level 3 qualifications for the creative industries and the potential impact of their replacement with T-levels and V-levels. While this debate affects the wider creative industries, I will focus on music education and the BRIT School as case studies to draw out the current strengths and some of the risks of the Government’s reform proposals. I thank UK Music and the Musicians’ Union for their support with a briefing for this debate, and the BRIT School, the University of the Arts London, Rockschool/RSL Awards, the ISM and the BPI for briefings.
At its heart, this debate is about whether replacing large numbers of existing level 3 qualifications, such as extended diplomas and BTEC nationals, will improve quality and clarity or will reduce choice for learners and remove programme pathways that currently enable many young people to succeed.
This issue has been a source of concern across the creative sector and among awarding bodies, including the University of the Arts London, since the reforms to post-16 education were first proposed by the Conservative Government in 2019. Those reforms sought to simplify level 3 qualifications around A-levels and T-levels, while removing public funding from qualifications deemed to overlap with them. However, campaigners argued that this risked removing successful applied qualifications which served different learners and different purposes.
It was therefore right that the Labour Government reviewed those reforms in 2024. My noble friend the Minister, writing about that review in FE Week in September 2024, stated:
“Where the review identifies the balance of learner and employer needs within a sector requires level 3 qualifications other than T-levels and A-levels, we will maintain the relevant qualifications. This may well be in areas that overlap with T-levels, which is a change from the approach”
of the previous Government. For creative subjects, and music in particular, that principle is essential. However, in October 2025, the Government’s White Paper on post-16 education proposed the introduction of V-levels and T-levels to replace many existing qualifications. I feel it is important that in this debate we consider the potential implications for the creative industries before any more work is done to make changes.
The UK music industry is one of our great success stories. It generates £8 billion a year for the economy, supports 220,000 jobs across the country and projects British culture around the world. Yet every performer, producer, composer, sound engineer, technician and educator begins somewhere. If we weaken the educational pathways into music, we weaken the future workforce of the sector itself. Music education is not simply about producing future music professionals. It equips young people with creativity, confidence, resilience and the skills of collaboration, and it improves well-being while delivering significant cultural and social benefits.
The music industry has concerns about the proposed reforms. Reflecting these concerns, I will argue for four specific adjustments to the Government’s proposals. First, the Government should be willing to keep existing successful vocational level 3 qualifications. Secondly, they should work with industry and educators to develop larger V-levels that meet the needs of the creative industries. Thirdly, they should consider whether the T-level model can work to address the technical skills needed in the music sector, and with industry and educators to develop music T-levels that are appropriate for the sector. Fourthly, they should take urgent action to address the decline in A-level music.
On the case for retaining existing Level 3 qualifications, at present, V-levels are a blank slate. They could become successful qualifications if they build on the strengths of established ones but, until that happens, it is vital that successful applied general qualifications, including extended diplomas, remain available. That is particularly important because the numbers taking vocational music qualifications are growing, at a time when GCSE and A-level music entries have been declining. Between 2018 and 2021, the number of pupils taking vocational music qualifications after key stage 4 increased by 48%, demonstrating strong demand and significant untapped potential to engage young people in music education.
The IFS has argued that the Government’s post-16 reform proposals are especially likely to affect those groups who benefit most from vocational pathways: students from lower-income backgrounds, pupils eligible for free school meals, students with special educational needs, students with disabilities, and those who are not yet ready for T-levels. The Cultural Learning Alliance reports that 54% of schools in the most deprived fifth of local authorities have no GCSE music entrants, compared with 21% in the least deprived fifth. Any reduction in proven vocational pathways is therefore likely to have a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged young people.
Successful institutions such as the BRIT School rely heavily on qualifications such as the UAL level 3 extended diploma. There remains no clear like-for-like replacement, and that is putting proven pathways at risk. The value of these pathways can be seen in the achievements of BRIT School alumni including Amy Winehouse, Raye, Olivia Dean, Jessie J and Katie Melua. Over 30 years, the BRIT School has shown how specialist vocational education can transform opportunity. In 2025, 98% of its students progressed to higher education, apprenticeships, employment or further training. The BRIT School warns that if future qualifications move away from the characteristics that have made vocational creative education successful—accessibility, depth of learning and authentic assessment —there is a real risk of narrowing the pipeline of talent entering what is one of the UK’s fastest-growing sectors. Can my noble friend the Minister therefore clarify whether she will look again at retaining current creative sector level 3 qualifications?
If some existing qualifications are ultimately replaced, it is essential that any replacement can serve the same function. The proposed model of small V-levels, equivalent in size to a single A-level, is seen as unlikely to equip students sufficiently for further study or skilled employment in music and the performing arts. Progression within music, the performing arts and other creative industries requires learners to build a portfolio of creative, technical and professional skills over time. Applied level 3 programmes, equivalent to three A-levels, are particularly well suited to supporting that progression.
The proposed focus on V-levels risks dismantling established two-year programmes, including the UAL and RSL extended diplomas, which currently provide successful progression routes into higher education and skilled employment. In specialist areas, such as music performance or music technology, there is a fear that learners could be left without a coherent programme of study. There are also concerns about whether campuses delivering a broad range of subjects at single V-level may lack the specialist facilities—such as recording studios, rehearsal spaces, and music technology equipment—essential to high-quality music performance, composition and music tech courses. I hope my noble friend the Minister can tell me whether the Government will actively consider the larger V-levels, equivalent in size to current extended diplomas, for specialist creative subjects, as recommended by the Becky Francis review.
The question of larger V-levels leads directly to my third point: T-levels. At present, there is no music T-level. However, the challenge is not simply the absence of a music T-level but that the current T-level model is not seen as compatible with the realities of employment within the music industry and other creative industry roles. The music industry is characterised by freelancers, portfolio careers, micro-businesses, project work and self-employment. The proposed T-levels, with their one-size-fits-all lengthy industry placement and narrow and prescriptive national occupational standards, are seen as incompatible. The Curriculum and Assessment Review explicitly recommended a large, flexible V-level for creative disciplines. Replacing this with a single, narrowly defined T-level risks misunderstanding how careers in music develop. Without significant structural changes to T-levels, it is difficult to see how T-levels in their current form could achieve broad uptake among music learners and the music sector.
A triple-size V-level would be much more likely to meet the needs of learners and the music sector. The Government could also work closely with the music sector to develop a broader variety of T-levels that address the range of technical skills needed in the music sector. However, that would need to be accompanied by the financial support that would enable SMEs and other small music businesses to offer placements. So, alongside considering a large, flexible V-level, will my noble friend the Minister commit to working directly with music industry employers, educators and representative bodies to develop a qualification framework that genuinely reflects employment patterns within the sector?
We cannot discuss post-16 education in isolation from what happens earlier in the system. The decline in A-level music that we are seeing begins with declining opportunities to study music at earlier stages of education. To ensure the health of the creative talent pipeline, we must also address the decline in A-level music as a matter of urgency. As I said in our recent debate on live music, our Labour Government inherited an education system in which the EBacc had squeezed music education from the curriculum, damaging both music teacher recruitment and retention and contributing to declining GCSE and A-level entries. A-level music remains in crisis. Entries have fallen by 41% since 2013 to a record low of 4,635 students, while GCSE music entries are around 27% lower than in 2010. Disturbingly, in 18 local authorities, either only one school offers music qualification, either A-level or vocational, or no schools do. That declining trend must be reversed if we are serious about protecting the music talent pipeline into universities, conservatoires, orchestras and the wider music industry.
The Government’s planned reforms to EBacc and Progress 8 should help strengthen arts provision and encourage greater uptake. However, reversing the cumulative effects of many years of curriculum narrowing and funding pressures will require additional action. That should include reforming A-level music in close collaboration with the music sector; broadening the syllabus to reflect the diversity of musical traditions, including black music, that are shaping contemporary British music; completing the current GCSE music review in partnership with the sector; and investing in the music education workforce by improving recruitment and increasing teacher training incentives. Finally, it should include expanding access to music-making opportunities in and beyond school for children from lower-income families.
As I have said, the case for music education extends beyond the needs of the creative industries. Academic research has consistently demonstrated its benefits for cognitive development, the acquisition of adaptive and collaborative skills, and mental health. Research by Making Music and the Association of British Orchestras found that most adults who received music education or learned an instrument at school credit it with providing vital skills that supported their careers, regardless of sector. As we heard on Monday, my noble friend the Minister progressed with both the piano and the cello, so she will understand the skills that she acquired.
Studies suggest that pupils who continue learning music throughout school tend to achieve higher academic outcomes than their peers. Public support for music education is strong. Research commissioned by UK Music found that more than half of parents whose children learn an instrument believe that it enhances creativity, confidence, perseverance and resilience. These educational and social benefits should be considered alongside the economic value of music education when decisions are being made about future qualifications.
This debate is fundamentally about talent, opportunity and growth. The United Kingdom’s creative industries are admired throughout the world, but their future success is not guaranteed. It depends on the choices we make now about education and skills. The question before us is not whether reform is needed but whether reform expands opportunity or narrows it. My concern is that, unless the Government build on what already works, some of the most successful pathways into our creative industries may be lost. Existing level 3 creative qualifications have enabled thousands of young people, including many from disadvantaged backgrounds, to progress into higher education, skilled employment and successful careers in the creative industries. Unless suitable alternatives exist and are shown to work, those pathways should be protected. I therefore urge the Government to retain successful creative level 3 qualifications, to work closely with industries and educators on larger V-levels and fit for purpose T-levels in technical music skills, and to take urgent action to reverse the decline in A-level music.
