The positive effects of arts and culture on place-making and local communities are well evidenced. Aside from the intrinsic value, cultural venues and services create jobs, attract visitors and support the wider local economy. Cultural programmes provide skills development for young people, connect with marginalised groups, engage communities in local issues and encourage active citizenship. Culture makes neighbourhoods more desirable places to live, with cultural spaces providing a resource in which people feel pride and a place where different parts of the community can come together. In short, arts and culture make for a better place to live, work and do business—all of which is very much the core business of local authorities. Indeed, much of this cultural activity is enabled by local authorities, which are the main public investor in arts, culture, tourism and heritage, allocating £650 million each year to libraries and £430 million to museums, heritage and the arts.
However, this long history of investment is under increasing threat. We have already heard about the pressures facing local government today: inflation, wage increases, pensions, the cost of living and energy, homelessness, the rising cost of adult social care, and increased numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities. Analysis from the Local Government Association in October last year showed that English councils face, as we have heard, a £4 billion funding gap across the year—and that is just to keep services standing still. The extra funding announced for 2024-25 will help, but it will not bridge this gap.
The now too-familiar reports of, at worst, bankruptcies and, at best, dramatic cuts, can no longer be seen as isolated incidents, but have to be acknowledged as systemic failure. Currently, some 19 councils across England are receiving exceptional financial support, which is more than double the more typical number—between five and nine—in this category since the onset of the pandemic. Local councils’ core spending power has seen a 24% real-terms reduction between 2010 and 2025. While much of this has been absorbed in new ways of working, efficiencies and staff reductions, it is inevitable that non-statutory services, such as arts and culture, will take a hit. According to a recent LGA survey, 55% of responding councils
“reported that cost savings would be needed in their sport and leisure service provision”,
with 48% reporting
“that cost savings would be needed within their library services”,
and over a third, 34%, reporting
“the need for cost savings in their provision of museums, galleries, and theatres”.
For cultural organisations, this crisis in local government funding sits alongside changes to the Arts Council portfolio and the ongoing impact of Covid, from which the sector has yet fully to recover. It also has to be set against a backdrop of the 10 years of austerity policy, which saw average local authority investment in culture reduced by nearly 37%. As a result, directly or indirectly, theatres, venues and arts organisations in local communities are facing existential crises—from Windsor and Maidenhead to Woking, Ipswich, Nottingham, Birmingham and beyond. Some have already closed; others are struggling to pull off a five loaves and two fishes-type of miracle to get them through the coming year. While London venues and organisations are certainly not immune, withdrawal of local authority support has a disproportionate effect outside London and other major conurbations, where there are far fewer alternative sources to fill the gap through, for example, corporate sponsorship.
The allocation of levelling-up funds to cultural projects has been welcome, although it is concerning to read in the recent report from the Public Accounts Committee in the other place that as at September last year, local authorities had been able to spend only 10% of the Government’s three levelling-up funds. Likewise, the announcement in the Spring Budget that theatre, orchestra and exhibitions tax relief will be made permanent was warmly welcomed, but it might be hard for some local communities to feel the benefits of theatre tax relief when their local theatre is boarded up.
What is needed is not one-off funding but long-term, sustainable and multi-year settlements that will enable councils to invest in the local cultural infrastructure and services that create thriving, dynamic environments for local communities. Without guaranteed funding, cultural activities suffer from an on-again, off-again effect which leads to community disengagement and uncertainty for organisations and the people they employ. In the end, it is local communities that suffer. Will the Government heed the call from the Local Government Association for multi-year settlements that allow councils to plan ahead and provide communities with the services they deserve?
Pitting arts and culture head-to-head against other local priorities and needs is never a good idea, particularly so at the moment, when the here and now pressures are so loud. Arguments about their longer-term impact on the economy, growth and jobs are understandably hard to hear.
