Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to allocate additional (a) funding and (b) resources to the provision of music teaching in schools in (i) the North West, (ii) Merseyside, (iii) Wirral and (iv) Wallasey.

The Government believes that music is an important subject and that all pupils should receive a high-quality music education. The subject is compulsory in the national curriculum up to age 14.

To support schools to deliver high quality music education for all their pupils, the Government has provided funding of over £300 million for music education hubs across England between 2016 and 2020, including £76 million in 2019-20, and further funding to support hubs with the additional costs under the teachers’ pension scheme. This is a significant increase over the £58 million we gave hubs in 2014.

The Government recently announced a further year’s funding for music hubs, to help thousands more children learn to play musical instruments, as well as continued support for a range of smaller music and arts programmes, totalling £85 million. We will also be offering an ‘arts premium’ of £90 million each year for secondary schools in England from 2021 to fund enriching activities for all pupils.

The North West region is served by ten individual music education hubs, which in the coming year will receive between them over £9.6 million in funding.

Merseyside is served by the Merseyside Music Education Hub Alliance, a conglomerate of music hubs based in Warrington and Halton, Sefton and Knowsley, Liverpool and St Helens. In the 2020-21, we will be providing these hubs with over £2 million of funding to continue to support the region’s schools to deliver high-quality music education. In 2016-17, the last year data for which data is available, these hubs provided individual lessons to over 2,400 pupils, small group lessons for over 5,800 pupils and whole class ensemble teaching to over 26,000 pupils. The hubs also supported or delivered 125 ensembles.

Wirral is served by the Musical Routes Music Education Hub. In 2020-21, the Government will be providing the hub with over £470,000 of funding. In 2016-17, the hub provided individual lessons to 850 pupils, small group lessons for over 1,200 pupils and whole class ensemble teaching to over 6,000 pupils. The hub also supported or delivered 25 ensembles.

The Government trusts that with the announced funding, the music education hubs in the North West will be able to continue their important work in supporting the schools in the region to deliver a high-quality music education for all their pupils.