Education: Music

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree very strongly with the noble Baroness about the important role that choral singing and being part of a choir can play. I hope that one of the ways that these new hubs will work is to draw in a much wider range of providers. They will be covering a broader area so that one can get that kind of specialism that one could then extend to a range of schools in an area.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, there is a great deal to welcome in the national music plan. We particularly welcome the fact that funding—although it involves significant cuts—will be ring-fenced for music education. Does this mean that the Government have now been converted back to the idea of ring-fencing? What does that mean for other children’s services such as Sure Start?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her welcome overall for the shape of the plan and what we are trying to do with it. We are distributing the funding in the way that we are—which relates to the point that I was just making to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock—because the kind of services that we will provide go across areas where an individual school could not be expected to have that degree of specialism or that range of services or instruments. We think it makes more sense to deliver that through a bigger area.