Nevertheless, arts and culture play a major role in delivering for communities, and successful local cultural strategies—that is, strategies that are specific to the area and that work in partnership across different sectors—can deliver to multiple local priorities: skills, regeneration, education, employment or health. As Liz Green, the chair of the LGA’s Culture, Tourism and Sport Board, has written, local councils need the creativity of cultural organisations and their perspective on how things might be done differently, not just in cultural services but across the board. There are many good examples of this collaborative approach in practice, with a recent example being Culture Start in Sunderland —a city-based partnership spanning social housing, schools, the voluntary and youth sectors, and higher and further education, as well as culture—which aims to mitigate the impacts of growing up in poverty by enabling more children and young people to access the multiple benefits of cultural participation.
Strengthening and enhancing the local cultural offer strengthens and enhances local places and improves the lives of people who grow up, live and work there. It makes them more attractive to visitors and business, and more likely to attract funding from grant-makers and investors, all of which further enhances the local environment. There are many stakeholders who contribute to the positive benefits that this kind of local cultural ecology can deliver, but the underpinning certainty of local government funding has always been the catalyst that enables the change.
]]>Like others, I broadly welcome this overdue Bill but will highlight today two areas in which I hope we might see some improvement during the later stages. The first is the reduction in the public service remit for television, with news and current affairs the only genres named, and Ofcom required only to monitor whether content reflects the lives and concerns of different communities, cultural interests, traditions and localities.
I share the concerns of other noble Lords about the missing genres, but my point is slightly different. It is that the phrase “content that reflects” is a poor substitute for the more detailed text it has replaced. It does not inspire or demand the innovative approaches, techniques and formats that the UK’s production sector has developed in fulfilment of PSB requirements over decades and in which it now leads the world. Gone are references to high quality, to educative value, to professional skill or editorial integrity, or to the “supporting and stimulating” of diverse cultural activity through the treatment of visual and performing arts. The obligations in Clause 1(5)(b) of this Bill could arguably be met by a series of talking heads in a locked-off shot—as long as that included heads that talked from time to time in a recognised regional or minority language.
In his opening remarks, the Minister celebrated the success of the creative industries and their impact on jobs and the economy. However, as my noble friend Lord Colville set out, the sector is going through what the Film and TV Charity has called
“one of the most sustained periods of financial uncertainty in its 100-year history”.
BECTU reports 68% of film and TV workers currently out of work, with 30% reporting no work at all over the last three months. In this context, the changes give rise to concerns. Without a clear requirement for PSBs to invest in programmes that are more than “reflective of” but genuinely innovative in approach, content and format, how will government protect the future viability of a sector that it expects to drive growth in the economy and in the workforce?
I now join the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle and the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, in high- lighting the missed potential for this legislation to cement the future of Gaelic language broadcasting. I have no interests to declare in this regard other than my enjoyment of BBC Alba, whose programmes range from a celebration of rich cultural history, language and people to the innovative, the quirky, and sometimes the brilliantly off the wall.
The 2022 White Paper recognised
“the hugely valuable contribution that MG ALBA makes to the lives and wellbeing of Gaelic speakers across Scotland and the UK”,
the importance of the language to the protection of Gaelic culture and the need for “certainty of future funding”. Yet the Bill fails to convey that there is, and must be, a Gaelic TV service with a PSB function and continues an uneven approach to the Welsh and Gaelic languages. Both have television services, in fulfilment of UK obligations under Article 11 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but only one is provided for by Parliament, with Gaelic language television nestled under the BBC’s portfolio.
The Bill gives Ofcom the decision on what level of Gaelic language content is sufficient, while offering no clarity on what “sufficient” means. However, as we have heard, the responsibility to provide funding to MG Alba—one half of the joint venture that is BBC Alba—is devolved to Scottish Government Ministers, who are not answerable to Ofcom. Given that sufficiency —of both quantity and quality—is directly related to funding levels, it is hard to see how this circle gets squared.
