Design Education and Growth

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I rise to speak in the space allocated to me by the usual channels with some regret. I thought that the noble Baroness the Minister and I had been switched to illustrate that we have a common approach to this, and that our speeches would be so sympathetic to each other that they could be delivered in each other’s places. Mine has to be shorter, which is a slight difficulty, but we look forward to what the Minister will say.

I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Whitaker for introducing this discussion, and all the speakers, particularly for the insights from their earlier lives from the noble Lords, Lord Baker and Lord Cotter, and my noble friend Lady Kingsmill. I particularly thank the new Design Commission itself, the first report of which is indeed a good read. It is clearly setting high standards and we eagerly await its future output.

The key messages that we need to take away from this debate are that, as a country, as the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, said, we do not understand what design can do for us both economically and socially. We do not pay enough attention to design as a new and distinctive way of manufacturing and delivering goods and services. We need to change fundamentally how we prepare people for the world of work, and use design to drive growth and prosperity in the years to come.

The report that we are discussing this evening is mainly about education. We have been told that there are a few places where we currently teach design as well as anywhere else in the world, but we do not have it properly interpolated within the STEM subjects as they are currently taught in higher education; and, despite the good work of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on the university technical colleges, we do not have nearly enough courses to equip technical people to support the areas of work in design.

The most glaring gap is that we are on the point of removing design from the school curriculum. Surely, on the basis of the very strong arguments that we have heard tonight, the Government should immediately reconsider the direction apparently being taken by the DfE. The curriculum review, the constituent parts of the English baccalaureate and the reduction of teacher training places in art and design all seem to point to a disastrous return to a narrow, rigid, traditional curriculum, which is simply not aligned to the wider growth agenda. We need the excellent joined-up design for schools project back and we need it all across the secondary curriculum.

I will be interested to hear what the Minister says in response to these specific concerns. However, I also hope that she might take back to the department, and to the Government more generally, a deeper point. Is not the logical conclusion of what we have heard tonight that we have to rethink what form of curriculum would ensure that many more of our young people enter the workforce with a problem-solving approach, the capacity to work collaboratively and an inter- disciplinary capability? Is a key component of future policy not the need to make design, in its widest definition, central to how we educate people for the workplace? As the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said, it is common for those in business—and indeed in government—to see design as largely concerned with aesthetic attributes such as style and appearance. While these are important considerations, the arguments in the report persuade me that they are only a small part of what a total design approach could deliver for UK plc.

In the recent past, when we have debated the economy or the need for growth, we have grown used to hearing it bruited about that the UK’s record of scientific invention and the great strength of its creative industries—product design, architecture, fashion, media, games software, entertainment and advertising—would equip us well enough for the future. However, as my noble friend Lady Kingsmill said, the uncomfortable truth is that, with a few very honourable exceptions, we have not been good enough at carrying these capabilities through into consistently world-beating products and services. Indeed, other countries have often made far more use of our ideas and grown their economies on the back of our inventiveness and creativity.

My point is that if we are to rebalance our economy and generate the growth we need, UK companies and industries will need to produce innovative, high-quality, high value-added products and services, and bring them quickly and effectively to market, so does the Minister agree with me that the Design Commission’s report, and the debate this evening, make it essential that we put design at the heart of our industrial policy?