Creative Education Access Bill [HL]

My Lords, first, let me congratulate the Minister, welcome her to her place and wish her all the very best. This is a gentle start, I hope. This Bill has the support of many organisations, and I give thanks to the Cultural Learning Alliance, the National Society for Education in Art and Design, the National Theatre, the Independent Society of Musicians, Arts and Minds, the Independent Schools Council and the National Education Union, among many others. For far too long, creative education has been treated as an optional extra in our schools, a luxury to be squeezed in when time and budgets allow. Yet creativity is not just some sort of enrichment activity. It is a fundamental human capacity—one of the defining strengths of the British economy—and by creative education, I mean music, art, drama, dance, creative writing, design, film and digital media, as well as newer areas such as gaming and other forms of creative technology. These subjects matter in their own right, but they also help children to develop confidence, imagination, communication, collaboration and problem-solving. They give children the chance to make things: to perform, experiment, take risks and find out what they are capable of. For some children, that can be particularly important, because a child who struggles in one part of school life can discover through music, drama, dance, art and design that they are good at something. That discovery can affect how they see themselves and how they approach literally the rest of their lives. In too many schools, creative subjects have come under pressure from crowded timetables, accountability measures, financial constraints, and the misguided view that creativity is a “nice to have”. There is another hugely important challenge. There is deep inequality in this country, depending on wealth or location, and so often, where there is a creative deficit, families who can pay for music lessons, dance classes, theatre trips, art materials or other opportunities outside school, do—of course they do—or they send their children to private school when that provision is regarded as truly important. But many cannot and for those children, school may be the only place where they get the chance to pick up an instrument, perform, paint, design, write creatively or experience live theatre, dance or music. That is why access matters so much. A child’s opportunity to discover and develop a creative ability should never ever depend on their parents’ income, where they live or which school they happen to attend. The Cultural Learning Alliance found that almost half of teachers in independent primary schools report more than two and a half hours of art teaching each week, but in state primaries, only 6% do. That gap is totally unacceptable and we must not ignore it. At key stage 3, the overall direction is a loss of curriculum time for creative subjects and that decline is reflected in the teaching workforce. The alliance also found that, while the overall secondary teacher workforce grew by nearly 7% between 2011 and 2023, the number of teachers in expressive arts subjects fell by 27%—I repeat, 27%. In design and technology, the fall was more than half, and in drama more than a fifth. We have to make sure that we have the teachers with the skills and confidence to teach it. The five hours a week that this Bill proposes at key stages 1 and 2, and four hours at key stage 3, are deliberately ambitious and are intended to give creative education its proper place in the school week, rather than leaving it to compete for whatever time is left over. Of course, I am not suggesting that every school should deliver those hours in exactly the same way. Schools obviously need flexibility, and there will be different ways of providing a strong creative education, but there must be protected space for that. The Bill also provides for a creative access guarantee, financial assistance, inspection, partnerships with the creative sector and better information about creative careers and apprenticeships. Those wider provisions are important because creative education is not just about what happens in the classroom. We are so very fortunate in this country to have an extraordinary range of theatres, galleries, museums, orchestras, dance companies, film-makers, designers, artists, games companies and other creative organisations. There need to be much stronger links between those organisations and our schools. A visit to the theatre or to a gallery, concert or creative workplace can make an idea real for a child, in a way that classroom teaching alone cannot, and so many children do not come from backgrounds where they can get that any other way. There is also a powerful economic argument. The creative industries are one of the UK’s major economic successes. The latest government figures show that the creative industries contributed nearly £146 billion to the UK economy in 2024. That is around 5.5% of our total economic output and nearly seven times the contribution of the automotive manufacturing industry. The creative industries grew more than four times as fast as the economy as a whole last year. If this Government are interested in growth, I suggest they do everything my Bill says. This is already one of Britain’s great economic strengths and, if we want it to remain so, we have to make sure the next generation has the opportunity to develop the creativity and skills on which those industries depend. Young people from every background need to see that creative careers are open to them and have the opportunity to develop the skills that those careers will require. The case for creative education does not rest on the jobs that it may lead to, because most children who learn music are not going to become musicians, and most who take part in the school play will not become actors—although I used to do a lot of school plays, and they do say that politics is showbiz for ugly people. Anyway, that is not the point; these subjects are part of a rounded education and have value in their own right. We have