Creative Industries: Qualifications
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 23 Jul 2026 · 24 speeches · Official Report
Motion to Take Note
Moved by
That this House takes note of the role of the current level 3 qualifications for the creative industries, and of the potential impact of their replacement with T Levels and V Levels on the creative industries.
My Lords, I am pleased to open this debate on the important role of current level 3 qualifications for the creative industries and the potential impact of their replacement with T-levels and V-levels. While this debate affects the wider creative industries, I will focus on music education and the BRIT School as case studies to draw out the current strengths and some of the risks of the Government’s reform proposals. I thank UK Music and the Musicians’ Union for their support with a briefing for this debate, and the BRIT School, the University of the Arts London, Rockschool/RSL Awards, the ISM and the BPI for briefings. At its heart, this debate is about whether replacing large numbers of existing level 3 qualifications, such as extended diplomas and BTEC nationals, will improve quality and clarity or will reduce choice for learners and remove programme pathways that currently enable many young people to succeed. This issue has been a source of concern across the creative sector and among awarding bodies, including the University of the Arts London, since the reforms to post-16 education were first proposed by the Conservative Government in 2019. Those reforms sought to simplify level 3 qualifications around A-levels and T-levels, while removing public funding from qualifications deemed to overlap with them. However, campaigners argued that this risked removing successful applied qualifications which served different learners and different purposes. It was therefore right...
My Lords, I am grateful to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, so early in this debate, and I thank her for securing this subject for us to discuss. I echo much of what she said, which I will return to in a moment. I congratulate the Minister on surviving the reshuffle cull. I have seen on social media how pleased she is to have held on to her role and how much she enjoys it. In principle, it is great to see her on the Front Bench because the future success of our creative industries, led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, depends very much on close co-operation with the Department for Education. It is an interesting point that the music education system that the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, spoke of so eloquently is effectively funded out of the Department for Education via the Arts Council. Many of the high-level schemes that support elite arts education-I am not embarrassed to use the word “elite”-such as the music and dance scheme, are also funded by the department of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. It is vital to see this co-operation. Although the noble Lord, Lord Gove, is often criticised for the EBacc, it was thanks to him, when he was Education Secretary, that we were able to bring some form of strategy to music education, with the creation of music education hubs, a more uniform funding system for local authorities and a joining up of separate initiatives, such as the In Harmony scheme, to ensure their success. I will dwell briefly on the In...
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for initiating this debate. I should also like to give a shout out to level 1 and level 2 qualifications, because level 1 may go to an adult who has never gained a national qualification, and the boost to confidence around learning and the sense of achievement can be life-changing. Level 1 may well lead to someone going on to level 2 and even level 3-someone who had written themselves off as dim and useless until national recognition, even at a lowly level, encouraged and incentivised them. Level 3 is evidence of someone who has the skills and knowledge to operate on their own in their chosen field. Creative skills used to be validated and awarded by City & Guilds, where I worked for 20 years, initially on hairdressing, wig-making and beauty therapy-one can be quite versatile in this life, I find-and allied skills. In all those areas, it was possible to go all the way to fellowship at level 7. I then moved on to look after the senior awards, levels 4 to 7, with post-nominal letters and gowns and hoods to indicate their parity with university degrees. Sadly, City & Guilds was betrayed by the then chairman, chief executive and finance officer, who managed to bypass the trustees, council and president-the Princess Royal-of this long-standing royal charter charity founded by the City of London and livery companies in 1878 and highly regarded around the world for the quality and standards of its work-based qualifications. They...
My Lords, I remind the House of my education interests, in particular as a member of Pearson’s qualifications committee. It is always a joy to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and I, too, pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing and introducing this debate. I add that I am delighted that the Minister is still in her place after the reshuffle. My first job, at 13, was in the West End production of “Oliver!”. Seven years later, I co-founded a theatre company with Sam Mendes and went on to manage arts centres. My wife, after drama school, spent years delivering Creative Partnerships in schools. My daughter Ruth is now a successful opera director. All three of us have done well thanks to the vocational pull of the performing arts. But this is an industry that cannot be measured by productivity and earnings at 30; it is about vocation and about weaving the cultural fabric that binds us together-witness the connection between fans and players created by “Wonderwall” at the World Cup. I want to focus today on why T-levels and V-levels, as designed, cannot deliver the talent that our nation needs to maintain our status as a creative superpower. I am a keen supporter of the post-16 reforms in general but not as currently applied to this sector. T-levels and the proposed V-levels are built on national occupational standards-competencies mapped to defined jobs. How will that work for creative artists? My good friend Emily Burnett is a BAFTA-winning actor for...
