Higher Education: Arts and Humanities

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the recent announcement of staff cuts in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of East Anglia, what steps they are taking to support the study of the arts and humanities in higher education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we are supporting the study of the arts and humanities across our education system. Our EBacc ambition has humanities at its heart in order to increase the number of pupils studying these subjects at GCSE and beyond. We are introducing higher technical qualifications and T-levels in creative arts and design, and continue to support our higher education institutions, including maintaining funding for our world-leading specialist providers at £58 million for the 2023-24 financial year.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, would the Minister acknowledge that these cuts, while shocking in themselves, are simply the latest in a pattern of such cuts at universities across the country? In practical terms, they are to make savings, but more materially, they are the result of a long-term downgrading by this Government of arts education from primary school to university. The UEA cuts include creative writing, yet its globally renowned MA course has produced Booker and Nobel Prize winners. Does the Minister appreciate that, if the Government continue with their destructive policy towards arts education, in the end it will be our global reputation which suffers?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely do not accept what the noble Earl has just asserted. If we look at full- time undergraduates undertaking arts and humanities courses, at a time of significant growth in our undergraduate population, the figure is almost unchanged between 2019 and 2022—from 20% moving to 19%. The percentage of disadvantaged young people undertaking these qualifications has also been stable. Looking across similar providers which have a significant percentage of arts and humanities provision, a number of them are in a comparably much stronger financial position.