16.09.23: Music education was a key focus during a wide-ranging panel discussion hosted by UK Music at this year’s Liberal Democrat Party Conference.

It was a full house at the Liberal Democrat Conference fringe event, chaired by UK Music Chief Executive, Tom Kiehl. The panel line-up included Liberal Democrat MP for Guildford, Zoe Franklin; Liberal Democrat peer and spokesperson for culture, Baroness Bonham-Carter; 2024 election candidate for the Liberal Democrats, Charlie Clinton; and managing director of Revenge nightclub, Steve Jones.

Among those in the audience were several members of the House of Lords, including Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Razzall, and Baroness Randerson. Representatives from PRS for Music, the British Phonographic Industry, the Music Venue Trust, the Independent Society of Musicians, and Creative UK also filled the crowd.

The panel opened with a powerful message from Baroness Bonham-Carter, who highlighted the urgent need for action on arts education: “We must return music and other arts to the centre of the curriculum. Creative education’s decline is almost at crisis point”.

To achieve this, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for culture outlined that the Government should include arts subjects in the EBACC, reform Progress 8 accountability measures, and ensure that Ofsted only awards an Outstanding rating to schools that can demonstrate excellent provision of creative subjects.

Zoe Franklin MP was supportive of measures to invest in music education, highlighting the impact her musical background has had on her own life. She declared: “If we are not supporting education and businesses to bring in new talent, how can we expect our music industry to thrive in the long term?”

Charlie Clinton emphasised the key issues the Government needs to address regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI). This included the labelling of AI-generated music, the requirement for AI service providers to maintain records of ingested content, and ensuring no new copyright exceptions are introduced by the Government.

Clinton was also complimentary about the work of UK Music and the Manifesto for Music published last year, stating: “It is a very good manifesto. I encourage you to all read it”. UK Music’s Manifesto for Music can be read here.

Steve Jones highlighted the difficulties music venues are facing at the moment: “This is the toughest time to run a music venue in this country”, he declared, “Our energy bills have tripled since the pandemic, and the cost of beer has gone up by 30%… The average profit margin of a venue in the UK is just 0.5%”.

The Brighton venue owner also threw his support behind UK Music’s work to have the agent of change principle enshrined in law, further protecting venues from potential closure around licensing disputes.

Concluding, Tom Kiehl thanked the panellists and audience for an “interesting and engaging” discussion.