The Heath Robinson-like structure of the funding and accountability flows is hardly the future certainty the White Paper said is needed, and it is not surprising that MG Alba is concerned about sustainability. Yet, despite this precarity, much has been achieved: in 2022-23, £9.8 million was spent directly with 24 production companies on the creation of 407 hours of programming, and £9.1 million of that went to the independent production sector, nurturing talent and skills in the Gaelic language and creative sector. MG Alba has created over 340 jobs, nearly 200 of them in the highlands and the Western Isles.
In the other place, Sir John Whittingdale linked the greater support for S4C and Welsh language broadcasting to the fact that there are 1 million Welsh speakers in the UK, compared with 100,000 Gaelic speakers in Scotland. However, as we have heard, the two services enjoy similar reach. In 2023, S4C’s reach increased to 324,000, while BBC Alba enjoys a reach of 300,000 adult viewers each week in Scotland.
In pressing the importance of Gaelic language services, I am not arguing for any diminution of support for S4C—far from it. There is very good evidence that language and culture is kept alive through representation. A 2017 S4C report said that the channel had been
“instrumental in stabilising the Welsh language since the 1980s”,
giving the language
“status and prominence”
and allowing Wales and its people
“regardless of background, to portray, express and see themselves represented on screen”.
The recently published Welsh language strategy action plan continues to highlight S4C as a key mechanism for growing the number of Welsh speakers. Broadcasting clearly has an important role to play in the preservation and advancement of language, identity and traditions. The omission of specific references to a Gaelic PSB in the Media Bill risks perpetuating historical marginalisation and fails to acknowledge historical disparities in political recognition and funding, compared with other language initiatives. Crucially, it undermines efforts to preserve and promote Gaelic language and culture, which are such precious and integral parts of our collective heritage.
I look forward to working with other noble Lords from across the House to see how these two concerns might, in future stages of this Bill, be redressed.
]]>My own education was far from usual in that I entered professional training at the age of 11 as a student at the Royal Ballet School. I will always count myself fortunate to have been educated in a place where there was never any sense that art was an extra, a “nice to have”, or peripheral to the main purpose. Art and arts-based approaches were integrated throughout a broad-based education that would equip us with a set of skills as important in life as they are in dance: curiosity, courage, perseverance, confidence, teamwork, personal responsibility and a creative hinterland on which to draw. Over the years, my increasing awareness of just how effectively that arts-enriched education prepared me for life beyond the stage has inspired an ongoing quest to better understand the role of the arts, culture and creativity in personal and social development, educational attainment, and health and well-being.
It is a field of research that has blossomed over recent decades. In 2016, the AHRC published a landmark report, Understanding the Value of Arts & Culture, which analysed, among other things, how arts engagement contributes to community cohesion, civic engagement and educational attainment. Three years later, the World Health Organization published the largest report to date on the underlying evidence base for the contribution of arts and culture to health and well-being. Of particular relevance to this debate is that the report found strong evidence of a positive correlation between arts engagement and the social determinants of health, child development and healthy behaviours.
Alongside evidence that childhood engagement in arts activities can predict academic performance across the school years, the report’s authors also found that it promotes pro-social classroom and playground behaviour, enhances emotional competence and reduces bullying. The behavioural benefits are shown to extend to groups with diverse needs. Children from less advantaged backgrounds, those with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and those with physical or learning disabilities experienced reductions in anxiety, depression or aggression, with associated improvements in self-esteem, confidence, communication and personal empowerment. The authors also report a sizeable literature on the arts’ role in building social and community capital, fostering co-operation across different cultures, reducing prejudice, enhancing social consciousness and increasing civic behaviours such as voting and volunteering.
Dr Daisy Fancourt, one of the authors of the report, has worked forensically over many years to investigate the ways in which these outcomes occur: how the component elements of arts activities trigger psychological, physiological, social and behavioural responses that are themselves causally linked with positive health and well-being outcomes. In addressing the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has introduced today, it is worth considering each of these in turn.