If we get this right, we will do more than reform qualifications; we will widen opportunity, strengthen social mobility, secure the talent pipeline for our world-leading creative industries, and ensure that the next generation of musicians, producers, composers and creative entrepreneurs can fulfil their potential. That would be good for our young people, good for education and good for the future prosperity of our country. I beg to move.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, so early in this debate, and I thank her for securing this subject for us to discuss. I echo much of what she said, which I will return to in a moment.
I congratulate the Minister on surviving the reshuffle cull. I have seen on social media how pleased she is to have held on to her role and how much she enjoys it. In principle, it is great to see her on the Front Bench because the future success of our creative industries, led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, depends very much on close co-operation with the Department for Education. It is an interesting point that the music education system that the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, spoke of so eloquently is effectively funded out of the Department for Education via the Arts Council. Many of the high-level schemes that support elite arts education—I am not embarrassed to use the word “elite”—such as the music and dance scheme, are also funded by the department of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. It is vital to see this co-operation.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Gove, is often criticised for the EBacc, it was thanks to him, when he was Education Secretary, that we were able to bring some form of strategy to music education, with the creation of music education hubs, a more uniform funding system for local authorities and a joining up of separate initiatives, such as the In Harmony scheme, to ensure their success.
I will dwell briefly on the In Harmony scheme, which represents a massive career-enhancing opportunity for the noble Baroness on the Front Bench. Although inspired by Julian Lloyd Webber, it was implemented by a Labour Culture Secretary known as Andy Burnham. I visited one of the In Harmony schemes when I was a Minister. It was in west Everton, not unadjacent to a football club supported by a man called Andy Burnham. I will always remember that visit. It was a very emotional one, because the sheer power of music to inspire children from difficult backgrounds, their parents and their carers was a wonder to behold. I hope that, in the next three months, I will see the Minister and the Prime Minister visiting the In Harmony scheme in west Everton, to emphasise the importance of music education, as the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, pointed out, in not just creating the musicians of the future but inspiring many young people with the rigour, discipline and sense of responsibility that will enhance their prospects in many different ways.
It is good to have a former Culture Secretary as our Prime Minister. The more I debate issues in this place, the more I think not about picking winners but that this is a fantastic country that should be focusing on our natural advantages. We need a Government who will focus and double down on them. It goes without saying that the creative industries are one of those advantages—film, television, video games, fashion and indeed music. The noble Baroness mentioned the BRIT School. It is a phenomenal institution, set up by the record industry, which has itself, perhaps inadvertently, been picking winners, from Adele to Olivia Dean, throughout its existence. It obviously needs continued support from government, but it is important that we understand just how important the creative industries are, not just for our national life but, frankly, for our economy.
In looking at the future of T-levels and V-levels for the creative industries, I wonder whether I am wrong in thinking that perhaps they have been put at the back of the queue. The first V-levels coming in 2027 are, as I understand it, digital, accounting and child development —very important issues—but creative T-levels are due to arrive only in 2029 and creative V-levels a year later in 2030. They are the last carriages on the train. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the department decided to sequence the introduction of these new qualifications. If it is because they are harder to design, that would be understandable.
I hold some reservations on the evidence so far, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, referred to this in her remarks. A V-level carries 360 guided learning hours, but the BRIT School has said that something like 1,000 guided learning hours are needed—360 hours is the equivalent of a single A-level. The qualifications being replaced, including the larger BTECs, offer a great deal more. In the Government’s own consultation response, industry and universities both said that 360 hours was not enough to give them confidence.
V-level content is tied to occupational standards set by Skills England. That might be a perfectly sensible discipline for accountancy, where an accountant is a recognisable thing, but UK Music put the difficulty well: creative careers are portfolio careers, and forcing qualifications to align with occupational standards that do not exist risks making them irrelevant to how the industry actually works. In 20 years around this sector, I have met very few people in the sector doing one job. The Government have promised to consult on content before these courses launch, and I would like the Minister’s assurance that this means the sector will be helping to co-design them, not merely commenting on a fait accompli.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for initiating this debate. I should also like to give a shout out to level 1 and level 2 qualifications, because level 1 may go to an adult who has never gained a national qualification, and the boost to confidence around learning and the sense of achievement can be life-changing. Level 1 may well lead to someone going on to level 2 and even level 3—someone who had written themselves off as dim and useless until national recognition, even at a lowly level, encouraged and incentivised them. Level 3 is evidence of someone who has the skills and knowledge to operate on their own in their chosen field.
Creative skills used to be validated and awarded by City & Guilds, where I worked for 20 years, initially on hairdressing, wig-making and beauty therapy—one can be quite versatile in this life, I find—and allied skills. In all those areas, it was possible to go all the way to fellowship at level 7. I then moved on to look after the senior awards, levels 4 to 7, with post-nominal letters and gowns and hoods to indicate their parity with university degrees.
Sadly, City & Guilds was betrayed by the then chairman, chief executive and finance officer, who managed to bypass the trustees, council and president—the Princess Royal—of this long-standing royal charter charity founded by the City of London and livery companies in 1878 and highly regarded around the world for the quality and standards of its work-based qualifications. They sold the awarding part to a foreign-owned commercial company, PeopleCert. A small team has been left under the title of the City & Guilds Foundation to continue to support the charitable activities and sustain the royal charter. Two of the three perpetrators were given lucrative welcomes and subsequently sacked. How strange life can be. Anyway, the Charity Commission is investigating how this could happen, as is a growing band of staff, members, fellows and friends of the institute, but what is crucial is that candidates do not suffer for this. The qualifications that they are working for will continue to be delivered, because they do not deserve to be deflected by the machinations of people who should have known better. We have been assured that this will be the case and that the qualifications will continue to be to the highest standard, as they always were.
There is always a problem with vocational practical technical qualifications. Most parliamentarians and civil servants have gone the university route. They do not know about further education colleges and the amazing work that they do or the very wide range of qualifications and individuals they support, so they meddle, in a way that we do not see with GCSE or A-level. We continue to have BTECs, understood by students, universities, employers and, crucially, many parents, but they are now under threat as the newer, shinier T-levels—technical, you understand, being so much classier than vocational—arrive on the scene, to be followed by V-levels. Come back, vocational, all is forgiven. It takes a while for any new qualification to be understood and valued, more so for practical than academic ones. Just as T-levels have taken a while to find their place, who knows how long it will take for V-levels to be the talk of the town?
We should thank the university technical colleges, the valuable UTCs of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, which provide a clear path to skilled employment, because a number of them have developed particular expertise in supporting the creative industries, where employers continue to face skills shortages. The creative industries are among the most valued and valuable of our industries. The UK leads the world in many of these skill sets. The Heritage Crafts Association produces a regular list of endangered crafts, some continued by a sole trader, where taking on an apprentice would severely affect their ability to earn a living. Yet anyone who embarks on silversmithing, clock-making, enamelling, basket-making or upholstering knows the immense satisfaction in creativity. I will not talk about music, because the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, has spoken so eloquently about that, but music and dance are vital skills which really enhance life. If we lost any of these skills, it would be a real loss to our quality of life as well as to the economy, so we should venture with extreme caution in changing qualifications that are valued and understood.
Why not put effort into attracting the young, and not so young, into supporting crafts in danger which could enrich their lives? Why are the Government embarking on V-levels when there are already established qualifications for the creative industries? Many are under threat and need support, not a pointless exercise in rebranding. There are level 3 diplomas and extended diplomas with some 84,000 students, who do not need to be distracted by the arrival of a new kid on the block in the form of mysterious V-levels. Please will the Minister commit to pause defunding of existing creative levels 1, 2 and 3 qualifications until creative T-levels and V-levels have been fully designed and piloted and shown to deliver work-based standards and comparable outcomes for progression? This is particularly important for SEND learners and disadvantaged students, many of whom may have talents in creativity far in excess of their abilities in other subjects. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and, like others, I welcome her back to her brief.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House of my education interests, in particular as a member of Pearson’s qualifications committee. It is always a joy to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and I, too, pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing and introducing this debate. I add that I am delighted that the Minister is still in her place after the reshuffle.
My first job, at 13, was in the West End production of “Oliver!”. Seven years later, I co-founded a theatre company with Sam Mendes and went on to manage arts centres. My wife, after drama school, spent years delivering Creative Partnerships in schools. My daughter Ruth is now a successful opera director. All three of us have done well thanks to the vocational pull of the performing arts. But this is an industry that cannot be measured by productivity and earnings at 30; it is about vocation and about weaving the cultural fabric that binds us together—witness the connection between fans and players created by “Wonderwall” at the World Cup.
I want to focus today on why T-levels and V-levels, as designed, cannot deliver the talent that our nation needs to maintain our status as a creative superpower. I am a keen supporter of the post-16 reforms in general but not as currently applied to this sector. T-levels and the proposed V-levels are built on national occupational standards—competencies mapped to defined jobs. How will that work for creative artists?
My good friend Emily Burnett is a BAFTA-winning actor for film and TV and a theatre performer; she is also a writer, a director and a producer. Steve McQueen is a Turner Prize winner for video installation, has been shown at the Tate and the Serpentine and won an Oscar for the film “12 Years a Slave”—one career, moving fluidly between fine art, documentary and narrative film. No single occupational standard could describe these trajectories, let alone train for them. While the creative arts require technical skills, they also need aptitude, fluidity and inspiration. They are more than the sum of their constituent skills.
