Music Teachers: Recruitment
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Oh dear. We are definitely investing £76 million annually in music hubs, which of course means that the 43 music hubs can continue their important work to help children, regardless of background, to access musical education, by providing instruments and resources. In addition, we are investing up to £13 million in the national centre for arts and music education, which we intend to establish by September, to provide support for the revised national curriculum, improve the professional development of music teachers and make sure that extracurricular school enrichment and partnerships with music and arts organisations are strengthened.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, further to the supplementary question from the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, does the Minister agree that what is needed most urgently, given that the Government are not taking into account the long-term decline in arts education, is a review of the way in which recruitment targets and ITT bursaries are calculated? This affects not just music but art and design. If they were really interested in boosting arts education, they would not just be looking at the most recent baselines.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Every year, we review the recruitment trajectory for different subjects. Given the need to safeguard public money and ensure we are spending it efficiently, and given that we have had a 55% increase in recruitment to initial music teacher training and the lowest leaving rate—8.7%—for music teachers at any point, apart from during the pandemic, I do not think it unreasonable to conclude that, at this point in time, the bursary is not required to bring about recruitment. As I said, we will of course review that every year. We will keep in mind the number of teachers needed to maintain the proportion of hours taught by specialist music teachers in our schools at above 90%, and we will, as we have already proved, pay more if necessary to get the teachers our children need.
Higher Education: Affordability and Quality
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Deech for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I wish to make one single point, which is to draw attention to the threat to arts and humanities courses at universities, which is a long-term concern but one that appears to be getting worse. As the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, said, the latest victim of this is the faculty of humanities, arts and social sciences at the University of Exeter, a Russell group university, with over 110 academic roles proposed to be cut, affecting subjects including the visual arts, history, English and languages. But Exeter is not alone. The universities of Hertfordshire, Leicester, Nottingham, Cardiff, and Bristol, Goldsmiths, University of London, and others have all recently either closed courses or threatened closures in music, creative writing, film studies, theatre, English, theology and modern languages.
My worry is not just this trend, which has deep-seated roots—I will come back to that—but the Government’s attitude towards this trend, which is more than worrying. The DfE’s announcement in the press release last week of a new deal for young people says:
“Ministers will unveil plans to crack down on poor-quality university courses”.
On Tuesday, in an Oral Question, I asked the Minister for the criteria that would be used to define “poor-quality courses”. In reply she said that it is, in part,
“the ability to determine what the returns are from individual courses. It is for that reason that we will take action to prevent the expansion of those courses that are not providing the returns … that students have the right to expect”.—[Official Report, 30/6/26; col. 944.]
When pressed further by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, the Minister referred to last week’s report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which identifies courses which effect the greatest financial return for students in terms of salary and those which do not, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, pointed out. In the graph which the IFS supplies in that report, courses such as philosophy, performing arts, other creative subjects, English and history lie to one degree or another on the low side of that equation. It is precisely those courses which are already suffering, while the Government seem to wish to discriminate against them further.
Also, the Minister said in reply to my question that, if necessary, they will legislate to do this. I dread to think what that might be in legislation. We are not hearing the language the Conservatives used of “Mickey Mouse courses” from this Government, but the effect will be the same. The Opposition do not now talk about Mickey Mouse courses. The noble Baroness, Lady Cash, in an Oral Question on 22 June, suggested, precisely because of the returns we are talking about, that creative courses should be the first to be cut. This way of thinking, from both the Opposition and the Government, of education in this narrow, crude transactionalist sense is deeply wrong, because it is narrow, short-term thinking concerned primarily with the economic effect on the individual.
There is no thought here of the sum total of a diversity of knowledge and experience, of their total value towards society, of the social value of subjects. Arts and humanities subjects, perhaps more than others, stimulate and engender the critical thinking so necessary in our society, and they are therefore entirely worthy subjects to be studied in universities. We know that many starting salaries can be low, but that should not invalidate the study of such subjects since it ignores, among other things, the larger-scale economic effect. In that respect, the creative industries are hugely important—in their profound social value and the acknowledged wider application of these studies for different kinds of work. In defence of these subjects, Vivienne Stern of Universities UK has said that
“in an age of AI, we’ll value the understanding of how human beings think and act more, not less, in the future”.
In terms of the pipeline, the Government are being inconsistent because the policy works so much against the intended encouragement of arts subjects in secondary schools through changes being brought in through the Curriculum and Assessment Review, particularly with the removal of the EBacc. It is, of course, those 14 years of arts subjects being squeezed in schools, and the knock-on effect that this had on higher education, which have, in part, left higher education in the precarious state it is in with respect to the arts, as the GuildHE report The Value of Creative Graduates pointed out in 2024. The British Academy has also pointed out that if we believe these subjects to be worth while, their further reduction at universities will create cold spots across the country. Of course, those cold spots will become more prevalent in the regions outside London.
