Creative Industries (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Friday 7th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. Coming at what seems to be the end of this debate, almost everything that should have been said probably has been, so I am going to struggle to see whether I can introduce some further thoughts; I will certainly do my best. I declare an interest as a national apprenticeship ambassador. I will come on to the question of skills.

I echo the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, about the quality of our clerical support. It demonstrates what high-quality civil servants are capable of producing. They were phenomenal in their work rate and the quality of what they produced. I congratulate the noble Baroness; she had what I can only describe as an eclectic committee but she drove us to produce a coherent, focused, influential and succinct report. All those factors are important. Somebody else has already paid tribute to the noble Baroness’s ability to wheel and deal in government departments, and that was justified praise.

In a first for any committee, as the noble Baroness mentioned, we interviewed a robot. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that, when I questioned the robot’s interlocuter, he said, “No, she cannot demonstrate empathy”. I reminded him that I had a certain sense of déjà vu because somebody who has been mentioned twice in this debate, Ishiguro, was the man sponsoring this particular robot. For those of you who have not listened to it, I recommend going on BBC Sounds and listening to “Klara and the Sun”. It is the most fascinating story and one that will make you think, I believe.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who unfortunately is not in his place, told us about the problems with streaming. I was thinking about what was probably one of the greatest exhibitions that we will ever witness: the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, which, unfortunately, I did not manage to see. However, there is an astonishing film of it. I do not know whether it could be done, but it would not be a bad thing if we showed it in every school. It is an amazing film; he was such an astonishing artist.

Hardly surprisingly, I will focus on skills. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, was a bit dismissive of the apprenticeship levy. I think he is wrong; it was brave of this Government to introduce it. It focused employers’ minds. Is it perfect? Of course it is not. Does it need reform? Of course it does, for the reasons that many people have indicated, but we should not throw the baby out with the bath-water. It required thousands and thousands of employers to think about training. Did they do it well enough? No. Is it flexible enough, as a number of people asked? No, it is not, by any means.

There was also a lot of talk about career guidance, which is phenomenally important. It is not just career guidance, which is better than it used to be; it is the importance of getting young people into work experience and work placements. Nothing beats that—well, there is only one other thing that is as good as that, which is getting young people who are involved in art, culture and the performing arts to go into schools. That peer group influence is fundamentally important.

If I have one criticism, it is that the committee did not have many interesting visits and we did not travel very far. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, is very economical—I am only partially jesting. However, we went to the BBC at Salford, and what it is doing there really is important. We also had another visit; if people have not been there, I recommend that they go to Royal Holloway to see some of the stuff going on there. It really is amazing.

There has been lots of talk about the next generation, which is fundamentally important. It all starts with the early years. If any group suffered during the pandemic, it was that age group. I also say to the Minister that we need to look at how we fund education. Over £20 billion is outstanding in student loans. We have to ask ourselves: is that the best way of doing it? In my view, it is not. It should move over to taxation, where everybody would pay. That would be a much fairer system, and perhaps we could then focus more money on where it is absolutely needed.

I will congratulate Keir Starmer. I am a paid-up member of “pedants are us”, and I reckon my vocabulary is as good as most people’s, but I had to check the dictionary when I heard the word “oracy”. I first thought that it was something to do with oratory. It is not at all; it is the ability to express oneself in and understand spoken language, which is subtly but importantly different. It was first recorded in 1960; it took a bit from “oral” and a bit from “literacy”. So he gave us a new and very important word. Young people’s ability to express themselves with confidence is fundamental. It is embarrassing to find that private schools understand this. It is an example of why I am totally opposed to people saying that there is no room for private schools in education. In my view, there is. They often pioneer the way. They need to work together with state schools.

I want to end on a positive note. Have the Government got it all right? Of course they have not, which is why our report strikes the right note. However, they are listening. There is so much going on: we are world leaders in animation and in computer games. Our contribution to music is absolutely astonishing.

Even in my humble local area, the highlight of the social event of Norwood Green’s year—our village day—was two groups of bhangra dancers, one with children and the other with grown-ups. The audience was absolutely captivated—what an example of cultural diversity, music, skills, drumming, et cetera. I am pleased to say that the landlord of my local pub, the Plough—I will give him a plug—sponsors so much live music, whether it is jazz, folk or something else.

There are some important lessons for the Government to learn. I look forward to the Minister’s response; he has quite a task, but he has been praised so much I am sure he will do it well. I end by saying that I like to think that our committee, under the able chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, has made an important contribution to the creative economy.