Andrew Lloyd Webber calls for more school music funds

Composer and impresario Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has called on the government to properly finance music education services in schools.

Talking to BBC Politics East, Lord Lloyd Webber criticised the government's National Plan for Music Education.

"The plan is all very well, but if it is not properly funded then nothing can happen and it isn't funded," he said.

The government said it ed a "high quality music education for all".

Lord Lloyd Webber helps fund the Music in Secondary Schools Trust, which provides free musical instruments and lessons each week to pupils.

He said the importance of music lessons in schools was "not necessarily about turning children into musicians".

Where the trust was working in schools, he said its work improved behaviour and academic achievement in all of them.

"What we want to see is music lessons available to all children from the age of 11 to 16 on a permanent basis," he said.

"The trust also trains teachers because there is a shortage of teachers. It turns children around and empowers children. I feel very ionately about it."

Peter Smalley, chief executive of the Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust (NMPAT) - a music hub which helps in schools across the county - said it employed about 200 teachers.

The recent teachers' pay award meant they have had to top-up pensions by £500,000.

In schools, permanent teachers' pensions get funded by the government, but the trust has been told it has to find the money itself.

Mr Smalley said: "To treat teachers who are employed to deliver the government plan for music education differently from teachers employed in school is not fair.

"We are expected to raise the money from other sources, but I haven't yet found another source that is prepared to fund our pension costs."

A music education was "every child's right", he added.

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