Music Education

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

Perhaps some noble Lords think that music education is a bit of an airy-fairy subject—a “nice-to-have” but not a “must-have”. If there is one canard which the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, enables us to quash, it is this. Music is not just a “nice-to-have”, it is central to good education, as central as maths and English.

Research evidence is conclusive that music improves educational performance. Perhaps I might be permitted to cite one supporting fact. Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, which I have the privilege of chairing, is the second-ranked higher education institution in the country for employment—eat your hearts out Oxford and Cambridge—and 98.9% of our students are in work or further education six months after graduating. Of course, many of them are employed in music.

However, it turns out that a music education is also very attractive to employers because musicians have been taught to work hard, concentrate and set themselves goals, which are just the kind of qualities that make somebody a good employee. That is as true in schools as it is in conservatoires and universities. Music education is not just a cultural asset, although it is that. It is an economic asset too.

The Motion and speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, draw attention to the long-term funding of the new music hubs, set up following the excellent report by Darren Henley in 2011. Of course, all our hearts leapt at the £18 million that the Government found in July for music education. First—sorry to look a gift horse in the mouth—that is only for a single year. We have no idea what will happen beyond that year. It has to be put in the context of the slashing of the budgets that went on before—from £82.5 million to £58 million next year, according to the campaign group Protect Music Education. It is not surprising that local authorities are cutting, because they are being cut themselves. We are not spending nearly enough.

It is interesting that both speakers so far have used the word that I was about to use about the performance of the hubs: “patchy”. Patchy is it. Some are performing miracles. Others are not. It is certain that the Government’s pledge:

“Music education hubs will ensure that every child aged 5-18 has the opportunity to sing and learn a musical instrument, as well as perform as part of an ensemble or choir”,

is not being met.

Besides money, two other things would be helpful. The first is investment in leadership development for those people running the hubs. The second—this is particularly important, as the James Rhodes programmes show; I will come back to this—is that you need to educate head teachers and teachers in the value of music. They are under tremendous pressure from Ofsted, the Government and the Michael Goves of this world to show their results in maths and English. That can take their attention away from music, but that music is as central to education as those things. Head teachers need to be taught that.

You cannot get away from it. The heart of the failure is the shortage of funds. I am not sure how many noble Lords saw the Rhodes programme—a wonderful programme introduced by James Rhodes, the concert pianist, whose music, he said, led him away from drug addiction at an early age. He traced many of the problems that are being faced to the lack of instruments. Kids are improvising with toilet rolls and tin cans—Mickey Mouse music. James launched a campaign to get families to root out the instruments from their lofts and cellars. To see on that programme the kids' faces when they received these instruments was a very great joy to behold.

There are so many good people and so many good organisations working in this field. Just to take some that have walked through my door recently in my role as chair of the All-Party Classical Music Group: Future Talent, helping children from particularly deprived backgrounds; Voces Cantabiles Music—excuse my Latin—from the Gresham Centre, working with 20,000 students a year in the UK and internationally; and the One-Handed Musical Instrument Trust on which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, was kind enough to point out that we had a debate earlier this year. These are people devoted night and day to music. The passionate devotion of many of the hub leaders—not all, but many—is great, but the mountain that has to be climbed remains very steep. At the end of the day, only the Government can resource the base camps which make the ascent possible. That is why we look forward to the forthcoming ministerial response this evening.