Creative Industries: Qualifications

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.