even more challenges ahead of us. The world of work is changing quickly, particularly with the development of artificial intelligence and automation, and we do not really know for sure what many jobs are going to look like in 10 or 20 years—if we are alive. If no one understood that reference, it is the prediction that there is a 10% chance AI will kill us within the next 10 years. Sorry, I assumed that everyone kept up with the news. Originality, imagination, adaptability and the ability to make connections between different ideas are unlikely to become less important. Indeed, as AI becomes capable of producing words, images, music and ideas in seconds, there is a risk—I would say a likelihood, having read some things that AI has written—that more and more of what we see and hear will begin to look and sound the same. Human originality will be at a premium. I know that the Government recognise many of these concerns, and there is already work under way on the curriculum and on improving access to creative subjects. I welcome that and I particularly welcome the Government’s decision to move away from the dreadful EBacc. I am dovetailing with the Government here. I very much hope and trust that the Government will see this Bill as being very much in the same territory, and as an opportunity to strengthen what the Government are trying to achieve, but at a younger age. There will be questions, obviously, about the number of hours proposed, resources, inspection and implementation. I am open to those discussions, but obviously, the purpose of a Second Reading is to establish whether the principle of the Bill is one the House supports. I hope that there will be broad agreement on the principle. Creative education should have a secure place in our schools, and every child should have the opportunity to discover what they can do. I beg to move.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on her Bill and the way she opened this Second Reading. I also welcome my noble friend the Minister to her place. I look forward to her maiden speech today and to working with her. Last week we had a debate on the Government’s priorities. I focused on creative education and the importance of making changes to improve the uptake of music in our state schools. Our Labour Government inherited an education system in which the EBacc had squeezed music education and other arts education from the curriculum. In music this damaged both music teacher recruitment and retention and contributed to declining GCSE and A-level entries. Recruitment targets for music teacher training were missed for 11 out of 12 years, and the number of music teachers fell by 850 between 2011 and 2023. A-level music remains in crisis. Entries have fallen by 41% since 2013 to a record low of 4,635 students, while GCSE music entries are around 27% lower than they were in 2010. As the noble Baroness said in her opening speech, this decline has not affected all young people equally. Music has one of the largest disadvantage attainment gaps of any subject. Schools in the most deprived fifth of local authorities are more likely to have no entries in some arts GCSEs. Some 54% of state schools in those areas have no GCSE music entries, compared with 21% in the least deprived authorities. I thank Professor Adam Whittaker of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Dr Anthony Anderson of Birmingham City University for the research they do on disadvantage-related attainment gaps in music education, and for providing briefings on it. Their work found that, in 18 local authorities, either only one school offers a music qualification—A-level or vocational—or, in the worst cases, none do. The list of authorities includes Knowsley, Hartlepool, South Tyneside, Rochdale, Salford and Tameside, as well as four London boroughs. As a former Salford MP, it breaks my heart to see the Salford local authority included in that list. The Social Mobility Commission found that children from poorer backgrounds are three times less likely to learn an instrument, sing in a choir or play in an orchestra. Recently, I attended an event hosted by the excellent Royal Philharmonic Society, where three of our most gifted young musicians, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Ben Goldscheider and Jess Gillam, discussed the state of music education. These musicians were worried that music education is not in a great place and said that “it’s not what it was”. Like many musicians, they do what they can to support music in our schools, but they cannot solve these issues as individuals. It falls to us in this place to create a better future for both arts and music education in our state schools. The United Kingdom’s music industry is one of our greatest success stories: it generates £8 billion for the economy and supports 220,000 jobs. Every performer, composer, producer, sound engineer, technician and educator begins somewhere. If we weaken music education, and arts education more broadly, we weaken the talent pipeline that feeds our universities, conservatoires, orchestras and creative industries. I welcome the Government’s commitment to removing the EBacc performance measure, but removing a barrier is only the first step. We must rebuild the music teacher workforce, restore effective teacher training incentives, such as the bursary, expand access to instrumental tuition and ensure that children in disadvantaged communities have the same opportunities as those elsewhere. Music education is about far more than producing professional musicians; it helps young people to develop creativity, confidence, resilience and collaboration. My hope is that we can create an education system where every child and young person, whatever their background, has the chance to choose music and benefit from all that it offers. Today’s Second Reading debate brings a welcome focus to the subject of creative education and the issues and challenges of restoring it after the damage done in recent years. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for enabling that focus through the Bill.

