Baroness Bull (CB)

My Lords, I speak in this short debate as someone who owes her career to a predecessor of today’s music and dance scheme. I will focus my time on what it takes to achieve that success in the highly specialised field of dance. Without that understanding, it is easy to underestimate the importance of the MDS. Elite performance—and I use that word as we do for athletes—is performance at the limits of human potential, characterised by extreme flexibility, accuracy and speed. It is achieved only through 10 years of intense daily practice under expert tuition in specialist facilities; those 10 years have to start before puberty sets in if a dancer is going to compete in a global market. It is not just about physical prowess; it is about training the brain to send precise movement commands and issue corrections faster than the human eye can see. When you watch an expert dancer, you are seeing the cerebellum at its most extraordinary. This intensity of training is impossible to achieve within the state school system, which does not have the teachers, the spaces or the hours in the day. And it is expensive; without government support, it is beyond the reach of many talented children. Over 50 years, Governments have recognised this through the music and dance scheme, which allows specialist schools to trawl wide and offer places on talent alone, blind to financial or social circumstances. The Prime Minister has often said, “Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not”. The MDS schools offer that opportunity but 12 years of funding freezes mean that it is a system under strain. I therefore ask the Minister to press the Treasury to deliver the £4 million the schools need and restore the three-year settlements so that the schools can plan efficiently and children can be confident of completing the training they begin. Without this investment, the scheme is at risk. This risks not only the talent pipeline that underpins the UK’s global creative success but a return to a world in which only the most advantaged can access the opportunities their talent deserves. I feel sure that the Minister does not want this to be the legacy of her party’s years in power.