As we approach the vital devolved and Mayoral elections, UK Music has urged devolved leaders and candidates in Mayoral elections to back the music industry by supporting four key pledges.

To help the commercial music sector recover from the COVID crisis.  

To support Live Music Venues. 

To work to improve music education and increase access to music.  

To back music exporters.

The Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies, the London Mayoral Green Party candidate Siân Berry, the Liberal Democrat Party candidate for the West Midlands Mayor Jenny Wilkinson and the West Yorkshire Mayor Liberal Democrat Party candidate Cllr. Stewart Golton fully backed these pledges

We also received positive responses from the Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross MP and the SNP.

Mr. Sarwar committed to working with the music sector closely “throughout a 3-year recovery cycle” and to the “mainstreaming of music education in schools, enhancing equity of access and rolling out the We Make Music schools programme”, while Mr. Ross also committed to improving the accessibility of music education in Scotland. The SNP highlighted their commitment to a Scotland Touring Fund to support touring music and theatre in Scotland.

The Welsh Labour Party’s positive reply pointed to their manifesto commitment to a National Music Service, “to ensure that a lack of money is not a barrier to young people learning to play an instrument”.

Luisa Porritt, the London Mayor Liberal Democrat Party Candidate, highlighted to us her pledge to improve the amount of street performance space in London.

Jessie Jacobs the Labour Party candidate for Tees Valley Mayor confirmed to us that “live music and the music sector as a whole is integral” to her vision for culture in Tees Valley.

In their manifesto, the Welsh Liberal Democrats announced their support for our policy aim of removing VAT from cultural tickets (here).

We’ve also seen many other positive pledges to support music, including Plaid Cymru’s plan for a Welsh Freelancer Fund for creatives (here), Andy Burnham’s pledge to establish a Music Charter in Manchester (here), Sadiq Khan’s plan for Night Time Enterprise Zones in London (here) as well as in the West Midlands Andy Street’s (here) pledge to seek to establish a cultural investment fund and Liam Byrne’s promise to collate a one stop shop for culture and sport funding (here).

We welcome the enthusiasm for improving the position of music in our communities and look forward to working with the elected candidates of all parties to support music across the UK in these difficult times.