My Lords, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood. I note that a DCMS Minister is answering an education debate; I hope that is a sign that joined-up thinking is finally going to be a thing. I very much support every part of the Bill and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on introducing it. Arts education in schools is important on many levels. The arts are an integral component of a democratic society, and it is the right of young people—indeed, a UN right of the child—to have both access to the arts and an opportunity to engage with them at an early age. We talk a lot about literacy—conventional, digital and even financial literacy—but less about cultural, visual or aural literacy. Within that context, I will make a particular point about neurodivergent students. There are estimates that up to a third of NEETs, or even more, have some form of neurodivergence. The question must arise: if we know there is a connection between creativity and neurodivergent conditions, how much is the decline of creative education in schools and the lack of opportunities responsible, at least in part, for the high numbers of NEETs? I am not convinced that putting a lot of these young people into retail is necessarily the right long-term answer. Research into these areas is sparse, though what there is points in a certain direction. Might the Government consider commissioning research into this whole area, which would be of help to both education and employment? One thing that many would want to change is the negative perception of those with neurodivergent conditions. What is a negative is the narrow belief that the academic route should necessarily represent the gold standard or the only approach to education. The major problem that creative education in schools currently has is the structural deficit from so many years of a decline that is still continuing, despite the removal of the EBacc. As Arts and Minds points out, GCSE entries to creative subjects are down by 47% since 2010. In many schools, there is now an institutionalised bias away from the arts that needs to be reversed; that will be difficult. This Bill puts the hours in place, but there is also the shortage of specialist art teachers, including in primary schools. We need, as has been said, to bring back ITT bursaries for art subjects, and in a big way. The reference point should be not the last year but 2010, since when there has been a huge loss in arts teachers. Much more money must be spent on arts in schools, so that we get back musical instruments, art materials and studios. The Bill says “may”, but it ought to be “must”. School libraries are also important. Books are not just about the written word—they include art books. As Julia Donaldson pointed out at the Publishers Association reception on Wednesday, we also need school librarians to point students in the right direction. Rightly, the Bill encourages partnerships with theatres, museums, galleries and established artists. In my Question on Monday, on the 100% cuts to the Government’s day-to-day funding of higher education creative courses, my noble friend Lord Hampton made the pertinent point that if we start losing graduates in the creative industries, where will the next generation of specialist school teachers come from? We would not, of course, expect everyone who has a creative education to have a creative career, as the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said, but those opportunities should be there from the outset. What affects HE will feed back into schools, just as what happens in schools will determine the demand for the arts in higher education. We can have either a virtuous circle or a destructive cycle. What surely is required is an overall strategy for creative education that looks closely at the effect of such decision-making across the whole education ecosystem, including the excellent recommendations that the Bill makes.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and I congratulate my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on this important Private Member’s Bill, which, as we know, would enable access to creative and cultural education in state-funded schools. I will return to this a little later. I also pay tribute to and welcome my noble friend Lady Mackenzie. She is someone I have known for many years, and her work and commitment to the arts goes back decades. She has encouraged bold, inclusive work that has pulled in creators and audiences. I remember my own experience when she helped to give birth to the remarkable work by Phelim McDermott and his company at Nottingham Playhouse in the early 1990s. We are indeed fortunate to have her in the House, and I look forward to her maiden speech. This Bill is crucial, and I hope that the Government will have the good sense to adopt it. I argue this from a personal perspective: there can be no greater start in life than access to the arts and the creative industries. At the age of 11, I was written off because I failed my 11-plus, an exam I did not even know I was taking, and I was shunted off, as with so many others, to a secondary modern education. I was in a place where I felt I just did not belong. It was painful, and I became a rebel—but thankfully, due to my mimicry and my sense of mischief, which I have not lost, I came to the attention of the drama teacher and my life changed. I was no longer the rebel; I had an outlet for my imagination and my energy. There, behind that tatty, faded red curtain in the assembly hall of Cardinal Griffin School in Poplar, east London, I discovered another world that I did not know existed, and it was a world that I did not want to end. It lifted me from the pain and the confusion that was around me, and it gave me options that I had never dreamed of. Access to these classes literally changed my life. I was discovered in the school show impersonating Eartha Kitt and Bud Flanagan—the outrageous and the sublime. A talent scout spotted me, and I ended up starring in “Oliver!” in the West End of London at the age of 12. My life changed. But my arts education could not be maintained in the school. I went to an art school and learned in detail about the English language, drama, dance, ballet, music, elocution and improvisation. Improvisation sets the mind