Queen’s Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech and very much regret that we have not been able to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet. I hope she will be able to address the House before too long.

Culture is listed as one of today’s subjects for debate, but the gracious Speech makes no reference to it. Of course, there is important legislation—notably the online safety Bill—coming from the department with “Culture” in its title, but culture in the wider sense, including the arts, once again has no place in the Government’s programme.

I return to funding for higher education and how it will affect the future of our hugely successful creative industries. In doing so, I remind the House of my interest as a deputy chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a trustee of the Artis Foundation.

The Government propose that funding to higher education courses in the C1 price group, including music, dance, drama and other performing arts, art and design and media studies, should be significantly reduced because they are not among the Government’s “strategic priorities”. This proposal is wrong-headed in so many ways that it is hard to know where to begin. The fact that the proposed reduction per student is not huge in cash terms is irrelevant. The wrong-headedness, so ably identified last week by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, resides in the attitude behind the decision. If followed through, this proposal will reinforce the message that schools, parents and students themselves are already getting, because of the narrowing of the national curriculum, that these subjects are of less value, in every sense, than others.

The Government supported the recent decision of the Russell group of universities to abandon its facilitating subjects list, which by excluding arts subjects had such a damaging impact on their status. Now the Government seem to be facing in the other direction. Why?

Furthermore, the proposal is likely to widen existing inequalities in higher education, decreasing participation rates among students with disabilities and from lower socioeconomic groups. The Office for Students consultation document makes that clear. How can it be in line with the Government’s levelling-up agenda to cut funding to the courses most successful in attracting such students?

Finally, the proposal is incomprehensible when viewed in the light of what the Government have done for the cultural sector over the past year, which has been generous and life-saving. More than £1.5 billion has been invested in supporting arts organisations through the Culture Recovery Fund, and yet more through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Despite some problems, which have been mentioned already, such as the continuing impasse over the provision of cancellation insurance for live events, these interventions were enlightened and I gladly acknowledge their significance, but what is the point of spending all that money on protecting our cultural infrastructure while simultaneously signalling that the skills needed to create the work that they present, for which the UK is celebrated throughout the world, are not worth acquiring? Who do the Government think will be leading these organisations and keeping them alive in future if not students from the very programmes that the Government are now seeking to sideline through underfunding? This is bad politics, bad economics and, above all, bad education. I hope the Minister will encourage her colleagues at the Department for Education to think again.