This points to a category error at the heart of the reform. T-levels are, by design, technical qualifications, built to prepare a student for a specific occupation, with a narrow specialism at their core. The craft and design T-level’s occupational specialisms map to single, narrow trade standards: ceramicist, bespoke furniture-maker, garment-maker and jewellery-maker. Each is precise and each is far narrower than the breadth that a young person needs to build a creative career. Practitioners move fluidly across creative, technical and entrepreneurial work over a single career—what the sector calls a polymathic, portfolio-based working life.
That mismatch has already shown up in the numbers. Two creative T-levels have now been through full commissioning and delivery. Craft and design managed just 136 starts in its debut year; media, broadcast and production managed around 600. Combined, this is a rounding error against the roughly 84,000 learners currently on large, creative level 3 qualifications.
Creative education is vocational not technical; it builds a craft and a practice, not entry to one job title, and that distinction has a practical consequence in learning hours. A T-level runs to around 1,800 hours across two years, weighted heavily towards one narrow specialism and a placement. A single V-level, by contrast, is projected to be 360 guided learning hours, like an A-level. Neither fits creative training, which needs not the narrow technical depth of one occupation or the shallow breadth of 360 hours but sustained studio and rehearsal time across a broad practice. That is precisely what the UAL extended diploma’s 1,080 to 1,170 hours currently provide.
Two further technical problems would need to be resolved. The first is assessment. T-levels require substantial examined assessment, but A-level art and design, as an example, has long relied on non-examined, portfolio-based assessment, precisely because it captures the creative process and development that a timed exam cannot. The BRIT School told the Curriculum and Assessment Review that learners must be graded on vocational ability, not solely on written ability under pressured exam conditions. Push creative qualifications towards examination and we repeat a known mistake: students writing about practical outcomes instead of producing them.
Secondly, on industry engagement, T-levels currently require a discrete 45-day placement, which depends on employers being able to host it. The extended diploma embeds industry engagement continuously, with live briefs and employer-set projects running throughout the course.
I know the Minister is listening to these arguments and I hope the creative sector can engage with her to find the right way forward. To do that, the engagement needs to quickly resolve whether we can rebuild occupational standards for creative jobs. If not, the sector should then be given the certainty of retaining the extended diploma. This existing qualification already delivers the right hours, the right assessment and continuous industry engagement, with progression into higher education that nearly three-quarters of the creative workforce holds. Ministers can then confirm its funding on a permanent footing, rather than a repeated reprieve to 2030, and then let T-levels and V-levels find their places alongside it, not in place of it.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Keeley for introducing this debate in such a thoughtful and compelling way. I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Knight.
This House has many times focused on the importance of the creative industries to the economy and our social fabric. It cannot be emphasised enough how much creators enhance our reputation and soft power across the world, and our productivity at home in theatre, film, dance, music, computer games, craft, design, visual arts—indeed, any area in which individual creativity, skill and talent play a key role. Those who are able and willing to advance those skills need to be encouraged, supported and given freedom to fly, not thwarted, straitjacketed or discouraged by any entry system of examinations which is not targeted to their needs or the industries they aspire to enter.
Others in this debate have real knowledge of the requirements for entering these subjects and the impact of the specific changes currently being considered, as we have already heard. I do not, but I have learnt a lot. The Library brief was excellent, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Keeley for a thorough grounding in the ongoing discussions with the Government and their intentions.
I will make three brief and broad points. First, and most importantly, the creative industries are too vital a part of our economy to get this wrong. When tens of billions of pounds of gross value added and the jobs of two million people are at stake, we need to attract the best recruits and ensure that no unhelpful obstacles or poor offerings impede keen youngsters, whatever their background. It is clear that the Government want exactly that.
Secondly, creative roles increasingly blend technical fluency, software and digital production data with distinctly human capabilities such as originality, storytelling and collaboration. It is clearly a sign of the times that I met recently a senior executive in a company who was indeed “director of storytelling”.
A creative economy that wants to keep growing needs a pipeline of people who can move fluidly between craft and technical skills. It is clear that placements are an important part of these qualifications. I was very struck by the responses of students who struggled to find placements, particularly in the creative industries sector, given that 95% of companies are microbusinesses and up to a third of the workforce is self-employed. Can my noble friend say how the Government will address the placement issue?
Thirdly, digital technologies and AI are increasingly being used to create exciting opportunities, but there will need to be continuous learning to enable them to update technical skills. This is linked to the growing demand for collaboration across disciplines. Creative professionals now often work alongside software developers, engineers, marketers and data analysts. Therefore, communication, teamwork, problem solving, adaptability and leadership skills need to be developed. Anybody who has seen the film “The Odyssey” and sat through what must be at least five minutes of acknowledgements at the end of the film for all the crafts and skills involved would echo that.
All of this points to the need for close consultation and co-operation with those charged with developing the courses, exams and assessments for these subjects. It is clear that providers want to work with the Government to get this right, but it is also clear they have significant concerns. Many students who thrive on coursework-based learning may find the structure of T-levels less accessible. There are concerns about the number of guided learning hours in V-levels, with industry and higher education stakeholders anxious that it will not be enough to assess levels of applied experience and practical competence. UK Music has argued that national occupational standards are not appropriate for creative careers, and University of the Arts London called for the Government to allow flexibility of content.
I know higher education institutions support a diverse post-16 qualifications landscape, with multiple pathways beyond A-levels and T-levels, particularly in creative and practice-based disciplines. But arts and vocational subjects have already been squeezed by previous policy decisions. Reforms need to strengthen not reduce creative pathways, ensuring parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications, and protect progression opportunities into creative careers.
Finally, echoing one of the points made by my noble friend Lady Keeley, I ask my noble friend the Minister whether she will pause decisions on funding existing successful creative level 3 qualifications until the new T and V-levels have been designed, piloted and shown to deliver comparable—or even better—outcomes.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this very well patronised debate, our last debate before Recess. It was pointed out in the last debate that I am taking part in all three debates today, and one of the advantages of that is that you can make links between them. So, I want to link the first debate, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, talked about digital sovereignty and linked it to constitutional weaknesses in the UK, to this debate, and point out how constitutional weaknesses are affecting creative education, the subject we are discussing here.
The first past the post electoral system has traditionally produced a see-saw between two parties and two sets of policies and plans, if not always with much ideological difference. Creative education has been very much a victim of this see-saw. We saw the noble Lord, Lord Gove—now a Member of your Lordships’ House—make an active attempt under the previous Administrations to suppress creative subjects in schools with the EBacc, to push for a focus on a handful of subjects and exam results. That saw many creative subject teachers leave education—certainly leave schools—and move on to other careers, and active discouragement of new teachers coming into the area. I note that among many others, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, referring to music education, has focused on the chronic shortage of teachers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, referred to.
Now, we are seeing the see-saw come down the other way. We have a Government who last year said they would end what the playwright James Graham described as the madness of the last decade, when cultural subjects had been so devalued. Let us look at the reality of that. Since 2010, enrolment in arts GCSEs has fallen by 40%, and the number of arts teachers has fallen by 23%. Several noble Lords have already made really important points on the question of A-levels and T-levels, such as whether, as the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, said, these will have the depth of learning and effective assessment. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey—not currently in his place—asked whether there were enough hours. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, made powerful points about the difficulty of something structured for accountancy, for example, being applied to the creative sector.
I am going to park all those questions and simply ask the Minister: given the background I have painted, are the Government confident that there will be enough resources in terms of human capacity, such as trained and experienced teachers, to deliver what the Government are proposing? Along similar lines, I reflect back on a Learn with the Lords visit to a school—which I am going to anonymise, so as not to get anyone into trouble—where the arts teacher told me that when he started, a decade or so earlier, he had a budget of £3,500 a year for materials. His current budget for materials is £500. I am not talking here about inflation adjusting—I am talking about raw pound figures. Are the Government going to resource these arts subjects in the way they need to be resourced?
I want to take a step further back. If these V-levels and T-levels are to work, we need to see students taking them up and being encouraged to follow their interests and passions. I imagine that the Minister is aware of the recent Nuffield Foundation report that focused on the underrepresentation of women and girls and people from lower-income backgrounds in the creative industries. That is a pathway that narrows and narrows along people’s life courses. It looked at 1.7 million students in England and surveyed people working in creative fields. Encouragingly, almost half of 14 year-olds said that they enjoy creative subjects, but just one in 25 was working in a creative occupation by their early 30s. At every stage—GCSE, post-16 and higher education—there was a fall-off in the figures, but particularly among poorer students and girls, with girls from lower-income backgrounds doubly affected. What will the Government do to ensure that we have a real flow of the range of students we want to see into these V-levels and T-levels?
I have two final brief points. I am sure the Minister is also aware of the creativity collaboratives programme, which has piloted embedding creativity in classrooms by addressing not just specific subjects but the entire curriculum. It is an approach that focuses on pupils’ ability to think imaginatively, to make connections and to generate original ideas. Again, if we have that education right from the start of primary school and onwards, that could feed pupils into these T-levels and V-levels. Will that happen?
Finally, there has been a lot of focus in this debate on the importance of creative education and the creative sector to the economy. I will focus on something more important. We often hear talk of STEM subjects providing solutions to our polycrises: the climate and nature emergencies, poverty, inequality, dissatisfaction with politics and the sense of disempowerment in communities. However, solutions often must come from the creative sector—from people coming up with new ideas, new solutions and new approaches to living on this battered planet, and from people getting together and co-operating. It is crucial that the Government get this creative education right. They are heading in the right direction in reprioritising it, but there are many questions that your Lordships are rightly asking.
