English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, and his love of “Romeo and Juliet” by Tchaikovsky, which I, too, studied at school. I welcome the enterprise of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, in bringing this vital issue before us today.

I always try to avoid being overly melodramatic when speaking in your Lordships’ House, but I have to say to the Government that the exclusion of creative subjects from the English baccalaureate has been viewed by the creative industries as disastrous. Let me explain this concern in just one particular respect, one that might—I use that word advisedly—be compounded by the outcome of Brexit negotiations. Orchestras in this country are already worried about a drop in young musicians coming through the education system, as we have heard. If recruiting from abroad and, indeed, touring abroad becomes more difficult they foresee huge problems in the coming years. Young instrumentalists need to start while their muscles and limbs are still malleable—not to mention their minds. It is like tennis, cricket, skiing or football—the earlier you start the easier it is to gain a technique or “muscle memory” as trainers like to say. That is why the Russians have such fantastic techniques. They may lack other things, but they start really young.

Can I forestall one aspect of the Minister’s possible response? He might, with some justification, point out to us that creative subjects are still available but just not as part of the EBacc. However, this, many of us feel, rather diminishes the role of the arts and music and is having a deleterious effect on the take-up of, for example, music. As my noble friend Lord Aberdare pointed out, this tends to mean that the well-off can give their children music while the poor are at a disadvantage. This at a time when the Government are always at pains to praise the revenue and reputation that the creative industries bring to this country.

Then there is the dividend of social cohesion that the arts bring to young people and thereby society at large. Here, I am very much with my noble friend Lord Bird. The arts tend to pick up waifs and strays who somehow do not fall easily into the required niche as so well described by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth. These waifs and strays—I would have included myself in this bracket at one point—tend to fall by the wayside if not catered for. When I think back to my schooldays, it is the maverick, the outsider, who has often achieved the unexpected, the remarkable. A music master who took an interest in me helped to lift me from lacklustre academic achievement to a route that fulfilled what limited talents I had. I still have the well-thumbed scores of Bach’s “Double Violin Concerto in D minor”, Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra”, and yes, Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet”, which were the O-level set works and which have remained dear to me ever since.

Acting in various school productions, from Gilbert and Sullivan to Pirandello and from John Mortimer to Shakespeare, was the best kind of education into the workings of the world and us hapless mortals—and goodness, how we need help with that. It undoubtedly helped to give me the confidence which, I am sure, helped me later as a broadcaster.

I am always amazed that this country boasts such a stunning array of world-class talent, given that our history is rather more philistine than that of some countries. We did not, for instance, have a court system of commissioning music. Hunting was more the order of the day. Sir Peter Hall, who has just died and to whom I pay tribute if I may, was just the kind of visionary who transformed British theatre by presenting not just the classics but insisting on the best of the new—David Hare, for example. Hall and Hare, and so many other artists, have stressed the burning need to introduce the arts to young children not just as a choice but as a necessity—as a central part of the curriculum.

The numbers of high achievers in the arts who trace back their success to a particular teacher and the availability and opportunity—what an important word that is—that they encountered at a young impressionable age are legion. We are hugely successful in the field of the arts but we simply cannot sit back on our laurels. Rather, we must invest in the future not just financially but in terms of the respect and importance that we attach to creativity. That is why I believe that it really was disastrous to omit creativity from the EBacc syllabus.