Skills: Importance for the UK Economy and Quality of Life

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell and Lord Marks of Hale, on their maiden speeches, and of course my noble friend Lord Aberdare on his very comprehensive introduction.

At the outset, I say that I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, said about EBacc and Progress 8. They both need to go. They are holding the arts back in our schools and beyond. A future Government should make that pledge before they come to power.

The mover of this Motion, my noble friend Lord Aberdare, had to point out to me that “education” is not mentioned in it, even if it seems nevertheless logical that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, will answer for Education. Such is the modern-day conventional assumption that what we call skills and education go together hand in hand, but that does not have to be true, depending of course on how one defines both words. “Skill”, like “innovation”, has become a watchword, even a buzzword, to the extent that it is perhaps too easy to stop seeing what the word means and instead pay lip service to something we have not thought carefully enough about, and perhaps to promote certain narrower meanings above other meanings. For instance, my research tells me—I bow of course to the expert linguists and historians among us—that “skill” comes from the Old Norse “skilja”, which seems to have had quite a number of past meanings, including, believe it or not, to break up, to separate, to discern, to distinguish, to understand, to find out and to decide. Even further back in time, this word was used to denote knowledge or even divine wisdom, which begs questions about the separation of knowledge and practice that we have heard about today in this debate. There are meanings here that are wider than a skill being simply the supposedly or conventionally right way of doing something, or learning something that becomes automatic because it is practised. The original etymology seems to contain other things like analysis, breaking things up and perhaps putting them back together again—deconstruction in other words—critical thought, and even perhaps contemplation, which our more modern, narrower understanding of “skill” does not seem so much to contain.

This older understanding is important because, over a number of decades, education itself has changed significantly within the UK. The particular modern usage fits our current, very specifically framed, educational system. Of course, as we have already heard, there are many different kinds of skills, including life skills, craft skills, and green skills. But the idea of skills that are necessary for specific jobs, including the job of study itself, nevertheless holds a kind of primacy within this world of skills. Education itself, particularly higher education, has become monetised and therefore transactional in a way that was not true 30 years ago, but is now very true since the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 and the accompanying expectations that an increasing number of students now have. Among those expectations I point out three: first, that students can get a piece of paper telling them that they have an extremely good degree that validates their course of study; secondly, they can get a well-paid job at the end of their course, which is part of the expected transaction; and thirdly, they have learned the skills that will equip them for that job. That is true even of those who follow the academic route, because of the change in culture of higher education.

Therefore, when the Government talk the rhetoric of “low-value” courses and send out the message that the arts and humanities are less important by cutting the top-up grants to those university courses, they are also saying that the skills learned for those courses or during that time of study are less important because the skills, like that important piece of paper which gives you your grade or the examination that determines that grade, must be something that according to the modern understanding of a skill is quantifiable because it has an objective, predetermined use.

I will make just one further point. The irony is that the real world thinks differently. Companies consistently want well-rounded people, not necessarily those with very specific, narrowly defined skill sets, important though those might be. I also know from my own experience closer to home that not all colleges, such as drama colleges, are interested in the skills that enable you to get a good degree. They look for things beyond specific skill sets such as passion, enthusiasm and originality of thought, which perhaps in the “skilja” definition might also be thought of as skills.

Higher Education: Arts and Humanities

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following recent announcements of proposed university staff cuts, what steps they are taking to support the study of the arts and humanities in higher education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the importance of the creative and performing arts to our economy. While some higher education providers have seen decreases in arts and humanities staff, academic staff numbers across England rose by 1.9% between 2019-20 and 2022-23 to 21,640.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, Gillian Keegan’s freezing of further funding for creative arts courses at universities, which has occurred since I tabled this Question, is surely pouring oil on already extremely troubled waters. We have a Government who seem wilfully blind to both the current threat to the arts at universities and the strategic importance of that pipeline. Will they reconsider that funding decision and take steps to protect the jobs and departments at Goldsmiths, Middlesex, Kent and elsewhere that are so necessary for the creative and economic future of this country?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We absolutely agree with the noble Earl that high-quality provision across a range of subjects in the arts and humanities is critical both for our cultural enrichment as a society and for our workforce. That is why we require the Office for Students to at least maintain funding for those high-cost subjects at the current level of £16.7 million. As the noble Earl is also aware, we have dedicated funding for both our world-leading cultural institutions and other performing arts institutions.

Educational Trips and Exchanges

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of points about education in Europe for British students. The first is about maximising opportunities. My 19 year-old daughter is currently doing an MA in drama in France, outside any exchange system. I have to say, her French is improving in leaps and bounds, which is a good in itself. However, it is clear from our own experience that the costs and red tape involved are now prohibitive for disadvantaged students in a way that simply did not exist before Brexit. This is not just about Turing and Erasmus; Brexit itself has made studying in Europe so much harder for British students.