Lord Isaac (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Keeley for initiating this important debate on the future of post-16 creative education, an area that is often neglected when we focus on universities —it is the Cinderella sector, as many have noted. I declare an interest as the chair of governors of the University of the Arts London, which, as the House will have heard, runs the awarding body for the current diploma and extended diploma system.
As noble Lords have heard today, the arts are central to our cultural life. I have spoken about that many times in this Chamber. They are central to our economy, to social mobility and to the general well-being of society. As we have heard, they foster imagination, collaboration and, most importantly, innovation. That is why the Government have rightly identified the creative industries as one of the eight priority growth sectors in their industrial strategy. However, since 2010, the number of pupils taking GCSE creative subjects—as we just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett—has fallen by 40%, and the number of specialist arts teachers in state schools has fallen dramatically too. It is therefore vital that post-16 education provides strong pathways into employment, and further and higher education, for the diminishing number of students who wish to develop their creative skills.
This debate is not about undermining apprenticeships, T-levels, V-levels or A-levels. It is about ensuring that, in simplifying post-16 qualifications, we do not damage the established creative pathways that already serve students and employers well. Creative level 3 courses, as we have heard, must be broad, practical and portfolio based. They must allow time for experimentation, rehearsal and studio practice. They are essential to developing successful artists, designers, performers, filmmakers and media professionals—the names that we have heard this afternoon: Steve McQueen and Adele, as well as Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry.
We also need the creative industries to draw on talent from every background. Existing qualifications provide opportunities for disadvantaged students, young people with SEND and those at risk of becoming NEET. Together with A-levels and foundation courses, they are important routes into the workplace and higher education. In 2023, 96% of applicants holding the UAL level 3 extended diploma received a higher education offer, and I am delighted that 85% of those offered them accepted places. I fear that the new arrangements mean that fewer creative students will qualify for university or be able to develop the skills that employers need. The UCAS tariff for T-levels means that students must achieve a distinction to secure the points that many extended diploma students routinely attain. Some universities, as I understand it, are already declining to accept T-levels for certain creative degree courses.
There are also questions about capacity and scalability. This year, only 814 students started one of the two creative T-levels, compared with 84,000 studying level 3 creative diplomas and extended diplomas. How will we address those scalability challenges? I would be happy to explore that with the Minister and her colleagues. Colleges are also saying that current T-levels are too narrow and do not replace existing qualifications. Exeter College is a case in point. The college tells us that T-levels and extended diplomas are both on offer to their students but that the creative media course as a T-level lacks artistic context and focuses only on technical skills. We also know that the Becky Francis review recognised that, as currently anticipated, creative V-levels will not fill that gap and are too narrowly defined.
Until T-levels and V-levels can demonstrate the same breadth of learning, progression and outcomes as current creative qualifications, there is a compelling case for retaining successful level 3 creative diplomas. Without that safeguard, I fear these reforms risk narrowing opportunities for the next generation of creative talent. Our young people, our creative industries and our country deserve better.
Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I warmly thank my noble friend Lady Keeley for securing this debate and warmly welcome my noble friend the Minister back to her place.
To add to the statistics, Skills England estimates that the creative industries will need to fill around 1 million vacancies by 2035, a significant increase. Crucially, 82% of those roles will require qualifications at level 4 and above, compared with an economy-wide average of 62%. That means that occupational standards exist, where they do, largely at level 4, not level 3, which is the basis for the T-levels that are under discussion. Some 90% of creative businesses are micro-enterprises, as we have heard, employing fewer than 10 people. More than 30% of the workforce is freelance, but that critically increases in some key subsectors such as film and television, where it is over 50%.
For many years, the Department for Education has tended towards one-size-fits-all policies, designed around larger employers and more traditional sectors. Creative industries have repeatedly been recognised as atypical, yet the flexibilities needed to support them have too often been absent. As a result, employers have frequently developed their own solutions. When the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education mapped the creative and design pathways a few years ago, it concluded that T-levels were not the right qualifications for music, performing arts or graphic design. Two technical T-levels were introduced, craft and design—as my noble friend Lord Knight mentioned—and broadcast media production, with 678 students over two years now studying it.
To repeat, because T-levels exist, funding will be removed from alternative level 3 qualifications of 1,080 or more guided learning hours that map across to them for the 2027-28 year. What does that mean for the screen industries? What does it mean for the Ofsted “outstanding” London Screen Academy, founded and supported by leaders from the film and television industries? It delivers UAL level 3 and level 4 diplomas across a range of screen disciplines. Will parts or all of that provision be defunded? What does it mean for Birmingham Ormiston Academy, whose innovative partnerships are helping to build Birmingham’s fast-growing screen cluster? Which parts of its screen and stage academy BTEC provision are now at risk? I ask the Minister to consider aligning funding and change timelines, so that the sector and its providers can be considered strategically and as a whole. Important though those T-level students are, their numbers do not come close to meeting future workforce demand, and nor do they justify destabilising successful institutions and courses at such speed.
To turn to another example, on visual effects, animation and games, 10 years ago industry leaders UK Screen and Ukie decided not to wait for policy to catch up. They created the NextGen/AIM extended diploma in VFX, animation and games, and established the NextGen Skills Academy network, supporting partner colleges across England and Northern Ireland. More than 3,000 young people have since benefited from high-quality education and strong progression routes. That success now faces uncertainty, as Skills England develops a T-level focused solely on visual effects. UK Screen is clear that industry needs a broader qualification in computer-generated screen content, one that reflects the reality of modern production, is viable for colleges to deliver at scale and supports progression opportunities for young people into adjacent sectors.
In addition, there is an issue with finding work placements in industries that are populated by small companies. They are also an issue in the nations and regions of the UK. The main cluster of these industries is placed in London and the south-east. To have opportunities to experience them, people and young people elsewhere will require different forms of accessing them. If not, we face a Catch-22. Creative investment will not go to largely deprived rural and coastal areas where skills provision does not already exist, and skills provision cannot exist unless there are local employers to supply the placements. It is a Catch-22.
As the Creative Industries Council has made clear to government, the existing level 3 qualifications and the key institutions that deliver them are a vital part of the UK’s creative ecosystem. I declare an interest, having led skills and education for the Creative Industries Council for over a decade.
Qualifications need updating and simplification is important, but a simplification-first approach risks destabilising successful provision and limiting opportunity. Without employer confidence and support, change will not succeed. We must find a more flexible and pragmatic way forward that protects opportunities for young people and strengthens the talent pipeline on which these growth industries depend. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Gill (Lab)
My Lords, I join the chorus and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this debate. I associate myself with the comments she made. It is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Caine, with her track record in leadership at Goldsmiths. It is thanks to that college that my son is in the creative sector and I get this knowledge. The UK film and television sector is a global powerhouse. The Government’s commitment to securing its future pipeline is highly commendable. The Department for Education’s constructive approach in its recent post-16 level 3 pathways consultation response is to be welcomed. By proposing a phased, route-by-route transition over the next four years and introducing alternative fee levels, the Government have shown that they are listening to the education sector in trying to simplify a complex qualification landscape.
However, as the DfE moves towards publishing its implementation plans, we must ensure that the unique project-based reality of the British film industry is fully integrated. The film and media sector does not operate like the traditional corporate environment, as I understand from my son and his friends. It thrives on collaborative, deeply immersive and fluid craft skills that cannot easily be retrofitted into standard technical boxes. Our current level 3 landscapes, specifically large-scale qualifications such as the diploma in creative media production, succeed because they provide the immense studio hours and creative freedom needed to write, shoot, edit and produce a film portfolio. As we look to the newly designed T-levels and single A-level-sized V-levels, a dialogue between government and industry experts is vital to address some of the structural challenges around recognising that film and high-end TV productions are overwhelmingly staffed by short-term freelancers and micro-businesses operating on a project-by-project basis.
As has been stated, finding thousands of structured, mandatory 45-day T-level industry placements within this highly transient ecosystem is a massive logistical challenge for colleges. Leading sector bodies, and your Lordships’ House today, have expressed concerns that the standardised 360 guided learning hours proposed for V-levels may not provide the deep practical immersion required for technical film crafts. A student cannot master cinematography or advanced visual effects as a minor, part-time component of a broader curriculum.
A lot of concern has been expressed here about the Department for Education’s decision to list the level 3 extended diploma in creative media for defunding because of the overlap with T-levels. As we have heard, this risks dismantling a highly valued, industry-approved talent engine before the new 2029 and 2030 creative qualifications are fully mature. Like other noble Lords, I mention the success of the BRIT School, the education that it provides for many children with SEND and the success it has had in placing them in full-time work.
The Government’s recent updates allowing for placement flexibility, such as utilising group projects, remote elements or multiple employers, show an excellent willingness to adapt. We now need to build on that flexibility to co-design a framework that protects our world-class film sector. To help strengthen this transition and support the department’s mission skills agenda, I have a couple of questions for my noble friend the Minister, whom I congratulate on her reappointment.
First, given that the film and television workforce is composed overwhelmingly of freelance crews and temporary project-based productions, my first question is: how can the department work alongside ScreenSkills and major UK studios to design a bespoke, flexible placement model that works for independent film sets, without placing an unmanageable bureaucratic burden on independent producers?