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Keeley for introducing this debate in such a thoughtful and compelling way. I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Knight. This House has many times focused on the importance of the creative industries to the economy and our social fabric. It cannot be emphasised enough how much creators enhance our reputation and soft power across the world, and our productivity at home in theatre, film, dance, music, computer games, craft, design, visual arts-indeed, any area in which individual creativity, skill and talent play a key role. Those who are able and willing to advance those skills need to be encouraged, supported and given freedom to fly, not thwarted, straitjacketed or discouraged by any entry system of examinations which is not targeted to their needs or the industries they aspire to enter. Others in this debate have real knowledge of the requirements for entering these subjects and the impact of the specific changes currently being considered, as we have already heard. I do not, but I have learnt a lot. The Library brief was excellent, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Keeley for a thorough grounding in the ongoing discussions with the Government and their intentions. I will make three brief and broad points. First, and most importantly, the creative industries are too vital a part of our economy to get this wrong. When tens of billions of pounds of gross value added and the jobs of two million people are at stake, we...
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this very well patronised debate, our last debate before Recess. It was pointed out in the last debate that I am taking part in all three debates today, and one of the advantages of that is that you can make links between them. So, I want to link the first debate, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, talked about digital sovereignty and linked it to constitutional weaknesses in the UK, to this debate, and point out how constitutional weaknesses are affecting creative education, the subject we are discussing here. The first past the post electoral system has traditionally produced a see-saw between two parties and two sets of policies and plans, if not always with much ideological difference. Creative education has been very much a victim of this see-saw. We saw the noble Lord, Lord Gove-now a Member of your Lordships’ House-make an active attempt under the previous Administrations to suppress creative subjects in schools with the EBacc, to push for a focus on a handful of subjects and exam results. That saw many creative subject teachers leave education-certainly leave schools-and move on to other careers, and active discouragement of new teachers coming into the area. I note that among many others, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, referring to music education, has focused on the chronic shortage of teachers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, referred to. Now, we are seeing the see-saw come down the...
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Keeley for initiating this important debate on the future of post-16 creative education, an area that is often neglected when we focus on universities -it is the Cinderella sector, as many have noted. I declare an interest as the chair of governors of the University of the Arts London, which, as the House will have heard, runs the awarding body for the current diploma and extended diploma system. As noble Lords have heard today, the arts are central to our cultural life. I have spoken about that many times in this Chamber. They are central to our economy, to social mobility and to the general well-being of society. As we have heard, they foster imagination, collaboration and, most importantly, innovation. That is why the Government have rightly identified the creative industries as one of the eight priority growth sectors in their industrial strategy. However, since 2010, the number of pupils taking GCSE creative subjects-as we just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett-has fallen by 40%, and the number of specialist arts teachers in state schools has fallen dramatically too. It is therefore vital that post-16 education provides strong pathways into employment, and further and higher education, for the diminishing number of students who wish to develop their creative skills. This debate is not about undermining apprenticeships, T-levels, V-levels or A-levels. It is about ensuring that, in simplifying post-16...
Baroness Caine of Kentish Town
My Lords, I warmly thank my noble friend Lady Keeley for securing this debate and warmly welcome my noble friend the Minister back to her place. To add to the statistics, Skills England estimates that the creative industries will need to fill around 1 million vacancies by 2035, a significant increase. Crucially, 82% of those roles will require qualifications at level 4 and above, compared with an economy-wide average of 62%. That means that occupational standards exist, where they do, largely at level 4, not level 3, which is the basis for the T-levels that are under discussion. Some 90% of creative businesses are micro-enterprises, as we have heard, employing fewer than 10 people. More than 30% of the workforce is freelance, but that critically increases in some key subsectors such as film and television, where it is over 50%. For many years, the Department for Education has tended towards one-size-fits-all policies, designed around larger employers and more traditional sectors. Creative industries have repeatedly been recognised as atypical, yet the flexibilities needed to support them have too often been absent. As a result, employers have frequently developed their own solutions. When the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education mapped the creative and design pathways a few years ago, it concluded that T-levels were not the right qualifications for music, performing arts or graphic design. Two technical T-levels were introduced, craft and design-as my noble...
