English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott on initiating this important debate, which has produced some wonderful speeches this afternoon. I want to focus my remarks today on one subject which was mentioned very powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, which is music.

In the debate on EBacc last year the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said:

“I am not against maths, English, science, foreign languages, history or geography”,


but she went on to say that if you have a priority, you are saying that you,

“give less priority to the other things”.—[Official Report, 4/2/16; col. 57.]

The worry is that when you say that some subjects are important, you are saying that other subjects are less important.

Some of your Lordships may have heard Julian Lloyd-Webber on the radio last week talking about the brand-new Birmingham Conservatoire which has just opened and where he is the director. He said that removing arts subjects from the core curriculum was not conducive to creating the artists of the future. He compared Britain to countries in the Far East where he said it was perfectly normal to learn a musical instrument. He was worried that here in Britain we are missing out on a massive amount of talent. The Minister and other Ministers say that they share these ambitions for music. I looked at the Government’s national plan for music education, published six years ago, and it said all the right things: music education should be available to as many children as possible; music can enhance the lives of all young people; and music should not be the preserve only of better-off families who can afford tuition in musical instruments.

My brother and I, many years ago, attended the same school in Manchester. In our first year, aged 11 or 12, we were taken to the Manchester Free Trade Hall to hear the Hallé Orchestra. My elder brother heard Handel’s “Water Music”, then badgered our father to buy him the LP, which he played morning, noon and night until the record actually wore out. When it was my turn to go, I heard Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Overture”, with the conductor explaining how the music told the story of the fighting, the love scenes and the death scenes. These were really inspiring musical experiences. Many noble Lords will have seen Gareth Malone on television struggle to build a choir in a school among very sceptical, if not hostile pupils, especially the boys. It was an uphill struggle, yet somehow he pulled them all together and when they finally performed in front of the school and their parents, the pupils, including the boys, not only discovered the joy of making music together but also discovered something new in themselves—a previously hidden talent, teamwork and a new confidence.

As other noble Lords have said, we know from research and from experience that the benefits of a music education go much wider. It can help you retain verbal information, enhance your intellectual development, increase your social confidence and help with maths. The connection between music and maths is very well known. Of course there are huge benefits to the economy from the creative industries and the music industry. We have some of the best musical colleges and conservatoires in the world, some of the best orchestras and some of the best musical theatre, but we have a shortage of skilled orchestral musicians who are leaders, principals, sub-principals or in numbered string positions. We need a pipeline of talent coming forward.

I acknowledge what the Government are doing. Music education hubs have been established to give children the opportunity to learn a music instrument. The exam board of the Royal Schools of Music, the ABRSM, examines 300,000 pupils each year in the UK who are learning to play a musical instrument. The Department for Education has worked with the ABRSM to develop the Classic 100 music app for primary schools, with music ranging from “Peter and the Wolf” to Beethoven’s fifth and Handel’s “Messiah”. My right honourable friend Nick Gibb, the Minister, is on record as saying that the new national curriculum will ensure that music is taught as an academic subject. However, in a survey of schools in 2016-17, in only two out of three schools was music a compulsory part of the education, despite it being part of the national curriculum.

My final and most important point is that music can be intrinsically life-enhancing and inspiring for every child and every adult throughout their lives. So while I am sympathetic to the emphasis placed on core academic subjects, it should not downgrade other subjects which are crucial for a child’s personal development. My plea to the Government is this: please do everything you can to make sure that music classes are not the ugly duckling of the school curriculum; they must not be the last courses to be added and the first to be cut.