Creative Education Access Bill [HL]

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Featherstone]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I really think that that was a marvellous maiden speech. The Minister has a most exquisite voice as well, which gives her a bit of an advantage. I know that she is on our side on this. Given that my noble friend on the Front Bench mentioned that I was the originator and architect of the same-sex marriage law when I was a junior Minister—the only Lib Dem, surrounded by Conservative Ministers, when I got the idea of doing that—and now it is the law, I say to the Minister: I want her to be me and push this in her department, and in the education department. I just thought that was marvellous.

I did not feel the same about the Conservative French Bench response, which was incredibly disappointing. I also feel that it is like clinging to a sinking ship if you do not change or move forward, saying that three hours are it for ever. The world is changing; if we do not get with it and prepare for it, then just clinging to the old ways will not enhance our status in the world. We will not remain top of anything if we do not change our ways—and we are having enough trouble as it is.

I thank all noble Lords, because it was a wonderful debate. It was like stirring stories for creatives. If it was left to us in this Chamber the world would be a better place, but sadly there are a few other influences. So we have work to do, but I give thanks to all noble Lords for their wonderful creations. The Creative Education Access Bill is not simply an arts policy; it is a statement about the future well-being of our nation. My heartfelt thanks to all of you.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.