Secondly, while I welcome the introduction of V-levels to provide vital vocational choices alongside A-levels, many universities and film colleges worry that the standard 360-hour model lacks the practical studio depth of current extended diplomas. Will the Government collaborate with creative awarding bodies to approve larger, double-weighted or triple-weighted qualification sizes, specifically for technical, film, media and production pathways?
Lord John of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Keeley on securing this important debate. I know from many conversations with her that she is utterly passionate about support for education in the creative industries and that she brings real expertise to this subject. I have enjoyed this debate so far, because I also discovered that a friend of mine was Oliver when, in the same production, my noble friend Lord Knight was the Artful Dodger. Who knew?
I have spoken before in the House about my support for centres of artistic excellence in south London—in particular, Mountview theatre school, the Central School of Ballet and the Old Vic Theatre. I declare my interests as a member of the president’s circle at the Central Ballet School and a trustee at the Old Vic. I thank my noble friend the Minister for the wonderful visit that we paid to the Central Ballet School a few weeks ago, when we both saw brilliant classical ballet teaching in action. We did not dance; we saw the students.
While Central Ballet School is not a level 3 provider, I think our conversation that day underlined the thrust of this debate: every cultural education provider, usually because of its size and specialism, is unique in the teaching and courses it provides; consequently, so are the financial challenges it faces. But one size rarely fits all in the cultural sector, especially in teaching and qualifications. At Mountview, students who do not have level 3 qualifications can enrol for foundation or Certificate of Higher Education courses. They are intensive, they are popular and they work, meeting the needs of students who then move on to degree courses.
We all know the importance of the cultural industries to the UK economy. Last year, they contributed more than £145 billion in gross value added, and they are growing at an incredible rate of nearly 5% a year—if only the rest of the economy was matching that growth. This is especially true in London. Only today, the Times reported:
“The capital’s cultural pull is increasingly visible in the booming film and television industry. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney are expanding their British operations, while Pinewood and Shinfield Studios are operating at capacity. Film London estimates that £9.5 billion will be invested in production across the wider capital area in the next five years”.
Citing the Hollywood Reporter, the article said that
“London has become ‘more Hollywood than Hollywood’, driven by generous tax incentives, premier infrastructure and”—
here is the important point—
“a deep pool of creative talent”.
This is all great news, but it makes it even more important that our approach to future creative talent is not undermined by complacency.
So we need to listen to the University of the Arts, as my noble friend Lord Isaac said, and the BRIT School, which said that
“large vocational qualifications do not narrow opportunity but, instead, unlock multiple successful pathways, including higher education, further training and employment”.
To paraphrase: leave it alone—it works. As others have observed, courses that open doors by their flexibility and inclusion increase social mobility.
This Government and this House have many Members with a deep-rooted commitment to and love of the arts and culture, so I hope that my noble friend the Minister is able to give us some cause for optimism today. This is a week of hope and change. I hope that there will be a change in the Government’s approach to this subject, and I ask my noble friend the Minister quite simply: will this debate have an impact?
Baroness Kingsmill (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to participate in this debate. I am by no means an expert in the field that we are debating; I know very little about creative qualifications, but I have been involved in the creative industries for most of my career. My first career, I suppose, before I became a lawyer, was in the fashion industry, where I spent seven years working with designers, photographers and all sorts of other creative people. I declare an interest in that I am currently back in the fashion industry, and have been for the last 10 years, as a director at Inditex—otherwise known as Zara. Furthermore, I declare an interest in this specific area as a trustee of the Conran Foundation. I have also been a board member at the Design Museum for many years.
The United Kingdom has for a very long time enjoyed the reputation of being one of the greatest creative economies in the world, yet we too often discuss it as though it were simply a matter of cultural interest, rather than a strategic national asset. The facts tell a different story. Our creative industries now contribute almost £126 billion to the economy, support around 2.4 million jobs and generate a substantial trade surplus through exports of services, intellectual property and digital content. They are growing significantly faster than the economy as a whole and are rightly recognised by the Government as one of the United Kingdom’s priority growth sectors.
These industries are also a powerful source of Britain’s soft power. Around the world, people know this country through our music, theatre, film, television, architecture—which has not yet been mentioned—publishing, design, fashion and, increasingly, digital creativity. They strengthen tourism, attract investment and encourage talented people to study, work and collaborate here.
That success, however, depends on one essential ingredient: people. If we wish to remain a global leader in the creative industries, we must ensure that talented young people continue to have clear and credible routes into creative careers. That is why level 3 qualifications matter so greatly. I welcome the Government’s recognition that a broader pathway is needed alongside A-levels and T-levels. The proposed introduction of V-levels represents an important acknowledgement that creative careers rarely follow a single, narrow occupational route.
But qualifications alone will not guarantee success. We must ensure that creative education continues to value practical learning. We must recognise that portfolio development, collaborative projects and interdisciplinary skills matter just as much. We must further recognise that many creative businesses are, as has been mentioned, small, project-based or freelance and must also be part of the system. It should not be that only large employers should be considered.
Above all, we have to avoid an unintended contradiction in public policy. If the Government identify the creative industries as a priority growth sector within their industrial strategy, the education system must actively support the pipeline of talent on which that strategy depends. Creative education should therefore be seen not as a cost but as an investment in one of Britain’s strongest competitive advantages. Investment in studios, specialist teachers, technical facilities and high-quality vocational pathways should be regarded in precisely the same light as investment in scientific research, advanced manufacturing or digital infrastructure. Our competitors certainly understand that. If Britain wishes to remain a world leader in creativity and innovation, we cannot simply celebrate past success; we must continually renew the talent that sustains it.
I therefore hope that Ministers will continue to ensure that qualification reform, industrial strategy and regional growth policy move forward together. What mechanisms are in place to ensure that the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport jointly assess whether level 3 qualification reforms are strengthening, rather than weakening, the future workforce of one of the United Kingdom’s designated priority growth areas?
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Keeley has done us all a service by facilitating this important debate in an area—the development of a new landscape for 16 to 19 qualifications —that has been the source of more than a little controversy since the introduction of T-levels in 2020. I was one of a number of noble Lords who joined the campaign by the Protect Student Choice coalition that secured delays to the defunding of applied general qualifications, such as BTECs, meaning that at least 300,000 16 to 19 year-olds have either already studied qualifications that would otherwise have been scrapped or will be studying them in the years ahead. Retaining AGQs has enabled many young people to progress to higher education and/or skilled employment, a journey that would otherwise have been out of reach, and it has avoided the creation of a “qualifications gap” that tens of thousands of students would have fallen through.
The announcement in March by the Minister, who I am delighted will be continuing in her post, of a stay of execution for popular courses while alternatives are developed was most welcome. That said, the problematic nature of the package of reforms to 16 to 19 education goes beyond the timetable. The most important of them is the replacement of numerous existing diplomas with V-levels, which are being designed as A-level size equivalents. The first three V-levels will begin next September. One of the causes of concern is the speed with which they will be introduced. I add that the lessons of T-levels should be noted.
T-levels are well intentioned, and I have always said that I want them to succeed, but their combination of tight specialism and their level of difficulty, as other noble Lords have mentioned, means that there are many young people for whom they are simply not the right choice, and they have not yet become established. Indeed, in the sixth academic year—that is the one that has just finished—only 27,000 students began a T-level. Part of the problem with T-levels is that they are not widely enough understood and still struggle to gain recognition. The same must not be allowed to happen with V-levels.
In the creative sector, T-levels remain tiny in scale, and providers say they cannot grow to replace the existing provision. UK Screen Alliance represents companies in the animation, visual effects and video game sectors, which together contribute more than £10 billion to the UK economy and employ almost 50,000 highly skilled people. They are among Britain’s most productive industries and are repeatedly identified by government as growth priorities. At the moment, the future of the sector skills pipeline is threatened by the Government’s determination to impose—this is possibly the phrase of the afternoon—a one-size-fits-all approach, which is quite unsuited to the creative sector.
As my noble friend Lady Caine said, more than a decade ago, employers in those industries recognised that the education system was simply not producing enough young people with the right mix of creativity, technical ability, mathematics and digital skills, so, being creative people, they created their own pipeline. In the 10 years since the level 3 qualification, the AIM extended diploma, was introduced, more than 3,000 students have completed the programme, with nearly three-quarters of those young people progressing into higher education, with others moving into apprenticeships and employment.
The students tackle live industry briefs, receive feedback from professionals, visit studios and showcase their work to leading companies. This is employer engagement at its best. Yet despite its success, the qualification faces defunding because it does not fit neatly within the architecture of T-levels and occupational standards. As other noble Lords have highlighted, T-levels involve industry placements, which rarely work in the creative industries, and for colleges in rural, coastal or disadvantaged areas, mandatory placements can become an impossible barrier, even after recent announcements on placement flexibilities.
My noble friend Lord Knight—still an artful dodger after all these years—spoke of the use of portfolios in assessments. Creative employers do not recruit on the basis of exam performance alone; they use portfolios, collaboration and demonstrated ability. The sector’s own qualifications reflect that reality through continuous assessment and group project-based learning, not just talent, in a way that reflects how creative work actually happens. The AIM diploma is a success and yet it faces defunding in 2029. I have to ask: where is the sense in that?
