Creative and Performing Arts Teaching Grants

Earl of Effingham Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

To be clear, this is not a cut of a grant to students; this is a cut of £130 per student to the institutions that run these courses. This is partly in order to safeguard, for example, the £20 million funding that goes to Uni Connect to open up opportunities to get into higher education for more young people. It goes alongside the expansion of other ways to develop skills in this area, such as higher technical qualifications, creative skills bootcamps and the lifelong learning entitlement, all of which provide support and opportunities for young people and people throughout their lives to get into the creative sector.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, universities need more teachers generally, but so do schools. The Government pledged to recruit 6,500 new teachers, but the annual school workforce census shows that there are 1,900 fewer teachers across all schools. Does the Minister agree with Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, who called it a “mockery” of the pledge?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

No, because we have been clear in our pledge to recruit 6,500 more teachers that we would focus them on the areas in secondary and special schools where we are not seeing a fall in the number of pupils and where we know that there is a particular need, and there we have done so. The latest number is over 2,500 more teachers. We are delivering on our commitment to teachers and pupils.