Schools: Music and Dance Scheme

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Keeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to review the funding of the Music and Dance Scheme to ensure schools can continue to support talented children from families with lower incomes.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government are committed to revitalising and widening access to arts education, including specialist education for our highest-achieving musicians and dancers. We continue to fund the music and dance scheme, providing bursaries to over 2,000 students. This remains means-tested, targeting support for students from lower-income families. Funding for the academic year 2026-27 onward will be announced in due course, and for the longer term will be subject to the next spending review.

[Baroness Keeley (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for that response. In earlier debates, noble Lords have raised concerns that funding for this vital scheme has been frozen or increased only below inflation since 2011-12, and since 2022 grants have been limited to a one-year settlement. The eight music and dance scheme schools are currently auditioning pupils for entry later this year. The Hammond school in Chester told me that last year 30% of the pupils offered a music and dance scheme-supported place ultimately declined, despite meeting the talent threshold and wanting to attend. Families mainly cited uncertainty about the scheme’s long-term funding, particularly beyond the first year. Talented children from low-income families are not progressing to the specialist training that they need because the financial risk is now too great. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that this loss of future talent in dance and music can be prevented through more secure funding of the scheme?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right that since 2010 funding for the music and dance scheme has been largely static. In fact, in some years between 2010 and 2020 it was cut in cash terms. I understand the concerns of the schools that my noble friend is representing here and, of course, the students and the highly talented young people who can benefit from them. I assure my noble friend that the fact that we have not been able to announce funding yet does not mean that we are not committed to the scheme. She will understand that the ability to offer longer periods of certainty is dependent on the spending review and our business planning, but the case has been made strongly by my noble friend and others.

Teachers: Music, Drama, Art and Design, and Dance

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Keeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what action they will take to support an increase in the numbers training to be teachers of music, drama, art and design, and dance.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education, and the Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, we are working with the sector to re-establish teaching as an attractive profession across all subjects, including the arts. That is why this Government have increased teacher pay by almost 10% over two years and are providing bursaries this year worth up to £10,000 for trainees in art and design and in music. We are already seeing a positive impact. The number of new trainees and teachers has increased significantly in art and design and in music over the past year.

[Baroness Keeley (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her Answer. The undervaluing of music in state schools by successive Conservative-led Governments since 2010 led to the loss of over 850 full-time equivalent music teachers since 2011; high vacancy rates and poor retention rates of music teachers, with only two-thirds of those who qualified five years ago still teaching; and music teacher recruitment targets being missed 11 times in 12 years. There is a great deal for the Labour Government to do. Sustained bursary funding for initial teacher training has shown more stable recruiting. Can my noble friend look at reinvesting in the music teacher training bursary and then sustaining it for a number of years? That must be backed by Ministers who emphasise the central place of that music teacher training bursary rather than just those for science and maths.

Curriculum and Assessment Review

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I can give the noble Baroness the assurance she asks for on the development of the oracy framework. As she has identified, being able to speak and listen is an enormously important skill that employers say they need young people to have. On the point about media literacy, as she says, in a world in which young people need to distinguish misinformation and disinformation, it is enormously important that they are supported with media literacy. That is why media literacy will be embedded in English, in history and in citizenship. I share her view about the importance of the BBC, both at home and abroad.

[Baroness Keeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Curriculum and Assessment Review, particularly the removal of the EBacc, which has damaged the provision of arts and music education in state schools. I also welcome the emphasis on both media literacy and music provision in the curriculum. It is important to highlight the significant inequalities in access to music in state schools. The annexe to the review highlights that in 2023-24, one in four young people may not have been able to access a music qualification at key stage 4 in their school, even if they wanted to.

A further aspect of inequality highlighted in the review concerns those pupils whose parents cannot afford extracurricular tuition. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that the Government will double down on these inequalities to ensure that the ability to read music and play an instrument becomes available to all students in state schools, and that the number of specialist music teachers will start to be restored to the much higher level it was at in 2011?