free. The mind is like a parachute; it works best when it is open. Creative access ignites the imagination and enables us to imagine and to enter other worlds. It gives us the ability to stand in the shoes of others, and we are all the better for it. As your Lordships have probably gathered, I am passionate about this issue because an arts education and access to the arts are not luxuries; they are essential to the way we live and engage with others, and particularly to how we engage with the unknown. An active imagination and learning and using language skills and confidence skills are the necessary skills for life and lifelong learning. They give us the ability to actively listen—only then can we properly engage. These life skills will outlive artificial intelligence. Finally, the other essential part of an arts-based creative education is recognising that there is no such thing as failure. All too often in politics, I hear from one Dispatch Box or the other how it is problematic to bring about a suggested solution, and so there is withdrawal. I entered politics to solve problems, not to create them or just talk about them. Maybe, just maybe, if more of us were more willing to work together cross-party and not be terrified of failure, and if we sought solutions instead of highlighting problems, politics might be seen in a much more positive way. I cannot welcome this Private Member’s Bill more passionately, because it has the ability to change young people’s lives and change them for the better.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for bringing forward this Bill. I look forward to the maiden speech from the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood. I will do my best to follow the marvellous speech from the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. I declare my interest as chair of the Teaching Commission, established now for two years, consisting of teachers, leaders and policy specialists, with representatives from unions and the Chartered College of Teaching. I was also, in a previous incarnation, General Secretary of the National Education Union, which has run a fantastic “Arts and Minds” campaign to promote education in the creative arts for all children of all backgrounds. The Teaching Commission’s second report, published in July, is titled Curriculum and Assessment for All?—there is a question mark at the end. The report examines the required conditions to successfully implement the new national curriculum in 2028. Commissioners welcome the ambition and vision of the 2028 curriculum. It signals a fundamental shift towards a more physical, practical, social and developmental experience of schooling for children and young people, along with a focus on inclusion, belonging and joy for all pupils. The commissioners, along with many others, strongly welcome the significant broadening of the taught curriculum and, in particular, the revitalising of arts subjects with a requirement for breadth and more depth in detailed programmes of study in the foundation subjects of art, drama and music. Very welcome, too, is the establishment of a new national centre for arts and music education, which will promote arts education and enable high-quality teaching through a teacher development offer. These are all excellent developments to achieve the Government’s ambition to enable all children and young people to gain access to the creative arts as part of their education. However, there are challenges which must be addressed and recognised. The broadening of the school curriculum to incorporate a much greater focus on creative subjects must also take into account the challenges that schools currently face, and will face more acutely in the near future, in employing teachers who are qualified and expert in the teaching of those subjects. In this respect, creative subjects face a particular challenge. Since 2010 and after the introduction of the EBacc accountability measure, arts subjects have seen a precipitous 42% decline in applications for initial teacher training, reflecting a trend where more than 40% of English state schools are no longer entering any pupils in music and drama GCSEs. These teachers have been lost from the system and the training pipeline has dried up. The Key Group conducted a small survey of secondary school leaders for the commission which revealed that 40% of secondary school respondents reported that that they would have difficulty offering a wider offer in art because of a lack of specialist subject staff. For drama, 40% of secondary respondents reported a lack of specialist drama teachers, and 45% reported that for music. It is also the unfortunate truth that the teacher supply challenges are not evenly spread across the education system. Schools serving the most disadvantaged communities find it much more difficult than those serving affluent pupil intakes to recruit and retain teachers across the curriculum. The issue of the teacher quality gap is the subject of an Education Policy Institute 2025 report, Closing the Workforce Quality Gap, which reveals that teachers in disadvantaged schools are increasingly less likely to have a relevant degree, with disadvantaged schools now trailing affluent schools by 15 percentage points in the percentage of lessons taught by a subject specialist. Good teacher supply is essential not only to match the increased demands of a broader curriculum; it is also a social justice issue, so that the most deprived pupils have as much chance of being taught by teachers qualified in the subjects they are teaching as their more advantaged peers. If the broadening subject base of the 2028 curriculum is to be well taught by qualified teachers, a new approach to initial teacher training recruitment targets must be developed by the DfE, which should take account of previous declines in applications and reductions in initial teacher training targets for arts subjects and the number of teachers teaching outside the subject area for which they are qualified. Ultimately, no education system exceeds the quality of its workforce. Broadening the curriculum requires considerable analysis and planning so that it can be successfully implemented, and I urge the Government to note the second Teaching Commission report and to respond to the issues and challenges in it.

