Elton John, Coldplay, Harry Styles, Stormzy and Central Cee are among the artists backing a call from Ed Sheeran for Keir Starmer to commit £250m of funding for music education.
As part of his newly launched Ed Sheeran Foundation, the Suffolk songwriter is campaigning for music funding in schools, training for music teachers, funding for grassroots venues and spaces, apprenticeships in music and a more diverse music curriculum.
Sheeran wrote: “As an industry, we bring in £7.6bn into the UK economy, yet the next generation is not there to take the reins. Last year was the first in over 20 years without a UK global top 10 single or album in the charts.”
Sheeran has called upon the government to provide a cross-departmental taskforce to work together on these issues to ensure music education remains high on the agenda.
The letter continued: “The time to act is now. State schools – which educate 93% of the country’s children – have seen a 21% decrease in music provision … we also need you standing up for music education. Artists and industry can’t deliver on the world stage for the UK without schools, youth clubs and stages at home.
“We collectively ask for a £250m UK music education package this spring to repair decades of dismantling music … Music in and out of school should be for all, not a few.”
A 2025 report by Music Mark, the UK association for music education, found that the Labour government had inherited a £161.4m shortfall in its budget to ensure the future of music education over the next five years.
Before winning the 2024 election, Starmer – a former child flautist who has spoken of the joys of travelling with his youth orchestra – told Classic FM that he “passionately” wanted to reverse the “degrading of creative arts and music” in state schools.
Annie Lennox, Dave, Paloma Faith, YolanDa Brown and Sleaford Mods are also among the 500 signatories from the music industry. The Brit awards Rising Star winner Myles Smith has also signed; at the awards ceremony last month, he called on the government, venue conglomerates and music executives to support emerging artists.
“How many more venues need to close, how many music programmes need to be cut before we realise that we can’t just celebrate success, we have to protect the foundations that make it?” he asked.
Arts advocates are hoping Labour’s long-awaited curriculum review, led by Prof Becky Francis, will lead to a boost for the arts and greater educational inclusion, closing the access gap between state and private schools, and those in wealthy and less well-off areas.
In 2022, the Conservative government published the second iteration of its national plan for music education, emphasising the “power of music to change lives”. It proposed that all children and young people should be able to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together, and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests, including at a professional level.
But music studies in schools are at a historic low. In August, the Independent Society of Musicians reported a 43% drop in A-level applicants and almost 40% in GCSE applicants since 2010, when then-education secretary, Michael Gove, introduced the Ebacc qualification, which does not include music or art. Last year, the Cultural Learning Alliance found that 42% of state schools enter no pupils for GCSE music.
Femi Koleoso, a drummer with Ezra Collective, also advocated for support for music education when the London jazz band won group of the year at the Brit awards. The ensemble formed in 2016 after meeting through the Tomorrow’s Warriors youth jazz programme.
Their victory, Koleoso said, was “because of the great youth clubs and the great teachers and the great schools’ that supported young people playing music. “The reason we continue to bang this drum is because so many of the problems that face greater society in the UK, where we’re unsure of how to fix it … the solution lies with giving a young person a trumpet, the solution lies with giving a young person a saxophone, because when you do that you give them a dream and aspiration and a goal,” he added.
Sheeran previously called for public funding for music in schools in 2023. He signed a letter from Andrew Lloyd Webber to Starmer and Rishi Sunak, calling for funding to scale up the work of Lloyd Webber’s music education charity, the Music in Secondary Schools Trust, which provides free musical instruments and weekly music lessons in disadvantaged schools.
A government spokesperson said: “High and rising standards are at the heart of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and we are committed to ensuring art, music and drama are no longer the preserve of a privileged few.
“To help achieve this our curriculum and assessment review will seek to deliver a broader curriculum, and our new national centre for music and arts education will promote opportunities for children and young people to pursue their artistic and creative interests in school.
“We are also expanding the creative careers programme to £3m over the next financial year, to help provide even more schoolchildren with information, advice and guidance on creative career routes.”