I am confused about what the Government are trying to achieve. Are they trying to remove vocational subjects from universities and boost apprenticeships that way? If so, this is misguided, as not all vocational subjects are about apprenticeships. Whatever we may think of the long-term developments in higher education—I regret that art colleges are not the stand-alone institutions they once were back in the 1960s—that is nevertheless water under the bridge. These subjects have, or ought to have, a settled place in our universities. The University of the Arts London, and many of our arts and humanities departments, do a great job. To be fair, that is not what the Government appear to be criticising with this strange label of “poor-quality” courses.
I said at the beginning that these concerns had deep-seated roots. Many of these roots lie in the introduction of the loan system back in the 1990s, with the commercialisation, in effect, of our higher education system. The Government really need to look at how complicit they are now, alongside some university management, in deepening that culture, because it is bad for education and bad for society.
University Student Finance
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I acknowledge my noble friend’s criticisms of plan 2 loans, which were designed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition. Having said that, in principle, a combination of income-contingent student loans and grants is a fair way to ensure that those who benefit from higher education contribute, while lower earners are protected. On the point about the financial sustainability of higher education, our increase of the tuition fee cap is now providing more certainty to higher education about its income from tuition fees, which should enable it to take a longer-term view of its workforce planning and to protect the talent that exists within our higher education institutions. A graduate tax would dramatically increase upfront costs for taxpayers and incentivise graduates to move overseas after completing study. I suspect that these are just a couple of the reasons why no country has ever financed higher education in this way.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, bearing student finance in mind, what criteria are the Government using to define what they call “poor-quality” university courses?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
First, the Office for Students is undertaking a new approach to measuring the quality of what is being provided in our universities. Secondly, we have seen through some of the research published last week the ability to determine what the returns are from individual courses. It is for that reason that we will take action to prevent the expansion of those courses that are not providing the returns or experience that students have the right to expect. If necessary, we will legislate to do that.
Master’s Level History Scholarships
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
If the noble Lord is making the case that it is not just at undergraduate level in universities that we need to promote wider access but at postgraduate level, I strongly agree with him. We made that point in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, and we have already begun work to support, for example, the promulgation of successful best practice in opening up access to postgraduate study. We want to do more on that issue.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the wider, hugely worrying trend is the loss of humanities and arts courses more generally at the higher education level, one effect of which, as has been said, has been to widen the class divide in the study of those subjects. Do the Government have a strategy to reverse those long-term trends?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
It is important, first, to ensure the financial sustainability of our higher education sector, which this Government have taken action to do by increasing the maximum tuition fee cap. It is also important, as we set out in our White Paper, that universities are able to think carefully about what they want to specialise in and the way in which they collaborate—something that has not happened enough in our higher education sector—to maintain access to important subjects such as history and humanities. In doing that, we will make it more likely that access to these important subjects can be maintained for students at all levels.
Youth Unemployment
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
This is precisely one of the questions that Alan Milburn will consider in his review. There appears to be a growing number of young people who are out of work for whom mental health issues are part of the reason. For many of those young people, it may well be that they would be better off in appropriate work. Being clear about the nature of that problem is an important part of Alan Milburn’s review. That, of course, goes alongside the additional support this Government are providing at an earlier stage in our schools to ensure that all schools also have access to mental health professionals, so that we can stop some of these problems earlier and before they escalate to blight people’s lives.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that a balanced school education is hugely important in this to allow the widest possible opportunities for our young people?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, I do. That is why, through the curriculum and assessment review, we have ensured that young people are getting the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in life and in work. We will continue to ensure that that is the case throughout our schools.
Schools: Music and Dance Scheme
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
No, it is not. That is why, unlike the noble Baroness’s Government, we have not cut the money for the music and dance scheme. I understand that schools are keen that we provide even more. That is why we will soon announce the funding for 2026-27, and we will ensure that, alongside all the other things we are doing to support arts, music and dance, we find a way to enable the thriving arts and music scene in this country to continue and for young people to benefit from it.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the music and dance scheme ticks all the boxes for helping underprivileged students—exactly what the Government are in favour of. I do not understand why we are even having this Question. Why is this not sorted already? Further to what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, there is a real possibility that some of these schools may close unless they get the £4 million that is required—not a huge amount of money in the scheme of things.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
If every department in government was able to immediately come up with the money for everything that everybody argued was not a great amount of money in the scheme of things, it would be gratifying for those asking for it and bankrupting to the Government. I hope I have made clear today this Government’s commitment to the highly talented individuals who continue to receive support on a means-tested basis so that they can attend these private music and dance schools, as well as the broader investment and curriculum change that we are putting in to ensure that arts and music opportunities for young people, for the creative industries and beyond, are not only supported but reinvigorated by the interest that this Government are taking in them.
