Skills for Theatre (Communications Committee Report)

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his exemplary chairmanship, not least for being willing to take on this subject. I think that we took a bit of persuading but he then took it on with gusto.

“The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life”.


That was brilliantly put, not of course by me but by Oscar Wilde, and I think that it brings together a lot of what we have already heard from the previous speakers. We Brits are good at this creative meeting place and we have a thriving theatre sector. Our writers, directors, craftspeople, producers, performers and technicians practise their talents across the British Isles and across the globe, and are showered with appreciation and awards. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, mentioned, this report reveals concerns that certain issues could lead to serious problems if they are not addressed.

All of us here know that the creative industries are the fastest-growing sector of our economy yet, despite the fact that at the moment there are 17 creative roles on the Government’s shortage occupation list, creative subjects are being squeezed out of the school curriculum. I am sorry that I have to repeat what your Lordships have already heard.

As Grayson Perry presciently observed:

“If arts subjects aren’t included in the Ebacc, schools won’t stop doing them overnight. But there will be a corrosive process, they will be gradually eroded … By default, resources won’t go into them. With the best will in the world, schools will end up treating arts subjects differently”.


He was right—they are, despite it being a fact that schools that provide high-quality cultural education get better academic results across the board, and despite it being a fact that private schools entice parents with access to culture. Thomas’s Battersea offers specialist teachers in art, ballet, drama and music. This is the school chosen by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for their son. Surely what is offered to a prince should be offered to all.

It is a fact that the current Secretary of State agrees. He said it himself to our committee:

“Our message to people who lead schools is that the arts help in what they would think of as the core subjects and with life chances. The evidence is pretty strong that music helps you with maths. I would say that drama and theatre helps with your English”.


He goes on for longer and I urge noble Lords to read what he said. To my mind, it is absolutely conclusive that he believes in STEAM, not STEM. It is a fact that for most young people and for a disproportionate number of those from less affluent households, theatre is first encountered in schools.

It is suggested that it is up to individual schools to choose what is on their syllabus, but there is no incentive to offer creative subjects. There are 119 accountability measures that a state secondary school has to consider and not one pertains to the arts. As Amanda Spielman, the current chief inspector of Ofsted, commented in a recent Ofsted report:

“School leaders need to recognise how easy it is to focus on the performance of the school and lose sight of the pupil. I acknowledge that inspection may well have helped to tip this balance in the past”.


Does the Minister not agree that a requirement of the Ofsted inspection process should be to ensure that no school can simply drop creative subjects? As it seems that both the Secretary of State and the chief inspector of Ofsted back STEAM not STEM, does the Minister not think it best for the Government to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Baker—Kenneth Baker, once a Tory Secretary of State for Education—and his Edge Foundation’s baccalaureate? It suggests delivering a stretching curriculum that provides a solid academic core, alongside creative subjects. Does the Minister not agree with that aspiration?

The career advice on offer comes to the point about access or lack of it from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. As the committee was told, the perception of a career in the theatre is associated with insecure employment. “Low pay or no pay” was the way it was put to us. Actual careers advice is poor. We are not just talking about encouraging careers of so-called talent. I will not mention wigs, because they have already been mentioned twice, but carpenters are also needed. As Bryan Raven from the National College for the Creative and Cultural Industries told us, there is a lack of awareness of the careers available in the creative industries. Take carpenters; make them aware that there is a whole career associated with making sets—and maybe coracles, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh; I do not know. Julian Bird of Equity said that it is important

“to inspire people who may have technical abilities in other areas that our industry needs”.

This lack of careers advice exacerbates the problems faced over diversity. Low pay or no pay is an assumption, as Christine Payne from Equity told us, that a job in the theatre is not proper work. It dissuades parents, teachers and careers officers from encouraging young people from less affluent and culturally diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in this area. That takes us back to the curriculum and the disparity in access to art subjects between children in state and private schools. Many witnesses who came before us felt that the consequence of this is a pipeline that is becoming ever more dependent on the affluence of parents. The knock-on effect is a lack of mobility, reflected both front of stage and backstage.

Sir John and Frances Sorrell’s National Saturday Clubs provide schoolchildren with an environment in which to learn from industry experts for free. They help young people gain qualifications and give them an understanding of career opportunities in this wonderful world. Does the Minister not agree we need more of this kind of collaboration between businesses and schools?

Our committee heard that the theatre sector is impressive in its outreach work, as touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I have experienced this personally at the Lowry, where the learning and engagement team programme brings in harder-to-reach young people from the community, not just as spectators but as participants and creators. I recently heard that the National Theatre is using new technology to stream their productions into state schools and help them put on their own productions. We have heard some wonderful stories from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. There are many examples. We heard concerns from those who spoke to us that these are being eroded because funding is being squeezed, particularly at local government level. In some areas, the local authorities have cut extra-curricular provision of arts education in half.

In his acceptance speech for the BAFTA rising star award, Daniel Kaluuya was clear:

“I am a product of arts funding in the UK. I want to thank people who support that, mainstream arts and grass-roots levels. Thank you for letting me think different”.


Role models such as Daniel are needed to inspire others.

Of course there is also funding from the EU; my fellow committee members know that I cannot speak without mentioning Brexit. I think another noble Lord is going to mention Brexit but I will not mention lighting, because that has already been done. Our creative industries have benefited massively from our membership of the EU, so can the Minister confirm that where access to EU funding is lost, the Government will maintain investment through UK-based schemes? Will he confirm that they will maintain future involvement in Creative Europe and Erasmus? Without the right deal on the movement of talent and skills, our theatre industry will face big challenges. Can he give us an assurance that the Government understand the need for the continued ability of people to move freely between the UK and the EU for creative activities?

I will end where I began, with education. Rufus Norris, the artistic director of the National Theatre, wants an answer to this question. He said:

“What … explanation can there be for the baffling disconnect between”,


the Government’s,

“industrial strategy, which prizes the creative industries as a priority sector, and an education policy that is deliberately squeezing creativity out of our children’s learning?”