Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for initiating this important debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss a range of issues. I say at the outset that I want to be very positive about the Arts Council, given the progress it is making in trying to address levelling up.

The last 20 years or so have seen a cultural renaissance of Tyneside. It was an exciting time for me personally, as a council leader and a board member of a development agency, working with so many talented people in delivering a vision, for it was levelling up in action. Today, the buildings, programmes and outreach work are in place for the long term, although generating enough money is always a problem. All of this is evidence that delivering a strategy requires buildings, funding and enterprising people with vision who can make things happen for the long term. Cultural investment in places can have a profound impact. In our case, it has attracted inward investment from new industries and many more international students to our universities, and we have many more tourists and have become a thriving short break destination.

I mentioned the Arts Council and levelling up. As an example of what can be achieved, let me talk briefly about Sage Gateshead, which is so good at skills development, access and inclusion, though its resources are also very tight. It has one of the largest creative learning programmes in the UK, with very large numbers of adults attending music classes. There have been over 70,000 attendances at classes or workshops in the last year by participants aged four to 19. There is, for example, In Harmony Newcastle Gateshead, an immersive orchestral music programme based in two primary schools in the west end of Newcastle, working with local partners; and the Young Musicians Programme, offering introductory sessions up to advanced training, which served 300 children and young people each weekend through term time in 2021-22. We should note that 75% of Centre for Advanced Training students receive a bursary. This is important—as my noble friend Lady Hamwee would have said, had she been able to take part in the debate—to meet their travel costs, which can often be substantial.

The national plan for music education, which was debated recently in this Chamber, is to be strongly welcomed. As its title says, music has the power to change lives. It says that music education is

“an essential part of a broad and ambitious curriculum for all pupils”,

and it draws attention to the vital importance of every child having access to a musical instrument and personal support on digital music platforms.

This is all excellent, but it takes me to last year’s report by the Youth Unemployment Committee, which I had the privilege of chairing. A number of references have been made in this debate to that report, so I hope noble Lords will forgive me for expanding on them. The committee said that

“young people, school leaders and employers agree”—

this is from the evidence they gave us—

“that young people do not have the essential skills needed for work by the time they leave the school gates.”

As Youth Employment UK told us, there are not enough options for digital, computing, design and technology and creative subjects within the core curriculum, despite these being growth and in-demand areas. The Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre and the Centre for Cultural Value said that arts education should be a statutory part of curricula to meet the challenge of skills and training shortages in that sector. We have heard a lot of evidence in the Chamber today about the importance of this.

Other figures have been used, but let me cite some more. At GCSE level, entries in the performing arts were down by 41% from 2017 to 2021, while entries in music fell by 9%. Between 2010 and 2020, there was a 70% decline in GCSE entries in design and technology and a 40% decline in GCSE entries in creative subjects, yet we were told that design and technology was “thriving” in the private sector, with parents seeing it as an “essential subject”—as they did, in fact, with all creative subjects.

We concluded that the national curriculum

“is too narrowly focused to ensure that it prepares all young people for the modern labour market and the essential, technical and creative skills it requires, in particular for the creative, green and digital sectors. These views were shared by employers and young people alike.”

I submit to the Minister that it is time they were shared by His Majesty’s Government.