Fancourt’s work points to how the aesthetic and emotional components of art provide opportunities for understanding and exploring emotions. They allow opportunities for emotional regulation and stress reduction, and all these are key to how we manage mental health. The cognitive stimulation in art supports learning and skills development, which is beneficial in itself but is also interrelated with mental illnesses such as depression. Group interactions through arts activities improve social capital and reduce prejudice and discrimination between different groups. The physicality of arts activities reduces sedentary behaviours, improving fitness, flexibility and bone health and linking to reductions in depression. This is what the research tells us.
Schools taking part in the Artsmark programme show us what this looks like in action. Artsmark offers schools a framework and support to embed creativity across the curriculum, addressing school improvement priorities, and 89% of Artsmark schools report improvements in pupils’ well-being and resilience. They point to positive impacts on mental health, enhanced intercultural understanding and stronger connections forged between staff, pupils, families and local communities. Schools also report improvements in punctuality, student engagement and attendance, underlining the important point noted earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, about creating environments that encourage children and their parents to engage with school.
Partnership working is key to success and, in the best-case scenarios, a network of commissioners, providers and agencies across education, culture, voluntary and faith sectors, as well as local authorities, work together to provide children with rich, culturally diverse and locally connected arts opportunities. I urge the Minister to follow the progress of Culture Start, a three-year city-based cross-sector partnership launching this year in Sunderland, which will span social housing and the voluntary, cultural and youth sectors, as well as education, to provide young people with cultural experiences that help to mitigate some of the impacts of growing up in poverty.
Research and lived experience demonstrate how arts activities and experiences can support schools in caring for the mental health and well-being of children and in fostering family and community connections. The evidence is clear, the outcomes evident. There are, of course, other routes for children to access arts activities, at home and in the community, but if we want all children to enjoy the developmental, educational and social benefits associated with arts engagement, school—a universal experience—is surely the best route to ensuring universal access.
I know that, in responding, the Minister will reiterate her commitment to ensuring that all children have access to these opportunities through education. I will finish by welcoming that commitment in advance.
]]>The always excellent Lords Library briefing, already mentioned, highlights an issue raised by several noble Lords across the House: the experience of maternity services is not equal for everyone, and, once again, already marginalised communities and those in less privileged situations report a poorer experience of maternity services. I want to use this opportunity to highlight the experience of maternity services in England for another group who are not often included in these debates: women with learning disabilities.
The 2016 National Maternity Review set out NHS plans to improve maternity care and the care of people with learning disabilities. Despite this, the experience of maternity care for those women is still found to be consistently poorer than for the rest of the adult population.
A learning disability affects the ways in which people understand information, learn new skills and communicate. It may also mean a reduced ability to cope independently. Learning disabilities are often unique to the individual and can present in many forms, some obvious and some more covert in nature.
Of course, the general good principles of person-centred care apply to caring for people with a learning disability, but the challenges of pregnancy for women with learning disabilities, which include higher risks of perinatal complications and caesarean delivery, mean that midwives and other health professionals need particular skills and knowledge if they are to provide this person-centred care through pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood. Without this specific skill set, the needs of these women cannot be met.
Significant emphasis needs to be placed on effective communication and the application of reasonable adjustments, to prepare parents and offer them practical and emotional support through their path to parenthood. People with a learning disability need to understand their midwife, and they need a midwife who understands their needs and knows how to provide the right support. That midwife may also need to educate and support other health and social care professionals they encounter on their journey to do the same.
The importance of continuity of care cannot be stressed highly enough when providing care to people with a learning disability. Equally important are the collaborative efforts of professionals to build a network of trust and care, which needs to be available through the parenthood journey, beyond birth, to best assist parents in bringing up their child and avoid those regrettable cases when children of parents with learning disabilities are removed from their parents’ care.
Public Health England’s 2016 recommendations and the Equality Act 2010 state clearly that people with learning disabilities should be provided with reasonable adjustments. If adjustments are not put in place to accommodate the complex and diverse needs of pregnant women with learning disabilities, they may be subject to a system that just does not work for them. One example is fast-paced appointments in which they are asked to absorb high levels of complex information and make informed choices at speed.
