English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, and his love of “Romeo and Juliet” by Tchaikovsky, which I, too, studied at school. I welcome the enterprise of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, in bringing this vital issue before us today.

I always try to avoid being overly melodramatic when speaking in your Lordships’ House, but I have to say to the Government that the exclusion of creative subjects from the English baccalaureate has been viewed by the creative industries as disastrous. Let me explain this concern in just one particular respect, one that might—I use that word advisedly—be compounded by the outcome of Brexit negotiations. Orchestras in this country are already worried about a drop in young musicians coming through the education system, as we have heard. If recruiting from abroad and, indeed, touring abroad becomes more difficult they foresee huge problems in the coming years. Young instrumentalists need to start while their muscles and limbs are still malleable—not to mention their minds. It is like tennis, cricket, skiing or football—the earlier you start the easier it is to gain a technique or “muscle memory” as trainers like to say. That is why the Russians have such fantastic techniques. They may lack other things, but they start really young.

Can I forestall one aspect of the Minister’s possible response? He might, with some justification, point out to us that creative subjects are still available but just not as part of the EBacc. However, this, many of us feel, rather diminishes the role of the arts and music and is having a deleterious effect on the take-up of, for example, music. As my noble friend Lord Aberdare pointed out, this tends to mean that the well-off can give their children music while the poor are at a disadvantage. This at a time when the Government are always at pains to praise the revenue and reputation that the creative industries bring to this country.

Then there is the dividend of social cohesion that the arts bring to young people and thereby society at large. Here, I am very much with my noble friend Lord Bird. The arts tend to pick up waifs and strays who somehow do not fall easily into the required niche as so well described by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth. These waifs and strays—I would have included myself in this bracket at one point—tend to fall by the wayside if not catered for. When I think back to my schooldays, it is the maverick, the outsider, who has often achieved the unexpected, the remarkable. A music master who took an interest in me helped to lift me from lacklustre academic achievement to a route that fulfilled what limited talents I had. I still have the well-thumbed scores of Bach’s “Double Violin Concerto in D minor”, Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra”, and yes, Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet”, which were the O-level set works and which have remained dear to me ever since.

Acting in various school productions, from Gilbert and Sullivan to Pirandello and from John Mortimer to Shakespeare, was the best kind of education into the workings of the world and us hapless mortals—and goodness, how we need help with that. It undoubtedly helped to give me the confidence which, I am sure, helped me later as a broadcaster.

I am always amazed that this country boasts such a stunning array of world-class talent, given that our history is rather more philistine than that of some countries. We did not, for instance, have a court system of commissioning music. Hunting was more the order of the day. Sir Peter Hall, who has just died and to whom I pay tribute if I may, was just the kind of visionary who transformed British theatre by presenting not just the classics but insisting on the best of the new—David Hare, for example. Hall and Hare, and so many other artists, have stressed the burning need to introduce the arts to young children not just as a choice but as a necessity—as a central part of the curriculum.

The numbers of high achievers in the arts who trace back their success to a particular teacher and the availability and opportunity—what an important word that is—that they encountered at a young impressionable age are legion. We are hugely successful in the field of the arts but we simply cannot sit back on our laurels. Rather, we must invest in the future not just financially but in terms of the respect and importance that we attach to creativity. That is why I believe that it really was disastrous to omit creativity from the EBacc syllabus.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree that a GCSE is an extremely good basis. In fact, the drop in take-up of design and technology over the last six years has been less than the drop over the previous four years to 2010. We are keen to improve the quality of those subjects and to give our pupils a wider choice of subjects.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, given that the Government frequently salute the creative industries for what they bring into the Exchequer and the tourists they bring to this country, is the Minister not concerned about the next generation of creative artists, who are not getting the necessary inspiration they need while at school?

Education: A-levels in Creative Subjects

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to be allowed to speak briefly in the gap. I absolutely endorse what we have just heard, as well as the concerns about music articulated by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

There are two particularly important dividends from giving students access to music and the arts. The first is social. As a schoolboy, I have to admit, I was a late developer academically—almost embarrassingly so—but my music master, Mr Lambert, recognised a musical spark of promise in me and guided me through O-level and A-level music. This gave me respect from my peers and, much more importantly, self-respect—a feeling of achievement. It set me on the path to where I am today as a composer. I want every young person to have this outlet.

The other dividend is economic. The Government often, rightly, congratulate the creative economy for what it contributes to the Treasury, so surely it is vital that they go on creating access, for this generation and the next generation of creative people, for what they will bring to the Treasury of this country.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, this is a huge issue for the arts world. Sir Simon Rattle told the classical music APPG the other day that he was appalled that music was not a core part of the EBacc. It would be unthinkable, he said, for a country like Germany not to have the arts—and music in particular—as a central subject. Anticipating the Minister’s response let me quickly say that the music hubs have done well and I warmly congratulate the Government on their success, even if it is sometimes sporadic in coverage.

