Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to assist people from BAME backgrounds to be better represented in university arts courses and stage schools.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has commissioned research to understand the existing barriers that prevent people from lower income households and under-represented groups, such as those from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, specifically from becoming professionals in the performing arts. It is important that the performing arts are representative of society as a whole.

One of the ways this can be achieved is by doing more to ensure more people from BAME backgrounds go on to higher education. We now see record numbers of 18 year olds from all ethnicities entering full-time higher education according to data published by The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

However, for some groups of students from ethnic minorities there is more to do to improve their participation - their retention, success and progression to higher education.

That is why the most recent guidance to the Director of Fair Access in February 2016, asked him to focus on activity to continue to improve access and participation into higher education for students from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds.

We are also introducing sweeping reforms through legislation. The Higher Education and Research Act includes the creation of the Office for Students, which has a statutory duty to consider the promotion of equality of opportunity for students as it relates to access and participation. It also includes a transparency duty requiring all universities to publish applications, offers, acceptance and retention rates broken down by gender, ethnicity and social economic background. This will help to hold universities to account for their records on access and retention.