Cultural Institutions: Curriculum Fund

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

First, we are focusing on so-called opportunity areas. So we are focusing on those areas we believe are deprived, to be sure that there is better social mobility. In terms of the arts, which I think was the gist of the noble Lord’s question, we fund a number of programmes to enhance children’s arts education. As the noble Lord will know, these are extensive and include 120 music education hubs, and we have provided £300 million between 2016 and 2020. These ensure, for example, that every child between five and 18 has the opportunity to learn a musical instrument through whole-class ensemble teaching.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, it is clearly an excellent idea to use our institutions more effectively as educational resources. However, is the Minister aware that educational visits to the national museums, for instance, have been declining? Does he agree that there is nothing quite like face-to-face interaction with those objects, which may well then feature significantly within this new input into the curriculum?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Earl is correct. We want to optimise what we have in this country. The British Museum is an obvious example, but we need to look beyond London at, for example, Portsmouth or Southampton, where there is an awful lot of history and museums. Schools would do well to be given further support from government to encourage them to provide this knowledge-rich information.