My Lords, I join the chorus and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this debate. I associate myself with the comments she made. It is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Caine, with her track record in leadership at Goldsmiths. It is thanks to that college that my son is in the creative sector and I get this knowledge. The UK film and television sector is a global powerhouse. The Government’s commitment to securing its future pipeline is highly commendable. The Department for Education’s constructive approach in its recent post-16 level 3 pathways consultation response is to be welcomed. By proposing a phased, route-by-route transition over the next four years and introducing alternative fee levels, the Government have shown that they are listening to the education sector in trying to simplify a complex qualification landscape. However, as the DfE moves towards publishing its implementation plans, we must ensure that the unique project-based reality of the British film industry is fully integrated. The film and media sector does not operate like the traditional corporate environment, as I understand from my son and his friends. It thrives on collaborative, deeply immersive and fluid craft skills that cannot easily be retrofitted into standard technical boxes. Our current level 3 landscapes, specifically large-scale qualifications such as the diploma in creative media production, succeed because they provide the immense studio hours and creative...
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Keeley on securing this important debate. I know from many conversations with her that she is utterly passionate about support for education in the creative industries and that she brings real expertise to this subject. I have enjoyed this debate so far, because I also discovered that a friend of mine was Oliver when, in the same production, my noble friend Lord Knight was the Artful Dodger. Who knew? I have spoken before in the House about my support for centres of artistic excellence in south London-in particular, Mountview theatre school, the Central School of Ballet and the Old Vic Theatre. I declare my interests as a member of the president’s circle at the Central Ballet School and a trustee at the Old Vic. I thank my noble friend the Minister for the wonderful visit that we paid to the Central Ballet School a few weeks ago, when we both saw brilliant classical ballet teaching in action. We did not dance; we saw the students. While Central Ballet School is not a level 3 provider, I think our conversation that day underlined the thrust of this debate: every cultural education provider, usually because of its size and specialism, is unique in the teaching and courses it provides; consequently, so are the financial challenges it faces. But one size rarely fits all in the cultural sector, especially in teaching and qualifications. At Mountview, students who do not have level 3 qualifications can enrol for foundation or...
My Lords, I am delighted to participate in this debate. I am by no means an expert in the field that we are debating; I know very little about creative qualifications, but I have been involved in the creative industries for most of my career. My first career, I suppose, before I became a lawyer, was in the fashion industry, where I spent seven years working with designers, photographers and all sorts of other creative people. I declare an interest in that I am currently back in the fashion industry, and have been for the last 10 years, as a director at Inditex-otherwise known as Zara. Furthermore, I declare an interest in this specific area as a trustee of the Conran Foundation. I have also been a board member at the Design Museum for many years. The United Kingdom has for a very long time enjoyed the reputation of being one of the greatest creative economies in the world, yet we too often discuss it as though it were simply a matter of cultural interest, rather than a strategic national asset. The facts tell a different story. Our creative industries now contribute almost £126 billion to the economy, support around 2.4 million jobs and generate a substantial trade surplus through exports of services, intellectual property and digital content. They are growing significantly faster than the economy as a whole and are rightly recognised by the Government as one of the United Kingdom’s priority growth sectors. These industries are also a powerful source of Britain’s soft power....
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Keeley has done us all a service by facilitating this important debate in an area-the development of a new landscape for 16 to 19 qualifications -that has been the source of more than a little controversy since the introduction of T-levels in 2020. I was one of a number of noble Lords who joined the campaign by the Protect Student Choice coalition that secured delays to the defunding of applied general qualifications, such as BTECs, meaning that at least 300,000 16 to 19 year-olds have either already studied qualifications that would otherwise have been scrapped or will be studying them in the years ahead. Retaining AGQs has enabled many young people to progress to higher education and/or skilled employment, a journey that would otherwise have been out of reach, and it has avoided the creation of a “qualifications gap” that tens of thousands of students would have fallen through. The announcement in March by the Minister, who I am delighted will be continuing in her post, of a stay of execution for popular courses while alternatives are developed was most welcome. That said, the problematic nature of the package of reforms to 16 to 19 education goes beyond the timetable. The most important of them is the replacement of numerous existing diplomas with V-levels, which are being designed as A-level size equivalents. The first three V-levels will begin next September. One of the causes of concern is the speed with which they will be introduced. I...
My Lords, as the last Back-Bench speaker I have to congratulate my noble friend Lady Keeley on having promoted a really interesting debate in which, on the whole, I have very little to disagree with and little extra to add. I should congratulate my noble friend the Minister, were she in her place-and I shall not take it at all personally that she left the Chamber just before I stood up. None the less, I will keep talking in the hope that she will catch some of it. I really will not take it personally-I look at my noble friend Lord Katz, who is on the Front Bench at the moment, and I am sure he will assure her of that. My professional career has been spent in the cultural sector, specifically the performing arts, where much of my time over many years involved the finding, assessing and employing of performers and directors for theatre and musical productions. Unfortunately, it did not include the talented child who went on to become my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth. But it did include, at a very early stage in his career, his friend Sam Mendes, whose incredible career now could not have been predicted at the time that we both knew him best. I make the point that you cannot always see what is coming in this particular field. I am approaching this subject not from any expertise in the relative value of this qualification over that, but from extensive practical experience of what works for employers and employees in this complex area. I have got only a couple of points...