Analysis by IFF Research, focusing on the first year of the Turing Scheme, found that inadequate funding and delivery problems have disproportionately impacted students with fewer resources. As the Association of Colleges points out, the lack of reciprocity means that institutions are forced to fall back on pre-existing connections, where they are able to. Erasmus is so much richer in its offer, including staff mobility. The Association of Colleges recommends that we rejoin Erasmus+ but retain Turing as a global and possibly Commonwealth scheme. Erasmus+ is expressly referred to in the EU Commission’s proposal on youth mobility. It is keen to have us back, and I hope that a future Government will act on that.

Secondly, we require more efficient Europe-wide solutions to these problems. For instance, it is clear that, for school visits, we need the reinstatement of a list-of-travellers visa scheme and collective passports, for the whole of Europe. I hope, too, that the EU Commission is not put off by the Government’s or Labour’s response to its proposal. A future Government may change their mind. Despite what the Government say, it is not free movement—more is the pity. With a single destination specified, it will not, for example, solve the problems even of young musicians touring, and Labour is right to see that as a separate issue.

The response to this scheme that intrigued me the most was that of Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe, who, as reported in the Guardian on 19 April, said that the EU is

“scared that member states will do bilateral deals, which becomes more of a threat the better the Eurosceptic parties do in the elections”.

In this context, bilateral deals become synonymous with cherry picking. I cannot therefore get too worked up about the Government’s response to the Written Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, regarding school visits and whether the Government would establish arrangements with other countries similar to those with France. They said, on 12 December last year:

“We would consider negotiating with other countries should they approach us with an interest in making similar arrangements”.


On its own terms, this is terribly lazy foreign policy, considering that it is our schoolchildren who will be most affected and less so European schoolchildren, who will have many other easy options to choose from: 30 other European countries, including Ireland.

Independent Schools

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend, and I thank Brentwood School and other schools involved in the types of partnerships that he described. We have such an asset in our independent schools, and this Government are focusing on encouraging more partnership work and understanding how all our pupils can benefit from that.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the previous question, does the Minister agree that, in the perceived ideological tussle between state and private, it is sometimes education itself that is forgotten? The currently less restricted independent sector can be an incubator for forward-looking educational ideas; for instance, those of Rethinking Assessment, which submitted valuable evidence to the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee that school education as a whole can profit from such thinking.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I agree with the noble Earl. Independent schools have shown themselves to be areas of great innovation, but we also see important innovation in our state sector. Particularly where the two come together, we see some of the best results.

Skill Shortages in Business and Industry

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

About half of apprenticeships are taken up by young people under the age of 24. I think the noble Lord referred to 21, but it splits at about half under 24 and half above that. The Government have done a great deal: investing in 16 to 19 education, improving the range of options and introducing qualifications that are directly linked to the careers that young people need.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I did not hear the Minister mention the creative industries, which certainly suffer from skills shortages in many areas. Looking at this issue in the round, does the Minister agree that cuts to the arts—such as, for instance, the proposed 100% cut in local authority funding for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra—are the worst possible advert for attracting skilled workers into the creative industries?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Earl knows, one reason why there are skills shortages in the creative industries is their very rapid growth rate. Between 2010 and 2019, they grew one and a half times faster than the wider economy, and in 2021 they employed 2.3 million people, which is a 49% increase on 2011. We have created flexi-job and accelerated apprenticeships, and improved the transfer system, particularly aiming to support our world-beating creative industries.

Jobs Market: Graduates

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend that young people should be well-equipped to understand not just the options for their subject but that subject at that particular institution, because we know that future earnings power, and in addition future job satisfaction, vary very much between institutions. There are improvements being made, and I am happy to send details to my noble friend on ways that students can access that information.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, further to the question of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, this is not just for the arts, and it is about not just training up or career awareness but affordability. The plain fact is that many employers in the arts today cannot afford the skilled workers they need. It is at this point that the Government should intervene.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am always slightly baffled by this line of questioning, because when I look at the performance of our creative industries and the performing arts, I see that they are resoundingly successful, both domestically and globally. I appreciate that there are skills pressures in those areas, but they are ones that many organisations are overcoming.

Access to Musical Education in School

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on his passionate introduction to this debate. I start by quoting from the letter co-signed by music directors Edward Gardner, Mark Elder and Antonio Pappano on the proposed cuts to the English National Opera, which appeared in the Times yesterday:

“These cuts will put a stranglehold on the artistic future of the company, wherever it is based. Opera should be available to everyone — this is the founding premise of ENO …This isn’t levelling up, it is the killing off of the art form”.


There is a sense in which these words are emblematic of the struggle facing not only classical music but all the arts in this country, although the ENO is of course under particular threat.

We need to recognise, too, the ecology of the arts and the reality that industry and education work together and education does not exist in isolation. It is part of a wider ecology, which should also include the widest possible work and educational opportunities in music—and not just in the UK, but Europe too. What signal is now being relayed by these proposed cuts—and with the music director himself now resigning in protest at these cuts—to young people currently at school who are considering a career in music?

