Music and Dance Schools: Affordable Access

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Royal College of Music, one of our leading conservatoires, ranked number one in the world QS rankings for performing arts. That we are able to be a global leader in this way, a huge source of soft power for UK plc, is because of the health of our music ecosystem. That ecosystem, the so-called pipeline, is in danger as never before. If it fails then the threat to the future of music in our country is, without exaggeration, existential. It is a delicate organism, depending on many interlocking actions, from primary school teaching right through to the conservatoires and universities where tomorrow’s musicians are trained.

Central to that fragile but vital system are the music and dance scheme schools, the seedbed from which so many of tomorrow’s talented music graduates grow. The future of our conservatoires, in turn, is absolutely predicated on their success. Last year 123 applications for the BMus course at the RSM came from the MDS schools, resulting in 73 offers being made. That is a significant proportion of those coming to study and providing the greatest talents. If the MDS schools failed, with their rigour and training, it would have enormous consequences for all conservatoires. For a tiny amount of money—a rounding error, frankly, for the Treasury—the return is incredible. It is difficult to think of a more important investment in the future of our creative industries, and one on which we should in fact double down.

The future of music in this country hangs in the balance as we wait for action from the Government on so many fronts—on copyright protection, the school curriculum, the future of the Arts Council and the future of the hubs, which exist from hand to mouth because they have no guarantees of funding. I understand that those are all complex issues that can take time, but here we have one that is really simple and which could immediately both help to secure the future of the ecosystem and, at the same time, signal the Government’s commitment to the music. The MDS is a huge success, it is integral to the ecosystem and it pays for itself many times over. Let us show our confidence in it by uplifting its current settlement and restoring three-year grant agreements.