Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Government has made of the effect of changes in the number of people studying arts subjects in schools on the effectiveness of UK creative industries.

We know that the creative industries are a cultural and economic success story for the UK being worth £87.4bn to UK economy in 2015 and growing by more than a third since 2010.

The new National Curriculum was developed with input from employers and representatives from both the further and higher education sectors. It was designed to equip pupils with the knowledge they need to progress either into further education or to make a successful start on their careers, including roles in the creative industries.

The total proportion of pupils finishing Key Stage 4 who were entered into a GCSE in an arts subjects rose between 2012 and 2015, but fell slightly in 2016. Comparable data is not yet available for 2017.