Music and Dance Schools: Affordable Access

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, clarity on the future of the music and dance scheme to ensure access to specialist music and dance education for students, regardless of their background, is urgently needed. As a supporter of the National Youth Orchestra, I wholeheartedly support the points from the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, but I put in a plea to ensure that all our youngsters have a high-quality creative arts education in primary school and on through secondary school.

Music education is in a parlous state in many mainstream schools. Many commentators have pointed to the absence of the arts from the English baccalaureate as a key reason for the decline in these subjects in our schools. Secondary schools are measured on the number of pupils who take GCSEs in these core subjects. Another measure, Progress 8, introduced in 2016, adds further pressure to prioritise EBacc subjects. Neither the EBacc nor Progress 8 specifies music, dance or drama in their assessments. Since 2010—the year that the EBacc was introduced—there has been a 42% drop in overall arts subjects and GCSE entries in music in England have fallen 25%. Music A-level entries to England fell for the third consecutive year.

The EBacc has made art subjects an add-on with which schools can dispense, yet teachers tell me that music is often now the only subject where an entire classroom of 30 students work together as one, building collaborative skills and social confidence. Music develops creative intelligence; our creative industries start in the classroom.

Will the Minister assure us that creative subjects will be properly recognised in the anticipated curriculum and assessment review? The recent £88 million “Building Creative Futures” package is encouraging, but to ensure that every child has access to a high-quality music and arts education in school requires concrete action, not just good intentions. Will my noble friend the Minister start by putting the arts back into the EBacc?