Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
In his autumn statement, the Chancellor said:
“Britain is not just brilliant at science; it is brilliant at culture too. One of the best investments we can make as a nation is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1368.]
If we do not also invest in education that prepares children to play roles in those industries, we will slide backwards. Many of the people in this debate participated in the Westminster Hall debate earlier this week about the impact of the EBacc on education, theatre, art, drama, music and other expressive arts. Our concern during that debate was that there is a direct relationship between the introduction of a mandatory EBacc in a limited number of subjects including none of the aforementioned, and the reduction in the number of students taking GCSEs, A-levels and other examinations in those creative subjects.
The Minister for Schools, in arguing that there had been no such decline, relied on figures that were at least a year old to sustain his argument. He said:
“My assertion is that there will be no significant fall in the arts subjects as a consequence of the EBacc figure of 90%.”—[Official Report, 4 July 2016; Vol. 612, c. 215WH.]
I have seen evidence that such a fall is already occurring. If our figures are correct and if there continues to be a decline, I want the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy to meet his colleagues in the Department for Education and persuade them of what I am certain is the unintended consequence of the EBacc proposal. Ministers say that we need the EBacc to get us to the same level as Iceland, Ontario and many countries which frankly are nowhere near ours when it comes to the performance of their creative industries. Will he agree to meet the Minister for Schools and ask him, if the decline continues, to include at least one of these expressive subjects—students should be able to choose which—within the suite of mandatory GCSE subjects? If we do not do that, we will slide backwards. There is no doubt that our brilliant creative industries depend enormously on children having experience of drama, dance, art, and music in school, and on the creativity that has traditionally been part of UK education.
A number of things that are now part of the creative industries were not invented when I was at school: video games, beatbox, Twitter—those things simply did not exist. Indeed, email did not exist. We must ensure that young people get experience at school of the creativity that is possible, and of the disciplines and craft that lie at the heart of many of our creative industries. Earlier, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said that it is not necessary to study those subjects professionally to be creative, which is absolutely true. However, it is necessary to have experience of them, and I am concerned about the number of children—specifically those in the least privileged communities—who are losing contact with those experiences.
There are wonderful opportunities. Earlier this week I was at the National Theatre watching the Connections youth drama festival. It showed outstanding work done by young people in theatre groups around Britain. However, many young people have never had the opportunity to participate in a live performance of music or theatre, and many have not experienced or learned from someone who is employed in a creative industry.
When the Minister responds to the debate, will he commit to discussing with the Department for Education whether my prediction about what is happening to expressive arts subjects in our schools is correct? Will he speak directly to Ministers about ways to end that decline, and will he ensure an opportunity in our schools for children to experience live theatre, and for every child to visit a museum and hear directly from someone who is employed in a creative industry and who makes their living through creating things?
As a previous primary school teacher, I know that children are creative. Play is children creating things, but often that creativity is driven out by the way we teach them. Instead of driving out their creativity, we must give children the skills that allow their innate creativity to be developed. That means not just investing in education, but for the Minister to expect all arts organisations to take their responsibility to young people seriously. I am not saying that arts organisations do not do that—I have just cited an example of one of our premier arts institutions that does exactly that. A few days ago I went to the Barbican, and children were part of the performance of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s last opera. There are lots of good things to be proud of, but every child should have an opportunity to engage with some of our great creative institutions and learn from them, so that in future our creative industries can make the most of that talent.
I refer the Minister to Dickens’s “Hard Times”. Sissy Jupe, who knew everything there was to know about horses because she worked in a circus and her dad ran it, was unable in a single sentence to define a horse because it was such an exciting animal, whereas Bitzer, pupil No. 6, came up with the right answer: “Quadruped. Graminivorous,” he said. That is what we are heading for in our system. We reward the Bitzers of this world and do not nurture Sissy Jupe’s understanding. I know the Minister would like to do that. He could interact with the Department for Education to change its Gradgrind approach and ensure that every child in Britain has a chance to learn how best to use their creativity.
Mr Vaizey
I completely support the hon. Gentleman on that. I commend in particular the Next Gen group, started by Ian Livingstone, the well-known promoter of the games industry and the founder of many successful games companies. I have also been to some fantastic courses, supported by companies such as Microsoft in further education colleges, which reach out to people from different backgrounds and give them the hands-on skills they need to go straight into employment. The great challenge the creative industries face is giving young people the skills they need. Too often, the courses in further education and universities are too far removed from the world of work in the creative industries. It is changing so fast because of the change in technology, but let me return to some of the excellent speeches in the debate.