However, that is not enough. It is the profound question—as we have heard—of educational emphasis, priority and national identity that we are concerned about. In Germany, Sir Simon continued, high-ranking politicians are frequently to be seen at concerts, operas and arts events. There is a central thrust and hunger for the arts, not just because of their economic success but because of the role they play in social cohesion. In this country the success of the arts is all the more remarkable for the comparative backdrop of philistinism they have emerged from. Where courts in 18th-century Europe felt the need and desire to employ and commission great musicians, the landed gentry here were more interested in hunting and fishing—I have to put some of my ancestors into this bracket, even if they did, through their goings on at Berkeley Castle with Edward II, inspire Shakespeare and Marlowe to some of their most disturbing lines. The arts have had to fight their way up the ladder.

I am glad to say that we have moved on, but not far enough as this debate articulates because it all begins with education. Ministers here rightly bask in the warm financial glow generated by the creative industries but we need to look to the next generation and the musicians and artists who will refuel and sustain that success. I cannot put it better than Dr Chris Collins and Professor Rachel Cowgill from the National Association for Music in Higher Education who wrote in the Guardian on 2 February—there have been articles in lots of other papers too—that,

“the Ebacc attainment measure in England will reduce the availability of creative and artistic subjects in schools. The adoption of a similar performance measure in sixth-form league tables … has led to an 18% reduction in the number of students taking A-level music. Since creative arts subjects like music tend to be more expensive to deliver in schools, they are all the more susceptible to being axed when times are hard and budgets tight. This slump has made A-level music unviable in many schools and colleges, further perpetuating the decline and resulting in regional deserts where the subject is completely unavailable. If, as we fear, the forced adoption of the Ebacc results in a similar decline for GCSE music, the subject will be decimated in English schools”.

I would add that we are not simply talking about classical music. Think of all those musicians who play in theatres, on backing tracks, on film scores—you name it. Just think too of the effect of access to the arts, both visual and musical, on popular music. John Lennon, David Bowie, Elton John: these are just a few of the names that have propelled this country to the forefront of the world stage and boosted our economy at the same time. Are their successors getting the same opportunities? I rather fear not but I hope the Minister will provide a pleasant surprise.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, listening to the various topics debated this week, I could not help but think about how interrelated so many of them are. Indeed, these days of consideration of the gracious Speech provide a valuable opportunity to foster joined-up thinking where, in the coming months, we may sometimes suffer from tunnel vision. I am always exhorting students to look beyond their own sphere of interest and at other disciplines to help to clarify their own.

Why is this pertinent to today’s debate, particularly on culture? Let me give some examples. My greatest concern in this field is the provision of music in schools, which has suffered dreadfully over the past 15 years. Not only should music-making be the right of all and not just the privilege of the wealthy few, but research has shown that music and choral singing lead to a more cohesive society, one where the individual’s ability to express personal turbulence through an artistic outlet acts as a release of internal pressure. Improvements in behaviour and academic achievement follow, as the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, pointed out earlier. So culture, education and health are all stakeholders in this.

I accept that everyone has to take their share of the current cuts, and many small and large arts companies are really struggling. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, told us about the difficulties facing the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and if a world-renowned organisation such as the CBSO is struggling, just imagine what is happening to chamber groups, small theatre companies and the like. Yet it is precisely here that we find the seed bed that feeds talent into our international successes, which bring a fortune into the Treasury, as we have heard. So we must fight for the arts at grass-roots level, but the primacy of the need for children—our next generation of artists and audience, after all—to be versed in the arts seems to me of paramount importance.

There is, too, an aesthetic element involved in planning. In my area of mid-Wales, which, incidentally still does not have efficient digital coverage let alone high-speed broadband, there is considerable rejoicing that the Government are set to strengthen the representation of local communities in deciding about onshore wind farms, since one threatened Offa’s Dyke and a Repton grade 1 park. This issue is not confined just to energy, which we discussed yesterday; it also embraces agriculture, tourism, landscape and culture. I sincerely hope the Government will give this proposal real teeth.

We failed lamentably in the previous Parliament to curb, let alone stop, female genital mutilation. We simply must do better in this Parliament, even if that requires more draconian action by the state, as in France. It is a national disgrace that this appalling practice has been illegal since 1985 and, as the late and much-missed Baroness Rendell consistently pointed out, we have still to secure a single conviction. Part of the problem is cultural and part is educational, while the implications for health are truly shocking—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Winston, would confirm this—including loss of sensation, sepsis, haemorrhage and complicated childbirth, to name but four.

Finally let me touch on the BBC and its future. I must, of course, declare an interest here, but I speak not just as a broadcaster but as someone who has been educated, entertained and enlightened by the BBC. Several noble Lords, especially Conservative Peers, mentioned this week their pride, which I share, in your Lordships’ record of scrutiny and improvement in this Chamber, and urged the Government not to overreact to constructive criticism in this place. I would say that, inevitably, parties in power, of whatever hue, are going to feel got at by an organisation such as the BBC if its journalists are doing their job properly in reporting the workings of Westminster, as we are charged with doing our job of scrutiny—but not, in the final analysis, of obstruction—in this Chamber. From my vantage point, I see and feel the huge cuts that have been made in the BBC. Many arts programmes have been cut to the bone. The noble Lord, Lord Hall, in his role as director-general of the BBC, is gradually turning this huge vessel in the right direction, but it cannot be done overnight. So I would counsel Ministers and the Government to tread carefully and sensitively when looking at the licence fee. Once lost, valuable and much-loved aspects of public service broadcasting, not available anywhere else, will, I fear, be very hard to retrieve.

Schools: Arts Education

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has said. I regard this subject, the provision of arts—and, in my case, music in particular—in schools as vital. Thus I am much indebted to my noble friend Lord Clancarty for securing this debate. I cannot endorse more warmly his plea for the appreciation of contemporary arts, because it is not just in Shakespeare that we find out about ourselves and the society we live in; it is in the contemporary arts as well, and Shakespeare would have been the first to say so.

I take this opportunity, since it is the first I have had, to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, to our midst. It is great to have another member of the artistic community, and one who has done so much for the gay community through the auspices of Stonewall, which I have long supported. It is also wonderful to be able to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park. I look forward to her maiden speech with anticipation.

Why do I see this debate as so important? It is because I have seen the quite magical effect that music and the arts can have on young developing minds. Furthermore, objective research supports the fact that music, in particular, often gets through where other things fail. Yet, as we have heard, we have to set against that the fact that in the period from 2010 to 2013 there was a drop in the number of GCSE students taking art and, in particular, music and drama, according to the Department for Education’s figures. I wonder whether this is something that causes the Government concern. I very much hope that it does.

There are schools in which children get no exposure to music or theatre or to singing in a choir—that quintessential activity that many noble Lords still partake of in the Parliament Choir. Singing collegiately is a quite wonderful way of developing the ability to be a team player, to listen to others, to blend in and to communicate. Singing a great choral work with a lot of your friends can be a completely overpowering and binding experience.

Not all children conform, thank goodness, to stereotyping, and it is in the arts and music that many find nourishment and a natural home. Let me give my own experience as a somewhat unusual child. I did not initially thrive academically—I am clearly a late developer—but the music master, a Mr Lambert, saw something in me and encouraged my composition and my playing of the organ in the school chapel. At the same time, I took part in drama productions, and there I learnt to speak in public with a degree of confidence and even extemporisation—a quality that some noble Lords may have cause to regret on occasion—so when I presented the Proms on BBC television, for example, I was not so afraid of the camera. Indeed, I rather relished it. My point is that the faith that two schoolmasters involved in the arts showed in my potential saved me from a possible scrapheap—perhaps not, like the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, prison. The number of successful people who have appeared on my Radio 3 programme “Private Passions” who have ascribed their chance in life to visionary arts and music teachers is quite staggering.

I know the Government are receptive to wide educational remits, but there are real gaps where theatre and music, in particular, are concerned, so here are three definite and distinct questions for the Minister which he might be able to help me with. Will the Government aim to make singing a weekly event in every school? Will they aim to make music and drama part of the curriculum in every school? Will they aim to help disadvantaged children to get musical tuition, currently the privilege of the rich? It is true that the hubs have begun to have some patchy success in this area. The Government have rightly saluted the income which the creative industries bring to the economy of this country. However, to secure that income for the future it is essential that the children who will be the performers of tomorrow—string players, for example—are able to start young. We have to get to young minds, young fingers, and young, still-developing muscles.

Beyond these practical points, there is the aesthetic, spiritual, transcending outlet that music and the arts afford young, and sometimes turbulent, minds. There are, of course, many calls on the Government for funds in different directions, but I passionately believe that they discard this particular call at their peril.

Schools: Bad Behaviour

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, a lot of research has shown that exposure to music and drama in young children tempers behaviour. I wonder whether the Government would like to commit to supporting music and drama in schools and, indeed, increasing it?