Jobs Market: Wider Economic Implications
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I think I might save the pension fund for the extensive debate we will have later, which is my Christmas present from the Chief Whip. That is all I can conclude. The noble Baroness makes a very important point. One of the things that the Government as a whole are doing is looking across the piece. The truth is that it is still quite early days in working out what, in the medium to long term, will be the impact of AI on the economy. There is evidence that jobs may be displaced in some sectors while in others jobs are created. While we are understanding the full impact, the challenge for us is to make sure we equip people with the skills that enable them to compete in the markets that are to come. There is a lot of work going on in my department, but also in DSIT and across government, to monitor this and develop strategies. In particular, there is work on investing in homegrown tech companies to make sure that we have the opportunities here in which we can invest and our young people can work.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, further to the points made about skills, will the Minister look at a new report by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre that finds that arts, culture and heritage sectors are all
“losing skilled employees due to low pay, limited progression and lack of flexibility”.
Although our freelance workers should certainly be better supported, there is concern over the levels of permanent creative staffing, including in theatre. How will the Government address these concerns?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Earl makes an excellent point. He is a fine ambassador for the creative sectors, for which I commend him. The Government are looking sector by sector at how we can support the development of skills. I am aware that we have had to work quite hard to protect some quite specialist skills, because if we lose them we will not get them back, certainly in the heritage sector. I am happy to look at how our sector work can do that, but what we are trying to do in DWP is to work with a wide range of employers to make sure that we know what they want, what skills they need and how we can support them. One thing that has made the biggest difference—I slightly bang on about it—is my noble friend Lady Smith’s welcome joining up of adult skills and the DWP. That can make a real difference, so I will make sure that we look carefully into that.
Teachers: Music, Drama, Art and Design, and Dance
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, we know that the great majority of teachers in arts subjects—for example, in music and in art and design—in primary schools, where it all starts, do not have specialist knowledge in those areas. What importance do the Government attach to having specialist arts teachers in primary schools? Do they think that gathering statistics on the numbers involved—these figures do not currently exist—would be helpful in getting to grips with this area?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
As the noble Earl says, in primary schools, teachers will often have a range of areas that they will teach. What is important is that teachers have access to the best understanding of how to teach music, with support from the music hubs. We will develop their understanding of best quality, excellent arts teaching through the new centre for arts and music education. They must also be supported—for example, through the pay increases that we have put in place—to enter the profession and stay in it.
Curriculum and Assessment Review
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right; we need students to have the deep knowledge that is necessary to succeed in the world, but we also need them to have the skills that the modern world demands of them. This new curriculum will deliver both and, in doing that, will engage more students, as my noble friend says, to achieve success, both for themselves and for the future of the country.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the arts sector is hugely grateful that the EBacc has gone, and I think that needs to be said. However, does the Minister agree that it is going to take a lot of work to turn around the culture in relation to the arts in schools that has been in place since 2010 and, importantly, repair the arts infrastructure? This is a question of resources and specialist schoolteachers—which the Minister has mentioned—but the increase is from a low base, so in that light the decision to axe all the arts ITT bursaries seems to many of us unfathomable. The music hub landscape is in a mess and, in the wider landscape, the music course at the University of Nottingham is just the latest to be suspended. Getting rid of the EBacc is a good start, but the Government need to do a lot more work to turn this around in relation to the arts in schools.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I agree with the noble Earl that a high-quality arts education must not be just for the privileged few. It is ironic that the arts that have been forced out of state school curricula are those that are so often advertised in independent schools’ offers. It is an essential part of the broad and rich education that every child deserves. We will revitalise arts education for a reformed curriculum and will support teachers.
In improving the art and design curriculum, we will ensure that all pupils are taught the core knowledge and skills to develop their own creative practice and to study the work of a wider range of artists and designers. I have already partly responded to the point about teachers. I will add that our new national centre for arts and music education will provide support for schools and teachers to deliver the reformed curriculum, as will our continued investment in music hubs to support pupils to make good progress in instrumental performance.
Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
To reiterate, what we have said is that where there is a T-level in place, we will, as we said we would in the qualifications review that we did last year, defund a large qualification that sits alongside it because all the evidence is that students get through T-levels—and the placements, for example, that go alongside T-levels—a better chance of progression. But, yes, in all other areas we will maintain existing qualifications up to the point that a V-level is in place to replace them. We will want V-levels to build on what is good about current vocational qualifications, including BTECs, and that is why we will engage, through our advisory group, with college principals, the awarding organisations and others. Of course, we have issued a consultation document on the development of V-levels and the other important reforms in post-16 qualifications, which I encourage not just noble Lords but anybody else who is interested in this to contribute to.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, this is certainly an important document. The first thing I noticed about it, though, was that it is being fronted by DSIT but not DCMS, which does not seem to be involved at all—when the creative industries are such an important aspect of the industrial strategy, and in particular the many skill sets that will be needed to drive these industries. Those skills will have their own pathways. So I ask the Minister: what thought has been given to vocational pathways for those who wish to work in the creative industries?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
There will be opportunities through V-levels for those interested in vocational routes into the creative industries. There will be opportunities through some of the sector skills packages—not least, for example, in the area of digital—to support the creative industries. There is, of course, a sector skills plan as part of the creative industries element of the Government’s industrial strategy.