Queen’s Speech

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, it is pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, especially as, unlike some of her colleagues, she has not pre-empted many of my own remarks.

I shall focus on skills and the creative industries. The success of Brexit will depend on the competitiveness of UK business in global markets, which in turn requires access to talent and skills and capitalising on our world-class strengths in sectors such as the creative industries.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to creating a world-class technical education system, building on the generally admirable Technical and Further Education Act passed in the last Session. It is high time for the disparity of esteem between academic and technical education to be finally laid to rest, so that teachers, parents and young people themselves recognise that technical education routes offer opportunities at least as rewarding and valuable as academic ones. That might also help to address the education divide, so thoughtfully described earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell.

The gracious Speech makes little mention of apprenticeships, but I was reassured by the Minister’s confirmation that the commitment to deliver 3 million new high-quality apprenticeship starts in England by 2020 has not changed, despite the rather surprising appointment of a new Skills Minister, Anne Milton MP, to replace Robert Halfon. I wish her success in progressing the new system for funding and managing apprenticeships, based on the apprenticeship levy, which was introduced in April, and the new Institute for Apprenticeships, and in ensuring that this actually delivers the enhanced skills that we need in terms of quality as well as quantity. I am particularly concerned that the vital role of independent training providers in delivering apprenticeships—over half of the total, I believe—should be properly recognised and supported.

The gracious Speech includes proposals for a new digital charter, aimed at making the UK the best place to start and run a digital business and the safest place in the world to be online. I hope that the first of these aims will include sufficient emphasis on enhancing digital skills. The Digital Skills Committee, on which I served, described this as a make or break issue for the UK and increasingly vital not just for digital businesses but in almost every field of activity. The noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, pointed out in a letter to the Times on Tuesday that the number of students taking GCSE computer science this year is still only 68,000, while a Commons report forecasts a shortfall of 750,000 digital technicians. I remain to be convinced that the scale of this challenge is adequately reflected in the measures outlined in the gracious Speech and supporting documents. I strongly endorse the call made by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull for improving the effectiveness of careers education.

One of the areas in which the UK has the potential to continue to excel is in the creative industries, which represent £87 billion of gross value added. It is one of the UK’s fastest growing sectors and accounts for almost 10% of our service exports. I share the view expressed by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that the exclusion of creative subjects from the Government’s plans for the EBacc is perverse. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, mentioned the declining take-up of arts and creative subjects in schools, yet these subjects are included as a matter of course in the most successful schools, particularly in the independent sector, and businesses are crying out for skills in just these areas. There seems to be a real risk of pupils in disadvantaged areas missing out on arts and creative subjects, thereby reinforcing the concerns about the potential educational divide mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and others.

The creative sector, as we have heard, acts as a hub for global talent and depends significantly on overseas workers, not just to plug major skills gaps in the domestic workforce but to bring market insight into different territories where it competes. Twenty per cent of orchestral musicians in this country come from overseas. To support the continued success of the sector, a new immigration system should take account of issues such as the high proportion of freelancers in the creative industries workforce, the relatively low pay levels of many workers—below the current thresholds for entering and remaining in the UK—and the importance of touring for many arts organisations, such as orchestras.

For some creative sectors, such as broadcasting, market access is specifically dependent on membership of the EU single market, which enables it to offer services across the whole EU on the basis of just one licence from Ofcom. Some members of the EU Internal Market Committee went on a visit to Discovery Networks, which runs well over 100 broadcast channels from Chiswick, which may need to consider relocation from the UK, if it no longer has access to the market. It is not surprising that 96% of members of the Creative Industries Federation said that they wish to remain in the EU.

I hope the Government will succeed in retaining some degree of access to the EU single market, perhaps through membership of the EEA and/or EFTA, at least during a period of transition. Let me note also that it will be more important than ever after we leave the EU as a member to foster mutual understanding and partnerships with our closest neighbours through continuing to participate in EU programmes such as Creative Europe, Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+. Those issues are key to the Brexit aim of taking British values around the world and need to be at the forefront of the Government’s programme in this session, even during the ongoing process of negotiating Brexit.