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie. I am really looking forward to the teach-ins that she can give us on these subjects. My starting point is that education should form the basis for a fulfilled life, not just passing exams. This is not something on which I expect any disagreement from noble Lords. I want to talk about two forms of creativity. Quite a long time ago, I was lucky enough to have the Industry and Parliament Trust arrange a creative industries fellowship for me—rather a grand term for the experience that I got just talking to a range of people and observing things. It included contact with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s education department, and I visited a couple of schools to observe their approach to teaching Shakespeare. At one secondary school, a class of 12 year-olds was studying “King Lear”, which might sound a bit unlikely. It involved a lot of physical interpretation, and noble Lords may imagine how this lent itself to the issue of sibling rivalry, for instance. I was told—and this picks up a comment made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty—that, for “the most challenging child in the school”, which was how they described her, this class worked wonders. She threw herself into it. The class was observed by teachers of other subjects who were enthusiastic about using similar ideas and techniques themselves. For many years, I was a trustee of the Rose Theatre in Kingston—for far too long; one should keep moving on for the good of the organisation. I managed to leave the board only by organising the recruitment of new directors. I am sure this is an experience other noble Lords have had. We had a lot of applications, and I had not expected so many from the parents of children who were or had been members of the Rose’s youth theatre. Many of them referred to how much that experience widened the child’s horizons and made working in a team more doable, and, in particular, how their confidence had been boosted—not just in specific activities such as creating sets, making props, speaking in front of other people and even improvisation, but overall and in all situations. To take another activity, art—a lot falls under that heading; my noble friend referred to the “expressive arts”, which I had not heard before, but it is a very useful term—my experience has been that creating something occupies a different part of the brain from academic work. The creativity one can discover within oneself is tremendously rewarding, even if nobody else can identify it when you produce something. Quite apart from making marks on paper, it prompts curiosity and expands your ways of looking at the world and seeing. All this is very self-indulgent, but I am convinced that the impact of creative education can last a lifetime. I am ashamed to say that all that Latin and Greek, for me, did not. In this very narrow speech, I have not attempted to address the range of issues from other noble Lords, but as the years have gone on, the more keenly I have appreciated the creative activities I have been able to experience. I congratulate my noble friend.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for bringing this Bill. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood, to her position in the Government. I declare my interests as a former schools and colleges governor; I was also for 10 years vice-president of the British Board of Film Classification and was chancellor of Bournemouth University, which has a centre of excellence in film and performing arts. I was born and raised in a place which I think most people regard as paradise or utopia. It is called Birmingham, just off the M6 by the gasworks. I went to a grammar school which was known for its academic standing, but there was one fellow pupil who I recall seemed to have a rather unusual ambition. He spoke of his intention to read architecture at university—a perfectly laudable goal—but he also mentioned his real passion was to become an actor. I remember thinking that he would struggle, because there seemed no obvious pathway to achieving that at school. But he obviously did find a way, because Anton Lesser went on to star in Hollywood films including “Pirates of the Caribbean”, TV series such as “Game of Thrones” and numerous Shakespearean roles. I am sure Anton would have been an excellent architect, but it is arguable that his career as an actor has inspired an even wider circle. There is someone else from my home city paradise of Birmingham who did not find a pathway into the creative arts until long after his formal education had finished. The youngest of seven children from a very humble background, his first big break was to write radio commercials for an advertising agency. He is now better known for creating the hit BBC TV series “Peaky Blinders” and is writing the script for the next James Bond film. He is none other than Steven Knight CBE. Anton Lesser and Steven Knight were not overnight success stories. They had to find a way, where there seemed no way, in their formal education at school. It makes me wonder how many other Anton Lessers or Steven Knights—male and female—are out there who we have missed out on. It matters when you consider that the creative industries contribute £145.8 billion to the UK economy. It also matters when you consider that we are going through a fourth industrial revolution. We have had steam, electricity, computers and now AI. We all know that artificial intelligence is bringing with it amazing benefits, especially in the health sector, but it also presents challenges, even dangers. Scientists speak of the left side of our brains supporting logical and analytical skills, while the right side supports our more creative and emotional thoughts. AI is a tool that is increasingly doing the left-side factual work for us, including for our children with their schoolwork. This is why it is all the more important for our creative skills to be protected and nurtured. After all, each of us has AI—that is, actual intelligence. During my time as a film regulator, we on the BBFC board noticed that the number of actors coming from the public school sector grew while the number from less privileged state school backgrounds decreased. The situation is even worse for Black actors. Only 15 Black actors have played two or more lead roles in British films over the last 10 years. After school, Idris Elba, now Sir Idris Elba, did find a way, but that was working as a tyre fitter before a Prince’s Trust grant enabled him to enrol at the National Youth Music Theatre. Over the years, I have been privileged to host a number of charitable events at which pupils from the BRIT School have performed, singing and playing instruments, but not every pupil who has artistic talents can enrol at the specialist BRIT School. Last March, the Government announced plans to create a national centre for arts and music education. The centre is due to launch this month, so can the Minister say what progress is being made on this? In March of this year, the Government Whip, the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, stated the Government were “not yet clear” on whether a joint fund will be created to support arts activities in schools. The idea was that the Department for Education, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England would work together with donors, trusts and foundations to achieve this. Please can the Minister also give us an update on that plan? For this Bill to be effective, it will need financial backing. Britain has a strong and historic tradition of wealthy people giving back to society in various ways. This is why it is sad that the billionaire Christopher Rokos is the latest wealthy donor to leave the UK. I wish this Bill success. As a Private Member’s Bill, perhaps it has limited chances of that, but, as the saying goes, those who say it cannot be done should not try to stop those who are doing it.

