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National Foundation for Youth Music
6. Ms Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate): How many schools are expected to benefit from the National Foundation for Youth Music in its first year. [123674]
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): The National Foundation for Youth Music's remit is to support activities for young people that take place largely outside the formal education sector. However, as applicants are encouraged to form partnerships with the wider community, there will be benefits for schools. The foundation is currently considering applications under Music Maker, which aims to benefit up to 120,000 children, and Singing Challenge, which will serve at least 15,000 children. The instrument amnesty has attracted approximately 5,000 unused instruments, which will be re-routed to up to 1,000 organisations working with young people.
Ms Jackson: I thank my right hon. Friend for that extremely heartening reply, which shows the support provided not only by the foundation but by the Government, highlighting the importance of music making and ensuring that all our children have the ability to deal with the difficulties of music and musical instruments. Did not the previous Government make the most swingeing and savaging attacks, reducing the ability of all our children to enjoy the pleasure of music making? Although every part of the country suffered severe deprivation under the Conservative Government, will he ask the foundation to ensure that some of the most seriously deprived areas of the country will be at the top of its list, so that their children have access to music and music making?
Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the serious decline in musical instrument teaching for young people in this country over the past 15 to 20 years. We have begun to put that right through the establishment of the national foundation and through money from the standards fund, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has also made available. Of course those initiatives will help in the areas that suffered most, especially in areas of social deprivation, where the need is arguably greatest.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West): Did the Secretary of State note the reported comments last week by the head of the Yehudi Menuhin school, who said that opportunities for teaching music, art and drama were being squeezed out of the curriculum in schools throughout the country? Does he recognise that that problem is far from being confined to the past, but is continuing and getting worse? Is the Secretary of State doing anything in conjunction with his colleague in the Department for Education and Employment to set the record straight?
Mr. Smith: I did note those comments, and they do not reflect what is happening across the country as a whole. The Secretary of State for Education and Employment has made £150 million available to local education authorities through the music standards fund. Several local education authorities, some controlled by the
Conservative party, have not taken up that funding. The Department for Education and Employment cannot force local education authorities to take up the money, but it is there.Lottery Awards
7. Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead): What proportion of the national lottery funds allocated to (a) the arts and (b) sport has been allocated to dance. [123675]
The Minister for the Arts (Mr. Alan Howarth): The Arts Council of England has awarded lottery funds to 563 dance projects, totalling over £136 million--11 per cent. of the total ACE lottery awards made. Sport England has awarded funds to six specific movement and dance projects totalling £697,016--0.1 per cent. of the total lottery funds awarded by Sport England. Sums awarded to other projects in which dance is an element further increase those totals.
Mr. McWalter: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, and for his continued interest in the development of dance in Britain, but is he aware that that very low figure for sport does not do justice to the fact that dance provides the main opportunity that many young girls have to develop kinaesthetic ability and enjoy competitive recreation? Will he ensure that the figure for sport is significantly increased in future, so that that population can be properly served?
Mr. Howarth: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's continuing interest in that subject and look forward to meeting him and my hon. Friends the Members for Salford (Ms Blears) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) before long to pursue our discussion at a meeting in my Department. In the meantime, I shall certainly talk to my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport.
However, as my hon. Friend knows, it is not for us to instruct the lottery distributors what particular projects they ought to support, although, with his assistance, we can ensure that the significance of supporting dance in schools and as an aspect of sport is more widely appreciated.
Royal Parks Constabulary
8. Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): When he last met the chief officer of the Royal Parks Constabulary to discuss the powers of constables. [123676]
The Minister for the Arts (Mr. Alan Howarth): I have met the acting chief officer of the Royal Parks Constabulary on several occasions to discuss that point. I will meet the new chief executive of the Royal Parks Agency regularly once he takes post on 10 July. I also meet, and receive advice from, the Royal Parks Advisory Board. We shall shortly undertake a review of the Royal Parks Constabulary.
Mr. Mackinlay: Will the Minister confirm that the chief officer of the Royal Parks Constabulary and the
chief constables of the Ministry of Defence and the British Transport police have asked for the powers set out in my Police Bill? What is he going to do about that and when?
Mr. Howarth: As I said, we shall review the Royal Parks Constabulary, and the issue that my hon. Friend raises will undoubtedly be an important focus of that review.
Theatre
9. Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West): What has been the percentage change in the (a) level of public subsidies and (b) size of audiences for live theatre in the past 10 years. [123677]
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): Public subsidy for theatre decreased by about 1 per cent. in real terms in the 10 years to 1997-98, but will have increased by 7.2 per cent. in real terms between then and 2000-01. Meanwhile, in the 10 years to 1997--the last year for which figures are currently available--audiences for subsidised theatre decreased by about 16 per cent.
Mr. Flynn: Does not that reveal a bleak situation? The majority of live theatres around the country outside tourist areas represent an art form in decline. While we would all say that live theatre is an important part of the artistic inheritance of all the nations of Britain, perhaps the time has come to consider subsidising those of great artistic excellence and to reconsider transferring money to booming art forms--for example, the publication of books of poetry has doubled in the past five years--and the infinite opportunities that the new technologies present to provide live theatre and other art forms universally through the internet.
Mr. Smith: I agree with my hon. Friend that those figures reveal that a small reduction in subsidy starves theatre of funds and results in a much greater decline in audiences. Therefore, reversing that decline, as we are in the process of doing, has been one of the important parts of the extra investment that we have put in place with the Arts Council. I am pleased that the Arts Council will allocate £1.4 million to literature in 2000-01, and more than 70 per cent. of that will be spent directly or indirectly on poetry.
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): I implore the Secretary of State to ignore what the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) has just said and to do all he can to encourage live theatre, which is one of Britain's national treasures, not only in the west end but in provincial theatres all over the country. When there is so much spare capacity, it is a great shame that people and young schoolchildren who would dearly love to go to live theatre are unable to do so. Will he ask the theatres to allow more people to see live theatre by encouraging either discount schemes or the use of spare capacity by schoolchildren?
Mr. Smith: For once, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. That is precisely the point of the new audiences fund, which we put in place two years ago and have continued since. It is aimed particularly at helping
people who would not otherwise have the opportunity to do so, to see not only theatre but all forms of the performing arts. I am acutely aware of the plight of regional theatre--it has been highlighted by the Boyden report, which the Arts Council recently published--and, together with the Arts Council and the regional arts boards, we are considering how we can help in that matter.
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