We have reached a crunch point. Some blame the Arts Council but, ultimately, this is the end result of 13 years of this Government’s severe funding cuts to the arts, both in direct funding and to local authorities. Of course, it is the funding cuts, both in education and the arts themselves, that are a major factor in increasing inequality in educational provision in the arts. As the Independent Society of Musicians says in its excellent briefing, from which others have quoted, music education is in “serious decline” in England and the situation “requires government intervention”. Look no further than that independent schools have mean yearly music budgets that are over five times greater than those of maintained schools. However, I also say to a potential future Government that, before they target independent schools, they should consider the educational models that may be driving that spending on the arts. This is not just about rich parents. These models may well be in opposition to the current knowledge-rich curriculum and academic educational environment in the state sector, where it is becoming increasingly hard for individual participation, performance and expression in the arts to gain a foothold.

At the heart of this constricting philosophy, of course, are the EBacc and Progress 8, which need to be removed. As the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, pointed out, since 2010, GCSE music entries have fallen by 36%—12.5% in the last year alone—and A-level music entries by 45%. Moreover, Cambridge Assessment data tells us that only 5.4% of young people from groups that experience high social deprivation took GCSE music; the EBacc will again exacerbate this.

As others have pointed out, there is a growing teacher recruitment crisis in music. It is good news that bursaries for teachers of arts subjects have been reintroduced, although since these bursaries are worth only just over a third of those for science subjects, this has to be heavily qualified good news. The National Foundation for Educational Research predicted earlier this year that music will reach only 63% of the target for teacher recruitment, as opposed to 98% or more for chemistry and biology, for example. Science subjects should of course be supported, but does the Minister agree that it is difficult to interpret the stark difference in the value of these bursaries as anything other than discriminatory?

I am a firm believer in bringing music properly back into schools, where there is the greatest likelihood of universal access, but as long as we have music hubs they should be supported. Yet it is clear that the sector has considerable concerns about this, with less money now going to hubs than to pre-hub music services, as well as a serious cut in the number of hubs themselves.

Finally, as others have asked, what happened to the £90 million arts premium, promised in the last Conservative Party manifesto? Will the Minister say something about that?

Cultural Education Plan

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. Obviously, she will understand that I cannot pre-empt the decisions and recommendations on the cultural education plan, but I absolutely agree with her about the importance of partnerships. I understand that the expert panel is looking at examples of good practice, of exactly the type that my noble friend set out, but also the barriers to implementing them, including in relation to infrastructure.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, would the Government agree with me when I say—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question, because the focus of the cultural education plan is to tackle those disparities in opportunity and to promote more access for children in areas of significant deprivation, making sure that children have good cultural experiences in school but also outside school.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, the plan has highly laudable aims, but does the Minister not appreciate that the national curriculum and accountability measures being out of scope, as the terms of reference clearly state, is supremely unhelpful, if a major goal is universal access to the arts in schools, since this in effect limits the solution before the inquiry even gets under way?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I simply do not accept the noble Earl’s assertion. I will make two points. First, the knowledge-rich curriculum, which this Government have delivered, gives a foundation for children to exercise their creativity. Secondly, in all my visits to schools, of which I make many around the country, I see them doing extraordinary things, offering children all sorts of cultural opportunities across drama, the arts and music.

Teacher Shortages

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. We are extremely supportive of partnerships between independent schools and state-funded schools. That cuts across a wide range of areas, of which specialist teaching is just one. What I hear from independent schools when I talk to them about this issue is that it is very much a two-way street. It is not just about independent schools sharing their resources with their neighbouring schools. It is very much in both directions, and both groups benefit.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, if, as is clearly the case, bursaries are an effective driver of teacher recruitment, will the Government reintroduce them for arts subjects, including art and design and music, where recruitment is now falling well short of their targets—less than 60% in both these subject areas?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We always keep these issues under review, but our assessment at the moment is that the greatest pressures are in some regional areas—hence our levelling-up premiums—and in certain specific subjects, which I know the noble Earl is familiar with, which those are.

Teacher Vacancies

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We work closely with teachers, teaching unions, and schools and colleges all the time to look at workload pressures and well-being. There is a lot of work going on in this area, including looking at more flexible working options and a well-being charter for schools. On SATs, I do not accept the noble Lord’s premise. It is essential, now more than ever post pandemic, that we understand children’s level of attainment as they leave primary school and go into secondary. I hear too many stories about children going into secondary without a sufficient reading age to be able to engage with the curriculum, and obviously that leads to major attendance problems. I ask the noble Lord to reflect on the premise of his question.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, arts subjects are penalised, not just through the accountability measures, EBacc and Progress 8, but through the total lack of bursaries for those subjects. Yet art and design, for example, is predicted to reach less than half the teacher supply target next year. Will the Government review bursaries for arts subjects?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We keep all these policies under review. The noble Earl will know that we have changed bursaries in response to changes in the market in a number of subjects. We will keep that under review, but we also have to prioritise where we think the gaps are most severe.