My Lords, I am so grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for introducing this Bill and doing so with such passion. Her commitment to this issue is incredibly impressive. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood, and am looking forward to hearing her maiden speech. Her commitment to this cause and to theatre generally cannot be in doubt. This issue is crucial to the country. I know we all want the best for our children. The younger generation deserve the best possible start in life. We do not want them to end up as NEETs. That is punishing for them, and it is not great for the country, as we know. As others have already pointed out, a more rounded education could stop another generation falling into that trap. The need for this Bill is pressing. However, we should not overlook that it is important for children to have the best possible grounding in a broad education, so I was glad to see the figures this week from PISA, the Progression for International Student Assessment. It appears that there are some benefits to the education that we have been giving our children and that performance in traditional subjects has improved, particularly in science. But it is not enough. If these children are going to grow into rounded human beings and be able to put that classical benefit to use, they need a much broader education. We have heard about the expense that this new education approach has already taken to teachers from the arts. The numbers are staggering. We need to address that, and the Bill is a great step towards that. If, as the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, suggested, we survive that 10% risk of being obliterated by AI—let us hope—then we can make the most of the new technology. In order to use it positively, the next generation will need to have the broad approach that a creative education can provide. It will become a tool that will need to be used creatively. The private sector already recognises exactly how important creative skills are. Children who already have the benefit that generally takes them to those schools get the increased benefit of a broad opportunity to experience and take part in the creative arts. We all know that an increasing, really worrying number of the people who are making it to drama school come from what can only be termed a privileged background. I normally shy away from demanding legislation—I do not want to see money that the country does not have being squandered—but the amount of money that would be required to implement this Bill is tiny, and the benefits would be huge. Looking at what has been achieved so far, there is a genuine case for legislation. The concept of creative education is incredibly broad. We know its importance. We need to equip our youngsters to bring design and technology skills to industry. If the Government’s vision of a reindustrialised country is to be realised, it will be very different to the old-style industry. Its success will depend on brilliant design, high standards of finish and slick marketing. Maths and science will play their part, but it is the creative skills that will be important. Look at the importance of tourism to this industry. If the tourist levy is to succeed, we need to bring in a constant flow of visitors to this country. Our arts institutions already do that, but the importance of festivals is huge. Look at what goes on in France—there are festivals for everything, and people flock in. If we have a creative country, new festivals can start here. We need music, art and theatre, which will build confidence, as others have said. My experience is that arts organisations want to engage with schools, but sometimes it is difficult. We can make it easier for them. My final point is that if outreach is to be successful, what about reaching out to our communities? If schools put on performances, they can invite in all the people who live locally who support their work. It will build communities and relationships. We may not really enjoy listening to too many five year-olds playing the recorder, but some people will.