[Lord Nash]

We fully support music and drama in all schools; it can be a very calming influence. When we took over in my own school they had a bell which sounded like a submarine, which I thought was very uncalming. We now have a piece of piano music, the noble Lord may be delighted to hear. An active music/drama programme should be central to every school’s curriculum.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, as an independent Liberal Democrat, I am not bound by the rules of the group. I am very supportive of both these amendments. I am more supportive of Amendment 53ZA than I am of Amendment 53, because, as the noble Lord has just said, we have had review after review on this subject and I am thoroughly sick of it. It is quite often a means of kicking this into the long grass. The previous Labour Government did get there, only for it to be lost in the wash-up procedure at the end of that Government. That was a great tragedy.

Before I came into Parliament, I had worked for over 30 years in the health service. I was a GP and a family planning doctor primarily, and part of my job was to give sex education, as it was known in those days, in local schools all over the London Borough of Ealing. So I have a fair amount of experience, and I know that the expertise is lacking in a lot of schools. Nevertheless, sex education has to occur in schools, because parents simply cannot be relied on to give their children the right information. I hope that I was a good parent to my three children. I was a doctor, working in the field, knowing every single dot and comma about it, but there was still, particularly in the case of one of my children, a hesitancy and a reluctance to talk about these things with a parent. We have to accept that. A lot of parents find it very difficult to talk about these things, especially if they do not know much about it themselves.

Children were left to pick it up from television in the old days; now it is the internet. Why I would mildly support a review is because of the effect of the internet. I now have a lot of grandchildren and I see what they get up to. I am constantly vigilant that they are not looking at the wrong sort of thing, but I know kids and I know jolly well that they will be looking at the wrong sort of thing if they possibly can when my back is turned. We do have the parental guidance block, but there are ways round it. We have a computer genius in our family who can find his way round any parental block. So it is absolutely scandalous that in this country, in the United Kingdom, in the 21st century, we do not have compulsory, statutory PSHE, or whatever it is, in our schools.

We should compare this with the Netherlands and other countries. I have sat in on lessons in the Netherlands that are done superbly and naturally, with no worries among the teachers. They even set homework—not, I assure you, to have sexual intercourse—for example to handle condoms, to learn how to use the equipment they may one day need and to read about all the diseases they may catch unless they use the right sort of protection. It is done naturally and efficiently; the parents do not fuss about it; the children are taught in mixed classes; and I really do not understand why we cannot have it in this country.

Finally, I declare another interest as chair of the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. In the past few years, among the reports that we have produced was one on female genital mutilation, which is more and more common in this country and more and more difficult to spot. There is a lot of work going on, and I pay tribute to the previous DPP, Keir Starmer, who did an enormous amount of work to find ways of spotting girls at risk of FGM before it occurs.

Last year, we did a report called, A Childhood Lost, about childhood marriage, which also happens in this country. Children are taken abroad for religious ceremonies and forced into marriages that they do not want. That is why we set up the Forced Marriage Unit. Again, the Government are doing a huge amount of work on this, but it is the sort of thing of which children should be made aware in their schools, with their peer group, by their teachers. It is very important that we address these issues, because it is going on all the time and all around us.

For these reasons, I hugely support Amendment 53ZA. I hope that we can get some progress on this at long last. I mildly support Amendment 53, providing that they concentrate on the internet and the influence that that has on young people.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness. These clauses are linked in a way that has not yet been stated, in that through cultural development, through talking about literature, reading novels, studying and acting in Shakespeare and listening to Mozart, we get to talk about sex and relationships in a way that has been considered by geniuses down the ages. This is a way into sexual education that is not embarrassing. In other words, if, as I have experienced, children come home from school and discuss “Romeo and Juliet”, or discuss a Mozart opera, you find yourself talking about precisely these points. That is not to say that there should not be sexual education. I rather wish that I had had more of it when I was at school. I was taught by nuns and left thoroughly confused about the fires of eternal hell. On Sunday, on Radio 3—

[Baroness Tonge]

On a humorous note, I went to a very enlightened girls’ grammar school, and was there in the 1950s. When we were found to have smuggled a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover into the school, we were encouraged to read it.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

I am pleased to hear that. I was going to conclude with a point to do not only with sex, but with violence and self-control. On Sunday on Radio 3, the actor Michael Sheen said that he was brought up in Port Talbot, and because of the drama provision in that school, he, and before him Anthony Hopkins—and, before him, Richard Burton—found a way out of a society so disadvantaged that he did not know where they would have ended up, because they could have fallen prey to all kinds of things. These drama groups do not exist so much these days. Music tuition does not exist so much. This is all part of a rounded education, and for that reason, I support the amendments.