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on being in her place, although a debate when you have 10 Back-Benchers behind you, all firing shots at the back of your neck, may not be the most welcome way of coming back. They may not all be killing blows, but they are there. There are certain themes that have been clearly established in this debate. We still have our question mark about T-levels and V-levels-we do not really know what they are yet. If the Government are going to get rid of qualifications that work, we would like their replacements to be a lot better presented, and to know a lot more about them than we currently do. T-levels have not had a great start. When they first came out, I remember there was one course where nobody finished. The fact that you have this big block that means you cannot do anything other than a T-level was one of the scariest things about it. The V-level does not have that; it fits in with the A-level structure. This may be a strength, or it may be a weakness; we do not quite know yet, but it is certainly an idea for a new examination that will come in to do a job and may remove examinations and structures that are achieving. Could it be better? Could it be worse? We do not know. However, one thing that goes with this change in structure is something that has not been touched on: what is careers guidance going to tell pupils-and, more importantly, their parents-that this will do for them in the future? If you get that wrong, I do not care how...
My Lords, we thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this debate and for her long record of work with the arts on protecting copyright for creators against generative AI, championing inclusive music and arts education and advocating for the financial resilience of the UK’s theatre and cultural sectors. It was not a surprise that the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, gave us an in-depth insight into the creative industries, given his role as chair of the Court of Governors at the University of the Arts London, nor that the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, given her directorship at Zara, flagged fashion design among other things. The noble Lord, Lord John, talked about a “deep pool” of creative talent: the creative industries combined contribute £124 billion to the economy and employ 2.4 million people, over 7% of the national workforce. Their output has grown at more than 1.5 times the national average since 2010. Creative education is valued. That is not in doubt. The question is whether these reforms will produce qualifications that enable people for jobs, for university and for higher technical study. This process has cross-party parentage. It began with the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, in 2011, which found that too much post-16 vocation provision had little or no market value. When in government, we started to remove overlapping qualifications, and the current Government have continued. Rationalising a landscape of more than 900 such courses is essential in...
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Keeley for introducing this debate, and noble Lords around the House for congratulating me on maintaining my role. I am absolutely delighted about it, not least because what would I do on a Thursday afternoon if I did not have the opportunity to engage in excellent debates such as the one today? This discussion has rightly focused on a matter of great significance: how we ensure that all young people, regardless of background, can access high-quality routes into the creative industries, while also building a qualification system that is stronger, clearer and fit for the future. My noble friend Lady Kingsmill was right, as were others, to identify that the creative industries are one of the United Kingdom’s great success stories. They contribute approximately £145 billion to the economy and have grown four times faster than the rest of the economy since 2010. I think those figures are slightly higher than some others have suggested, but they demonstrate the success of our creative industries. That is why the Government’s industrial strategy recognises the creative industries as one of the growth-driving sectors that will help to power our economy in the years ahead. That success depends on a steady pipeline of talent and that is why the education and skills system must work for this sector. Before we come on to some of the other creative areas, I point out-I think this was a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham-that a...
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s reappointment, and I was glad to hear almost everybody else mention that. We are so glad to see her back with us and thank her for what she has just said. I shall reflect for a moment or two on the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, raised the In Harmony scheme. I had not heard of it, but that could be a good descriptor for this debate because we have been harmonious in what we have said. We obviously think across the piece that the BRIT School is wonderful and the creative industries are vital for the economy, as evidenced in successes in places such as the BRIT School and, I will hazard, although I have not been there, the In Harmony scheme as well. I did not know about the issues in City & Guilds which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, raised, but she said, and it is important, that we should have extreme caution about replacing qualifications that have stood the test of time-absolutely. That has been echoed by many noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Knight illuminated us about his role in “Oliver!” and founding a company with Sam Mendes, which is another theme, it seems, for today. My noble friend was clear-headed about the category error that T-levels are technical and creative skills and careers are not, as many others have said. My noble friend Lady Warwick raised another theme: that the creative industries are vital, so we cannot afford to get it wrong. Many contributions have made that point and that we need people who can work...
Motion agreed.
My Lords, in adjourning, I hope the House will indulge me in wishing all noble Lords, the clerks, the staff-especially the doorkeepers-and everyone involved in the House a very happy and restful Summer Recess.
I echo that. Have a very well-earned rest.
House adjourned at 5.42 pm.