As the University of the Arts London Awarding Body has said, the DfE should not introduce exams, prescribed controlled conditions or prescribed content into creative subjects by default. Larger, scalable and successful qualifications that already contribute to the creative industries should be retained. I suggest that the DfE should listen more to creative industry employers, because employer engagement and buy-in will be key to the ultimate success of T-levels—in any sector, it should be said.
I want to say something about a study and skills option that only one other Peer has mentioned so far today —it was the noble Baroness, Lady Garden—and that is university technical colleges. UTCs seem to fly beneath the radar, but they provide an important alternative to a predominantly academic route through secondary and post-16 education. Working with universities and local employers, they offer specialist technical pathways including the creative industries, which are designed around local skills needs. It is important to point out that they account for 2.9% of all T-level enrolments, despite representing only 1.2% of schools. I would be interested to hear from my noble friend what role she believes UTCs can play in delivering both T-levels and V-levels, as well as courses in the creative subjects.
In conclusion, the Government and DfE simply must take account of what the creative sector is saying about the potential impact on that sector of the replacement of current level 3 qualifications with T-levels and V-levels. To paraphrase my noble friend Lord John: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, as the last Back-Bench speaker I have to congratulate my noble friend Lady Keeley on having promoted a really interesting debate in which, on the whole, I have very little to disagree with and little extra to add. I should congratulate my noble friend the Minister, were she in her place—and I shall not take it at all personally that she left the Chamber just before I stood up. None the less, I will keep talking in the hope that she will catch some of it. I really will not take it personally—I look at my noble friend Lord Katz, who is on the Front Bench at the moment, and I am sure he will assure her of that.
My professional career has been spent in the cultural sector, specifically the performing arts, where much of my time over many years involved the finding, assessing and employing of performers and directors for theatre and musical productions. Unfortunately, it did not include the talented child who went on to become my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth. But it did include, at a very early stage in his career, his friend Sam Mendes, whose incredible career now could not have been predicted at the time that we both knew him best. I make the point that you cannot always see what is coming in this particular field. I am approaching this subject not from any expertise in the relative value of this qualification over that, but from extensive practical experience of what works for employers and employees in this complex area.
I have got only a couple of points that I want to reinforce; they have been cogently outlined by a number of other speakers, but they will bear a bit of emphasising. I am instinctively disinclined to special pleading and exceptionalism, but I believe that education and training for the creative industries is unusual, if not unique, as we have been hearing. To make it clear why understanding this is so important, I can do no better than quote from a recent edition of FE News, which was helpfully included in the Library briefing. It said:
“Creative industries education has never been about training for a single job role. It is about developing transferable, adaptive capabilities that allow learners to thrive across multiple sectors, careers, and economic shifts. Most creative professionals do not follow linear career paths. Instead, they build portfolio careers, combining freelance work, short-term contracts, cross-sector projects, and entrepreneurial ventures. This reality demands education that prioritises flexibility, creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication, resilience, and self-direction—skills that are inherently transferable and increasingly valued across the entire economy”.
My experience entirely bears this out, including watching my own two children—both conservatoire-trained performers who are now well into mid-career—progress in exactly this way and arrive at quite different and unexpected places.
Like others, I want the new vocational qualifications to succeed, but—as we have heard over and again in this debate—as currently envisaged, they are not well matched to the needs of the creative industries. I hope my noble friend will reassure us that the promised consultation on how to structure new qualifications for the performing arts will not just listen to the concerns of employers, practitioners and education providers but genuinely hear and understand what they are saying. I will not repeat the mantra of the day, except to say that, if it has not dawned on my noble friend already, one size does not always fit all.
The UK’s creative industries are precious. We are rightly proud of them, and the Government are relying on them to continue contributing to economic growth and our international reputation. However, they are also vulnerable. If we do not protect and enhance the pipeline of talent into the sector, and if we fail sufficiently to recognise its special nature, we will eventually lose the pre-eminence in this field that we currently enjoy. That would be a tragic mistake.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on being in her place, although a debate when you have 10 Back-Benchers behind you, all firing shots at the back of your neck, may not be the most welcome way of coming back. They may not all be killing blows, but they are there. There are certain themes that have been clearly established in this debate. We still have our question mark about T-levels and V-levels—we do not really know what they are yet. If the Government are going to get rid of qualifications that work, we would like their replacements to be a lot better presented, and to know a lot more about them than we currently do.
T-levels have not had a great start. When they first came out, I remember there was one course where nobody finished. The fact that you have this big block that means you cannot do anything other than a T-level was one of the scariest things about it. The V-level does not have that; it fits in with the A-level structure. This may be a strength, or it may be a weakness; we do not quite know yet, but it is certainly an idea for a new examination that will come in to do a job and may remove examinations and structures that are achieving. Could it be better? Could it be worse? We do not know.
However, one thing that goes with this change in structure is something that has not been touched on: what is careers guidance going to tell pupils—and, more importantly, their parents—that this will do for them in the future? If you get that wrong, I do not care how good it is; it will fail because nobody will do it, or people will do it only as a last resort. That happens to exams: you come down, and go forward on, the established pathway.
GCSEs and A-levels are your absolute solid standard, and the previous Government’s reforms have made them even more solid. What are we going to do with them? How do they fit into this structure? That is something that I hope the Minister will be able to answer, because unless you know how they work together and what opportunities they are seen to create, you cannot give advice.
I have learned quite a lot in this debate—and not only about the ability of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to pick a pocket. I am sorry; I could not resist that. Much of the discussion is about how we have a structure that works very well but most people will not hear about it. I am sure that people bypass very good training processes because they do not know what is there. When I looked at this debate initially, I thought about support services for film and other forms of creative activity: the things that go around them—technical support structures and innovations—which I have worked on in the DCMS brief.
How do you get qualified with these universal skills, which can be taken across the world? We do not know how to do that. We have lots of English graduates coming in and having to reskill at, say, levels 4 or 5 and going through. How do these exams allow you pathways to level 4 and 5 skills? That is good old-fashioned technician-level education: the thing we have had a problem with for decades—more decades even than I have been in this House. How do we make sure that that goes through? How will we educate the population about that being the way forward?
This means giving a little more status to further education. Let us face it, at the moment the higher education sector might look back over its shoulder and say that a university will not lose too much sleep if it starts to skill people at levels 4 and 5. We have graduates on level 6 courses in further education colleges, so let the two of them interact, because they will have a connection and will understand what is going on. I have hope for this current Government, with their huge majority and the new saviour from the north—I keep thinking “winter is coming”, but there we are. Unless we get that interaction between the various bits of the education system, it will go wrong, because that is what has happened in the past.
I am sure the Minister would send me rude notes if I did not raise my next subject: special educational needs. I see her nodding. The way forward, the entrance into this, tends to be English and maths at GCSE. I hope that, with the creative industries, we will be a little more flexible about how we allow people in and through. My noble friend Lady Garden, who is now on the Woolsack, mentioned this initially: what are the ways through? If we are still going to be obsessed by the GCSE entrance-level barrier for English and Maths—it used to be C-D and now it is 3-4—we will continue to exclude. I would say that, wouldn’t I? I am a dyslexic who is president of the British Dyslexia Association and who also happens to be chairman of an assistive technology company, Microlink PC. There are ways round and through.
Can the Minister say how we are being actively encouraged to show that somebody can communicate using technology in English and possibly maths? Dyscalculia and dyspraxia mean that you cannot finish exams. If this sector—which should be more flexible, as everybody has said—cannot take the first step forward and say, “Can you demonstrate that you can communicate using this technology?” but not in the conventional exam situation, we are missing an opportunity. Let us make sure that we get people into something that is developing and growing, and make sure that we have a structure in which people can strive. The performing arts are one thing, but it is about the people around the sides—the person who makes sure the set is there; the person who helps at a technical level to make sure the computer graphics work properly—who are there to support them. That is where the big figures for employment are, and it is providing that support that will help.
At the end of this, I think everybody has said to the Government, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. One size—or even two or three sizes—won’t fit everybody”. How will we get the best out of a sector that is growing and providing economic benefit, and indeed a more pleasant time, for the rest of society? It is a win-win if we can get it working properly. However, that requires, first, knowledge of the opportunities out there and how you get through and, secondly, greater flexibility of approach to get people in. Once you have done that, you can finish it off with a bit of status—and that status also comes with knowledge. This is an opportunity for this Government and future Governments to take. I hope we will embrace it, because it just might make our lives more pleasant.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, we thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this debate and for her long record of work with the arts on protecting copyright for creators against generative AI, championing inclusive music and arts education and advocating for the financial resilience of the UK’s theatre and cultural sectors.
It was not a surprise that the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, gave us an in-depth insight into the creative industries, given his role as chair of the Court of Governors at the University of the Arts London, nor that the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, given her directorship at Zara, flagged fashion design among other things. The noble Lord, Lord John, talked about a “deep pool” of creative talent: the creative industries combined contribute £124 billion to the economy and employ 2.4 million people, over 7% of the national workforce. Their output has grown at more than 1.5 times the national average since 2010.
Creative education is valued. That is not in doubt. The question is whether these reforms will produce qualifications that enable people for jobs, for university and for higher technical study. This process has cross-party parentage. It began with the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, in 2011, which found that too much post-16 vocation provision had little or no market value. When in government, we started to remove overlapping qualifications, and the current Government have continued. Rationalising a landscape of more than 900 such courses is essential in principle, and His Majesty’s loyal Opposition support the momentum. The “Wolf test”, if I might call it that, remains entirely correct: a qualification exists to serve the learner, not the system that awards it. However, reforms should derive from evidence-based data and analysis. Skills England’s assessment of the creative industries, published only last month, excluded media and communication courses from its priority analysis because, historically, it is a low portion of those education leavers who progress into priority occupations.