My Lords, I join others in thanking my noble friend for initiating the Bill. I know and appreciate her dedication to and belief in the cultural and creative sector. She is creative in every way. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie. I first came across her in 2012, the doughty champion of what turned out to be the magnificent Cultural Olympiad—which was largely down to her, I think. My noble friend said her speech was narrow, but I thought it was inspirational, alongside the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. I am afraid that I am going to be narrow, because mine is much more political. We on these Benches wholeheartedly support the Secretary of State Lisa Nandy’s desire to unleash the power of our creative industries, but for this to happen, there needs to be universal access to creative education. This Government, as so many have said, inherited years of decline in the numbers of students taking GCSE and A-level arts-related subjects, as well as the number of teachers who can teach them. So we very much welcome the curriculum review and its acceptance that the EBacc must go, and I join my noble friend in applauding its abandonment. Is the STEAM/STEM argument finally won? It is not totally clear that the Government fully understand how to achieve their laudable aims. My noble friend does. In her Bill, she has laid out a clear course of action; it gives impetus and direction, and I hope the Minister agrees. As we have heard, the Bill requires state schools to increase their hours of creative education per week. Also, schools must be transparent about what is being taught, and Ofsted must consider the breadth and quality. We on these Benches have long believed that Ofsted inspections should give top ratings only to schools that can demonstrate excellence in creative teaching as well as in other subjects. The measures in the Bill follow recommendations from the CLA, which argues that the teaching of creative subjects should be an essential and equal part of a broad and balanced curriculum, rather than “an optional extra”. Noble Lords may have noticed that Prince George started secondary school last week. What does Eton offer him? Extensive opportunities across cultural and creative disciplines, with the seamless integration of these subjects into its formal academic curriculum. That is what my noble friend Lady Featherstone is seeking for all our children. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said, it should not be the preserve of those whose parents can afford to pay. Crucially, the Bill also requires that schools include careers advice on the creative industries. In recent Cambridge University research, many young people described being “steered away from creative subjects by teachers and parents … and being told that creative careers were risky or not for them”. It found that students’ economic background impacted on their likelihood of choosing the arts. This feeds into the lack of diversity from which the sector suffers. The Bill also requires collaboration between schools and the arts sector, with the Secretary of State’s help to enable this—a creative access guarantee, as my noble friend calls it. The recent ACE report from the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, suggested exactly this, saying: “The Department for Education, Department for Culture, Media & Sport and Arts Council England should consider working together on a specific project with philanthropists, trusts and foundations to create a joint fund that would support improvements to the cultural offer in schools. This … could contribute to the cost of training and paying for specialist teachers, and transport costs to visit theatres or museums”. Can the Minister say whether this advice will be followed? Lastly, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me bring in the BBC. Every teacher and parent will tell you of the value that it supplies through Bitesize, teacher support packs, arts and music archives, and many other things. Does the Minister not agree that a well-resourced and supported BBC is essential? This Bill provides a legislative framework of action. Much of what it says is contained in a recent UAL report. Who was its recent vice-chancellor? James Purnell. I hope that he is listening to this debate, but, most importantly, I hope that the Government will support my noble friend’s Bill.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in support of the Bill in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, which would ensure that all our children can benefit from a creative education. The Bill puts a deliberately ambitious proposition before us: that creative education should be an entitlement, not an optional extra, including a minimum expectation for creative learning and stronger partnerships between schools and the creative sector. It is also a great pleasure to welcome my noble friend Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood to the Front Bench. She brings to the House immense experience from a range of cultural leadership roles, as we have heard, not least from her role in the Cultural Olympiad. We are very lucky to have her. Indeed, having worked with her when we were both special advisers in the Blair Government, I know that I can confidently praise what will be an impressive maiden speech ahead of her actually making it later on in this debate. We are all here today because of our passion for the arts and the creative industries, and because we know that access to the opportunities that the arts provide is all too often determined by class, geography and money. There are welcome initiatives that are happening today to try to make up for this. James Graham, one of our great playwrights, is doing phenomenal work to try to bring more schoolchildren into theatre productions, and theatres are doing great work; for example, the Royal Shakespeare Company is working with Harriet Walter at the moment to take theatre into schools. I was lucky to be at a state school at a time when I could benefit from a great arts education, both in core hours and with after-school clubs. Playing the trumpet brought me great joy, even if the same might not have always been true for my audience. Sadly, under the previous Government, the arts were completely devalued as part of state education. Not only were they excluded from all important performance measures, such as the EBacc and Progress 8 for secondary schools, they were squeezed out of the primary school day. This Labour Government are committed to delivering a curriculum that is rich, broad, inclusive and innovative, with creative subjects studied for both their intrinsic value and their ability to build confidence in essential skills, such as critical thinking, oracy, creative problem-solving and teamwork. I will give just one example of the benefits. The