Access to Musical Education in School

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on his passionate introduction to this debate. I start by quoting from the letter co-signed by music directors Edward Gardner, Mark Elder and Antonio Pappano on the proposed cuts to the English National Opera, which appeared in the Times yesterday:

“These cuts will put a stranglehold on the artistic future of the company, wherever it is based. Opera should be available to everyone — this is the founding premise of ENO …This isn’t levelling up, it is the killing off of the art form”.


There is a sense in which these words are emblematic of the struggle facing not only classical music but all the arts in this country, although the ENO is of course under particular threat.

We need to recognise, too, the ecology of the arts and the reality that industry and education work together and education does not exist in isolation. It is part of a wider ecology, which should also include the widest possible work and educational opportunities in music—and not just in the UK, but Europe too. What signal is now being relayed by these proposed cuts—and with the music director himself now resigning in protest at these cuts—to young people currently at school who are considering a career in music?

We have reached a crunch point. Some blame the Arts Council but, ultimately, this is the end result of 13 years of this Government’s severe funding cuts to the arts, both in direct funding and to local authorities. Of course, it is the funding cuts, both in education and the arts themselves, that are a major factor in increasing inequality in educational provision in the arts. As the Independent Society of Musicians says in its excellent briefing, from which others have quoted, music education is in “serious decline” in England and the situation “requires government intervention”. Look no further than that independent schools have mean yearly music budgets that are over five times greater than those of maintained schools. However, I also say to a potential future Government that, before they target independent schools, they should consider the educational models that may be driving that spending on the arts. This is not just about rich parents. These models may well be in opposition to the current knowledge-rich curriculum and academic educational environment in the state sector, where it is becoming increasingly hard for individual participation, performance and expression in the arts to gain a foothold.

At the heart of this constricting philosophy, of course, are the EBacc and Progress 8, which need to be removed. As the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, pointed out, since 2010, GCSE music entries have fallen by 36%—12.5% in the last year alone—and A-level music entries by 45%. Moreover, Cambridge Assessment data tells us that only 5.4% of young people from groups that experience high social deprivation took GCSE music; the EBacc will again exacerbate this.

As others have pointed out, there is a growing teacher recruitment crisis in music. It is good news that bursaries for teachers of arts subjects have been reintroduced, although since these bursaries are worth only just over a third of those for science subjects, this has to be heavily qualified good news. The National Foundation for Educational Research predicted earlier this year that music will reach only 63% of the target for teacher recruitment, as opposed to 98% or more for chemistry and biology, for example. Science subjects should of course be supported, but does the Minister agree that it is difficult to interpret the stark difference in the value of these bursaries as anything other than discriminatory?

I am a firm believer in bringing music properly back into schools, where there is the greatest likelihood of universal access, but as long as we have music hubs they should be supported. Yet it is clear that the sector has considerable concerns about this, with less money now going to hubs than to pre-hub music services, as well as a serious cut in the number of hubs themselves.

Finally, as others have asked, what happened to the £90 million arts premium, promised in the last Conservative Party manifesto? Will the Minister say something about that?