Writing in the British Journal of Midwifery in 2019, Samantha Vernon reported the findings of her research internship at the National Institute for Health Research into maternity services for people with learning disabilities. Her interest stemmed from her 19 years of clinical practice, in which she identified an increasing number of women with learning disabilities presenting for care in her trust but found no mention of learning disabilities in the 2019 NICE guidelines and no specific care pathway for women with learning disabilities.
Among her conclusions, she recommends the broader use of a “passport” for pregnant women with learning disabilities—a document prepared with the antenatal team that goes with these women through their maternity journey to help all the health professionals they encounter understand the ways in which that person’s learning disability affects their interactions with obstetrics and midwifery services. This would include critical information, including on reasonable adjustments, updated as appropriate, and would reduce the need for patients to be questioned over and over again, thereby reducing stress and saving NHS time. I know that hospital passports are now recognised for use by people with learning disabilities but it is not clear how actively they are promoted in maternity services. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.
Samantha Vernon’s other key finding, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that formal training on learning disabilities needs to be increased so that health professionals can recognise and support women with learning disabilities through pregnancy, childbirth and early years care. This aligns with Mencap’s research, which uncovered a patchy picture in which the number of hours devoted to this content and the level to which this learning is assessed varies widely. Its 2017 Treat Me Well campaign showed that 69% of registered nurses wanted more training about learning disabilities. A qualitative study from Dr Emma Castell in 2016 found that midwifes often felt inadequately equipped with the necessary skills and training to care for women who have learning disabilities.
These studies are from some years back and there have clearly been some improvements in the intervening years. In January last year, working with NHS England and supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the University of Surrey’s Together Project published a toolkit and guidelines to support the delivery of good practice in maternity services for parents with learning disabilities. This was based on existing research, best practice reviews and several interviews with health and social care professionals, parents with learning disabilities, and their supporters and carers. It is a clear and accessible guide, with practical and implementable evidence-based actions that can be taken. Can the Minister confirm whether this toolkit is widely available across all maternity services?
People with a learning disability—including those who are pregnant—are protected by a legal framework that entitles them to reasonable adjustments, so that they can access services; adjustments to communication; support with decision-making; the right to a family life; and dignity in care. Yet Mencap’s experience of providing training across several hospital trusts leads it to conclude that attitudes towards people with a learning disability can vary. It reports that, in some healthcare professions, including at senior levels, there are misunderstandings about what a learning disability is; lack of awareness about health inequalities; low awareness of the support required and the need to adapt communication; and a need for guidance on the implications of and responsibilities under relevant legislation, including deprivation of liberty safeguards. This last point is particularly important for midwives looking after women with learning disabilities, who need to be able to understand and apply the Mental Capacity Act, the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act to ensure that the needs of the women in their care are met and their rights upheld.
The 2022 Women’s Health Strategy sets out the Government’s ambition for England to be
“the best place in the world to give birth through personalised, individualised, and high-quality care”.
If this goal is to be achieved, training for midwives must equip them with the skills and competencies to support all women, including those with learning disabilities, through and beyond pregnancy and childbirth. In responding to this important debate, can the Minister assure the House that this training is taking place? Perhaps he could outline what steps the Government are taking to ensure that the rights of parents with learning disabilities to access maternity services free from discrimination, where their rights are respected and they receive high-quality, person-centred care, are being upheld.
]]>The Joint Committee on Human Rights has made clear that the detention of individuals in the absence of individualised, therapeutic treatment risks violating their right to liberty and security. It found that rights to private and family life and to freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment are frequently under threat for people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people detained in in-patient units.