Cultural Policy Unit, whose work in this area I commend, has written about the “superpower of looking”—that is, getting children to look at paintings and develop their critical thinking skills. At a time when children will increasingly encounter AI-generated images and information, the ability to look closely, interrogate what they see and exercise independent judgment is becoming an increasingly important skill. This shows how creative education is fundamentally civic education. You will find it harder to participate in democratic life and society more widely when you lack the skills that a creative education provides. To that end, I very much welcome the creation by the Government of the National Centre for Arts and Music Education. It has a mandate to provide national leadership on arts education, a new continuing professional development offer for teachers, and better co-ordination between schools and cultural organisations, promoting routes into creative careers, and taking over oversight of music hubs from 2027. The centre was due to start this month, as already been mentioned in the debate. Can my noble friend the Minister update the House on how this is progressing, who the delivery partner is and when we will be able to see a detailed plan on what it will deliver and when; for example, on the core priorities of creating necessary partnerships between schools and cultural organisations, identifying areas with poor arts provision and preparing schools for the revised curriculum? Concern has been expressed about whether this will genuinely be an arts and music education centre that gives proper weight to drama, dance, art and design alongside music, rather than being led predominantly by its role in overseeing music hubs. It would be wonderful to think that we do not need to legislate to ensure the level of arts and creative provision we want to see for our children. I look forward to my noble friend the Minister being able to reaffirm the Government’s commitment in that regard. I do not doubt that we have a Prime Minister and a Government who are champions of the creative industries. I hope my noble friend will understand that any anxiety that is being expressed, across the whole House, is because we want to pin down how the honourable intentions are being translated into practice, and that is motivated only by our ambition for our children and our creative industries. I look forward to supporting my noble friend the Minister to deliver on this vital work.

My Lords, I add my own congratulations to the chorus to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on securing this debate. We are standing at a dangerous crossroads for our children’s imaginations. As we have heard, art, music, drama and dance have been treated as optional subjects for far too long. The principle behind the Bill challenges this head-on, reminding us that every single child, regardless of their background or where they live, deserves a rich and meaningful creative education. The importance of this principle is not something I need to be persuaded of. I experienced its transformative potential myself as a secondary school pupil. I attended a state school, like many others, in one of the more challenging parts of my neighbourhood. When the school got its first purpose-built music room, announcements were made at an assembly inviting pupils to take up an instrument. For a young girl who otherwise would have been standing around in a cold playground, that offer was too tempting to resist, and I signed up at once to learn the clarinet. It opened up horizons that I could scarcely have imagined. I soon joined the school orchestra and before too long became part of the small group that our music teacher, Mrs Fellows, took to concerts and even to watch operas at the Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells. Those experiences introduced me to a world well beyond the immediate environment of my neighbourhood and my school. I am still, to this day, enormously grateful to Mrs Fellows, and to Mr Baldwin, my English teacher, who both played an important part in shaping my education and, ultimately, much of what I have achieved in life. My experience is a powerful reminder that, as many noble Lords have said, creative education is not an optional extra. It can and does expand a child’s horizons, builds confidence, and opens doors, as I said, to possibilities that might otherwise never be encountered. When we look at our peers on the global stage, we see that embedding culture into education is standard practice for high-performing societies. Look at South Korea, which built a modern economic superpower by deliberately dedicating nearly 10% of overall school time to creative projects. Look at our European neighbours. Finland seamlessly integrates arts into everyday learning to cultivate flexible, highly capable minds. In Germany, extensive regional networks link cultural institutions directly into the school week, while Austria focuses deeply on multidisciplinary, imagination-led pedagogy. Yet here in Britain, we are sitting on a goldmine that we are failing to replenish. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, rightly pointed out that our creative industries generate a staggering £125 billion annually for our economy and account for one in every 14 UK jobs. From the sound stages of Pinewood to the West End, British talent is our greatest export, but we cannot expect to remain a global leader if we stop feeding the pipeline. We cannot harvest the crops if we refuse to sow the seeds in our state schools. It is precisely because I believe so strongly in that principle that I have some reservations about the mechanisms proposed in the Bill. I believe that we need to properly consult the teaching profession, and I do not believe in imposing reforms on a sector which could struggle on the ground. It is important that we do not have top-down statutory mandates without, as we have heard already, consulting on the supply of specialist teachers, the ability to timetable and the resources that are available. I welcome that this Government have already made a clear commitment to improving access to creative education and are actively pursuing wider systemic reforms to the curriculum. Finally, I too welcome my noble friend Lady Mackenzie to her place and look forward to her maiden speech.

My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Featherstone on winning the ballot—or getting in the top 20. I have every confidence that this Bill will go the distance, because my noble friend has a track record. She fought to make sure that the equal marriage Bill got through Parliament. She brought it to Parliament and made sure that it got through, and I think she will be successful in this as well. I look forward very much to hearing the maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood.