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Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for introducing this debate on a very important subject. He puts some of us to shame with the assiduous way in which he pursues such issues. I should also declare an interest as a trustee of several organisations with music at their heart, in particular the Roundhouse, to which I think my noble friend the Minister may refer later, as it is one of the partners in the new Music Manifesto Pathfinders Programme which I believe he launched earlier today. We look forward to hearing more about that.

I made my maiden speech in your Lordships' House almost exactly six years ago and I spoke on that occasion about my own early education, and how fortunate I had been in attending a school—a state-funded village school—where all the arts, and especially music, were a natural part of our daily lives. As a result, although I am a less than wholly competent musician, I have a lifelong—so far anyway—enthusiasm for music which was germinated in me at a very early stage, and I thank God, and whoever was responsible for providing it, every day.

By the time my own children were growing up, the picture had changed. Music had slipped to the status of an "extra". Tuition in instrumental playing was either unavailable or provided only at very considerable expense and many children of my children's generation went through their whole school lives never making more than the most rudimentary acquaintance with an art form that was around them every day in shops, their homes, clubs and on radio and television. It is there, around us. However, they did not know
 
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anything about it other than whether they liked it or not, which is not a bad thing to know but it is not the whole story. That seems to me to have been a betrayal of a whole generation. Therefore, it is particularly gratifying to me to see that, finally, a combination of political commitment to the value of music education and the investment of serious money has begun to make a real difference. I absolutely take the point made by both previous speakers that resources are a serious issue, but none the less money has been made available. The introduction of the music manifesto was a really significant statement of intent from the Government, but delivery is always the tough bit. The report we are discussing shows that some progress has been made in the first year, and points the way forward to specific developments in the next phase of activity. I want to concentrate on one initiative that is particularly close to my heart.

Your Lordships have already heard the noble Lord, Lord Moser, mention the organisation Youth Music, which is a delegate distributor of an annual £10 million of lottery funds. It aims to benefit children and young people with least access to musical opportunity—more than 1 million have so far been involved—mainly up to the age of 18, but sometimes beyond. Most of its activities take place outside school hours—which, as the report points out, is often crucial in getting young people to engage with musical activities. Youth Music is one of the most important of the many organisations through which the pledges in the Music Manifesto are being made good. Youth Music had already declared singing as one of its own priorities over the next five years because, as it points out, singing is the most easily accessible medium for music making. It can involve large numbers, it is a support for instrumental learning, it is a powerful means of expression and it is cheap. Youth Music has undertaken to lead work on the development of singing as one of the three new priority strands of work arising from the manifesto.

Everyone can sing and pretty much everyone does. Even those who swear they are tone deaf—a dubious diagnosis in my view—will still venture a few notes in the bath or will sing along with the radio. Singing is something children do naturally from an early age, but they must have encouragement and support if they are to get real benefit and long-lasting enjoyment from it. They need confident, inspiring leaders; they need a stimulating and varied repertoire; and they need the opportunity to sing in a variety of styles, as my noble friend Lord Harrison pointed out. Boys, especially, need to be encouraged to keep on singing beyond the point when their voices break and not to see it as something "wussy" that they should not be doing. I look at the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who chairs the parliament choir when I say that boys especially need to carry on singing if they are tenors.

Grass roots participation by children and young people in communities as part of our upcoming Olympic celebrations is one of the ways in which we hope that more children and young people will become involved in music in the future. When my noble friend replies to the debate I hope he will assure us that Youth Music's resources, along with all the other
 
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organisations that need resources to deliver the manifesto commitments, will be maintained at least at their current value—I stress value rather than cash—so that the splendid work it is doing can be sustained.

Will my noble friend also say something about what more the Government can do to encourage those responsible for training young musicians to extend the opportunities for students to contribute as broadly as possible to music education, and to see it as a vital extension to their range of skills rather than an admission of defeat? Much good work is already going on in colleges and conservatoires but more is necessary. I am sure that other noble Lords will touch on that point.

I finish by commending to your Lordships the excellent piece in the report by the distinguished composer, Howard Goodall. I intended to quote from it at length but I do not have time. I will just say that he talks about the things which are important to have to get people to engage with music. One of them is enthusiasm. One of the things that is no good at all in terms of getting people to engage with music is indifference. For too long music was regarded with indifference by politicians. At last we have a Government who have put music firmly on the agenda. I salute that commitment. Long may it continue. I apologise for going over my time.

7.49 pm

The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, I do not know whether I correctly interpret the look on the face of the noble Baroness on the Government Front Bench but I believe that she is concerned about the length of our speeches. It was very kind of her not to make that point strongly before a cleric rose to speak. I am grateful for that.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, not only for initiating the debate but for delivering a speech of which my only criticism was that he did not sing it, which would have been much more to the point.

At the risk of saying something that will be recognised by one of the noble Baronesses on the Benches opposite as having been said by me before in a different setting, the sight of young people attentive to their music, to their conductor and to the common activity of playing is inspiring in a way that almost nothing else is. We must be honest: we have been extremely short-sighted during a mechanistic period of education, in which the national curriculum, a concern with vocational education, making people more marketable and so on led to a downgrading of an area of learning, of education and of natural activity that, with hindsight, should have been given much greater importance.

It is not even sensible, if economics and employability are our main concerns, because music is a very substantial part of our economic life. It is not even clever if we had been concerned to stop young people gravitating towards anti-social activity, because there is nothing calculated to draw them together in a focused manner more than music. It is not
 
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very clever to have reached a position where young people were spending more on music than on almost anything else, while liking school music least of all. I salute those who have come together with the music manifesto and with all that has followed from it in moving things on.

If I may do something, which, if this were not the subject of the debate, I would call blowing my own trumpet—but I shall not—I would say that the Churches and the faith communities have had a real influence in this area down the centuries. There is nothing more important in relation to faith communities other than the Christian one that they should nourish and be put in touch with the musical inheritance that is basic to their culture.

Regarding the balance and priorities of the curriculum, one of the difficulties that Church music faces is that, as we have experienced in Worcester recently, it is extremely difficult to encourage state schools to make children available for the time that it takes to train as choristers. You will not do that unless you change people's sense of the priority of music in the curriculum. That could be a significant fruit of this manifesto.

Funding underlies much of what has been said. I am glad about any money that is made available for music. I salute it. I am delighted. But we must be clear that there has been a massive withdrawal of funds from this area—that is the real problem: the big money comes from prioritising music education in the budgets of schools. If schools are not in a position to do that due to other pressures on the curriculum, they will not do it. And if they do not do it, making bits and pieces of other money available will never compensate for the large tranche of money that has been withdrawn.

So I salute the manifesto. I salute the speech with which this debate began, and the speeches that have followed. I would like the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, to know that I heard what he said about Worcestershire and I shall pursue it. One can learn about local things in debates such as this. I am glad that we are having this debate and I salute the Government's part in it, but I want the manifesto to be as widely owned and as well funded as possible. It gives young people a sense of their own self-transcendence and the possibility of achieving something by working with others in a close and focused activity that they have deep in their bones anyway.

7.54 pm

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