The Government’s 2019 manifesto committed to addressing this through reform of the Mental Health Act 1983—an important Act, but one that has failed to keep pace with changes in understanding of and attitudes towards mental health since it passed into law 40 years ago. Like other noble Lords across the House, I was deeply disappointed that the Bill failed to find a place among the legislative priorities for this Government’s last Session. In its absence, we need to know what urgent action they will take now and in future to end the human rights scandal of this inappropriate and unnecessary detainment in in-patient care.
NHS data from October 2023 reveals that there are 2,035 people with a learning disability and/or autistic people in in-patient mental health units. Over half have been there for more than two years, and under half had a date planned for them to leave hospital. As my noble friend told us, Mencap’s analysis of the data suggests that, at the current rate, the ambition to reduce the number of in-patients by half will not be met until 2029—a full five years after the target date.
The statistics are startling, but they are also sterile. Each number represents a person locked away from family, friends and the day-to-day opportunities and experiences that most of us are privileged to take for granted. With an average stay for current in-patients of 5.2 years, inappropriate detention in mental health hospitals is devastating not just to the person locked away but to the people who love them and want to see them thrive. The reality, as we have heard, is that too many autistic people and people with a learning disability are held in mental health hospitals not because they need in-patient mental health treatment but because of the sustained failure over many years to invest in the right community support.
The shape of the support required for those individuals to return safely to community life is set out clearly for commissioners in NICE guidance and in Building the Right Support. For example, it requires care providers with the right skills, suitable housing, intensive support services to help prevent and manage crisis situations and appropriate respite. Having a service model is one thing, but implementing it is another. Eight years on from its introduction, too many families still face issues in accessing the support that will enable successful discharge into the community or, better still, prevent the need for admission in the first place. The future of Building the Right Support is unclear. Looking beyond March 2024, can the Minister say what will happen to the associated action plan, the delivery board and the national targets? How is this being communicated across the health and care system?
At yesterday’s Oral Questions, we heard once again about the woeful underinvestment in social care and the social care workforce. One effect of this is that people with a learning disability and/or autism struggle to access the right care packages and the support of staff with the appropriate skills and expertise for their needs. During the passage of the Health and Care Act, I was part of a cross-House coalition arguing for the importance of reforming and fixing social care for working-aged disabled adults and addressing the issues facing the workforce. Our amendments to address this did not make it into the Bill and, on top of this, the Government have delayed implementation of much of their social care reform programme. The hard-working and overstretched social care workforce remains on its knees. Will the Government commit to creating a national workforce plan for the social care sector that identifies and addresses the skills and the funding gap, so that people with a learning disability and/or autistic people can receive the care and support they need in the community, and reduces the likelihood of their being admitted to an in-patient unit?
Lack of suitable housing is also a key factor, and it is the other main reason cited in NHS Digital data each month for delayed discharge. What assessment has been made of the capital funding required to enable the discharge of people from in-patient units? Are the Government monitoring the provision of suitable housing to meet their needs? Without the right housing, alongside social care, too many people will continue to end up in crisis situations that see them inappropriately admitted, or readmitted, to in-patient units.
I have no doubt that we all share the same ambition: that people with a learning disability and autistic people should be able to live fulfilling lives in the community without fear of being admitted, potentially for long periods of time, to in-patient units—places where there is often excessive use of restrictive interventions, including physical and chemical restraint, and increased risk of abuse and neglect.
The 2024 target to reduce the numbers in in-patient care by 50% is an important step, but it is a step towards a broader ambition. However, I struggle to see how real progress can be made unless we get social care reform back on track. This means making sure that the social care system works for all those who need it, not just those who develop care needs in later life but working-age adults with long-standing needs, who rarely find themselves front and centre in discussions about social care reform.
I noted earlier that, in October, there were 2,035 people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people in in-patient mental health units. I am sure we would all agree that that is an unacceptably high number, but it is also surely a low enough number that, in a civilised, compassionate and relatively affluent society, if the will was there, the development of individualised pathways back into community-supported living could be an achievable goal. The right to enjoy a “gloriously ordinary life” should not be too much to ask.
