Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria underlay his Department's decision that the Arts Council will in future be responsible for the funding of music in schools; and what criteria will be used to evaluate the outcome for schools of that decision.

Schools are responsible for providing music education to their pupils, using the funding they receive for curricula and extra-curricula provision. It is for schools to decide how to spend this, including on music.

In addition, we are providing £171 million to 123 new music education hubs across 2012-15 to provide core roles, such as ensuring that every child aged 5-18 has the opportunity to learn a musical instrument through whole-class ensemble teaching, and to progress from that, to sing, to play in ensembles, and to perform.

The hubs have been overseen by Arts Council England (ACE) on our behalf since they were set up in August 2012, and we have confirmed that ACE will continue to carry out this role until at least March 2016. Arrangements beyond this point will be subject to review.

The Department for Education is monitoring the performance of the hubs on an ongoing basis, through annually collected data and a new Hubs Advisory Group. In the first year of the music education hubs, nearly half a million children were given the opportunity to learn a musical instrument for the first time and hubs provided or supported 15,000 choirs, orchestras and bands. More than a third of those children who learned a musical instrument for the first time have continued learning to play.