Higher Education: Creative Courses

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the announcement that the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School is closing its undergraduate courses, what support they plan to give drama schools and other creative courses in higher education.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting creative and performing arts in higher education. For the academic year 2024-25, we have allocated around £12.9 million in high-cost subject funding to creative and performing arts courses to cover course costs. Additionally, we have allocated £58 million in strategic priorities grant funding to world-leading small and specialist providers, including 12 creative and performing arts institutions. This funding supports the provision of those courses and promotes opportunities for students.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, we know that universities and other institutions are having a tough time but creative courses are bearing the brunt of the current cuts, with closures and scaling down not just in drama but in visual arts, performing arts and film. Does the Minister recognise the paramount importance of these courses to the pipeline of the arts and creative industries, not just to provide much-needed skills but to ensure that voices from the whole of society are heard in future? What are the Government’s specific plans, beyond what she has just told us, to reverse this destructive trend and provide the targeted help that is required?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Earl’s view of the significance and importance of creative and arts subjects. We need to ensure there is a pipeline of young people with those interests and expertise who are then able to go further. I also share the concern he identified about the way the financial instability in the higher education system is causing some of those courses to be part of the cuts that universities are being forced to make. Of course, the situation would not be as bad had the previous Government not made a 50% cut in 2021 to the strategic priority grant funding for creative subjects. We have begun to increase that funding this year, as I have outlined, but there is clearly more that we need to do on top of what we have done to stabilise higher education funding to ensure that the opportunities the noble Earl refers to are available for all young people, with all the benefits they bring not only to them but to our creative industries, economy, culture and society.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I very strongly agree with my noble friend that we need both. This Government believe that creative subjects, such as art, music and drama, are important elements of the rounded and enriching education that every child deserves. That is why we expect part of the response to the curriculum and assessment review to be to enable that broader curriculum that my noble friend references, so that children and young people are able to gain the benefits of that broad, knowledge-based education and the particular benefits of creative subjects.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is the only UK performing arts conservatoire in the top 10 of the QS world rankings outside London, yet its funding model has a built-in disincentive for it to accept students from the rest of the UK. The equivalent London colleges receive a minimum additional uplift of £8,000 per under- graduate on top of regular fees. What can the Minister do to ensure that all our world-class conservatoires across the UK can offer a financial level playing field for talented students?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I cannot necessarily take responsibility for what is happening in Scotland, but I can say that we recognise the particular need for support for small and specialist providers. That is why we have maintained the strategic priorities grant for those providers at £58 million this year. As I said, 12 of those are creative and performing arts providers, where that additional support enables their very specific but internationally important provision to continue.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, the previous Government’s obsession with the EBacc and the knowledge curriculum led to many state schools stopping the provision of creative subjects, such as music, art, drama and dance. The knock-on effect, as the Minister has already mentioned, is the lack of pipeline into further and higher education. We all know the creative industries make a massive contribution. How do this Government intend to resurrect the importance of these subjects in state schools to ensure that this country can continue its international reputation, and that in future not all our top actors will be old Etonians?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness asks a broad-ranging question—I will not be tempted by certain parts of it. She makes a very important point about the need to ensure, as I think I have already touched on, that our children are able to benefit from creative subjects such as art, music and drama, and that we have a curriculum that supports those subjects, an accountability system that recognises their significance, and schools with sufficient highly qualified teachers to be able to deliver them to the necessary standard. That then enables us to ensure that that pipeline is there, both for higher education courses and for the enormous range of jobs in the creative industries, which, of course, this Government have made one of their growth-promoting sectors in the industrial strategy.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clancarty makes an important point about the talent pipeline into the creative sector, but is the Minister aware of the important roles that creative graduates play across the wider economy? At least one-third of the total creative workforce is embedded in non-creative sectors, in roles such as innovation, product design and communications. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of the closure of so many creative courses on UK innovation and economic growth?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point: we have both the contribution the creative industries and the contribution that creative education and training more broadly make to the economy. I am not aware of a specific assessment on that topic, but given our focus on creative industries in the industrial strategy and on growth, providing opportunities for that sort of learning to contribute to innovation in a whole range of areas in the economy is important.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said about widening access to the arts and ensuring we have a talent pipeline. Why, then, did her department announce earlier this month that it was not going to continue with the support it has been giving to national youth music organisations, such as the National Youth Orchestra? Arts Council England has stepped in to make sure those organisations are not affected, but the funding will be turned off from next month. As the spending review approaches, will she make the case for continuing to fund these brilliant organisations, which do so much to widen access to the arts?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As the noble Lord identified, support is continuing for those very important organisations to provide access for the most able musicians to the sort of development that is important to them. The Government have had to take some very difficult fiscal decisions, given the legacy we inherited from the previous Government; notwithstanding that, we are committed to developing creative subjects and, for example, launching a new national music education network to help families, children and schools access broader opportunities and support in that area.

[Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)]

My Lords, 290 jobs are set to be cut from Bangor University and the University of South Wales, and 400 jobs are proposed to be cut at Cardiff University, including by closing its music courses. What formal role will the Welsh Government play in the HE review that is to be conducted by the Minister? What consideration has she made of how to include the voices of students and those working at universities in that review?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness suggests, this is a responsibility for the Welsh Government, but I was able to talk to Members of Parliament representing Cardiff constituencies and to the Welsh Minister who has responsibility for higher education. In those conversations, we talked about the need for a long-term sustainable funding system for our higher education. Although that is a responsibility for the Government as it relates to England, I am also committed to ensuring that we keep those forms of communication open and are able to work together with our colleagues in Wales in order to put our higher education institutions back on to a much sounder financial footing, and ensure that universities are making long-term strategic decisions—autonomously and independently, rightly—supported by longer-term stability in their finances.