]]>With the spotlight currently on the Covid inquiry and the mistakes made, damage done and lessons to be learned, it was heartening to see the opening of the Speech set government plans in the context of the long-term challenges that Covid has created for the UK. Unfortunately, optimism that it might include necessary measures to address the pandemic’s wickedly long tail faded as the pages turned.
To understand the real damage wrought by the pandemic, we need not to look back but to the future: to the challenges of long Covid for individuals and the NHS, to the impact of isolation and loss on mental health, and to the future success of a generation of children whose education was so severely disrupted by lockdowns.
Most children lost half a year of schooling through Covid. That is about 5% of their overall learning. The effect of this will echo through their lives, on career options, earning potential and, by extension, tax revenues available for public services. As ever, children from disadvantaged backgrounds suffered the most.
The full-blown pandemic may be behind us, but its impact on young people’s education goes on. Many have simply not returned to the classroom, which is a scenario described by the Children’s Commissioner as
“the issue of our time”.
In the last autumn term before the pandemic, 4.7% of all children were absent from school. In 2023, the figure was 7.5%. Persistent absence, which is when a child misses at least 10% of possible sessions, has also risen sharply, from 13.1% to 24.2% over the same period.
There is nothing in the gracious Speech to tackle this, despite strong evidence linking school absenteeism with various life-course problems, including risky behaviours, teenage pregnancy, psychiatric disorders, delinquency and substance abuse. The commissioner’s latest report highlights the link between absence and attainment; the likelihood that persistently absent children will end up not in education, employment or training; and the fact that 81% of children entering the criminal justice system have a history of persistent absenteeism.
The causes of absenteeism are complex and diverse, but it does seem to be a particular issue where additional vulnerabilities are present, particularly in children with special educational needs, physical disabilities and behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. This means that the failure to deal with absenteeism is another route by which the already disadvantaged are disproportionately affected, and that the gap between the more and less fortunate in our society grows ever wider. As the gracious Speech was silent on this issue, can the Minister perhaps tell the House how the Government plan to tackle this epidemic of absenteeism and the causes that lie behind it?
The introduction of the advanced British standard makes it into the gracious Speech, with a promise that increasing the number of subjects at key stage 5 to a minimum of five, expanding overall taught hours and introducing maths and English as mandatory until 18 will
“ensure young people have the knowledge and skills to succeed”.
It is unclear whether the evidence supports those assertions. Studies from Switzerland and Germany suggest that increasing instruction time has, yet again, the effect of widening the gap between high- and low-performing students and benefits only the students who already do better at school. It also flies in the face of OECD principles for curriculum redesign, one of which is to allow for flexibility and choice for teachers and students.
Of course, numeracy—and, indeed, financial literacy and budgeting—are important skills for employment and for life. But improvements need to be targeted across all stages of education. The key question is what kind of maths is to be included post-16, given that so many students achieve excellent results in GCSE maths but go on to struggle with A-level. It is vital, too, that reforms carefully consider the impact on the 6% of UK children who suffer from dyscalculia, a specific learning disability that impacts the ability to understand, learn and perform maths and number-based operations.
Children are already concerned about what this means for them. I have been lobbied by a 10 year-old relative who argued cogently and passionately that her educational experience and outcomes would be impacted by these reforms, given her learning style and needs. Significant improvements have been made in the teaching of children with dyslexia and other reading disabilities, but despite the Department for Education’s assertion:
“All teachers are teachers of special educational needs and disabilities”,
there is currently no formal requirement for maths teachers to learn about dyscalculia as part of their training. Regardless of whether the advanced British standard is progressed, does the Minister agree that training needs to be updated so that maths teachers can recognise dyscalculia and better support students affected by this condition?
I shall finish by echoing concerns already expressed around the House about the absence from the gracious Speech of a mental health Bill. This is a bitter blow for the 2,000 people with a learning disability and/or autism currently locked away in mental health in-patient units, who often receive poor-quality, and sometimes horrific, treatment, as has been revealed in numerous undercover investigations and Select Committee reports.
