Baroness Keeley (Lab)

My Lords, I want to focus on the Government’s priorities on creative education and the importance of making changes to improve the uptake of music education in state schools. I warmly welcome the Government’s acceptance of the curriculum and assessment review recommendations, including the removal of the Ebacc performance measure. This gives us the vital opportunity to rebalance education in our state schools and to support creative subjects and pathways, which have suffered a serious decline since 2010. The Cultural Learning Alliance—CLA—has reported since 2024 on what it described as a “denuded Arts education landscape”. It has highlighted the erosion of arts provision in state schools and argued that the narrowing of subject choices through the EBacc led to a systematic devaluing of arts subjects and experiences. In 2024, the CLA reported that the take-up of arts GCSEs had fallen by 42% since 2010. As the curriculum and assessment review highlighted, music has the highest disadvantage gap of any GCSE subject. It is deeply concerning that an “Arts entitlement gap” persists in state schools, with socio-economic background remaining a major determinant of arts participation at 14, 16 and 18. Schools in the most deprived fifth of local authorities are more likely to have no entries in some arts GCSEs. Fifty-four percent of state schools in those areas have no GCSE music entries, compared with only 21% in the least deprived authorities. Similarly, the most disadvantaged regions have the lowest A-level arts take-up. While welcoming the Government’s ambition to revitalise arts education, the CLA has warned us that “the long tail of EBacc damage … will continue to impact subject choices at Key Stage 4” and post-16. Last night, I was at an event of the excellent Royal Philharmonic Society where they had convened the enormously talented trio of the cellist, Sheku Kannah-Mason, the horn player, Ben Goldscheider, and the saxophonist, Jess Gillam, for a discussion about music, in advance of their expected Prom on Sunday. These young musicians, who are among our most talented, were worried that music education is not in a great place and said, “It’s not what it was”. Like many musicians, they do what they can to support music in our schools, but they cannot, as individuals, solve the issues. It falls to us in this place to create a better future for both arts and music education in our state schools. I am indebted to Professor Adam Whittaker and Dr Anthony Anderson for their research on disadvantaged-related attainment gaps in music education. From their work, I learned the disturbing fact that, in 18 local authorities, either only one school offers a music qualification—A-level or vocational—or, in the worst cases, no school does. These authorities include Knowsley, Hartlepool, South Tyneside, Rochdale, Salford and Tameside, as well as four London boroughs. This decline in music education must be reversed if we are serious about protecting the talent pipeline which we have in this country into our universities, conservatoires, orchestras and our successful music industry. This Labour Government have rightly committed to removing the EBacc performance measure, but we now face the task of rebuilding music education, particularly in state schools serving our most deprived communities. In your Lordships’ House, we can continue to press DfE Ministers to reverse this decline—which happened of course under Conservative Governments—by rebuilding the music teacher workforce and restoring the bursary for music teacher training. We have talked a lot in this debate about hope. My hope is that, under this Government and with this new PM, every young person, whatever their background, has the chance to choose music.