(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Baroness Keeley
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to review the funding of the Music and Dance Scheme to ensure schools can continue to support talented children from families with lower incomes.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, this Government are committed to revitalising and widening access to arts education, including specialist education for our highest-achieving musicians and dancers. We continue to fund the music and dance scheme, providing bursaries to over 2,000 students. This remains means-tested, targeting support for students from lower-income families. Funding for the academic year 2026-27 onward will be announced in due course, and for the longer term will be subject to the next spending review.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that response. In earlier debates, noble Lords have raised concerns that funding for this vital scheme has been frozen or increased only below inflation since 2011-12, and since 2022 grants have been limited to a one-year settlement. The eight music and dance scheme schools are currently auditioning pupils for entry later this year. The Hammond school in Chester told me that last year 30% of the pupils offered a music and dance scheme-supported place ultimately declined, despite meeting the talent threshold and wanting to attend. Families mainly cited uncertainty about the scheme’s long-term funding, particularly beyond the first year. Talented children from low-income families are not progressing to the specialist training that they need because the financial risk is now too great. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that this loss of future talent in dance and music can be prevented through more secure funding of the scheme?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right that since 2010 funding for the music and dance scheme has been largely static. In fact, in some years between 2010 and 2020 it was cut in cash terms. I understand the concerns of the schools that my noble friend is representing here and, of course, the students and the highly talented young people who can benefit from them. I assure my noble friend that the fact that we have not been able to announce funding yet does not mean that we are not committed to the scheme. She will understand that the ability to offer longer periods of certainty is dependent on the spending review and our business planning, but the case has been made strongly by my noble friend and others.
Baroness Bull (CB)
I am grateful to the Minister for reiterating the Government’s commitment to the important role of the schools in providing high-quality, world-class training to these elite dancers and musicians. This intensity of training would not be appropriate nor possible in state schools, but the Government recognise the value of music and dance to all pupils. Where dance is concerned, does she agree that delivering improvements in the curriculum will be tricky given that it sits under PE teachers and it is not their specialism? Will she therefore agree to work with the four schools in the music and dance scheme and the extensive network of private schools to develop high-quality modules that could be rolled out nationally, thus deriving more value from the existing investment in the music and dance schools and giving all children an opportunity to benefit from the opportunities in music and dance?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The fact that dance sits under PE means that it is part of the national curriculum up to the age of 16. However, I take the noble Baroness’s point, which I think she has made previously, that having skilled teachers able to deliver that is important. Considering how we can build support from the specialist schools into our state schools is an interesting idea. I will certainly take that back to my colleagues in the department.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, would the Minister not agree that this is something that is done on a small scale, at a very intensive level, for the elite, and that it is thus incredibly difficult for it to be done in the state system, and we are going to have to work with independent schools? Could the Government give a statement that they will make that reality part of their thinking and tell us how it will be done?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I agree with the noble Lord; that is the whole point of the music and dance scheme. It enables 2,000 young people who might not otherwise be able to get, as he says, that private education at the very highest levels, to benefit from it. This Government have maintained investment in that. I am pleased that 18% of the students who benefit from the music and dance scheme get a full bursary; anybody below a family income of £45,000 gets that bursary. That is what enables entry into these schools, and that is what we will certainly attempt to maintain.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as an alumna of one of the music and dance schools. I do not doubt the Minister’s commitment to the long-term effectiveness of the music and dance scheme. But is it not the wrong department that we are talking to? The schools say that they need a £36 million uplift for this year, and it is the Treasury that has caused the uplift in costs. They are classed as independent schools, so they are paying VAT on fees. Any uplift that the Department for Education has been able to give has only offset that uplift; it has not increased the viability of the schools. Can the Minister explain what the Treasury will do to ensure the survival of the schools this year as well as in future years?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
This year, as has been the case since 2010, we have maintained the value of the funding for the music and dance scheme, and we have provided an additional £4 million to support parents having to pay for the impacts of VAT on private schools. We have done what was necessary to maintain it this year and, as I said previously, we recognise the significance of this scheme and we will do all we can to support it in the future.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I declare my interest: I might myself have the voice of a frog but I have Chetham’s School of Music, which provides wonderful choristers for my cathedral. Does the Minister agree with me that there seems to be an anomaly? Last week the Government were able to announce significant money over four or five years for the built heritage of this country. However, when it comes to an equally important part of our heritage, our music and drama heritage, we are told that the most we can expect is another year and then, perhaps, later on, something longer. Why can we not have a similar length of settlement for the music and dance schools now as we had for the built heritage last week?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
It is not right to say that the only support provided to music and the arts is through the music and dance scheme. That deals with a particular issue about how we ensure that, whatever your income, if you are highly talented, you can learn at the very best private schools, including Chetham’s. Alongside that, this Government have taken action on the national curriculum to support the place of arts and music. We are investing in a national centre for arts and music as well. So there is a long-term commitment from this Government to arts and music—somewhat in contrast to the last Government, I have to say.
Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, these specialist music and dance providers, and others, such as the BRIT School and the London Screen Academy, provide opportunities for very gifted young people to enter the talent pipeline so vital to the creative industries, a key growth sector of our economy. Can my noble friend the Minister therefore update the House on the development and investment in the sector skills plan for these industries, which should sit alongside the others already agreed, such as for digital and technology and the life sciences?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend makes an important point about the economic benefit and growth potential of the creative industries, which is why, as she says, we are developing a specific sector job plan for the creative industries alongside the other seven areas identified in the industrial strategy. I am meeting my ministerial colleagues tomorrow to ensure that progress is being made on those job plans. I know that just earlier this week, on Monday, Skills England and others held a good and productive meeting with the creative industries precisely to take forward that job plan.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Minister will be aware that at least one of the eight specialist schools is at risk of closure within the next 12 to 24 months. Is that really what the Government want to see happen?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
No, it is not. That is why, unlike the noble Baroness’s Government, we have not cut the money for the music and dance scheme. I understand that schools are keen that we provide even more. That is why we will soon announce the funding for 2026-27, and we will ensure that, alongside all the other things we are doing to support arts, music and dance, we find a way to enable the thriving arts and music scene in this country to continue and for young people to benefit from it.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the music and dance scheme ticks all the boxes for helping underprivileged students—exactly what the Government are in favour of. I do not understand why we are even having this Question. Why is this not sorted already? Further to what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, there is a real possibility that some of these schools may close unless they get the £4 million that is required—not a huge amount of money in the scheme of things.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
If every department in government was able to immediately come up with the money for everything that everybody argued was not a great amount of money in the scheme of things, it would be gratifying for those asking for it and bankrupting to the Government. I hope I have made clear today this Government’s commitment to the highly talented individuals who continue to receive support on a means-tested basis so that they can attend these private music and dance schools, as well as the broader investment and curriculum change that we are putting in to ensure that arts and music opportunities for young people, for the creative industries and beyond, are not only supported but reinvigorated by the interest that this Government are taking in them.