Fiona Mactaggart
Will the Minister, who kindly came to the agency events hosted by Battersea arts centre here in the House, reflect on the concept of using creative organisations such as Battersea arts centre to enable and provide mentoring for young people to implement creative ideas?
Mr Vaizey
We are certainly going to look at that. We published a culture White Paper a couple of months ago, which I shall come on to in some detail. Let me first say that one reason why I found myself in difficulty earlier relates to what I have discovered in two debates with the hon. Member for Luton North—that he gives commendably short speeches. I see the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) nodding with some understanding. I strongly commend the hon. Member for Luton North for this particular ability. Short speeches are more than welcome in this place.
Let me say how much I enjoyed hearing the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), who has done so much to promote the video games industry. I thank him for talking about the arts and widening the scope of this debate. The right hon. Member for Slough spoke about the importance of arts education, to which I shall return in a few minutes. Sadly, I was not in my place to hear the entire speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), but I heard him in yesterday’s debate, when he talked so eloquently about copyright. Today, he widened his remarks to include general support for the music industry and particularly for live music. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), who is the other co-chair of the all-party group on video games, spoke about Dundee as one of the great homes of video games development. He made yet another valiant bid on behalf of the SNP to take yet more powers from the Westminster Government.
I was not here for the full speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). I was about to say that he was an “unlikely champion” of the arts, but that would be unfair. At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, he commended Southend yet again. I have worked out why. When I was drinking in a pub with Tracey Emin a few weeks ago—[Interruption.] Did I say Tracey Emin? The pub landlady came out and told me what a huge fan she was of Margaret Thatcher. On the day that we learn that we were about to get a second female Prime Minister, I recall her saying that she was a huge fan of Margaret Thatcher. She showed me a picture that featured the landlady, Margaret Thatcher and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West. He has promised me that he will find out where that photograph was taken. We wait to hear, but I think that was the beginning of my hon. Friend’s cultural career.
I commend the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), particularly for mentioning e-sports, which I passionately support. I am worried that the French are taking e-sports extremely seriously, and we need to promote them here. I was delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman mention them, particularly on a day when Manchester City have signed Kieran “Kez” Brown as its first e-sports professional football player. I also appreciated the hon. Gentleman’s point about local council support. I suspect that the sub-text was an attack on a Labour council from an SNP Member. Nevertheless, the support of local authorities is vital.
Let me thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for mentioning our very successful publishing industry. We do not talk enough about it, partly because it does not receive the sort of support that the Government give to, say, film and video games. As she rightly pointed out, this is our most successful creative industry. Indeed, Scotland supplies some of our greatest authors. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) expanded the debate even wider, talking about the fashion industry, as well as importantly about work visas, general access to skills and immigration issues post-Brexit.
A number of themes emerged in the debate. One was the unmitigated success of the longest-serving creative industries Minister in recent history! In the last six years, we have seen the exponential growth of the creative industries. Let me try to make a serious point here. These are our most successful industries, growing at three times the rate of the economy. Having done this job in opposition and in government, I have seen an increasing number of colleagues in this place who realise the importance of the creative industries and take them so seriously, and this has been reflected in the contributions of hon. Members today.
The creative industries are affected by very specific issues—including intellectual property protection, about which the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has spoken eloquently for many years, and access to skills, which has also been raised in the Chamber—but they are highly successful. They are partly turbo-charged by tax credits for film, games and animation, which also extend to the arts, supporting theatre and galleries.
The right hon. Member for Slough rightly drew attention to the importance of arts education. We will differ on the question of whether the arts are being excluded from schools, and I expect that there will be constant debate about it. I personally reject the idea. People may think that an increased focus on science and technology, which perhaps has not been as strong as it could have been over the last few years, somehow means that the arts will suffer, but no one is preventing a headteacher from focusing on the arts and culture. Indeed, I would encourage it. Certainly, working with the present Secretary of State for Education and her predecessor, I have been able to secure important funding for music education and the creation of music education hubs, as well as a number of important programmes to promote heritage and culture.
We are also working on diversity, with the aim of reaching out to more and more people to extend cultural experiences. Our Culture White Paper—the first to be published for more than 50 years—focuses on the cultural citizens programme. We hope to launch a pilot in the autumn, embedding a cohort of young people from schools around the country with arts organisations and giving them a wide experience of the arts.