My noble friend Lord Vaizey flagged the 360-hours limit, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referenced a “shallow breadth” and the Government’s own consultation response reported that both industry and higher education warned that 360 guided learning hours is insufficient to establish practical competence. That warning was overridden. The extended diplomas being defunded carried 1,080 hours of study; their replacement carries only 360. UK Music points out that occupational standards for portfolio-based music careers simply do not exist, while the Minister for Skills conceded that the original transition was, in her words, “too aggressive”. It is the case that the timetable was fixed before the design existed.”
We believe that a qualification must do at least one of three things. It must confer occupational competence that employers recognise; it must carry currency with universities; or it must provide a ladder to higher technical study at levels 4 and 5. The new system appears to fail those tests. T-levels, after five years, are enrolling around 28,000 students, just 2.5% of the 1.1 million-strong level 3 cohort. Creative placements are structurally the hardest to supply, because a sector of freelancers and small firms cannot provide 45-day placements at scale. V-levels will be classroom only and one A-level in size. They cannot realistically confer occupational competence; their currency with universities is untested; and no progression route to levels 4 and 5 has been published. Prima facie, this looks like simplification, not reform, which is the failure that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, identified.
Some 78% of creative employers report shortages in their three highest occupational groups, against a benchmark of 31% across all other industries. The Government’s skills audit, published in May, highlights the shortage occupations of software developers, graphic and multimedia designers and advertising and marketing executives, with 63% of creative employers expecting digital skills demand to rise, driven by artificial intelligence.
The noble Baroness, Lady Caine, referenced Skills England highlighting that over 1 million new workers will be needed. Some 60,000 creative workers are currently not proficient in their roles, because technology is outpacing the training. Skills England has projected this large number of workers needed in priority creative occupations by 2035, many requiring qualifications at level 4 and above. Based on that evidence, the pipeline the country needs is technical, creative, digital and higher level. Yet, with all due respect, nothing the Government have published maps creative V-levels or T-levels to a shortage occupation. Surely, the right course of action is to build replacements that are demonstrably better. Both T-levels and V-levels should offer this, yet at the moment neither does.
The noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, talked about the two-year UAL extended diploma. In terms of transition, the University of the Arts London extended diploma in creative media production and technology will be defunded from autumn 2027, due to a suggested overlap with T-levels. The UAL disputes the merit of that, in both content and approach, and is appealing against it. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, quite rightly referenced the last carriage of the train, the back of the queue, because creative V-levels will not arrive until 2030, which means a three-year void with no large creative qualification. The reality is that providers act on defunding dates years in advance: courses close, specialist staff leave and recruitment collapses ahead of the deadline.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, talked about west Everton parents, carers and disadvantaged students; the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, talked about disadvantaged people; and the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, flagged that students may not achieve the grades they need. We should also be asking what will happen to the students who will be deplaced. T-level entry requirements commonly demand five GCSEs at grade 5 or above, including English and maths. However, the Association of School and College Leaders has confirmed that students on these qualifications are disproportionately special educational needs pupils, as referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, or disadvantaged pupils without those grades. What will happen to them?
Would it not be fair, reasonable and sensible to first undertake a mapping of courses with the labour market? Which shortage occupation on the Government’s own audits will each creative V-level and T-level serve? Secondly, we need to publish the progression routes for students. What articulated routes to levels 4 and 5 will be attached to each qualification? Thirdly, we must understand and publish whether any new qualifications will be accepted by employers and universities before, not after, the existing qualifications are switched off. We would also suggest addressing the communication problem seemingly reflected in T-level uptake rates. A 2% uptake rate indicates that they are not as widespread as they should be or the Government hope they will be.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Caine, repeatedly and quite rightly asked: what exactly does this mean? The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, said to pause for thought and reflection on what will happen. The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord John, suggested not changing it without full analysis. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition believe that the measure of this reform is not just the number of qualifications to be streamlined but whether a talented 16 year-old in 2028 will have a route into that workforce as good as the one that is now being taken away. If the answer is yes, that is a great result. But if the answer is no, which appears to be the case, based on many noble Lords’ reflections today, we hope that the Government will address the constructive challenges from all sides of your Lordships’ House on this incredibly important issue for the creative sector.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Keeley for introducing this debate, and noble Lords around the House for congratulating me on maintaining my role. I am absolutely delighted about it, not least because what would I do on a Thursday afternoon if I did not have the opportunity to engage in excellent debates such as the one today? This discussion has rightly focused on a matter of great significance: how we ensure that all young people, regardless of background, can access high-quality routes into the creative industries, while also building a qualification system that is stronger, clearer and fit for the future.
My noble friend Lady Kingsmill was right, as were others, to identify that the creative industries are one of the United Kingdom’s great success stories. They contribute approximately £145 billion to the economy and have grown four times faster than the rest of the economy since 2010. I think those figures are slightly higher than some others have suggested, but they demonstrate the success of our creative industries. That is why the Government’s industrial strategy recognises the creative industries as one of the growth-driving sectors that will help to power our economy in the years ahead. That success depends on a steady pipeline of talent and that is why the education and skills system must work for this sector.
Before we come on to some of the other creative areas, I point out—I think this was a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham—that a significant proportion of the skills needed in the creative industries fall within that digital and technical area, as Skills England has demonstrated. That is one of the reasons why digital is a successful T-level already, why it will be one of the first V-levels to be introduced and why, in the growth and skills levy, digital areas and artificial intelligence are some of the very first apprenticeship units to be developed and offered.
However, a key part of the plan is a continued commitment to specialist education to develop the next generation of music performers, producers and industry professionals. I am sure that noble Lords will have noted the Government’s publication last week of the music plan and the commitment that it showed to a wide-ranging approach to supporting and developing music in this country, including through our education system.
I begin by being clear, as I was even before this debate, that the Government recognise the concerns that have been expressed about qualification reform and the future of creative education for 16 to 19 year-olds. We are listening carefully to creative industry employers, education providers, awarding organisations, higher education institutions and representative bodies. We understand that the creative industries have distinctive characteristics and that qualifications must reflect those realities.
In thinking about the wider reforms in which we are engaged, the objective is not, at its heart, simplification. That would never be enough. These are not the reforms of the former Government, which were too narrow and did not recognise vocational breadth, which was precisely the point recognised by my noble friend Lady Gill. The priority for level 3 reform is a system which provides high-quality options, whether you study better academically or want more applied learning and assessment. The latter, of course, has not been well enough served in our education system, with lower status for vocational qualifications, however high their quality, and confusing routes for young people to where they want to get in their lives.
This is why, in future, young people will have three distinct level 3 routes. A-levels will remain the academic route and V-levels will become the vocational route, supporting broad study and progression. My noble friend Lady Warwick was right about the breadth of study that we increasingly need to provide for our young people. That is the reason why we have designed vocational V-levels to be the same size as A-levels—so that a young person can develop a broad vocational set of qualifications, including linking and partnering them with academic A-levels as well. It is right that, if somebody is choosing to take a large qualification because it is the area they want to focus on, we make sure that that qualification is the most likely to be able to deliver that, with the sort of progression that noble Lords have talked about. That is why we believe that T-levels should be the large technical route for students who want to specialise in a particular occupational area. We are also reforming T-levels, as I will come on to later.
In this reform, we are taking a phased and careful approach to implementation. No qualifications will lose funding approval during the academic year 2026-27. We will introduce new qualifications in the creative and design route for first teach in September 2030, and there are no further plans for the removal of funding for qualifications in creative art and design until 2030. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, questioned whether creative areas were at the back of the queue, but he also provided the answer. They are not at the back of the queue. Although we recognise many of the points made today, we will take our time while maintaining the existing qualifications to get this right for young people and the creative sector. We will work closely with the sector to ensure that the change is manageable, supports stability and delivers what is needed. Along with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, we will work with the sector, taking into account its expert advice, and I have asked the department to convene a creatives advisory group for qualifications reform, led by those with knowledge of what has worked for the sector. We will bring it together in the autumn to address many of the points raised today.
T-levels are already delivering strong outcomes. Across the programme, 92% of students progressed into work or further study, and around two-thirds progressed into the same broad subject area as their course. More than a quarter of those entering employment do so with the organisation that hosted their industry placement. But we know that reform was needed. One of reasons relates to the point made by my noble friend Lord Watson and others about the levels of prior attainment that were needed in order to access T-levels. I am sure that noble Lords will therefore be reassured that young people with a range of prior attainment are accessing T-levels.
In fact, the GCSE grade split for students receiving T-level results is now very similar to those receiving results for applied general qualifications. The proportion of T-level students without 4s or above in both GCSE English and maths has also increased each year, showing that T-levels are becoming more accessible. Given the challenge, rightly, from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we are also seeing an increasing proportion of students with special educational needs and disability taking T-levels.
We already have T-levels in media, broadcast and production, and in craft and design. While in relatively small numbers, because this is the very first cohort, we will see them completing their qualifications and getting their results this summer. The National Theatre supported the shaping and the rollout of the new creative T-levels. It reports that T-levels are helping to engage a younger generation and strengthen talent pipelines into the sector, with flexible industry placement models providing hands-on experience across departments and projects, and developing specialist skills within the theatre, such as lighting, AV and sound technology.