Our understanding of mental health has changed a great deal since the Mental Health Act received Royal Assent in 1983. There has been some updating, but legislation still lags behind ambition, and the fact that laws currently allow people to be detained for no other reason than that they have a learning disability or autism is, in itself, evidence of the need for change. So I hope the Minister will be able to tell the House why the Government chose to omit this Bill from the gracious Speech. There is widespread agreement, and cross-party consensus on the need for reform. Surely the Government should be using the last Session of this Parliament to deliver a manifesto commitment on which they were elected—not once, but twice—to bring this Bill before the House?
]]>The latest report from the Independent Society of Musicians provides new evidence of impact 30 months after the TCA came into effect: half the UK musicians surveyed reported less work in the EU, with over a quarter saying that they now had none—lost work, lost income and lost opportunities, but increased costs, increased time and more red tape. Hardest hit are young and emerging artists, who make up the greater part of the sector and who lack the resources to meet the financial and administrative burden of the post-Brexit regime.
The impact of this hostile environment is diminishing the cultural sector, not just in the UK but across the entire continent, with cancellations and economic loss affecting both UK and EU artists. European festivals and venues, which have hitherto relied on the bigger box office appeal of UK artists to drive revenues and local tourism, are forced to look elsewhere. No longer do UK artists “dominate the European panorama”, as the European Commission stated in 2019. EU opera and dance companies cannot call, as they used to, on the UK’s dancers and singers for last-minute jump-ins. Of the musicians surveyed, 39% had turned down jump-in requests because of the 90 in 180-day rule.
Even now, both sides continue to claim that they offered, and the other side rejected, a better deal. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, has admitted that his approach was too purist, yet the Government’s response to this report repeats the line:
“The UK took an ambitious approach … that would have addressed many of the issues artists now face. Regrettably, our proposals were rejected by the EU”.
There is little to be gained by rehashing these arguments, but this mutual finger-pointing does offer cause for optimism. If where we are is where neither side wanted to be, surely we can work together towards the better place we both say we wanted.
I am privileged to be a member of the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. Within this group, there is clear appetite—from EU and UK members—to right these wrongs. The PPA has twice reiterated its recommendation to the Partnership Council that both sides be encouraged to negotiate a comprehensive and reciprocal touring agreement. Our own European Affairs Committee recommends the same and the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education has called on the main committees responsible for TCA implementation to address the absence of the cultural and creative sectors in the TCA. With both sides clearly wanting the same thing, can the Minister explain why it is taking so long to make progress on this issue?
A good first step would be to improve the situation for younger artists by establishing the reciprocal youth mobility partnership recommended in this report—a proposal supported by both the PPA and the European Parliament’s Economic and Social Committee. The chief executive of the Independent Society of Musicians —the ISM—told the committee that such a scheme would be
“important in creating opportunities for emerging artists”,
stressing the value to artists of collaboration between the EU and the UK. She makes an important point that, while the economic loss to the next generation of talent is significant, the greater impact is arguably the loss of cultural exchange.
In some industries, growth depends on putting down roots, but artists develop and flourish by moving between different environments and experiences. Touring opens up new opportunities, markets and audiences. It enables collaboration and intercultural dialogue and builds networks and partnerships. The loss of these opportunities is not just personal and professional—it is potentially a loss to the industry, with all the knock-on effects to the UK’s economy, reputation and soft power around the world.
The committee’s report points out that barriers to mobility post Brexit have especially impacted young people—the same young people who were disproportionately affected by Covid and who will suffer most from this economic downturn. The benefits of international exchange for young people are spelled out by the committee: cultural, social, personal, professional and economic. Prioritising youth mobility would demonstrate that the Government are considering the opportunities and life chances of the generation that will, in the end, shape the future UK-EU relationship—the generation that had the least voice in the 2016 decision but that will live with its consequences longest.
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