Creative and Performing Arts Teaching Grants

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As I have said previously, I am very glad that the noble Lord has a degree and was able to train as a teacher. I am not quite sure when that happened, but I suspect that the availability of a bursary was probably as important as his first degree. It is by investing in our teachers through pay awards and bursaries for shortage subjects, and because of the success that we are having in retaining more of them in the classroom, that we are seeing more teachers in all areas of the curriculum, including the creative areas.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, is my noble friend looking forward, as I am, to the freeing up of the curriculum, so that there can be much more drama and other creative subjects in the secondary phase? This will ensure that we have enough students to continue the very good place in which the creative industries are at the moment.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes. That was absolutely a theme in the commissioning of the Curriculum and Assessment Review. We are already making changes to the curriculum, as my noble friend says, to ensure that the breadth, enrichment and value of creative subjects are reflected both across the curriculum and in the wider enrichment opportunities that we want all schools to offer to their pupils.