We are expanding T-levels so that more young people benefit from their progression opportunities and outcomes. That is why we are considering further creative and design T-levels in art, performing arts and visual effects subjects for introduction from 2029 or 2030. As I have said, we will work closely with employers, providers and the creative sector to ensure the content accurately reflects what employers want and delivers what the sector and young people need. That is why the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, was wrong to say that we are defunding prematurely. As I have pointed out, there will not be defunding up to the point at which those T-levels and V-levels are introduced.
I take the very important point made by my noble friend Lord Knight about the nature of the creative sector and the breadth necessary for those who are engaged with it. We recognise that many creative careers involve portfolio working, self-employment and movement across multiple occupations throughout a career, and we know that the future qualification landscape must reflect that reality. That is why we are in ongoing discussions with Skills England on occupational standard development, where there are gaps in future T-level areas, with a view to developing standards that are needed to support future skills pipelines.
My noble friends Lord Knight and Lady Kingsmill made points, as did others, about the nature of assessment, whether in V-levels or in T-levels. Of course, it cannot be right that there is only a traditional exam focus in courses that are precisely about more practical application and different styles of learning. That is why we are already working on how we can develop new forms of assessment, doing that carefully with Ofqual in order to ensure that those remain of a high quality.
There is also an important point about how we get the message out about new qualifications. Our network of more than 1,400 T-level ambassadors champion T-levels and industry placements across the business community—including the National Theatre, which acts as a T-level ambassador for the creative industries.
Quite rightly, several noble Lords, including my noble friends Lady Caine, Lady Warwick and Lady Gill, talked about both the benefits and the challenges of developing sufficient industry placements for T-levels. That is why we have already introduced significant reforms to industry placement delivery. They are providing fantastic opportunities for students. Around 25% of students who progress into work get jobs with their industry placement employer. I have already identified how the National Theatre, for example, speaks very positively about the benefits of hosting T-level students.
However, we recognise that a conventional placement could be challenging in the creative industries. The reforms to industry placements that have already been introduced will allow providers to better tailor provision to meet the needs of the sector, including more scope for remote placements, which help freelancers and SME employers. We will work with the creative sector advisory group that I am setting up to consider whether further adaptations for placements are needed for these subjects.
V-levels will be the new flagship vocational qualification that supports young people who want more applied learning and practical assessment. We are in the early stages of the development of V-levels, and we are determined to do that—as my noble friend Lady Gill noted—on the basis of thinking about different routes and ensuring that the system works together to provide pathways. I am pleased that we moved quickly to publish the national content for the first V-levels in accounting and finance, digital systems and data, and education on 9 July. These V-levels will be taught from September 2027. We are working with Ofqual, which has consulted on assessments and grading for V-levels.
As I have already suggested, the proposals aim to give students more opportunities to show what they know and can do through a mix of different types of assessment, taken over the course of their studies. We have already set out that we are exploring future V-levels in art, the performing arts, and creative media and design. I know that these will not necessarily be appropriate for those who want a large qualification, but, as I have said, given the breadth of the creative sector, they may well be appropriate for people who want to put together a set of qualifications to recognise that breadth. The first teaching for these is planned for 2030. The nationally set content there will also be developed in partnership with those with deep experience of the sector. Importantly, existing qualifications will continue to be funded until replacement qualifications are introduced.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, suggested that people do not know much about V-levels at the moment. That is a fair charge, given the earliness of their development. That is why, to ensure that providers are well supported through this transition, we have established a group of qualification pioneers. They will play a vital role in supporting our work to support provider transition plans, share effective practice and advise on the support required to help providers successfully navigate this change. It is why we have provided information, graphics and resources to schools, colleges and careers guidance, to help explain V-levels.
As noble Lords have pointed out, it also important to ensure that the pre-16 curriculum delivers, in the areas of arts and music, what is necessary to create that pipeline. That is why there is considerable work going on as a result of the curriculum and assessment review to ensure—for example, in music—that this is now, from key stage 1 to key stage 4, a rigorous, equitable and inclusive curriculum that will support more people to be able to take A-levels. I understand my noble friend’s concern about the fall-off in the numbers taking A-level music. It will also be supported by continued investment in music hubs and the new national centre for arts and music education, which will help schools deliver new curriculum content effectively.
We have also touched on A-levels today. There are A-levels in art and design, dance, drama and theatre, music, music technology, design and technology, and film studies. While uptake varies between those creative subjects, entries have grown steadily in areas such as art and design, and media and film, since 2019. Although the curriculum and assessment review concluded that A-levels were generally working well, we will certainly want to make updates, where necessary, to ensure that A-levels remain coherent, particularly with the revised GCSE qualifications. We will update AS-levels and A-levels, ready for first teaching in 2031 and 2032.
I will also say in relation to higher education that I share the view that it is important that new qualifications have good progression to higher education. That remains central to our thinking. Almost 200 higher education providers across Britain accept T-levels for at least some courses, including the majority of Russell group institutions, and 81% of T-level applicants secured a higher education place in the 2025 admissions cycle. We will continue to push HE to recognise T-levels and we will develop V-levels and their content with higher education to ensure progression and, to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Effingham, to ensure progression on to level 4 and 5 courses as well.
We cannot deliver this change—the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is right—without the workforce and capacity to deliver them. That is why this Government are significantly investing in relation to level 3 in further education. We have announced additional funding of £120 million for this academic year, rising to £365 million in the next academic year, to help support particularly the workforce that we need. Together with wider post-16 funding increases, that means that funding for 16 to 19 year-old students has increased by more than 12% over two years. At the same time, our increases in teacher pay are helping us to deliver that 6,500 target for additional teachers that we have set out. We will provide new technical and vocational subjects for the specific professional development programme to help support our teachers to deliver the new qualifications.
We all share the same goal: ensuring that young people can develop their talents, pursue their ambitions and contribute to the continued success of our creative industries. The Government are committed to a qualification system that is ambitious, coherent and responsive to the needs of learners, employers and the economy. We recognise the strength of feeling across the creative sector about maintaining high-quality progression routes. That is why we are proceeding carefully, engaging closely with stakeholders and investing in the workforce, the creative sector, the qualifications and institutions that will support the next generation of creative talent.
I again thank my noble friend Lady Keeley for bringing this debate before the House and all noble Lords for their valuable contributions, and I look forward to continuing this important dialogue as we build a qualification system that serves both learners and the creative sector as they deserve to be served.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s reappointment, and I was glad to hear almost everybody else mention that. We are so glad to see her back with us and thank her for what she has just said.
I shall reflect for a moment or two on the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, raised the In Harmony scheme. I had not heard of it, but that could be a good descriptor for this debate because we have been harmonious in what we have said. We obviously think across the piece that the BRIT School is wonderful and the creative industries are vital for the economy, as evidenced in successes in places such as the BRIT School and, I will hazard, although I have not been there, the In Harmony scheme as well.
I did not know about the issues in City & Guilds which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, raised, but she said, and it is important, that we should have extreme caution about replacing qualifications that have stood the test of time—absolutely. That has been echoed by many noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Knight illuminated us about his role in “Oliver!” and founding a company with Sam Mendes, which is another theme, it seems, for today. My noble friend was clear-headed about the category error that T-levels are technical and creative skills and careers are not, as many others have said.
My noble friend Lady Warwick raised another theme: that the creative industries are vital, so we cannot afford to get it wrong. Many contributions have made that point and that we need people who can work with fluidity between disciplines. She made the point that arts and vocational qualifications have already been squeezed by earlier policy decisions.
I should congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on squeezing in the subject of first past the post and the Nuffield report on the position of women working in the creative industries—that was very creative in itself.
I thank my noble friends Lord Isaac and Lord Knight for their work in gathering information that went into the briefing. That was useful, but my noble friend Lord Isaac made the point, echoed by my noble friend Lord John, that we should not damage successful qualifications.
The noble Baroness, Lady Caine, brought her extensive experience in the creative industries, and particularly in screens, and said that one-size-fits-all is the wrong approach. She asked, quite importantly, what removing funding from existing qualifications means for, for instance, the screen industries, and whether it could put at risk regional clusters, such as those developing in Birmingham. That is an important point.
From the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, we heard about the project-based reality of the film industry. That has to be recognised. She made the point that collaborative skills and deeply immersive craft skills are needed, and that single V-levels would not provide the fluidity needed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, was a roommate of mine, but I did not know that she had fashion industry experience, but looking at her I am not at all surprised. The important point was made that DCMS and DfE need to jointly assess whether these qualifications are suitable.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, on working on the Protect Student Choice campaign. That clearly did some good, and meant that tens of thousands of young people were able to do courses and were not defunded. He asked what role UTCs would have, which is an important point.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, had a link to Sam Mendes, which has been an interesting aspect of this. She made the point that the creative industries are unique, so it has never been about training for a particular job or role. It is not one-size-fits-all.
I very much welcome what my noble friend the Minister said about the creative advisory group. I urge her to include the music industry in that, because it is very insistent that it wants to be heard. I welcome the other point she made that it is not just about simplifying qualifications.
Finally, to go back to what I said earlier about the BRIT School, future qualifications should not move away from the characteristics that have made our vocational creative education so successful. We do not want to narrow the pipeline of talent which we so value in our creative industries.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, in adjourning, I hope the House will indulge me in wishing all noble Lords, the clerks, the staff—especially the doorkeepers—and everyone involved in the House a very happy and restful Summer Recess.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
I echo that. Have a very well-earned rest.